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Title: Church History (Volumes 1-3)

Author: J. H. Kurtz

Release Date: March 17, 2016 [EBook #51491]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Jon Ingram, Richard Hulse and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

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Transcriber’s Notes

The cover image was provided by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

Punctuation has been standardized.

The Table of Contents has been updated to agree with the headings and subheadings of the text.

The † symbol next to a date was not defined in the text. It appears to mean approximate year of death.

This book was written in a period when many words had not become standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been left unchanged unless indicated with a Transcriber’s Note.

Many names appear with multiple spelling variations. The most common form used has been added in brackets following alternate forms to facilitate document searching.

Latin words and quotations are regularly italicized in the text. Italics have been added to words missed by the printer.

Additions noted in the appendix of Volume 2 have been incorporated into its main text.

Footnotes are numbered consecutively through the 3 volumes and are identified in the text with a superscript number and have been accumulated in a table at the end of the text.

Transcriber’s Notes are used when making corrections to the text or to provide additional information for the modern reader. These notes are not identified in the text, but have been accumulated in a table at the end of the book.

The Foreign Biblical Library.

EDITED BY THE REV. W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.

12 Volumes.   Large crown 8vo.   Price 7s. 6d. each.

1. Still Hours.

By RICHARD ROTHE. Translated by JANE T. STODDART. With an Introductory Essay by the Rev. JOHN MACPHERSON, M.A.

2. Biblical Commentary on the Book of Psalms.

By Professor FRANZ DELITZSCH, of Leipzig. From the latest edition specially revised by the Author. Translated by the Rev. DAVID EATON, M.A. In three Volumes.

3. A Manual of Introduction to the New Testament.

By BERNHARD WEISS. Translated by Miss DAVIDSON. In 2 Vols.

4. Church History.

By Professor KURTZ. Authorized Translation, from the latest Revised Edition, by the Rev. J. MACPHERSON, M.A. In 3 Vols.

5. Selected Sermons of Schleiermacher.

Translated by MARY F. WILSON.

6. A Commentary on the Book of Isaiah.

By Professor FRANZ DELITZSCH. Translated by the Rev. JAMES DENNEY, B.D. In 2 Vols.

LONDON: HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW.

CHURCH HISTORY.

BY

PROFESSOR KURTZ.

AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION FROM LATEST REVISED EDITION BY THE

REV. JOHN MACPHERSON, M.A.

THREE VOLUMES IN ONE.

SECOND EDITION.

London:

HODDER AND STOUGHTON,

27, PATERNOSTER ROW.

MDCCCXCI., MDCCCXCII., MDCCCXCIII.

BUTLER & TANNER,

THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS,

FROME, AND LONDON.

PREFACE.

The English reader is here presented with a translation of the ninth edition of a work which first appeared in 1849, and has obtained a most distinguished place, it might be said almost a monopoly, as a text-book of Church History in the German Universities. Since 1850, when the second edition was issued, an English translation of which has been widely used in Britain and America, Dr. Kurtz has given great attention to the improvement of his book. The increase of size has not been caused by wordy amplification, but by an urgent necessity felt by the author as he used the vast materials that recent years have spread out before the historical student. In 1870 Dr. Kurtz retired from his professorship, and has conscientiously devoted himself to bring up each successive edition of his text-book to the point reached by the very latest scholarship of his own and other lands. In his Preface to the ninth edition of 1885 he claims to have made very special improvements on the presentation of the history of the first three centuries, where ample use is made of the brilliant researches of Harnack and other distinguished scholars of the day.

In the exercise of that discretion which has been allowed him, the translator has ventured upon an innovation, which he trusts will be generally recognised as a very important improvement. The German edition has frequently pages devoted to the literature of the larger divisions, and a considerable space is thus occupied at the beginning of most of the ordinary sections, as well as at the close of many of the sub-sections. The books named in these lists are almost exclusively German works and articles that have appeared in German periodicals. Experience has shown that the reproduction of such lists in an English edition is utterly useless to the ordinary student and extremely repulsive to the reader, as it seriously interferes with the continuity of the text. The translator has therefore ventured wholly to cancel these lists, substituting carefully selected standard English works known to himself from which detailed information on the subjects treated of in the several paragraphs may be obtained. These he has named in footnotes at the places where such references seemed to be necessary and most likely to be useful. Those students who know German so thoroughly as to be able to refer to books and articles by German specialists will find no difficulty in using the German edition of Kurtz, in which copious lists of such literature are given.

The first English volume is a reproduction without retrenchment of the original; but in the second volume an endeavour has been made to render the text-book more convenient and serviceable to British and American students by slightly abridging some of those paragraphs which give minute details of the Reformation work in various German provinces. But even there care has been taken not to omit any fact of interest or importance. No pains have been spared to give the English edition a form that may entitle it to occupy that front rank among students’ text-books of Church History which the original undoubtedly holds in Germany.

JOHN MACPHERSON.

FINDHORN, July, 1888.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

§ 1.

IDEA AND TASK OF CHURCH HISTORY.

§ 2.

DISTRIBUTION OF CHURCH HISTORY ACCORDING TO CONTENTS.

(1)

The Various Branches Included in a Complete Course of Church History.

(2)

The Separate Branches of Church History.

§ 3.

DISTRIBUTION OF CHURCH HISTORY ACCORDING TO PERIODS.

§ 4.

SOURCES AND AUXILIARIES OF CHURCH HISTORY.

(1)

Literature of the Sources.

(2)

Literature of the Auxiliary Sciences.

§ 5.

HISTORY OF GENERAL CHURCH HISTORY.

(1)

Down to the Reformation.

(2)

The 16th and 17th Centuries.

(3)

The 18th Century.

(4)

The 19th Century.

(5)

The 19th Century—Continued.

(6)

The 19th Century—Continued.

HISTORY OF THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY.

The pre-Christian World preparing the way of the Christian Church.

§ 6.

THE STANDPOINT OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY.

§ 7.

HEATHENISM.

(1)

The Religious Character of Heathenism.

(2)

The Moral Character of Heathenism.

(3)

The Intellectual Culture in Heathenism.

(4)

The Hellenic Philosophy.

(5)

The Heathen State.

§ 8.

JUDAISM.

(1)

Judaism under special Training of God through the Law and Prophecy.

(2)

Judaism after the Cessation of Prophecy.

(3)

The Synagogues.

(4)

Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes.

§ 9.

SAMARITANISM.

§ 10.

INTERCOURSE BETWEEN JUDAISM AND HEATHENISM.

(1)

Influence of Heathenism upon Judaism.

(2)

Influence of Judaism upon Heathenism.

§ 11.

THE FULNESS OF TIME.

THE HISTORY OF THE BEGINNINGS.

The Founding of the Church by Christ and His Apostles.

§ 12.

CHARACTER OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEGINNINGS.

I. THE LIFE OF JESUS.

§ 13.

JESUS CHRIST, THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD.

(1)

Year of Birth and Year of Death of Jesus.

(2)

Earliest Non-Biblical Witnesses to Christ.

II. THE APOSTOLIC AGE.

A.D. 30-70.

§ 14.

THE MINISTRY OF THE APOSTLES BEFORE PAUL.

Beginning and Close of Apostolic Age.

§ 15.

THE MINISTRY OF THE APOSTLE PAUL.

Details of Paul’s Life.

§ 16.

THE OTHER APOSTLES AFTER THE APPEARANCE OF THE APOSTLE PAUL.

(1)

The Roman Episcopate of Peter.

(2)

The Apostle John.

(3)

James, the brother of the Lord.

(4)

The Later Legends of the Apostles.

§ 17.

CONSTITUTION, WORSHIP, AND DISCIPLINE.

(1)

The Charismata of the Apostolic Age.

(2)

The Constitution of the Mother Church at Jerusalem.

(3)

The Constitution of the Pauline Churches.

(4)

The Church in the Pauline Epistles.

(5)

Congregational and Spiritual Offices.

(6)

The Question about the Original Position of the Episcopate and Presbyterate.

(7)

Christian Worship.

(8)

Christian Life and Ecclesiastical Discipline.

§ 18.

HERESIES IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE.

(1)

Jewish Christianity and the Council of Apostles.

(2)

The Apostolic Basis of Doctrine.

(3)

False Teachers.

FIRST DIVISION.

History of the Development of the Church during the Græco-Roman and Græco-Byzantine Periods.

§ 19.

CONTENT, DISTRIBUTION AND BOUNDARIES OF THOSE PERIODS.

FIRST SECTION.

History of the Græco-Roman Church during the Second and Third Centuries (                             A.D. 70-323).

§ 20.

CONTENT, DISTRIBUTION AND BOUNDARIES OF THIS PERIOD.

(1)

The Post-Apostolic Age.

(2)

The Age of the Old Catholic Church.

(3)

The Point of Transition from the One Age to the Other.

I. THE RELATIONSHIP OF EXTRA-CHRISTIAN PAGANISM AND JUDAISM TO THE CHURCH.

§ 21.

THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY.

§ 22.

PERSECUTIONS OF THE CHRISTIANS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

(1)

Claudius, Nero and Domitian.

(2)

Trajan and Hadrian.

(3)

Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius.

(4)

Septimius Severus and Maximinus Thrax.

(5)

Decius, Gallus and Valerian.

(6)

Diocletian and Galerius.

(7)

Maximinus Daza, Maxentius and Licinius.

§ 23.

CONTROVERSIAL WRITINGS OF PAGANISM.

(1)

Lucian’s Satire De Morte Peregrini  .

(2)

Worshippers of an Ass.

(3)

Polemic properly so-called.

§ 24.

ATTEMPTED RECONSTRUCTION OF PAGANISM.

(1)

Apollonius of Tyana.

(2)

Neo-platonism.

§ 25.

JEWISH AND SAMARITAN REACTION.

(1)

Disciples of John.

(2)

The Samaritan Heresiarchs.

a.

Dositheus.

b.

Simon Magus.

c.

Menander.

II. DANGER TO THE CHURCH FROM PAGAN AND JEWISH ELEMENTS WITHIN ITS OWN PALE.

§ 26.

GNOSTICISM IN GENERAL.

(1)

Gnosticism.

(2)

The Problems of Gnostic Speculation.

(3)

Distribution.

(4)

Sources of Information.

§ 27.

THE GENTILE CHRISTIAN GNOSTICISM.

(1)

Cerinthus.

(2)

The Gnosticism of Basilides.

(3)

Irenæus’ Sketch of Basilideanism.

(4)

Valentinian Gnosticism.

(5)

Two Divisions of the Valentinian School.

(6)

The Ophites and related Sects.

(7)

The Gnosis of the Ophites.

(8)

Antinomian and Libertine Sects.

a.

The Nicolaitans.

b.

The Simonians.

c.

The Carpocratians.

d.

The Prodicians.

(9)

Saturninus.

(10)

Tatian and the Encratites.

(11)

Marcion and the Marcionites.

(12)

Marcion’s Disciples.

(13)

Hermogenes.

§ 28.

EBIONISM AND EBIONITIC GNOSTICISM.

(1)

Nazareans and Ebionites.

(2)

The Elkesaites.

(3)

The Pseudo-Clementine Series of Writings.

a.

Homiliæ XX Clementis.

b.

Recognitiones Clementis.

c.

Epitomæ.

(4)

The Pseudo-Clementine Doctrinal System.

§ 29.

MANICHÆISM.

(1)

The Founder.

(2)

The System.

(3)

Constitution, Worship, and Missionarizing.

III. THE DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT AND APOLOGETICAL ACTIVITY OF THE CHURCH.

§ 30.

THE THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE OF THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE, A.D. 70-170.

(1)

The Beginnings of Patristic Literature.

(2)

The Theology of the Post-Apostolic Age.

(3)

The so-called Apostolic Fathers.

a.

Clement of Rome.

(4)

b.

Barnabas.

c.

Pastor Hermas.

(5)

d.

Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch.

(6)

e.

Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna.

f.

Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis.

g.

Epistle to Diognetus.

(7)

The Didache or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles.

(8)

The Writings of the Earliest Christian Apologists.

(9)

Extant Writings of Apologists of the Post-Apostolic Age.

a.

Justin Martyr.

(10)

b.

Tatian.

c.

Athenagoras.

d.

Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch.

e.

Hermias.

§ 31.

THE THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE OF THE OLD CATHOLIC AGE, A.D. 170-323.

(1)

The Theological Schools and Tendencies.

1. Church Fathers Writing in Greek.

(2)

Church Teachers of the Asiatic Type.

a.

Irenæus.

(3)

b.

Hippolytus.

(4)

The Alexandrian Church Teachers.

a.

Pantænus.

b.

Titus Flavius Clement.

(5)

c.

Origen.

(6)

d.

Dionysius of Alexandria.

e.

Gregory Thaumaturgus.

f.

Pamphilus.

(7)

Greek-speaking Church Teachers in other Quarters.

a.

Hegesippus.

b.

Caius of Rome.

(8)

c.

Sextus Julius Africanus.

(9)

d.

Methodius.

e.

Lucian of Samosata.

2. Church Fathers Writing in Latin.

(10)

The Church Teachers of North Africa.

Tertullian.

(11)

Cyprian.

(12)

Various Ecclesiastical Writers using the Latin Tongue.

a.

Minucius Felix.

b.

Commodus.

c.

Novatian.

d.

Arnobius.

e.

Victorinus of Pettau.

f.

Lucius Lactantius.

§ 32.

THE APOCRYPHAL AND PSEUDEPIGRAPHICAL LITERATURE.

(1)

Professedly Old Heathen Prophecies.

(2)

Old Testament Pseudepigraphs.

a.

Book of Enoch.

b.

Assumptio Mosis.

c.

Fourth Book of Ezra.

d.

Book of Jubilees.

(3)

Pseudepigraphs of Christian Origin.

a.

History of Assenath.

b.

The Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs.

c.

Ascensio Isaiæ and Visio Isaiæ  .

d.

Spelunca thesaurorum.

(4)

New Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigraphs.

I.

Apocryphal Gospels.

(5)

II.

Apocryphal Histories and Legends of the Apostles.

(6)

—— Apocryphal Monographs.

(7)

III.

Apostolic Epistles.

IV.

Apocryphal Apocalypses.

V.

Apostolical Constitutions.

(8)

The Acts of the Martyrs.

§ 33.

THE DOCTRINAL CONTROVERSIES OF THE OLD CATHOLIC AGE.

(1)

The Trinitarian Questions.

(2)

The Alogians.

(3)

The Theodotians and Artemonites.

(4)

Praxeas and Tertullian.

(5)

The Noëtians and Hippolytus.

(6)

Beryllus and Origen.

(7)

Sabellius; Dionysius of Alexandria; Dionysius of Rome.

(8)

Paul of Samosata.

(9)

Chiliasm.

IV. CONSTITUTION, WORSHIP, LIFE AND DISCIPLINE.

§ 34.

THE INNER ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH.

(1)

The Continuation of Charismatic Endowments into Post-Apostolic Times.

(2)

The Development of the Episcopal Hierarchy.

(3)

The Regular Ecclesiastical Offices of the Old Catholic Age.

(4)

Clergy and Laity.

(5)

The Synods.

(6)

Personal and Epistolary Intercourse.

(7)

The Unity and Catholicity of the Church.

(8)

The Roman Primacy.

§ 35.

THE ADMINISTRATION OF BAPTISM.

(1)

The Preparation for Receiving Baptism.

(2)

The Baptismal Formula.

(3)

The Administration of Baptism.

(4)

The Doctrine of Baptism.

(5)

The Controversy about Heretics’ Baptism.

§ 36.

PUBLIC WORSHIP AND ITS VARIOUS PARTS.

(1)

The Agape.

(2)

The Missa Catechumenorum  .

(3)

The Missa Fidelium  .

(4)

The Disciplina Arcani  .

(5)

The Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper.

(6)

The Sacrificial Theory.

(7)

The Use of Scripture.

(8)

Formation of a New Testament Canon.

(9)

The Doctrine of Inspiration.

(10)

Hymnology.

§ 37.

FEASTS AND FESTIVAL SEASONS.

(1)

The Festivals of the Christian Year.

(2)

The Paschal Controversies.

(3)

The Ecclesiastical Institution of Fasting.

§ 38.

THE CHURCH BUILDINGS AND THE CATACOMBS.

(1)

The Catacombs.

(2)

The Antiquities of the Catacombs.

(3)

Pictorial Art and the Catacombs.

(4)

Pictorial and Artistic Representations.

a.

Significant Symbols.

b.

Allegorical Figures.

c.

Parabolic Figures.

d.

Historical Pictures of O. T. Types.

e.

Figures from the Gospel History.

f.

Liturgical Figures.

§ 39.

LIFE, MANNERS, AND DISCIPLINE.

(1)

Christian Morals and Manners.

(2)

The Penitential Discipline.

(3)

Asceticism.

(4)

Paul of Thebes.

(5)

Beginning of Veneration of Martyrs.

(6)

Superstition.

§ 40.

THE MONTANIST REFORMATION.

(1)

Montanism in Asia Minor.

(2)

Montanism at Rome.

(3)

Montanism in Proconsular Africa.

(4)

The Fundamental Principle of Montanism.

(5)

The Attitude of Montanism toward the Church.

§ 41.

SCHISMATIC DIVISIONS IN THE CHURCH.

(1)

The Schism of Hippolytus at Rome about A.D.   220.

(2)

The Schism of Felicissimus at Carthage in A.D.   250.

(3)

The Schism of the Presbyter Novatian at Rome in A.D.   251.

(4)

The Schism of Meletius in Egypt in A.D.   306.

SECOND SECTION.

The History of the Græco-Roman Church from the 4th-7th centuries.                              A.D. 323-692.

I. CHURCH AND STATE.

§ 42.

THE OVERTHROW OF PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

(1)

The Romish Legend of the Baptism of Constantine.

(2)

Constantine the Great and his Sons.

(3)

Julian the Apostate (A.D.   361-363).

(4)

The Later Emperors.

(5)

Heathen Polemics and Apologetics.

(6)

The Religion of the Hypsistarians.

§ 43.

THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE AND THE ECCLESIASTICAL LAW.

(1)

The Jus Circa Sacra  .

(2)

The Institution of Œcumenical Synods.

(3)

Canonical Ordinances.

(4)

Pseudepigraphic Church Ordinances.

(5)

The Apostolic Church Ordinances.

II. MONASTICISM, CLERICALISM AND HIERARCHISM.

§ 44.

MONASTICISM.

(1)

The Biography of St. Anthony.

(2)

The Origin of Christian Monasticism.

(3)

Oriental Monasticism.

(4)

Western Monasticism.

(5)

Institution of Nunneries.

(6)

Monastic Asceticism.

(7)

Anti-Ecclesiastical and Heretical Monasticism.

§ 45.

THE CLERGY.

(1)

Training of the Clergy.

(2)

The Injunction of Celibacy.

(3)

Later Ecclesiastical Offices.

(4)

Church Property.

§ 46 A.

THE PATRIARCHAL CONSTITUTION AND THE PRIMACY.

(1)

The Patriarchal Constitution.

(2)

The Rivalry between Rome and Byzantium.

§ 46 B.

HISTORY OF THE ROMAN CHAIR AND ITS CLAIMS TO THE PRIMACY.

(3)

From Melchiades to Julius I., A.D. 310 to A.D.   352.

(4)

From Liberius to Anastasius, A.D. 352 to A.D.   402.

(5)

From Innocent I. to Zosimus, A.D. 402 to A.D.   418.

(6)

From Boniface I. to Sixtus III., A.D. 419 to A.D.   440.

(7)

From Leo the Great to Simplicius, A.D. 440 to A.D.   483.

(8)

From Felix III. to Boniface II., A.D. 483 to A.D.   532.

(9)

From John II. to Pelagius II., A.D. 532 to A.D.   590.

(10)

From Gregory I. to Boniface V., A.D. 590 to A.D.   625.

(11)

From Honorius I. to Gregory III., A.D. 625 to A.D.   741.

III. THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE AND LITERATURE.

§ 47.

THE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOLS AND THEIR MOST CELEBRATED REPRESENTATIVES.

(1)

The Theological Schools and Tendencies.

a.

In the 4th and 5th centuries.

b.

Of the 6th and 7th Centuries.

1. THE MOST IMPORTANT TEACHERS OF THE EASTERN CHURCH.

(2)

The Most Celebrated Representative of the Old Alexandrian School——Eusebius.

(3)

Church Fathers of the New Alexandrian School.

a.

Athanasius.

(4)

The Three Great Cappadocians.

b.

Basil the Great.

c.

Gregory Nazianzen.

d.

Gregory of Nyssa.

(5)

e.

Apollinaris.

f.

Didymus the Blind.

(6)

g.

Macarius Magnes.

h.

Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria.

i.

Isidore of Pelusium.

(7)

Mystics and Philosophers.

k.

Macarius the Great or the Elder.

l.

Marcus Eremita.

m.

Synesius of Cyrene.

n.

Nemesius, Bishop of Emesa.

o.

Æneas of Gaza.

(8)

The Antiocheans.

a.

Eusebius of Emesa.

b.

Diodorus of Tarsus.

c.

John of Antioch (Chrysostom).

(9)

d.

Theodore, Bishop of Mopsuestia.

e.

Polychronius, Bishop of Apamea.

f.

Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus.

(10)

Other Teachers of the Greek Church during the 4th and 5th Centuries.

a.

Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem.

b.

Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis.

c.

Palladius.

d.

Nilus.

(11)

Greek Church Fathers of the 6th and 7th Centuries.

a.

Johannes Philoponus.

b.

Dionysius the Areopagite.

(12)

c.

Leontius Byzantinus.

d.

Maximus Confessor.

e.

Johannes Climacus.

f.

Johannes Moschus.

g.

Anastasius Sinaita.

(13)

Syrian Church Fathers.

a.

Jacob of Nisibis.

b.

Aphraates.

c.

Ephraim the Syrian.

d.

Ibas, Bishop of Edessa.

e.

Jacob, Bishop of Edessa.

2. THE MOST IMPORTANT TEACHERS OF THE WESTERN CHURCH.

(14)

f.

During the Period of the Arian Controversy.

a. Jul. Firmicus Maternus.

b. Lucifer of Calaris.

c. Marius Victorinus.

d. Hilary of Poitiers.

e. Zeno, Bishop of Verona.

f. Philaster, Bishop of Brescia.

g. Martin of Tours.

(15)

g.

Ambrose, Bishop of Milan.

h.

Ambrosiaster.

i.

Pacianus, Bishop of Barcelona.

(16)

During the Period of Origenistic Controversy.

a.

Jerome.

(17)

b.

Tyrannius Rufinus.

c.

Sulpicius Severus.

d.

Peter Chrysologus, Bishop of Ravenna.

(18)

The Hero of the Soteriological Controversy—Augustine.

(19)

Augustine’s Works.

a.

Philosophical Treatises.

b.

Dogmatic Treatises.

c.

Controversial Treatises.

d.

Apologetical Treatises.

e.

Exegetical Works.

(20)

Augustine’s Disciples and Friends.

a.

Paulinus, Deacon of Milan.

b.

Paul Orosius.

c.

Marius Mercator.

d.

Prosper Aquitanicus.

e.

Cæsarius, Bishop of Arelate.

f.

Fulgentius, Bishop of Ruspe.

(21)

Pelagians and semi-Pelagians.

I.

Pelagius.

II.

Semi-Pelagians or Massilians.
a. Johannes Cassianus.

b. Vincent Lerinensis.

c. Eucherius, Bishop of Lyons.

d. Salvianus, Presbyter at Marseilles.

e. Faustus of Rhegium.

f. Arnobius the Younger.

(22)

The Most Important Church Teachers among the Roman Popes.

a.

Leo the Great.

b.

Gelasius I.

c.

Gregory the Great.

(23)

The Conservators and Continuators of Patristic Culture.

a.

Boëthius.

b.

Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus.

c.

Dionysius Exiguus.

§ 48.

BRANCHES OF THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIAN POETRY.

(1)

Exegetical Theology.

(2)

Historical Theology.

(3)

Systematic Theology.

a.

Apologetics.

b.

Polemics.

c.

Positive Dogmatics.

d.

Morals.

(4)

Practical Theology.

(5)

Christian Poetry.

(6)

Christian Latin Poetry.

(7)

Poetry of National Syrian Church.

(8)

The Legendary History of Cyprian.

IV. DOCTRINAL CONTROVERSIES AND HERESIES.

§ 49.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE GENERALLY.

Heretical Developments.

§ 50.

THE TRINITARIAN CONTROVERSY, A.D. 318-381.

(1)

Preliminary Victory of the Homoousia, A.D.   318-325.

(2)

Victory of Eusebianism, A.D.   328-356.

(3)

Victory of Homoiousianism, A.D.   357-361.

(4)

Final Victory of the Nicene Creed, A.D.   361-381.

(5)

The Pneumatomachians, A.D.   362-381.

(6)

The Literature of the Controversy.

(7)

Post-Nicene Development of the Dogma.

(8)

Schisms in consequence of the Arian Controversy.

I.

The Meletian Schism at Antioch.

II.

The Schism of the Luciferians.

III.

The Schism of Damasus and Ursacius at Rome.

§ 51.

THE ORIGENIST CONTROVERSIES, A.D. 394-438.

(1)

The Monks of the Scetic and Nitrian Deserts.

(2)

The Controversy in Palestine and Italy, A.D.   394-399.

(3)

The Controversy in Alexandria and Constantinople, A.D.   399-438.

§ 52.

THE CHRISTOLOGICAL CONTROVERSY.

(1)

The Apollinarian Controversy, A.D.   362-381.

(2)

Christology of the Opposing Theological Schools.

(3)

The Dyoprosopic or Nestorian Controversy, A.D.   428-444.

(4)

The Monophysite Controversy.

I.

Eutychianism, A.D.   444-451.

(5)

II.

Imperial Attempts at Union, A.D.   451-519.

(6)

III.

Justinian’s Decrees, A.D.   527-553.

(7)

IV.

The Monophysite Churches.

(8)

The Monothelite Controversy, A.D.   633-680.

(9)

The Case of Honorius.

§ 53.

THE SOTERIOLOGICAL CONTROVERSIES, A.D. 412-529.

(1)

Preliminary History.

(2)

The Doctrine of Augustine.

(3)

Pelagius and his Doctrine.

(4)

The Pelagian Controversy, A.D.   411-431.

(5)

The Semi-Pelagian Controversy, A.D.   427-529.

§ 54.

REAPPEARANCE AND REMODELLING OF EARLIER HERETICAL SECTS.

(1)

Manichæism.

(2)

Priscillianism, A.D.   383-563.

V. WORSHIP, LIFE, DISCIPLINE AND MORALS.

§ 55.

WORSHIP IN GENERAL.

The Age of Cyril of Alexandria.

§ 56.

FESTIVALS AND SEASONS FOR PUBLIC WORSHIP.

(1)

The Weekly Cycle.

(2)

Hours and Quarterly Fasts.

(3)

The Reckoning of Easter.

(4)

The Easter Festivals.

(5)

The Christmas Festivals.

(6)

The Church Year.

(7)

The Church Fasts.

§ 57.

WORSHIP OF SAINTS, RELICS AND IMAGES.

(1)

The Worship of Martyrs and Saints.

(2)

The Worship of Mary and Anna.

(3)

Worship of Angels.

(4)

Worship of Images.

(5)

Worship of Relics.

(6)

The Making of Pilgrimages.

§ 58.

THE DISPENSATION OF THE SACRAMENTS.

(1)

Administration of Baptism.

(2)

The Doctrine of the Supper.

(3)

The Sacrifice of the Mass.

(4)

The Administration of the Lord’s Supper.

§ 59.

PUBLIC WORSHIP IN WORD AND SYMBOL.

(1)

The Holy Scriptures.

(2)

The Creeds of the Church.

I.

The Nicæno-Constantinopolitan Creed.

II.

The Apostles’ Creed.

III.

The Athanasian Creed.

(3)

Bible Reading in Church and Preaching.

(4)

Hymnology.

(5)

Psalmody and Hymn Music.

(6)

The Liturgy.

(7)

Liturgical Vestments.

(8)

Symbolical Acts in Worship.

(9)

Processions.

§ 60.

PLACES OF PUBLIC WORSHIP, BUILDINGS AND WORKS OF ART.

(1)

The Basilica.

(2)

Secular Basilicas.

(3)

The Cupola Style.

(4)

Accessory and Special Buildings.

(5)

Church furniture.

(6)

The Graphic and Plastic Arts.

§ 61.

LIFE, DISCIPLINE AND MORALS.

(1)

Church Discipline.

(2)

Christian Marriage.

(3)

Sickness, Death and Burial.

(4)

Purgatory and Masses for Souls.

§ 62.

HERETICAL REFORMERS.

(1)

Audians and Apostolics.

(2)

Protests against Superstition and External Observances.

(3)

Protests against the Over-Estimation of Doctrine.

§ 63.

SCHISMS.

(1)

The Donatist Schism, A.D.   311-415.

(2)

The Concilium Quinisextum, A.D.   692.

VI. THE CHURCH OUTSIDE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

§ 64.

MISSIONARY OPERATIONS IN THE EAST.

(1)

The Ethiopic-Abyssinian Church.

(2)

The Persian Church.

(3)

The Armenian Church.

(4)

The Iberians.

§ 65.

THE COUNTER-MISSION OF THE MOHAMMEDANS.

(1)

The Fundamental Principle of Islam.

(2)

The Providential Place of Islam.

THIRD SECTION.

HISTORY OF THE GRÆCO-BYZANTINE CHURCH IN THE 8                             TH-15TH CENTURIES (A.D. 692-1453).

I. Developments of the Greek Church in Combination with the Western.

§ 66.

ICONOCLASM OF THE BYZANTINE CHURCH (A.D. 726-842).

(1)

Leo III., the Isaurian, A.D.   717-741.

(2)

Constantine V. A.D.   741-775.

(3)

Leo IV., Chazarus, A.D.   775-780.

(4)

Leo V., the Armenian, A.D.   813-820.

§ 67.

DIVISION BETWEEN GREEK AND ROMAN CHURCHES AND ATTEMPTS AT UNION, A.D. 857-1453.

(1)

Foundation of the Schism, A.D.   867.

(2)

Leo VI., the Philosopher, A.D.   886-911.

(3)

Completion of the Schism, A.D.   1054.

(4)

Attempts at Reunion.

(5)

Andronicus III. Palæologus and Barlaam.

(6)

Council of Florence.

(7)

Decay of Byzantine Empire.

II. Developments in the Eastern Church without the Co-operation of the Western.

§ 68.

THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE AND LITERATURE.

(1)

Revival of Classical Studies.

(2)

Aristotle and Plato.

(3)

Scholasticism and Mysticism.

(4)

The Branches of Theological Science.

(5)

Distinguished Theologians.

(6)

Barlaam and Josaphat.

§ 69.

DOCTRINAL CONTROVERSIES IN THE 12TH-14TH CENTURIES.

(1)

Dogmatic Questions.

(2)

The Hesychast Controversy, A.D.   1341-1351.

§ 70.

CONSTITUTION, WORSHIP AND LIFE.

(1)

The Arsenian Schism, A.D.   1262-1312.

(2)

Public Worship.

(3)

Monasticism.

(4)

Endeavours at Reformation.

§ 71.

DUALISTIC HERETICS.

(1)

The Paulicians.

(2)

The Children of the Sun.

(3)

The Euchites.

(4)

The Bogomili.

§ 72.

THE NESTORIAN AND MONOPHYSITE CHURCHES OF THE EAST.

(1)

The Persian Nestorians.

(2)

Monophysite Churches.

(3)

The Maronites.

(4)

The Legend of Prester John.

§ 73.

THE SLAVONIC CHURCHES ADHERING TO THE ORTHODOX GREEK CONFESSION.

(1)

Slavs in the Greek Provinces.

(2)

The Chazari.

(3)

The Bulgarians.

(4)

The Russian Church.

(5)

Russian Sects.

(6)

Romish Efforts at Union.

SECOND DIVISION.

THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GERMAN AND ROMAN CHURCH DURING THE MIDDLE AGES.

§ 74.

CHARACTER AND DIVISIONS OF THIS PERIOD OF THE DEVELOPMENT.

(1)

The Character of Mediæval History.

(2)

Periods in the Church History of the German-Roman Middle Ages.

FIRST SECTION.

HISTORY OF THE GERMAN-ROMAN CHURCH FROM THE 4                             TH TO THE 9TH CENTURY (DOWN TO A.D. 911).

I. Founding, Spread, and Limitation of the German Church.

§ 75.

CHRISTIANITY AND THE GERMANS.

(1)

The Predisposition of the Germans for Christianity.

(2)

Unopposed Adoption of Christianity.

(3)

Mode of Conversion in the Church of these Times.

§ 76.

THE VICTORY OF CATHOLICISM OVER ARIANISM.

(1)

The Goths in the lands of the Danube.

(2)

The Visigoths in Gaul and Spain.

(3)

The Vandals in Africa.

(4)

The Suevi.

(5)

The Burgundians.

(6)

The Rugians.

(7)

The Ostrogoths.

(8)

The Longobards in Italy.

(9)

The Franks in Gaul.

§ 77.

VICTORY OF THE ROMISH OVER THE OLD BRITISH CHURCH.

(1)

The Conversion of the Irish.

(2)

The Mission to Scotland.

(3)

The Peculiarities of the Celtic Church.

(4)

The Romish Mission to the Anglo-Saxons.

(5)

Celtic Missions among the Anglo-Saxons.

(6)

The Celtic Element Driven out of the Anglo-Saxon Church.

(7)

Spread and Overthrow of the British Church on the Continent.

(8)

Overthrow of the Old British System in the Iro-Scottish Church.

§ 78.

THE CONVERSION AND ROMANIZING OF GERMANY.

(1)

South-Western Germany.

(2)

South-Eastern Germany.

(3)

North-Western Germany.

(4)

The Missionary Work of Boniface.

(5)

The Organization Effected by Boniface.

(6)

Heresies Confronted by Boniface.

(7)

The End of Boniface.

(8)

An Estimate of Boniface.

(9)

The Conversion of the Saxons.

§ 79.

THE SLAVS IN GERMAN COUNTRIES.

(1)

The Carantanians and Avars.

(2)

The Moravian Church.

(3)

The Beginnings of Christianity in Bohemia.

§ 80.

THE SCANDINAVIAN NATIONS.

(1)

Ansgar.

(2)

Ansgar’s Successor—Rimbert.

§ 81.

CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM.

(1)

Islam in Spain.

(2)

Islam in Sicily.

II. THE HIERARCHY, THE CLERGY AND THE MONKS.

§ 82.

THE PAPACY AND THE CAROLINGIANS.

(1)

The Period of the Founding of the States of the Church.

(2)

Stephen III., A.D.   768-772.

Hadrian I., A.D.   772-795.

(3)

Charlemagne and Leo III., A.D.   795-816.

(4)

Louis the Pious and the Popes of his Time.

(5)

The Sons of Louis the Pious and the Popes of their Days.

(6)

The Legend of the Female Pope Joanna.

(7)

Nicholas I. and Hadrian II.

(8)

John VIII. and his Successors.

(9)

The Papacy and the Nationalities.

§ 83.

THE RANK OF METROPOLITAN.

(1)

The Position of Metropolitans in General.

(2)

Hincmar of Rheims.

(3)

Metropolitans in other lands.

§ 84.

THE CLERGY IN GENERAL.

(1)

The Superior Clergy.

(2)

The Inferior Clergy.

(3)

Compulsory Celibacy.

(4)

Canonical life.

§ 85.

MONASTICISM.

(1)

Benedict of Nursia.

(2)

Benedict of Aniane.

(3)

Nunneries.

(4)

The Greater Monasteries.

(5)

Monastic Practices among the Clergy.

(6)

The Stylites.

§ 86.

THE PROPERTY OF CHURCHES AND MONASTERIES.

(1)

The Revenues of Churches and Monasteries.

(2)

The Benefice System.

§ 87.

ECCLESIASTICAL LEGISLATION.

(1)

Older Collections of Ecclesiastical Law.

(2)

The Collection of Decretals of the Pseudo-Isidore.

(3)

Details of the History of the Forgery.

(4)

The Edict and Donation of Constantine.

III. THE CHURCH AND THE PEOPLE.

§ 88.

PUBLIC WORSHIP AND ART.

(1)

Liturgy and Preaching.

(2)

Church Music.

(3)

The Sacrifice of the Mass.

(4)

The Worship of Saints.

(5)

Times and Places for Public Worship.

(6)

Ecclesiastical Architecture and Painting.

§ 89.

NATIONAL CUSTOMS, SOCIAL LIFE AND CHURCH DISCIPLINE.

(1)

Superstition.

(2)

Popular Education.

(3)

Christian Popular Poetry.

(4)

Social Condition.

(5)

Practice of Pubic Law.

(6)

Church Discipline and Penitential Exercises.

IV. THEOLOGY AND ITS BATTLES.

§ 90.

SCHOLARSHIP AND THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE.

(1)

Rulers of the Carolingian Line.

Charlemagne, A.D.   768-814.

Louis the Pious, A.D.   814-840.

Charles the Bald, A.D.   840-877.

(2)

The most distinguished Theologians of the Pre-Carolingian Age.

1.

Merovingian France.

2.

South of the Pyrenees.

3.

England.

(3)

The most distinguished Theologians of the Age of Charlemagne.

1.

Alcuin.

2.

Paulus Diaconus.

3.

Theodulf, Bishop of Orleans.

4.

Paulinus, Patriarch of Aquileia and Bishop Leidrad of Lyons.

5.

Hatto, Abbot of Reichenau.

(4)

The most distinguished Theologians of the Age of Louis the Pious.

1.

Agobard of Lyons.

2.

Claudius, Bishop of Turin.

3.

Jonas of Orleans.

4.

Amalarius of Metz.

5.

Christian Druthmar.

6.

Rabanus Magnentius Maurus.

7.

Walafrid Strabo.

(5)

The Most Distinguished Theologians of the Age of Charles the Bald.

1.

Hincmar of Rheims.

2.

Paschasius Radbertus.

3.

Ratramnus.

4.

Florus Magister.

5.

Haymo, Bishop of Halberstadt.

6.

Servatus Lupus.

7.

Remigius of Auxerre.

8.

Regius of Prüm.

(6)

9.

Anastasius Bibliothecarius.

10.

Eulogius of Cordova.

(7)

11.

Joannes Scotus Erigena.

(8)

The Monastic and Cathedral Schools.

(9)

Various Branches of Theological Science.

1.

Exegesis.

2.

Systematic Theology.

3.

Practical Theology.

4.

Historical Theology.

(10)

Anglo-Saxon Culture under Alfred the Great, A.D.   871-901.

§ 91.

DOCTRINAL CONTROVERSIES.

(1)

The Adoptionist Controversy, A.D.   782-799.

(2)

Controversy about the Procession of the Holy Spirit.

(3)

The Eucharistic Controversy, A.D.   844.

(4)

Controversy about the Conception of the Virgin.

(5)

The Predestinarian Controversy A.D.   847-868.

(6)

The Trinitarian Controversy, A.D.   857.

§ 92.

ENDEAVOURS AFTER REFORMATION.

(1)

The Carolingian Opposition to Image Worship, A.D.   790-825.

(2)

Agobard of Lyons and Claudius of Turin.

SECOND SECTION.

HISTORY OF THE GERMANO-ROMANIC CHURCH, FROM THE 10                             TH TO THE 13TH CENTURY.

A.D. 911-1294.

I. The Spread of Christianity.

§ 93.

MISSIONARY ENTERPRISES.

(1)

The Scandinavian Mission Field.

(2)

Denmark.

(3)

Sweden.

(4)

The Norwegians.

(5)

In the North-Western Group of Islands.

(6)

The Slavo-Magyar Mission-field.

(7)

The Poles.

(8)

Hungary.

(9)

The Wendish Races.

(10)

Pomerania.

(11)

Mission Work among the Finns and Lithuanians.

(12)

Esthonia, Livonia, and Courland.

(13)

The Prussians.

(14)

Lithuania.

(15)

The Mongolian Mission Field.

(16)

The Mission Field of Islam.

§ 94.

THE CRUSADES.

(1)

The First Crusade, A.D.   1096.

(2)

The Second Crusade, A.D.   1147.

(3)

The Third Crusade, A.D.   1189.

(4)

The Fourth Crusade, A.D.   1217.

(5)

The Fifth Crusade, A.D.   1228.

(6)

The Sixth, A.D. 1248, and Seventh, A.D.   1270, Crusades.

§ 95.

ISLAM AND THE JEWS IN EUROPE.

(1)

Islam in Sicily.

(2)

Islam in Spain.

(3)

The Jews in Europe.

II.—The Hierarchy, the Clergy, and the Monks.

§ 96.

THE PAPACY AND THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE GERMAN NATIONALITIES.

(1)

The Romish Pornocracy and the Emperor Otto I., † A.D.   973.

(2)

The Times of Otto II., III., A.D.   973-1002.

(3)

Otto III.; Pope Sylvester II.

(4)

From Henry II. to the Synod at Sutri, A.D.   1002-1046.

(5)

Henry III. and his German Popes, A.D.   1046-1057.

(6)

The Papacy under the Control of Hildebrand, A.D.   1057-1078.

(7)

Gregory VII., A.D.   1073-1085.

(8)

Gregory’s Contention with Henry IV.

(9)

The Central Idea in Gregory’s Policy.

(10)

Victor III. and Urban II., A.D.   1086-1099.

(11)

Paschalis II., Gelasius II., and Calixtus II., A.D.   1099-1124.

(12)

English Investiture Controversy.

(13)

The Times of Lothair III. and Conrad III., A.D.   1125-1152.

(14)

The Times of Frederick I. and Henry VI., A.D.   1152-1190.

(15)

Alexander III., A.D.   1159-1181.

(16)

The Times of King Henry II. and Cœlestine III., A.D.   1154-1198.

(17)

Innocent III., A.D.   1198-1216.

(18)

—— Fourth Lateran Council of A.D.   1215.

(19)

The Times of Frederick II. and his Successors, A.D.   1215-1268.

(20)

Innocent IV. and his Successors, A.D.   1243-1268.

(21)

The Times of the House of Anjou down to Boniface VIII., A.D.   1288-1294.

(22)

Nicholas III. to Cœlestine V., A.D.   1277-1294.

(23)

Temporal Power of the Popes.

§ 97.

THE CLERGY.

(1)

The Roman College of Cardinals.

(2)

The Political Importance of the Superior Clergy.

(3)

The Bishops and the Cathedral Chapter.

(4)

Endeavours to Reform the Clergy.

(5)

The Pataria of Milan.

§ 98.

MONASTIC ORDERS AND INSTITUTIONS.

(1)

Offshoots of the Benedictines.

1.

The Brethren of Clugny.

2.

The Congregation of the Camaldolites.

3.

The Order of Vallombrosa.

4.

The Cistercians.

5.

The Congregation of Scottish Monasteries.

(2)

New Monkish Orders.

1.

The Order of Grammont.

2.

The Order of St. Anthony.

3.

The Order of Fontevraux.

4.

The Order of the Gilbertines.

5.

The Carthusian Order.

6.

The Premonstratensian Order.

7.

The Trinitarian Order.

8.

The Cœlestine Order.

(3)

The Beginnings of the Franciscan Order down to A.D.   1219.

(4)

The Franciscans from A.D. 1219 to A.D.   1223.

(5)

The Franciscans from A.D.   1223.

(6)

Party Divisions within the Franciscan Order.

(7)

The Dominican or Preaching Order.

(8)

The Dominican Constitutional Rules.

(9)

The Female Orders.

1.

Dominican Nuns.

2.

Nuns of St. Clara.

(10)

The other Mendicant Orders.

(11)

Penitential Brotherhoods and Tertiaries of the Mendicant Orders.

(12)

Working Guilds of a Monkish Order.

(13)

The Spiritual Order of Knights.

1.

The Templars.

2.

The Knights of St. John.

3.

The Order of Teutonic Knights.

4.

The Knights of the Cross.

(14)

Bridge-Brothers and Mercedarians.

III. Theological Science and its Controversies.

§ 99.

SCHOLASTICISM IN GENERAL.

(1)

Dialectic and Mysticism.

(2)

The Philosophical Basis of Dialectic Scholasticism.

(3)

The Nurseries of Scholasticism.

(4)

The Epochs of Scholasticism.

(5)

The Canon Law.

(6)

Historical Literature.

§ 100.

THE SÆCULUM OBSCURUM: THE 10TH CENTURY.

(1)

Classical Studies—Germany; England.

(2)

—— Italy; France.

§ 101.

THE ELEVENTH CENTURY.

(1)

The Most Celebrated Schoolmen of this Century.

1.

Fulbert.

2.

Berengar of Tours.

3.

Lanfranc.

4.

Hildebert of Tours.

5.

Anselm of Canterbury.

6.

Anselm of Laon.

7.

William of Champeaux.

8.

Guibert of Nogent.

(2)

Berengar’s Eucharist Controversy, A.D.   1050-1079.

(3)

Anselm’s Controversies.

§ 102.

THE TWELFTH CENTURY.

(1)

The Contest on French Soil.

I.

The Dialectic Side of the Gulf—Peter Abælard.

(2)

—— Abælard’s Teachings.

(3)

II.

The Mystic Side of the Gulf—St. Bernard of Clairvaux.

(4)

III.

Bridging the Gulf from the Side of Mysticism.

(5)

IV.

Bridging the Gulf from the Side of Dialectics.

(6)

The Controversy on German Soil.

(7)

Theologians of a Pre-eminently Biblical and Ecclesiastico-Practical Tendency.

1.

Alger of Liège.

2.

Rupert of Deutz.

3.

Hervæus.

(8)

4.

John of Salisbury.

5.

Walter of St. Victor.

6.

Innocent III.

(9)

Humanist Philosophers.

§ 103.

THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.

(1)

The Writings of Aristotle and his Arabic Interpreters.

(2)

Theory of a twofold Truth.

(3)

The Appearance of the Mendicant Orders.

(4)

Distinguished Franciscan Schoolmen.

(5)

Distinguished Dominican Schoolmen—Albert the Great.

(6)

—— Thomas Aquinas.

(7)

Reformers of the Scholastic Method—Raimund Lull.

(8)

—— Roger Bacon.

(9)

Theologians of a Biblical and Practical Tendency.

1.

Cæsarius of Heisterbach.

2.

William Peraldus.

3.

Hugo of St. Caro.

4.

Robert of Sorbon.

5.

Raimund Martini.

(10)

Precursors of the German Speculative Mystics.

IV. The Church and the People.

§ 104.

PUBLIC WORSHIP AND ART.

(1)

The Liturgy and the Sermon.

(2)

Definition and Number of the Sacraments.

(3)

The Sacrament of the Altar.

(4)

Penance.

(5)

Extreme Unction.

(6)

The Sacrament of Marriage.

(7)

New Festivals.

(8)

The Veneration of Saints.

(9)

St. Ursula and her 11,000 Virgins.

(10)

Hymnology.

(11)

Church Music.

(12)

Ecclesiastical Architecture.

(13)

Free Mason Lodges.

(14)

Statuary and Painting.

§ 105.

NATIONAL CUSTOMS AND THE NATIONAL LITERATURE.

(1)

Knighthood and the Peace of God.

(2)

Popular Customs.

(3)

Two Royal Saints.

(4)

Evidences of Sainthood.

1.

Stigmatization.

2.

Bilocation.

(5)

Religious Culture of the People.

(6)

The National Literature.

§ 106.

CHURCH DISCIPLINE, INDULGENCES, AND ASCETICISM.

(1)

Ban and Interdict.

(2)

Indulgences.

(3)

The Church Doctrine of the Hereafter.

(4)

Flagellation.

§ 107.

FEMALE MYSTICS.

(1)

Two Rhenish Prophetesses of the 12th Century.

(2)

Three Thuringian Prophetesses of the 13th Century.

V. Heretical Opposition to Ecclesiastical Authority.

§ 108.

THE PROTESTERS AGAINST THE CHURCH.

(1)

The Cathari.

(2)

—— Their Theological Systems.

(3)

The Pasagians.

(4)

Pantheistic Heretics.

1.

Amalrich of Bena.

2.

David of Dinant.

3.

The Ortlibarians.

(5)

Apocalyptic Heretics.

(6)

Ghibelline Joachites.

(7)

Revolutionary Reformers.

1.

The Petrobrusians.

2.

Arnold of Brescia.

(8)

3.

The Pastorelles.

4.

The Apostolic Brothers.

(9)

Reforming Enthusiasts.

1.

Tanchelm.

2.

Eon de Stella.

(10)

The Waldensians.

1.

Their Origin.

(11)

2.

Their Divisions.

(12)

3.

Attempts at Catholicizing.

(13)

4.

The French Societies.

(14)

—— An Alternate Origin.

(15)

5.

The Lombard-German Branch.

(16)

6.

Relations between the Waldensians and Older and Contemporary Sects.

§ 109.

THE CHURCH AGAINST THE PROTESTERS.

(1)

The Albigensian Crusade, A.D.   1209-1229.

(2)

The Inquisition.

(3)

Conrad of Marburg and the Stedingers.

THIRD SECTION.

HISTORY OF THE GERMANO-ROMANIC CHURCH IN THE 14th AND 15th CENTURIES (                             A.D. 1294-1517).

I. The Hierarchy, Clergy, and Monks.

§ 110.

THE PAPACY.

(1)

Boniface VIII. and Benedict XI., A.D.   1294-1304.

(2)

The Papacy during the Babylonian Exile, A.D.   1305-1377.

(3)

John XXII., A.D.   1316-1334.

(4)

Benedict XII., A.D.   1334-1342.

(5)

Innocent VI. to Gregory XI., A.D.   1352-1378.

(6)

The Papal Schism and the Council of Pisa, A.D.   1378-1410.

(7)

The Council of Constance and Martin V., A.D.   1410-1431.

(8)

Eugenius IV. and the Council of Basel, A.D.   1431-1449.

(9)

Pragmatic Sanction, A.D.   1438.

(10)

Nicholas V. to Pius II., A.D.   1447-1464.

(11)

Paul II., Sixtus IV. and Innocent VII., A.D.   1464-1492.

(12)

Alexander VI., A.D.   1492-1503.

(13)

Julius II., A.D.   1503-1513.

(14)

Leo X., A.D.   1513-1521.

(15)

Papal Claims to Sovereignty.

(16)

The Papal Curia.

§ 111.

THE CLERGY.

(1)

The Moral Condition of the Clergy.

(2)

Commendator Abbots.

§ 112.

MONASTIC ORDERS AND SOCIETIES.

(1)

The Benedictine Orders.

(2)

The Franciscans.

(3)

The Observants and Conventuals.

(4)

The Dominicans.

(5)

The Augustinians.

(6)

John von Staupitz.

(7)

Overthrow of the Templars.

(8)

New Orders.

1.

Hieronymites.

2.

Jesuates.

3.

Minimi.

4.

Nuns of St. Bridget.

5.

Annunciate Order.

(9)

The Brothers of the Common Life.

II. Theological Science.

§ 113.

SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS REFORMERS.

(1)

John Duns Scotus.

(2)

Thomists and Scotists.

(3)

Nominalists and Realists.

(4)

Casuistry.

(5)

The Founder of Natural Theology—Raimund of Sabunde.

(6)

Nicholas of Cusa.

(7)

Biblical and Practical Theologians.--

1.

Nicholas of Lyra.

2.

Antonine of Florence.

3.

John Trithemius.

§ 114.

THE GERMAN MYSTICS.

(1)

Meister Eckhart.

(2)

Mystics of Upper Germany after Eckhart.

(3)

The Friend of God in the Uplands.

(4)

Nicholas of Basel.

(5)

Henry Suso.

(6)

Henry of Nördlingen.

(7)

Mystics of the Netherlands.

1.

John of Ruysbroek.

2.

Hendrik Mande.

3.

Gerlach Peters.

4.

Thomas à Kempis.

III. The Church and the People.

§ 115 A.

PUBLIC WORSHIP AND THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE.

(1)

Fasts and Festivals.

(2)

Preaching.

(3)

The Biblia Pauperum  .

(4)

The Bible in the Vernacular.

(5)

Catechisms and Prayer Books.

(6)

The Dance of Death.

(7)

Hymnology.

(8)

Church Music.

(9)

Legendary Relics.

§ 115 B.

NATIONAL LITERATURE AND ECCLESIASTICAL ART.

(10)

The Italian National Literature.

(11)

The German National Literature.

(12)

The Sacred Drama.

(13)

Architecture and Painting.

§ 116.

POPULAR MOVEMENTS.

(1)

Two National Saints.

(2)

The Maid of Orleans, A.D.   1428-1431.

(3)

Lollards, Flagellants, and Dancers.

(4)

The Friends of God.

(5)

Pantheistic Libertine Societies.

§ 117.

CHURCH DISCIPLINE.

(1)

Indulgences.

(2)

The Inquisition.

(3)

The Bull “In Cœna Domini  .”

(4)

Prosecution of Witches.

IV. Attempts at Reformation.

§ 118.

ATTEMPTED REFORMS IN CHURCH POLITY.

(1)

The Literary War between Imperialists and Curialists in the 14th Century.

(2)

—— Continued.

(3)

Reforming Councils of the 15th Century.

(4)

Friends of Reform in France during the 15th Century.

1.

Peter d’Ailly.

2.

Jean Charlier (Gerson).

3.

Nicholas of Clemanges.

4.

Louis d’Aleman.

(5)

Friends of Reform in Germany.

1.

Henry of Langenstein.

2.

Theodorich or Dietrich of Niem.

3.

Gregory of Heimburg.

4.

Jacob of Jüterboyk [Jüterbock].

5.

Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa.

6.

Felix Hemmerlin.

7.

The Reformation of the Emperor Sigismund.

(6)

An Italian Apostate from the Basel Liberal Party—Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini.

(7)

Reforms in Church Policy in Spain.

§ 119.

EVANGELICAL EFFORTS AT REFORM.

(1)

Wiclif and the Wiclifites.

(2)

Precursors of the Hussite Movement.

1.

Conrad of Waldhausen.

2.

John Milicz of Cremsier.

3.

Matthias of Janow.

(3)

John Huss of Hussinecz.

(4)

—— Rector of the University of Prague.

(5)

—— Council of Constance; Trial; Execution.

(6)

—— His Teachings.

(7)

Calixtines and Taborites.

(8)

The Bohemian and Moravian Brethren.

(9)

The Waldensians.

1.

Lombard-German Waldensians.

(9 A)

2.

French Waldensians.

(10)

The Dutch Reformers.

1.

John Pupper of Goch.

2.

John Ruchrath of Wesel.

3.

John Wessel.

4.

Nicholas Russ.

(11)

An Italian Reformer—Jerome Savonarola.

§ 120.

THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING.

(1)

Italian Humanists.

(2)

German Humanism—University of Erfurt.

(3)

—— Other Schools.

(4)

John Reuchlin.

(5)

Epistolæ obscurorum virorum.

(6)

Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.

(7)

Humanism in England.

(8)

Humanism in France and Spain.

(9)

Humanism and the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century.

THIRD DIVISION.

History of the Development of the Church under Modern European Forms of Civilization.

§ 121.

CHARACTER AND DISTRIBUTION OF MODERN CHURCH HISTORY.

FIRST SECTION.

CHURCH HISTORY OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

I. The Reformation.

§ 122.

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE WITTENBERG REFORMATION.

(1)

Luther’s Years of Preparation.

(2)

Luther’s Theses of A.D.   1517.

(3)

Prierias, Cajetan, and Miltitz, A.D.   1518, 1519.

(4)

The Leipzig Disputation, A.D.   1519.

(5)

Philip Melanchthon.

(6)

George Spalatin.

§ 123.

LUTHER’S PERIOD OF CONFLICT, A.D. 1520, 1521.

(1)

Luther’s Three Chief Reformation Writings, A.D.   1520.

(2)

The Papal Bull of Excommunication, A.D.   1520.

(3)

Erasmus, A.D.   1520.

(4)

Luther’s Controversy with Emser, A.D.   1519-1521.

(5)

The Emperor Charles V.

(6)

The Diet at Worms, A.D.   1521.

(7)

Luther at Wittenberg after the Diet.

(8)

The Wartburg Exile, A.D.   1521, 1522.

(9)

The Attitude of Frederick the Wise to the Reformation.

§ 124.

DETERIORATION AND PURIFICATION OF THE WITTENBERG REFORMATION, A.D. 1522-1525.

(1)

The Wittenberg Fanaticism, A.D.   1521, 1522.

(2)

Franz von Sickingen, A.D.   1522, 1523.

(3)

Andrew Bodenstein of Carlstadt, A.D.   1524, 1525.

(4)

Thomas Münzer, A.D.   1523, 1524.

(5)

The Peasant War, A.D.   1524, 1525.

§ 125.

FRIENDS AND FOES OF LUTHER’S DOCTRINE, A.D. 1522-1526.

(1)

Spread of Evangelical Views.

(2)

“The Sum of Holy Scripture” and its Author.

(3)

Henry VIII. and Erasmus.

(4)

Thomas Murner.

(5)

“Onus ecclesiæ.  ”

§ 126.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE REFORMATION IN THE EMPIRE, A.D. 1522-1526.

(1)

The Diet at Nuremberg, A.D.   1522, 1523.

(2)

The Diet at Nuremberg, A.D.   1524.

(3)

The Convention at Regensburg, A.D.   1524.

(4)

The Evangelical Nobles, A.D.   1524.

(5)

The Torgau League, A.D.   1526.

(6)

The Diet of Spires, A.D.   1526.

§ 127.

ORGANIZATION OF THE EVANGELICAL PROVINCIAL CHURCHES, A.D. 1526-1529.

(1)

The Organization of the Church of the Saxon Electorate, A.D.   1527-1529.

(2)

The Organization of the Hessian Churches, A.D.   1526-1528.

(3)

Organization of other German Provincial Churches, A.D.   1528-1530.

(4)

The Reformation in the Cities of Northern Germany, A.D.   1524-1531.

§ 128.

MARTYRS FOR EVANGELICAL TRUTH, A.D. 1521-1529.

§ 129.

LUTHER’S PRIVATE AND PUBLIC LIFE, A.D. 1523-1529.

(1)

Luther’s Literary Works.

(2)

Döllinger’s View of Luther.

§ 130.

THE REFORMATION IN GERMAN SWITZERLAND, A.D. 1519-1531.

(1)

Ulrich Zwingli.

(2)

The Reformation in Zürich, A.D.   1519-1525.

(3)

Reformation in Basel, A.D.   1520-1525.

(4)

The Reformation in the other Cantons, A.D.   1520-1525.

(5)

Anabaptist Outbreak, A.D.   1525.

(6)

Disputation at Baden, A.D.   1526.

(7)

Disputation at Bern, A.D.   1528.

(8)

Complete Victory of the Reformation at Basel, St. Gall, and Schaffhausen, A.D.   1529.

(9)

The first Treaty of Cappel, A.D.   1529.

(10)

The Second Treaty of Cappel, A.D.   1531.

§ 131.

THE SACRAMENTARIAN CONTROVERSY, A.D. 1525-1529.

§ 132.

THE PROTEST AND CONFESSION OF THE EVANGELICAL NOBLES, A.D. 1527-1530.

(1)

The Pack Incident, A.D.   1527, 1528.

(2)

The Emperor’s Attitude, A.D.   1527-1529.

(3)

The Diet at Spires, A.D.   1529.

(4)

The Marburg Conference, A.D.   1529.

(5)

The Convention of Schwabach and the Landgrave Philip.

(6)

The Diet of Augsburg, A.D.   1530.

(7)

The Augsburg Confession, 25th June, A.D.   1530.

(8)

The Conclusions of the Diet of Augsburg.

§ 133.

INCIDENTS OF THE YEARS A.D. 1531-1536.

(1)

The Founding of the Schmalcald League, A.D.   1530, 1531.

(2)

The Peace of Nuremberg, A.D.   1532.

(3)

The Evangelization of Württemberg, A.D.   1534, 1535.

(4)

The Reformation in Anhalt and Pomerania, A.D.   1532-1534.

(5)

The Reformation in Westphalia, A.D.   1532-1534.

(6)

Disturbances at Münster, A.D.   1534, 1535.

(7)

Extension of the Schmalcald league, A.D.   1536.

(8)

The Wittenberg Concordat of A.D.   1536.

§ 134.

INCIDENTS OF THE YEARS A.D. 1537-1539.

(1)

The Schmalcald Articles, A.D.   1537.

(2)

The League of Nuremberg, A.D.   1538.

(3)

The Frankfort Interim, A.D.   1539.

(4)

The Reformation in Albertine Saxony, A.D.   1539.

(5)

The Reformation in Brandenburg and Neighbouring States, A.D.   1539.

§ 135.

UNION ATTEMPTS OF A.D. 1540-1546.

(1)

The Double Marriage of the Landgrave, A.D.   1540.

(2)

The Religious Conference at Worms, A.D.   1540.

(3)

The Religious Conference at Regensburg, A.D.   1541.

(4)

The Regensburg Declaration, A.D.   1541.

(5)

The Naumburg Bishopric, A.D.   1541, 1542.

(6)

The Reformation in Brunswick and the Palatinate, A.D.   1542-1546.

(7)

The Reformation in the Electorate of Cologne, A.D.   1542-1544.

(8)

The Emperor’s Difficulties, A.D.   1543, 1544.

(9)

Diet at Spires, A.D.   1544.

(10)

Differences between the Emperor and the Protestant Nobles, A.D.   1545, 1546.

(11)

Luther’s Death, A.D.   1546.

§ 136.

THE SCHMALCALD WAR, THE INTERIM, AND THE COUNCIL, A.D. 1546-1551.

(1)

Preparations for the Schmalcald War, A.D.   1546.

(2)

The Campaign on the Danube, A.D.   1546.

(3)

The Campaign on the Elbe, A.D.   1547.

(4)

The Council of Trent, A.D.   1545-1547.

(5)

The Augsburg Interim, A.D.   1548.

(6)

The Execution of the Interim.

(7)

The Leipzig or Little Interim, A.D.   1549.

(8)

The Council again at Trent, A.D.   1551.

§ 137 A.

MAURICE AND THE PEACE OF AUGSBURG A.D. 1550-1555.

(1)

The State of Matters in A.D.   1550.

(2)

The Elector Maurice, A.D.   1551.

(3)

The Compact of Passau, A.D.   1552.

(4)

Death of Maurice, A.D.   1553.

(5)

The Religious Peace of Augsburg, A.D.   1555.

§ 137 B.

GERMANY AFTER THE RELIGIOUS PEACE.

(6)

The Worms Consultation, A.D.   1557.

(7)

Second Attempt at Reformation in the Electorate of Cologne, A.D.   1582.

(8)

The German Emperors, A.D.   1556-1612.

§ 138.

THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.

(1)

Calvin’s Predecessors, A.D.   1526-1535.

(2)

Calvin before his Genevan Ministry.

(3)

Calvin’s First Ministry in Geneva, A.D.   1536-1538.

(4)

Calvin’s Second Ministry in Geneva, A.D.   1541-1564.

(5)

Calvin’s Writings.

(6)

Calvin’s Doctrine.

(7)

The Victory of Calvinism over Zwinglianism.

(8)

Calvin’s Successor in Geneva.

§ 139.

THE REFORMATION IN OTHER LANDS.

(1)

Sweden.

(2)

Denmark and Norway.

(3)

Courland, Livonia, and Esthonia.

(4)

England—Henry VIII.

(5)

—— Edward VI.

(6)

—— Elizabeth.

(7)

Ireland.

(8)

Scotland.

(9)

—— John Knox.

(10)

—— Queen Mary Stuart.

(11)

—— John Knox and Queen Mary Stuart.

(12)

The Netherlands.

(13)

France.

——

Francis I.

——

Henry II.

(14)

——

Huguenots.

——

Francis II.

——

Charles IX.

(15)

——

Persecution of the Huguenots.

(16)

——

The Bloody Marriage—Massacre of St. Bartholomew.

(17)

——

Henry III.

——

Henry IV.

——

Edict of Nantes.

(18)

Poland.

(19)

Bohemia and Moravia.

(20)

Hungary and Transylvania.

(21)

Spain.

(22)

Italy.

(23)

—— Aonio Paleario.

(24)

1.

Bernardino Ochino.

2.

Peter Martyr Vermilius.

3.

Peter Paul Vergerius.

4.

Cœlius Secundus Curio.

5.

Galeazzo Carraccioli.

6.

Fulvia Olympia Morata.

(25)

The Protestantizing of the Waldensians.

(26)

Attempt at Protestantizing the Eastern Church.

II. The Churches of the Reformation.

§ 140.

THE DISTINCTIVE CHARACTER OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH.

§ 141.

DOCTRINAL CONTROVERSIES IN THE LUTHERAN CHURCH.

(1)

The Antinomian Controversy, A.D.   1537-1541.

(2)

The Osiander Controversy, A.D.   1549-1556.

(3)

Æpinus Controversy; Kargian Controversy.

(4)

The Philippists and their Opponents.

(5)

The Adiaphorist Controversy, A.D.   1548-1555.

(6)

The Majorist Controversy, A.D.   1551-1562.

(7)

The Synergistic Controversy, A.D.   1555-1567.

(8)

The Flacian Controversy about Original Sin, A.D.   1560-1575.

(9)

The Lutheran Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper.

(10)

Cryptocalvinism in its First Stage, A.D.   1552-1574.

(11)

The Frankfort Compact, A.D. 1558, and the Naumburg Assembly of Princes, A.D.   1561.

(12)

The Formula of Concord, A.D.   1577.

(13)

Second Stage of Cryptocalvinism, A.D.   1586-1592.

(14)

The Huber Controversy, A.D.   1588-1595.

(15)

The Hofmann Controversy in Helmstadt, A.D.   1598.

§ 142.

CONSTITUTION, WORSHIP, LIFE, AND SCIENCE IN THE LUTHERAN CHURCH.

(1)

The Ecclesiastical Constitution.

(2)

Public Worship and Art.

(3)

Church Song—Luther and early Authors.

(4)

—— Later Authors.

(5)

Chorale Singing.

(6)

Theological Science.

(7)

German National Literature.

(8)

Missions to the Heathen.

§ 143.

THE INNER DEVELOPMENT OF THE REFORMED CHURCH.

(1)

The Ecclesiastical Constitution.

(2)

Public Worship.

(3)

The English Puritans.

(4)

—— The Brownists.

(5)

Theological Science.

(6)

Philosophy.

(7)

A Missionary Enterprise.

§ 144.

CALVINIZING OF GERMAN LUTHERAN NATIONAL CHURCHES.

(1)

The Palatinate, A.D.   1560.

(2)

Bremen, A.D.   1562.

(3)

Anhalt, A.D.   1597.

III. The Deformation.

§ 145.

CHARACTER OF THE DEFORMATION.

§ 146.

MYSTICISM AND PANTHEISM.

(1)

Schwenkfeld and his Followers.

(2)

Agrippa, Paracelsus, and Weigel.

(3)

Franck, Thamer, and Bruno.

(4)

The Pantheistic Libertine Sects of the Spirituals.

(5)

The Familists.

§ 147.

ANABAPTISM.

(1)

The Anabaptist Movement in General.

(2)

Keller’s View of Anabaptist History.

(3)

The Swiss Anabaptists.

(4)

The South German Anabaptists.

(5)

The Moravian Anabaptists.

(6)

The Venetian Anabaptists.

(7)

The older Apostles of Anabaptism in the North-West of Germany.

1.

Melchior Hoffmann.

2.

Melchior Ring.

(8)

Jan Matthys of Haarlem.

(9)

The Münster Catastrophe, A.D.   1534, 1535.

(10)

Menno Simons and the Mennonites.

§ 148.

ANTITRINITARIANS AND UNITARIANS.

(1)

Anabaptist Antitrinitarians in Germany.

(2)

Michael Servetus.

(3)

Italian and other Antitrinitarians before Socinus.

(4)

The Two Socini and the Socinians.

IV. The Counter-Reformation.

§ 149.

THE INTERNAL STRENGTHENING AND REVIVAL OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

(1)

The Popes before the Council.

(2)

The Popes of the Time of the Council.

(3)

The Popes after the Council.

(4)

Papal Infallibility.

(5)

The Prophecy of St. Malachi.

(6)

Reformation of Old Monkish Orders.

(7)

New Orders for Home Missions.

(8)

The Society of Jesus—Founding of the Order.

(9)

—— Constitution.

(10)

—— The Doctrinal and Moral System.

(11)

Jesuit Influence upon Worship and Superstition.

(12)

Educational Methods and Institutions of the Jesuits.

(13)

Theological Controversies.

(14)

Theological Literature.

(15)

Art and Poetry.

(16)

The Spanish Mystics.

(17)

Practical Christian life.

§ 150.

FOREIGN MISSIONS.

(1)

Missions to the Heathen—East Indies and China.

(2)

—— Japan.

(3)

—— America.

(4)

Schismatical Churches of the East.

§ 151.

ATTEMPTED REGENERATION OF ROMAN CATHOLICISM.

(1)

Attempts at Regeneration in Germany.

(2)

Throughout Europe.

(3)

Russia and the United Greeks.

SECOND SECTION.

CHURCH HISTORY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

I. Relations between the Different Churches.

§ 152.

EAST AND WEST.

(1)

Roman Catholic Hopes.

(2)

Calvinistic Hopes.

(3)

Orthodox Constancy.

§ 153.

CATHOLICISM AND PROTESTANTISM.

(1)

Conversions of Protestant Princes.

(2)

The Restoration in Germany and the Neighbouring States.

(3)

Livonia and Hungary.

(4)

The Huguenots in France.

(5)

The Waldensians in Piedmont.

(6)

The Catholics in England and Ireland.

(7)

Union Efforts.

(8)

The Lehnin Prophecy.

§ 154.

LUTHERANISM AND CALVINISM.

(1)

Calvinizing of Hesse-Cassel, A.D.   1605-1646.

(2)

Calvinizing of Lippe, A.D.   1602.

(3)

The Elector of Brandenburg becomes Calvinist, A.D.   1613.

(4)

Union Attempts.

§ 155.

ANGLICANISM AND PURITANISM.

(1)

The First Two Stuarts.

(2)

The Commonwealth and the Protector.

(3)

The Restoration and the Act of Toleration.

II. The Roman Catholic Church.

§ 156.

THE PAPACY, MONKERY, AND FOREIGN MISSIONS.

(1)

The Papacy.

(2)

The Jesuits and the Republic of Venice.

(3)

The Gallican Liberties.

(4)

Galileo and the Inquisition.

(5)

The Controversy on the Immaculate Conception.

(6)

The Devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

(7)

New Congregations and Orders.

1.

Benedictine Congregation of St. Banne.

2.

Benedictine Congregation of St. Maur.

3.

The Fathers of the Oratory of Jesus.

4.

The Piarists.

5.

The Order of the Visitation of Mary.

(8)

6.

The Priests of the Missions and Sisters of Charity.

7.

The Trappists.

8.

The English Nuns.

(9)

The Propaganda.

(10)

Foreign Missions.

(11)

In the East Indies.

(12)

In China.

(13)

Trade and Industry of the Jesuits.

(14)

An Apostate to Judaism.

§ 157.

QUIETISM AND JANSENISM.

(1)

Francis de Sales and Madame Chantal.

(2)

Michael Molinos.

(3)

Madame Guyon and Fénelon.

(4)

Mysticism Tinged with Theosophy and Pantheism.

(5)

Jansenism in its first Stage.

§ 158.

SCIENCE AND ART IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

(1)

Theological Science.

(2)

Church History.

(3)

Art and Poetry.

III. The Lutheran Church.

§ 159.

ORTHODOXY AND ITS BATTLES.

(1)

Christological Controversies.

1.

The Cryptist and Kenotist Controversy.

2.

The Lütkemann Controversy.

(2)

The Syncretist Controversy.

(3)

The Pietist Controversy in its First Stage.

(4)

Theological Literature.

(5)

Dogmatics.

§ 160.

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE.

(1)

Mysticism and Asceticism.

(2)

Mysticism and Theosophy.

(3)

Sacred Song.

(4)

—— Its 17th Century Transition.

(5)

Sacred Music.

(6)

The Christian Life of the People.

(7)

Missions.

IV. The Reformed Church.

§ 161.

THEOLOGY AND ITS BATTLES.

(1)

Preliminaries of the Arminian Controversy.

(2)

The Arminian Controversy.

(3)

Consequences of the Arminian Controversy.

(4)

The Cocceian and Cartesian Controversies.

(5)

—— Continued.

(6)

Theological Literature.

(7)

Dogmatic Theology.

(8)

The Apocrypha Controversy.

§ 162.

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE.

(1)

England and Scotland.

(2)

—— Political and Social Revolutionists.

(3)

—— Devotional Literature.

(4)

The Netherlands.

(5)

—— Voetians and Cocceians.

(6)

France, Germany, and Switzerland.

(7)

Foreign Missions.

V. Anti- and Extra-Ecclesiastical Parties.

§ 163.

SECTS AND FANATICS.

(1)

The Socinians.

(2)

The Baptists of the Continent.

1.

The Dutch Baptists.

2.

The Moravian Baptists.

(3)

The English Baptists.

(4)

The Quakers.

(5)

—— Continued.

(6)

The Quaker Constitution.

(7)

Labadie and the Labadists.

(8)

—— Continued.

(9)

Fanatical Sects.

(10)

Russian Sects.

§ 164.

PHILOSOPHERS AND FREETHINKERS.

(1)

Philosophy.

(2)

—— Continued.

(3)

Freethinkers—England.

(4)

—— Germany and France.

THIRD SECTION.

CHURCH HISTORY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

I. The Catholic Church in East and West.

§ 165.

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

(1)

The Popes.

(2)

Old and New Orders.

(3)

Foreign Missions.

(4)

The Counter-Reformation.

(5)

In France.

(6)

Conversions.

(7)

The Second Stage of Jansenism.

(8)

The Old Catholic Church in the Netherlands.

(9)

Suppression of the Order of Jesuits, A.D.   1773.

(10)

Anti-hierarchical Movements in Germany and Italy.

(11)

Theological Literature.

(12)

In Italy.

(13)

The German-Catholic Contribution to the Illumination.

(14)

The French Contribution to the Illumination.

(15)

The French Revolution.

(16)

The Pseudo-Catholics—The Abrahamites or Bohemian Deists.

(17)

—— The Frankists.

§ 166.

THE ORIENTAL CHURCHES.

(1)

The Russian State Church.

(2)

Russian Sects.

(3)

The Abyssinian Church.

II. The Protestant Churches.

§ 167.

THE LUTHERAN CHURCH BEFORE “THE ILLUMINATION.”

(1)

The Pietist Controversies after the Founding of the Halle University.

(2)

—— Controversial Doctrines.

(3)

Theology.

(4)

Unionist Efforts.

(5)

Theories of Ecclesiastical Law.

(6)

Church Song.

(7)

Sacred Music.

(8)

The Christian Life and Devotional Literature.

(9)

Missions to the Heathen.

§ 168.

THE CHURCH OF THE MORAVIAN BRETHREN.

(1)

The Founder of the Moravian Brotherhood.

(2)

The Founding of the Brotherhood.

(3)

The Development of the Brotherhood down to Zinzendorf’s Death, A.D.   1727-1760.

(4)

Zinzendorf’s Plan and Work.

(5)

Numerous Extravagances.

(6)

Zinzendorf’s Greatness.

(7)

The Brotherhood under Spangenberg’s Administration.

(8)

The Doctrinal Peculiarities of the Brotherhood.

(9)

The Peculiarities of Worship among the Brethren.

(10)

Christian Life of the Brotherhood.

(11)

Missions to the Heathen.

§ 169.

THE REFORMED CHURCH BEFORE THE “ILLUMINATION.”

(1)

The German Reformed Church.

(2)

The Reformed Church in Switzerland.

(3)

The Dutch Reformed Church.

(4)

Methodism.

(5)

—— Continued.

(6)

Theological Literature.

§ 170.

NEW SECTS AND FANATICS.

(1)

Fanatics and Separatists in Germany.

(2)

The Inspired Societies in Wetterau.

(3)

J. C. Dippel.

(4)

Separatists of Immoral Tendency.

(5)

Swedenborgianism.

(6)

New Baptist Sects.

(7)

New Quaker Sects.

(8)

Predestinarian-Mystical Sects.

§ 171.

RELIGION, THEOLOGY, AND LITERATURE OF THE “ILLUMINATION.”

(1)

Deism, Arianism, and Unitarianism in the English Church.

1.

The Deists.

2.

The So-called Arians.

3.

The Later Unitarians.

(2)

Freemasons.

(3)

The German “Illumination.”

1.

Its Precursors.

(4)

2.

The Age of Frederick the Great.

(5)

3.

The Wöllner Reaction.

(6)

The Transition Theology.

(7)

The Rationalistic Theology.

(8)

Supernaturalism.

(9)

Mysticism and Theosophy.

(10)

The German Philosophy.

(11)

The German National Literature.

(12)

Pestalozzi.

§ 172.

CHURCH LIFE IN THE PERIOD OF THE “ILLUMINATION.”

(1)

The Hymnbook and Church Music.

(2)

Religious Characters.

(3)

Religious Sects.

(4)

The Rationalistic “Illumination” outside of Germany.

(5)

Missionary Societies and Missionary Enterprise.

FOURTH SECTION.

CHURCH HISTORY OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

I. General and Introductory.

§ 173.

SURVEY OF RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS OF NINETEENTH CENTURY.

§ 174.

NINETEENTH CENTURY CULTURE IN RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHURCH.

(1)

The German Philosophy.

(2)

—— Continued.

(3)

The Sciences; Medicine.

(4)

Jurists; Historians; Geography; Philology.

(5)

National Literature—Germany.

(6)

—— Continued.

(7)

—— Other Countries.

(8)

Popular Education.

(9)

Art.

(10)

Music and the Drama.

§ 175.

INTERCOURSE AND NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN THE CHURCHES.

(1)

Romanizing Tendencies among Protestants.

(2)

The Attitude of Catholicism toward Protestantism.

(3)

Romish Controversy.

(4)

Roman Catholic Union Schemes.

(5)

Greek Orthodox Union Schemes.

(6)

Old Catholic Union Schemes.

(7)

Conversions.

(8)

—— The Mortara Affair.

(9)

—— Other Conversions.

(10)

The Luther Centenary, A.D.   1883.

II. Protestantism in General.

§ 176.

RATIONALISM AND PIETISM.

(1)

Rationalism.

(2)

Pietism.

(3)

The Königsberg Religious Movement, A.D.   1835-1842.

(4)

The Bender Controversy.

§ 177.

EVANGELICAL UNION AND LUTHERAN SEPARATION.

(1)

The Evangelical Union.

(2)

The Lutheran Separation.

(3)

The Separation within the Separation.

§ 178.

EVANGELICAL CONFEDERATION.

(1)

The Gustavus Adolphus Society.

(2)

The Eisenach Conference.

(3)

The Evangelical Alliance.

(4)

The Evangelical Church Alliance.

(5)

The Evangelical League.

§ 179.

LUTHERANISM, MELANCHTHONIANISM, AND CALVINISM.

(1)

Lutheranism within the Union.

(2)

Lutheranism outside of the Union.

(3)

Melanchthonianism and Calvinism.

§ 180.

THE “PROTESTANTENVEREIN.”

(1)

The Protestant Assembly.

(2)

The “Protestantenverein  ” Propaganda.

(3)

Sufferings Endured.

(4)

—— In Berlin.

(5)

—— In Schleswig Holstein.

§ 181.

DISPUTES ABOUT FORMS OF WORSHIP.

(1)

The Hymnbook.

(2)

The Book of Chorales.

(3)

The Liturgy.

(4)

The Holy Scriptures.

§ 182.

PROTESTANT THEOLOGY IN GERMANY.

(1)

Schleiermacher, A.D.   1768-1834.

(2)

The Older Rationalistic Theology.

(3)

Historico-Critical Rationalism.

(4)

Supernaturalism.

(5)

Rational Supernaturalism.

(6)

Speculative Theology.

(7)

The Tübingen School.

(8)

Strauss.

(9)

The Mediating Theology.

(10)

Lutheran Theologians.

(11)

Old Testament Exegetes.

(12)

University Teachers.

(13)

The Lutheran Confessional Theology.

(14)

—— Continued.

(15)

—— Continued.

(16)

Reformed Confessionalism.

(17)

The Free Protestant Theology.

(18)

In the Old Testament Department.

(19)

Dogmatists.

(20)

Ritschl and his School.

(21)

—— Opponents.

(22)

Writers on Constitutional Law and History.

§ 183.

HOME MISSIONS.

(1)

Institutions.

(2)

The Order of St. John.

(3)

The Itinerant Preacher Gustav Werner in Württemberg.

(4)

Bible Societies.

§ 184.

FOREIGN MISSIONS.

(1)

Missionary Societies.

(2)

Europe and America.

(3)

Africa.

(4)

—— Livingstone and Stanley.

(5)

Asia.

(6)

China.

(7)

Polynesia and Australia.

(8)

Missions to the Jews.

(9)

Missions among the Eastern Churches.

III. Catholicism in General.

§ 185.

THE PAPACY AND THE STATES OF THE CHURCH.

(1)

The First Four Popes of the Century.

(2)

Pius IX., A.D.   1846-1878.

(3)

The Overthrow of the Papal States.

(4)

The Prisoner of the Vatican, A.D.   1870-1878.

(5)

Leo XIII.

§ 186.

VARIOUS ORDERS AND ASSOCIATIONS.

(1)

The Society of Jesus and Related Orders.

(2)

Other Orders and Congregations.

(3)

The Pius Verein.

(4)

The Various German Unions.

(5)

Omnipotence of Capital.

(6)

The Catholic Missions.

(7)

—— Mission Societies.

§ 187.

LIBERAL CATHOLIC MOVEMENTS.

(1)

Mystical-Irenical Tendencies.

(2)

Evangelical-Revival Tendencies.

(3)

Liberal-Scientific Tendencies.

(4)

Radical-Liberalistic Tendencies.

(5)

Attempts at Reform in Church Government.

(6)

Attempts to Found National Catholic Churches.

(7)

National Italian Church.

(8)

The Frenchman, Charles Loyson.

§ 188.

CATHOLIC ULTRAMONTANISM.

(1)

The Ultramontane Propaganda.

(2)

Miracles.

(3)

Stigmatizations.

(4)

—— Louise Lateau.

(5)

Pseudo-Stigmatizations.

(6)

Manifestations of the Mother of God in France.

(7)

Manifestations of the Mother of God in Germany.

(8)

Canonizations.

(9)

Discoveries of Relics.

(10)

The blood of St. Januarius.

(11)

The Leaping Procession at Echternach.

(12)

The Devotion of the Sacred Heart.

(13)

Ultramontane Amulets.

(14)

Ultramontane Pulpit Eloquence.

§ 189.

THE VATICAN COUNCIL.

(1)

Preliminary History of the Council.

(2)

The Organization of the Council.

(3)

The Proceedings of the Council.

(4)

Acceptance of the Decrees of the Council.

§ 190.

THE OLD CATHOLICS.

(1)

Formation and Development of the Old Catholic Church in the German Empire.

(2)

—— Continued.

(3)

The Old Catholics in other Lands.

§ 191.

CATHOLIC THEOLOGY, ESPECIALLY IN GERMANY.

(1)

Hermes and his School.

(2)

Baader and his School.

(3)

Günther and his School.

(4)

John Adam Möhler.

(5)

John Jos. Ignat. von Döllinger.

(6)

The Chief Representatives of Systematic Theology.

(7)

The Chief Representatives of Historical Theology.

(8)

The Chief Representatives of Exegetical Theology.

(9)

The Chief Representatives of the New Scholasticism.

(10)

The Munich Congress of Catholic Scholars, 1863.

(11)

Theological Journals.

(12)

The Popes and Theological Science.

IV. Relation of Church to the Empire and to the States.

§ 192.

THE GERMAN CONFEDERATION.

(1)

The Imperial Commission’s Decree, 1803.

(2)

The Prince-Primate of the Confederation of the Rhine.

(3)

The Vienna Congress and the Concordat.

(4)

The Frankfort Parliament and the Würzburg Bishops’ Congress of 1848.

§ 193.

PRUSSIA.

(1)

The Catholic Church to the Close of the Cologne Conflict.

(2)

The Golden Age of Prussian Ultramontanism, 1841-1871.

(3)

The Evangelical Church in Old Prussia down to 1848.

(4)

The Evangelical Church in Old Prussia, 1848-1872.

(5)

The Evangelical Church in Old Prussia, 1872-1880.

(6)

—— Continued.

(7)

The Evangelical Church in the Annexed Provinces.

(8)

—— In Hanover.

(9)

—— In Hesse.

§ 194.

THE NORTH GERMAN SMALLER STATES.

(1)

The Kingdom of Saxony.

(2)

The Saxon Duchies.

(3)

The Kingdom of Hanover.

(4)

Hesse.

(5)

Brunswick, Oldenburg, Anhalt, and Lippe-Detmold.

(6)

Mecklenburg.

§ 195.

BAVARIA.

(1)

The Bavarian Ecclesiastical Polity under Maximilian I., 1799-1825.

(2)

The Bavarian Ecclesiastical Polity under Louis I., 1825-1848.

(3)

The Bavarian Ecclesiastical Polity under Maximilian II., 1848-1864, and Louis II.

(4)

Attempts at Reorganization of the Lutheran Church.

(5)

The Church of the Union in the Palatine of the Rhine.

§ 196.

THE SOUTH GERMAN SMALLER STATES AND RHENISH ALSACE AND LORRAINE.

(1)

The Upper Rhenish Church Province.

(2)

The Catholic Troubles in Baden down to 1873.

(3)

The Protestant Troubles in Baden.

(4)

Hesse-Darmstadt and Nassau.

(5)

In Protestant Württemberg.

(6)

The Catholic Church in Württemberg.

(7)

The Imperial Territory of Alsace and Lorraine since 1871.

§ 197.

THE SO-CALLED KULTURKAMPF IN THE GERMAN EMPIRE.

(1)

The Aggression of Ultramontanism.

(2)

Conflicts Occasioned by Protection of the Old Catholics, 1871-1872.

(3)

Struggles over Educational Questions, 1872-1873.

(4)

The Kanzelparagraph and the Jesuit law, 1871-1872.

(5)

The Prussian Ecclesiastical Laws, 1873-1875.

(6)

Opposition in the States to the Prussian May Laws.

(7)

Share in the Conflict taken by the Pope.

(8)

The Conflict about the Encyclical Quod nunquam   of 1875.

(9)

Papal Overtures for Peace.

(10)

Proof of the Prussian Government’s willingness to be Reconciled, 1880-1881.

(11)

Conciliatory Negotiations, 1882-1884.

(12)

Resumption on both sides of Conciliatory Measures, 1885-1886.

(13)

Definitive Conclusion of Peace, 1887.

(14)

Independent Procedure of the other German Governments.

1.

Bavaria.

2.

Württemberg.

3.

Baden.

(15)

4.

Hesse-Darmstadt.

5.

Saxony.

§ 198.

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.

(1)

The Zillerthal Emigration.

(2)

The Concordat.

(3)

The Protestant Church in Cisleithan Austria.

(4)

The Clerical Landtag Opposition in the Tyrol.

(5)

The Austrian Universities.

(6)

The Austrian Ecclesiastical Laws, 1874-1876.

(7)

The Protestant Church in the Transleithan Provinces.

§ 199.

SWITZERLAND.

(1)

The Catholic Church in Switzerland till 1870.

(2)

The Geneva Conflict, 1870-1883.

(3)

Conflict in the Diocese of Basel-Soleure, 1870-1880.

(4)

The Protestant Church in German Switzerland.

(5)

The Protestant Church in French Switzerland.

§ 200.

HOLLAND AND BELGIUM.

(1)

The United Netherlands.

(2)

The Kingdom of Holland.

(3)

—— Continued.

(4)

—— Continued.

(5)

The Kingdom of Belgium.

(6)

—— Continued.

(7)

—— Continued.

(8)

The Protestant Church.

§ 201.

THE SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES.

(1)

Denmark.

(2)

Sweden.

(3)

Norway.

§ 202.

GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

(1)

The Episcopal State Church.

(2)

The Tractarians and Ritualists.

(3)

—— Continued.

(4)

Liberalism in the Episcopal Church.

(5)

Protestant Dissenters in England.

(6)

Scotch Marriages in England.

(7)

The Scottish State Church.

(8)

Scottish Heresy Cases.

(9)

The Catholic Church in Ireland.

(10)

The Fenian Movement.

(11)

The Catholic Church in England and Scotland.

(12)

German Lutheran Congregations in Australia.

§ 203.

FRANCE.

(1)

The French Church under Napoleon I.

(2)

The Restoration and the Citizen Kingdom.

(3)

The Catholic Church under Napoleon III.

(4)

The Protestant Churches under Napoleon III.

(5)

The Catholic Church in the Third French Republic.

(6)

The French “Kulturkampf,” 1880.

(7)

—— Continued.

(8)

The Protestant Churches under the Third Republic.

§ 204.

ITALY.

(1)

The Kingdom of Sardinia.

(2)

The Kingdom of Italy.

(3)

The Evangelization of Italy.

(4)

—— Continued.

§ 205.

SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.

(1)

Spain under Ferdinand VII. and Maria Christina.

(2)

Spain under Isabella II., 1843-1865.

(3)

Spain under Alphonso XII., 1875-1885.

(4)

The Evangelization of Spain.

(5)

The Church in Portugal.

§ 206.

RUSSIA.

(1)

The Orthodox National Church.

(2)

The Catholic Church.

(3)

The Evangelical Church.

§ 207.

GREECE AND TURKEY.

(1)

The Orthodox Church of Greece.

(2)

Massacre of Syrian Christians, 1860.

(3)

The Bulgarian Ecclesiastical Struggle.

(4)

The Armenian Church.

(5)

The Berlin Treaty, 1878.

§ 208.

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

(1)

English Protestant Denominations.

(2)

The German Lutheran Denominations.

(3)

—— Continued.

(4)

German-Reformed and other German-Protestant Denominations.

(5)

The Catholic Church.

§ 209.

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC STATES OF SOUTH AMERICA.

(1)

Mexico.

(2)

In the Republics of Central and Southern America.

(3)

Brazil.

V. Opponents of Church and of Christianity.

§ 210.

SECTARIANS AND ENTHUSIASTS IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC AND ORTHODOX RUSSIAN DOMAINS.

(1)

Sects and Fanatics in the Roman Catholic Domain.

1.

The Order of New Templars.

2.

St. Simonians.

3.

Aug. Comte.

(2)

4.

Thomas Pöschl.

5.

Antonians.

6.

Adamites.

7.

David Lazzaretti.

(3)

Russian Sects and Fanatics.

(4)

—— Continued.

§ 211.

SECTARIES AND ENTHUSIASTS IN THE PROTESTANT DOMAIN.

(1)

The Methodist Propaganda.

(2)

The Salvation Army.

(3)

Baptists and Quakers.

(4)

Swedenborgians and Unitarians.

(5)

Extravagantly Fanatical Manifestations.

(6)

Christian Communistic Sects.

1.

Harmonites.

2.

Bible Communists.

(7)

Millenarian Exodus Communities.

1.

Georgian Separatists.

2.

Bavarian Chiliasts.

(8)

3.

Amen Community.

4.

German Temple Communities.

(9)

The Community of “the New Israel.”

(10)

The Catholic Apostolic Church of the Irvingites.

(11)

The Darbyites and Adventists.

(12)

The Mormons or Latter Day Saints.

(13)

—— Continued.

(14)

—— Continued.

(15)

The Taepings in China.

(16)

—— Continued.

(17)

The Spiritualists.

(18)

Theosophism or Occultism.

§ 212.

ANTICHRISTIAN SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM.

(1)

The Beginnings of Modern Communism.

(2)

St. Simonism.

(3)

Owenists and Icarians.

(4)

The International Working-Men’s Association.

(5)

German Social Democracy.

(6)

Russian Nihilism.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES.

INDEX.

NOTE BY TRANSLATOR.

While the translator was working from the ninth edition of 1885, a tenth edition had appeared during 1887, to which unfortunately his attention was not called until quite recently. The principal additions and alterations affecting Vol. II. occur in §§ 98, 108, 119, and 147. On the section dealing with Anabaptism, the important changes have been made in the text, so that § 147 precisely corresponds to its latest and most perfect form in the original. As the printing of the volume was then far advanced, it was impossible thus to deal with the earlier sections, but students will find references in the Table of Contents to the full translation in the Appendix of those passages where material alterations have been introduced.

JOHN MACPHERSON.

FINDHORN, March, 1889.

INTRODUCTION.

§ 1. IDEA AND TASK OF CHURCH HISTORY.

The Christian Church is to be defined as the one, many-branched communion, consisting of all those who confess that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ who in the fulness of time appeared as the Saviour of the world. It is the Church’s special task to render the saving work of Christ increasingly fruitful for all nations and individuals, under all the varying conditions of life and stages of culture. It is the task of Church History to describe the course of development through which the Church as a whole, as well as its special departments and various institutions, has passed, from the time of its foundation down to our own day; to show what have been the Church’s advances and retrogressions, how it has been furthered and hindered; and to tell the story of its deterioration and renewal.

§ 2. DISTRIBUTION OF CHURCH HISTORY ACCORDING TO CONTENTS.

The treatment of Church History, on account of its manifold ramifications, demands a distribution of its material, on the one hand, according to definite periods, during which the end hitherto aimed at in the whole course of development has been practically attained, so that either entirely new phenomena gain prominence, or else the old go forth in an altogether different direction; on the other hand, according to the various phases of endeavour and development, which in respect of time are evolved alongside of one another. When this last-mentioned method of division is adopted, we may still choose between two different modes of treatment. First, we may deal with national churches, in so far as these are independent and have pursued some special direction; or with particular churches, which have originated from the splitting up of the church universal over some important difference in doctrine, worship, and constitution. Secondly, we may group our material according to the various departments of historical activity, which are essential to the intellectual and spiritual life of all national churches and denominations, and are thus common to all, although in different churches in characteristic ways and varying degrees. It follows however from the very idea of history, especially from that of the universal history of the church, that the distribution according to periods must be the leading feature of the entire exposition. At the same time, whatever may now and again, in accordance with the other principles of arrangement, be brought into prominence will be influenced materially by the course of the history and formally by the facility afforded for review by the mode of treatment pursued.

§ 2.1. The Various Branches Included in a Complete Course of Church History.—The Christian Church has undertaken the task of absorbing all peoples and tongues. Hence it is possessed of an eager desire to enlarge its borders by the conversion of all non-Christian races. The description of what helps or hinders this endeavour, the history of the spread and limitation of Christianity, is therefore an essential constituent of church history. Since, further, the church, in order to secure its continued existence and well-being, must strive after a legally determined position outwardly, as well as a firm, harmonious articulation, combination and order inwardly, it evidently also belongs to our science to give the history of the ecclesiastical constitution, both of the place which the church has in the state, and the relation it bears to the state; and also of its own internal arrangements by superordination, subordination, and co-ordination, and by church discipline and legislation. Not less essential, nay, even more important for the successful development of the church, is the construction and establishment of saving truth. In Holy Scripture the church indeed has possession of the fountain and standard, as well as the all-sufficient power and fulness, of all saving knowledge. But the words of Scripture are spirit and life, living seeds of knowledge, which, under the care of the same Spirit who sows them, may and shall be developed so as to yield a harvest which becomes ever more and more abundant; and therefore the fulness of the truth which dwells in them comes to be known more simply, clearly, fully, and becomes always more fruitful for all stages and forms of culture, for faith, for science, and for life. Hence church history is required to describe the construction of the doctrine and science of the church, to follow its course and the deviations from it into heresy, whenever these appear. The church is, further, in need of a form of public worship as a necessary expression of the feelings and emotions of believers toward their Lord and God, as a means of edification and instruction. The history of the worship of the church is therefore also an essential constituent of church history. It is also the duty of the church to introduce into the practical life and customs of the people that new spiritual energy of which she is possessor. And thus the history of the Christian life among the people comes to be included in church history as a further constituent of the science. Further, there is also included here, in consequence of the nature and aim of Christianity as a leaven (Matt. xiii. 33), an account of the effects produced upon it by the development of art (of which various branches, architecture, sculpture, painting, music, have a direct connexion with Christian worship), and likewise upon national literature, philosophy, and secular science generally; and also, conversely, an estimate of the influence of these forms of secular culture upon the condition of the church and religion must not be omitted. The order of succession in the historical treatment of these phases under which the life of the church is manifested, is not to be rigidly determined in the same way for all ages after an abstract logical scheme. For each period that order of succession should be adopted which will most suitably give prominence to those matters which have come to the front, and so call for early and detailed treatment in the history of that age.

§ 2.2. The Separate Branches of Church History.—The constituent parts of church history that have been already enumerated are of such importance that they might also be treated as independent sciences, and indeed for the most part they have often been so treated. In this way, not only is a more exact treatment of details rendered possible, but also, what is more important, the particular science so limited can be construed in a natural manner according to principles furnished by itself. The history of the spread and limitation of Christianity then assumes a separate form as the History of Missions. The separate history of the ecclesiastical constitution, worship, and customs is known by the name of Christian Archæology, which is indeed, in respect of title and contents, an undefined conglomeration of heterogeneous elements restricted in a purely arbitrary way to the early ages. The treatment of this department therefore requires that we should undertake the scientific task of distinguishing these heterogeneous elements, and arranging them apart for separate consideration; thus following the course of their development down to the present day, as the history of the constitution, of the worship, and of the culture of the church. The history of the development of doctrine falls into four divisions:

1. The History of Doctrines in the form of a regular historical sketch of the doctrinal development of the church.

2. Symbolics, which gives a systematic representation of the relatively final and concluded doctrine of the church as determined in the public ecclesiastical confessions or symbols for the church universal and for particular sects: these again being compared together in Comparative Symbolics.

3. Patristics, which deals with the subjective development of doctrine as carried out by the most distinguished teachers of the church, who are usually designated church Fathers, and confined to the first six or eight centuries.

4. And, finally, the History of Theology in general, or the History of the particular Theological Sciences, which treats of the scientific conception and treatment of theology and its separate branches according to its historical development; while the History of Theological Literature, which when restricted to the age of the Fathers is called Patrology, has to describe and estimate the whole literary activity of the church according to the persons, motives, and tendencies that are present in it.

As the conclusion and result of church history at particular periods, we have the science of Ecclesiastical Statistics, which describes the condition of the church in respect of all its interests as it stands at some particular moment, “like a slice cut cross-wise out of its history.” The most important works in these departments are the following:

1. History of Missions.—

Brown, “Hist. of Propag. of Christ. among Heathen since Reformation.” 3rd Ed., 3 vols., Edin., 1854.

Warneck, “Outlines of Hist. of Prot. Miss.” Edin., 1884.

Smith, “Short Hist. of Christ. Miss.” Edin., 1884.

2. History of the Papacy.—

Ranke, “History of Papacy in 16th and 17th Cent.” 2 vols., Lond., 1855.

Platina (Lib. of Vatican), “Lives of Popes.” (1481). Trans. by Rycaut, Lond., 1685.

Bower, “Hist. of Popes.” 7 vols., Lond., 1750.

Bryce, “Holy Rom. Empire.” Lond., 1866.

Creighton, “Hist. of Papacy during the Reformation.” Vols. I.-IV., from A.D. 1378-1518, Lond., 1882-1886.

Janus, “Pope and the Council.” Lond., 1869.

Pennington, “Epochs of the Papacy.” Lond., 1882.

3. History of Monasticism.—

Hospinianus [Hospinian], “De Monachis.” Etc., Tigur., 1609.

Maitland, “The Dark Ages.” Lond., 1844.

4. History of Councils.—

Hefele, “Hist. of Councils.” Vols. I.-III., to A.D. 451, Edin., 1871-1883. (Original German work brought down to the Council of Trent exclusive.)

5. Church law.—

Haddan and Stubbs, “Councils and Eccl. Documents illust. Eccl. Hist. of Gr. Brit. and Ireland.” 3 vols., Lond., 1869 ff.

Phillimore, “Eccl. Law.” Lond., 1873.

6. Archæology.—

By Cath. Didron, “Christ. Iconography; or, Hist. of Christ. Art in M. A.” Lond., 1886.

By Prot. Bingham, “Antiq. of Christ. Church.” 9 vols., Lond., 1845.

“Dictionary of Christ. Antiquities.” Ed. by Smith & Cheetham, 2 vols., Lond., 1875 ff.

7. History of Doctrines.—

Neander, “Hist. of Christ. Doct.” 2 vols., Lond.

Hagenbach, “Hist. of Christ. Doctrines.” 3 vols., Edin., 1880 f.

Shedd, “Hist. of Christ. Doc.” 2 vols., Edin., 1869.

8. Symbolics and Polemics.—

Winer, “Confessions of Christendom.” Edin., 1873.

Schaff, “Creeds of Christendom.” 3 vols., Edin., 1877 ff.

Möhler, “Symbolism: an Expos. of the Doct. Differences between Catholics and Protestants.” 2 vols., Lond., 1843.

9. Patrology and History of Theolog. Literature.—

Dupin, “New History of Ecclesiastical Writers.” Lond., 1696.

Cave, “Script. Eccl. Hist. Lit.” 2 vols., Lond., 1668.

Fabricii, “Biblioth. Græca.” 14 vols., Hamb., 1705; “Biblioth. Mediæ et infinæ Latin.” 6 vols., Hamb., 1734.

Teuffel, “Hist. of Rom. Lit.” 2 vols., Lond., 1873.

10. History of the Theological Sciences.—

Buddæus, “Isagoge Hist. Theol. ad Theol. Univ.” Lps., 1727.

Räbiger, “Encyclopædia of Theology.” 2 vols., Edin., 1884.

Dorner, “Hist. of Prot. Theol.” 2 vols., Edin., 1871.

- History of Exegesis.—

Davidson, “Sacred Hermeneutics; including Hist. of Biblical Interpretation from earliest Fathers to Reformation.” Edin., 1843.

Farrar, “Hist. of Interpretation.” Lond., 1886.

- History of Morals.—

Wuttke’s “Christian Ethics.” Vol. I., “Hist. of Ethics.” Edin., 1873.

11. Biographies.—

“Acta Sanctorum.” 63 vols. fol., Ant., 1643 ff.

Mabillon, “Acta Ss. ord. S. Bened.” 9 vols. fol., Par., 1666 ff.

Flaccius [Flacius], “Catalog. Testium Veritatis.” 1555.

Piper, “Lives of Leaders of Church Universal.” 2 vols., Edin.

Smith and Wace, “Dict. of Chr. Biog.” etc., 4 vols., Lond., 1877 ff.

§ 3. DISTRIBUTION OF CHURCH HISTORY ACCORDING TO PERIODS.

In the history of the world’s culture three historical stages of universal development succeed each other: the Oriental, the Franco-German, and the Teutono-Romanic. The kingdom of God had to enter each of these and have in each a distinctive character, so that as comprehensive a development as possible might be secured. The history of the preparation for Christianity in the history of the Israelitish theocracy moves along the lines of Oriental culture. The history of the beginnings of Christianity embraces the history of the founding of the church by Christ and His Apostles. These two together constitute Biblical history, which, as an independent branch of study receiving separate treatment, need be here treated merely in a brief, introductory manner. This holds true also of the history of pagan culture alongside of and subsequent to the founding of the church. Church history, strictly so-called, the development of the already founded church, begins therefore, according to our conception, with the Post-Apostolic Age, and from that point pursues its course in three principal divisions. The ancient church completes its task by thoroughly assimilating the elements contributed by the Græco-Roman forms of civilization. In the Teutono-Romanic Church of the middle ages the appropriation and amalgamation of ancient classical modes of thought with modern tendencies awakened by its immediate surroundings were carried out and completed. On the other hand, the development of church history since the Reformation has its impulse given it by that Teutono-Christian culture which had maturity and an independent form secured to it by the Reformation. This distribution in accordance with the various forms of civilization seems to us so essential, that we propose to borrow from it our principle for the arrangement of our church history.

The chronological distribution of the material may be represented in the following outline:

1. History of the Preparation for Christianity: Preparation for Redemption during the Hebraic-Oriental stage of civilization, and the construction alongside of it in the universalism of classical culture of forms that prepared the way for the coming salvation.

2. History of the Beginnings of Christianity: a sketch of the redemption by Christ and the founding of the Church through the preaching of it by the Apostles.

3. History of the Development of Christianity, on the basis of the sketch of the redemption given in the history of the Beginnings:

1. In the Græco-Roman and Græco-Byzantine Period, under Ancient Classical Forms of Civilization.

First Section, A.D. 70 to A.D. 323,—down to the final victory of Christianity over the Græco-Roman paganism; the Post-Apostolic and Old Catholic Ages.

Second Section, from A.D. 323 to A.D. 692,—down to the final close of œcumenical development of doctrine in A.D. 680, and the appearance of what proved a lasting estrangement between the Eastern and the Western Churches in A.D. 692, which was soon followed by the alliance of the Papacy with the Frankish instead of the Byzantine empire; the Œcumenico-Catholic Church, or the Church of the Roman-Byzantine Empire.

Third Section, from A.D. 692 to A.D. 1453,—down to the overthrow of Constantinople. Languishing and decay of the old church life in the Byzantine Empire; complete breach and futile attempts at union between East and West. The Church of the Byzantine Empire.

2. In the Mediæval Period, under Teutono-Romanic Forms of Civilization.

First Section, 4-9th cent.—from the first beginnings of Teutonic church life down to the end of the Carlovingian Age, A.D. 911. The Teutonic Age.

Second Section, 10-13th cent.—down to Boniface VIII., A.D. 1294; rise of mediæval institutions—the Papacy, Monasticism, Scholasticism; Germany in the foreground of the ecclesiastico-political movement.

Third Section, the 14-15th cent.—down to the Reformation in A.D. 1517; deterioration and collapse of mediæval institutions; France in the foreground of the ecclesiastico-political movement.

3. In the Modern Period, under the European Forms of Civilization.

First Section, the 16th cent. Age of Evangelical-Protestant Reformation and Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation.

Second Section, the 17th cent. Age of Orthodoxy on the Protestant side and continued endeavours after restoration on the side of Catholicism.

Third Section, the 18th cent. Age of advancing Illuminism in both churches,—Deism, Naturalism, Rationalism.

Fourth Section, the 19th cent. Age of re-awakened Christian and Ecclesiastical life. Unionism, Confessionalism, and Liberalism in conflict with one another on the Protestant side; the revival of Ultramontanism in conflict with the civil power on the Catholic side. In opposition to both churches, widespread pantheistic, materialistic, and communistic tendencies.

§ 4. SOURCES AND AUXILIARIES OF CHURCH HISTORY.[1]

The sources of Church history are partly original, in the shape of inscriptions and early documents; partly derivative, in the shape of traditions and researches in regard to primitive documents that have meanwhile been lost. Of greater importance to church history than the so-called dumb sources, e.g. church buildings, furniture, pictures, are the inscriptions coming down from the earliest times; but of the very highest importance are the extant official documents, e.g. acts and decisions of Church Councils, decrees and edicts of the Popes,—decretals, bulls, briefs,—the pastoral letters of bishops, civil enactments and decrees regarding ecclesiastical matters, the rules of Spiritual Orders, monastic rules, liturgies, confessional writings, the epistles of influential ecclesiastical and civil officers, reports by eye witnesses, sermons and doctrinal treatises by Church teachers, etc. In regard to matters not determined by any extant original documents, earlier or later fixed traditions and historical researches must take the place of those lost documents.—Sciences Auxiliary to Church History are such as are indispensable for the critical estimating and sifting, as well as for the comprehensive understanding of the sources of church history. To this class the following branches belong: Diplomatics, which teaches how to estimate the genuineness, completeness, and credibility of the documents in question; Philology, which enables us to understand the languages of the sources; Geography and Chronology, which make us acquainted with the scenes and periods where and when the incidents related in the original documents were enacted. Among auxiliary sciences in the wider sense, the history of the State, of Law, of Culture, of Literature, of Philosophy, and of Universal Religion, may also be included as indispensable owing to their intimate connection with ecclesiastical development.

§ 4.1. Literature of the Sources.—

1. Inscriptions:

de Rossi, “Inscriptt. chr. urbis Rom.” Vols. I. II., Rome, 1857.

2. Collections of Councils:

Harduin [Hardouin], “Conc. coll.” (to A.D. 1715), 12 vols., Par., 1715.

Mansi, “Conc. nova et ampl. coll.” 31 vols., Flor., 1759.

3. Papal Acts:

Jaffe, “Regesta pont. Rom.” (to A.D. 1198), 2 ed., Brl., 1881.

Potthast, “Regesta pont. Rom.” (A.D. 1198-1304), 2 Vols., Brl., 1873.

The Papal Decretals in “Corp. jur. Canonici.” ed., Friedberg, Lips., 1879.

“Bullarum, diplom. et privil. SS. rom. pont.” Taurenensis editio, 24 vols., 1857 ff.

Nussi, “Conventiones de reb. eccl. inter s. sedem et civ. pot. initæ.” Mogunt., 1870.

4. Monastic Rules:

Holstenii, “Cod. regul. mon. et. can.” 6 vols., 1759.

5. Liturgies:

Daniel, “Cod. liturg. eccl. univ.” 4 vols., Leipz., 1847 ff.

Hammond, “Ancient Liturgies.” Oxf., 1878.

6. Symbolics:

Kimmel, “Ll. Symb. eccl. Orient.” Jena., 1843.

Danz, “Ll. Symb. eccl. Rom. Cath.” Weimar, 1835.

Hase, “Ll. Symb. eccl. evang.” Ed. iii., Leipz., 1840.

Niemeyer, “Coll. Conf. eccl. Ref.” Leipz., 1840.

Schaff, “Creeds of Christendom.” 3 vols., Lond., 1882.

7. Martyrologies:

Ruinart, “Acta prim. Mart.” 3 vols., 1802.

Assemanni [Assemani], “Acta SS. Mart. orient. et occid.” 2 vols., Rome, 1748.

8. Greek and Latin Church Fathers and Teachers:

Migne, “Patrologiæ currus completus.” Ser. I., Eccl. Græc., 162 vols., Par., 1857 ff.; Ser. II., Eccl. Lat., 221 vols., Par., 1844 ff.

Horoy, “Media ævi biblioth. patrist.” (from A.D. 1216 to 1564), Paris, 1879.

“Corpus Scriptorum eccl. lat.” Vindob., 1866 ff.

Grabe, “Spicilegium SS. Pp. et Hærett.” Sæc. I.-III., 3 vols., Oxford, 1698.

Routh, “Reliquiæ sac.” 4 vols., Oxford, 1814 ff.

“Ante-Nicene Christian Library; a collection of all the works of the Fathers of the Christian Church prior to the Council of Nicæa.” 24 vols., Edin., 1867 ff.

9. Ancient Writers of the East:

Assemanus [Assemani], “Biblioth. orient.” 4 vols., Rome, 1719.

10. Byzantine Writers:

Niebuhr, “Corp. scr. hist. Byz.” 48 vols., Bonn, 1828 ff.

Sathas, “Biblioth. Græc. Med. ævi.” Vols. I.-VI., Athens, 1872 ff.

§ 4.2. Literature of the Auxiliary Sciences.—

1. Diplomatics:

Mabillon, “De re diplomatic.” Ed. ii., Par., 1709.

2. Philology:

Du Fresne (du Cange), “Glossarium ad scriptt. med. et infim. Latin.” 6 vols., Par., 1733; New ed., Henschel and Favre, in course of publication.

Du Fresne, “Glossarium, ad scriptt. med. et infim. Græc.” 2 vols., Leyden, 1688.

Suiceri, “Thesaurus ecclesiast. e patribus græcis.” Ed. ii., 2 vols., Amst., 1728.

3. Geography and Statistics:

Mich. le Quien, “Oriens christianus in quatuor patriarchatus digestus.” 3 vols., Par., 1704.

4. Chronology:

Nicolas, “The Chronology of History.” 2 ed., Lond., 1838.

“L’art de verifier les dates, by d’Antine.” Etc., ed. by Courcelles, 19 vols., Par., 1821-1824.

§ 5. HISTORY OF GENERAL CHURCH HISTORY.

The earliest writer of church history properly so called is Eusebius, Bishop of Cæsarea, † 340. During the fifth century certain members of the Greek Church continued his work. The Western Church did not so soon engage upon undertakings of that sort, and was contented with translations and reproductions of the materials that had come down from the Greeks instead of entering upon original investigations. During the middle ages, in consequence of the close connection subsisting between Church and State, the Greek Scriptores historiæ Byzantinæ, as well as the Latin national histories, biographies, annals, and chronicles, are of the very utmost importance as sources of information regarding the church history of their times. It was the Reformation, however, that first awakened and inspired the spirit of true critical research and scientific treatment of church history, for the appeal of the Reformers to the pure practices and institutions of the early days of the church demanded an authoritative historical exposition of the founding of the church, and this obliged the Catholic church to engage upon the studies necessary for this end. The Lutheran as well as the Catholic Church, however, down to the middle of the 17th century, were satisfied with the voluminous productions of the two great pioneers in Church history, Flacius and Baronius. Afterwards, however, emulation in the study of church history was excited, which was undoubtedly, during the 17th century, most successfully prosecuted in the Catholic Church. In consequence of the greater freedom which prevailed in the Gallican Church, these studies flourished conspicuously in France, and were pursued with exceptional success by the Oratorians and the Order of St. Maur. The Reformed theologians, especially in France and the Netherlands, did not remain far behind them in the contest. Throughout the 18th century, again, the performances of the Lutheran Church came to the front, while a laudable rivalry leads the Reformed to emulate their excellencies. In the case of the Catholics, on the other hand, that zeal and capacity which, during the 17th century, had won new laurels in the field of honour, were now sadly crippled. But as rationalism spread in the domain of doctrine, pragmatism spread in the domain of church history, which set for itself as the highest ideal of historical writing the art of deducing everything in history, even what is highest and most profound in it, from the co-operation of fortune and passion, arbitrariness and calculation. It was only in the 19th century, when a return was made to the careful investigation of original authorities, and it came to be regarded as the task of the historian, to give a conception and exposition of the science as objective as possible, that this erroneous tendency was arrested.

§ 5.1. Down to the Reformation.—The church history of Eusebius, which reaches down to A.D. 324, was to some extent continued by his Vita Constantini, down to A.D. 337 (§ 47, 2). The church history of Philostorgius, which reaches from A.D. 318-423, coming down to us only in fragments quoted by Photius, was an Arian party production of some importance. During the 5th century, however, the church history of Eusebius was continued down to A.D. 439 by the Catholic Socrates, an advocate at Constantinople, written in a simple and impartial style, yet not altogether uncritical, and with a certain measure of liberality; and down to A.D. 423, by Sozomen, also an advocate at Constantinople, who in large measure plagiarizes from Socrates, and is, in what is his own, uncritical, credulous, and fond of retailing anecdotes; and down to A.D. 428 by Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus in Syria, who produces much useful material in the shape of original authorities, confining himself, however, like both of his predecessors, almost exclusively to the affairs of the Eastern Church. In the 6th century, Theodorus, reader at Constantinople, made a collection of extracts from these works, continuing the history down to his own time in A.D. 527. Of this we have only fragments preserved by Nicephorus Callisti. The continuation by Evagrius of Antioch, reaching from A.D. 431-594, is characterized by carefulness, learning, and impartiality, along with zealous orthodoxy, and an uncritical belief in the marvellous. Collected editions of all these works have been published by Valesius (Par., 1659), and Reading (Cantab., 1720), in each case in 3 vols. folio.—In the Latin Church Rufinus of Aquileia translated the work of Eusebius and enlarged it before the continuations of the three Greek historians had appeared, carrying it down to his own time in A.D. 395 in an utterly uncritical fashion. Sulpicius Severus, a presbyter of Gaul, wrote about the same time his Historia Sacra, in two books, from the creation of the world down to A.D. 400. In the 6th century, Cassiodorus fused together into one treatise in 12 books, by means of extracts, the works of the three Greek continuators of Eusebius, under the title Hist. ecclesiastica tripartita, which, combined with the history of Rufinus, remained down to the Reformation in common use as a text-book. A church history written in the 6th century in Syriac, by the monophysite bishop, John of Ephesus, morbidly fond of the miraculous, first became known to us in an abridged form of the third part embracing the history of his own time. (Ed. Cureton, Oxf., 1853. Transl. into Engl. by Payne Smith, Oxford, 1859.)—Belonging to the Latin church of the middle ages, Haymo of Halberstadt deserves to be named as a writer of universal history, about A.D. 850, leaning mainly upon Rufinus and Cassiodorus. The same too may be said about the work entitled, Libri XIII. historiæ ecclesiasticæ written by the Abbot Odericus Vitalis in Normandy, about A.D. 1150, which forms upon the whole the most creditable production of the middle ages. In the 24 books of the Church history of the Dominican and Papal librarian, Tolomeo of Lucca, composed about A.D. 1315, church history is conceived of as if it were simply a historical commentary on the ecclesiastical laws and canons then in force, as an attempt, that is, to incorporate in the history all the fictions and falsifications, which Pseudo-Isidore in the 9th century (§ 87, 2-4), Gratian in the 12th century, and Raimundus [Raimund] de Penneforti [Pennaforte] in the 13th century (§ 99, 5), had wrought into the Canon law. Toward the end of the 15th century, under the influence of humanism there was an awakening here and there to a sense of the need of a critical procedure in the domain of church history, which had been altogether wanting throughout the middle ages. In the Greek Church again, during the 14th century, Nicephorus Callisti of Constantinople, wrote a treatise on church history, reaching down to A.D. 610, devoid of taste and without any indication of critical power.

§ 5.2. The 16th and 17th Centuries.—About the middle of the 16th century the Lutheran Church produced a voluminous work in church history, the so-called Magdeburg Centuries, composed by a committee of Lutheran theologians, at the head of which was Matthias Flacius, of Illyria in Magdeburg. This work consisted of 13 folio vols., each of which embraced a century. (Eccles. Hist., integram eccl. ideam complectens, congesta per aliquot studiosos et pios viros in urbe Magdb. Bas., 1559-1574.) They rest throughout on careful studies of original authorities, produce many documents that were previously unknown, and, with an unsparingly bitter polemic against the Romish doctrinal degeneration, address themselves with special diligence to the historical development of dogma. In answer to them the Romish Oratorian, Cæsar Baronius, produced his Annales ecclesiastici, in 12 vols. folio, reaching down to A.D. 1198 (Rome, 1588-1607). This work moves entirely along Roman Catholic lines and is quite prejudiced and partial, and seeks in a thoroughly uncritical way, by every species of ingenuity, to justify Romish positions; yet, as communicating many hitherto unknown, and to others inaccessible documents, it must be regarded as an important production. It secured for its author the cardinal’s hat, and had wellnigh raised him to the chair of St. Peter. In the interests of a scholarly and truth-loving research, it was keenly criticised by the Franciscan Anthony Pagi (Critica hist-chronol. 4 vols., Antw., 1705), carried down in the 17th century from A.D. 1198-1565, in 9 vols. by Oderic. Raynaldi, in the 18th century from A.D. 1566-1571, in 3 vols. by de Laderchi, and in the 19th century down to A.D. 1585 in 3 vols. by August Theiner. A new edition was published by Mansi (43 vols., 1738 ff.), with Raynaldi’s continuation and Pagi’s criticism.—During the 17th century the French Catholic scholars bore the palm as writers of Church history. The course was opened in general church history by the Dominican Natalis Alexander, a learned man, but writing a stiff scholastic style (Selecta hist. eccl. capita et diss. hist. chron. et dogm. 24 vols., Par., 1676 ff.). This first edition, on account of its Gallicanism was forbidden at Rome; a later one by Roncaglia of Lucca, with corrective notes, was allowed to pass. Sebast. le Nain de Tillemont, with the conscientiousness of his Jansenist faith, gave an account of early church history in a cleverly grouped series of carefully selected authorities (Memoires pour servir à l’hist. eccl. des six premiers siècles, justifiés par les citations des auteurs originaux. 16 vols., Par., 1693 ff.). Bossuet wrote, for the instruction of the Dauphin, what Hase has styled “an ecclesiastical history of the world with eloquent dialectic and with an insight into the ways of providence, as if the wise Bishop of Meaux had been in the secrets not only of the king’s but also of God’s councils” (Discours sur l’hist. universelle depuis le commencement du monde jusqu’à l’empire de Charles M. Par., 1681). Claude Fleury, aiming at edification, proceeds in flowing and diffuse periods (Histoire ecclst. 20 vols., Par., 1691 ff.).—The history of the French Church (A.D. 1580) ascribed, probably erroneously, to Theodore Beza, the successor of Calvin, marks the beginning of the writing of ecclesiastical history in the Reformed Church. During the 17th century it secured an eminence in the department of church history, especially on account of learned special researches (§ 160, 7), but also to some extent in the domain of general church history. J. H. Hottinger overloaded his Hist. ecclst. N. T. (9 vols., Fig., 1651 ff.) by dragging in the history of Judaism, and Paganism, and even of Mohammedanism, with much irrelevant matter of that sort. Superior to it were the works of Friedr. Spanheim (Summa hist. eccl. Leyd., 1689) Jas. Basnage (Hist. de l’égl. 2 vols., Rotd., 1699). Most important of all were the keen criticism of the Annals of Baronius by Isaac Casaubon (Exercitt. Baronianæ. Lond., 1614), and by Sam. Basnage (Exercitt. hist. crit. Traj., 1692; and Annales polit. ecclst. 3 vols., Rotd., 1706).

§ 5.3. The 18th Century.—After the publication of the Magdeburg Opus palmare the study of church history fell into the background in the Lutheran Church. It was George Calixtus († A.D. 1658) and the syncretist controversies which he occasioned that again awakened an interest in such pursuits. Gottfr. Arnold’s colossal party-spirited treatise entitled “Unparteiische Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie” (2 vols. fol., Frkf., 1699), which scarcely recognised Christianity except in heresies and fanatical sects, gave a powerful impulse to the spirit of investigation and to the generous treatment of opponents. This bore fruit in the irenical and conciliatory attempts of Weismann of Tübingen (Introd. in memorabilia ecclst. 2 vols., Tüb., 1718). The shining star, however, in the firmament of church history during the 18th century was J. Lor. v. Mosheim in Helmstedt [Helmstadt] and Göttingen, distinguished alike for thorough investigation, with a divinatory power of insight, and by a brilliant execution and an artistic facility in the use of a noble Latin style (Institutionum hist. ecclst. Libri IV. Helmst., 1755; transl. into English by Murdock, ed. by Reid, 11th ed., Lond., 1880). J. A. Cramer, in Kiel, translated Bossuet’s Einl. in die Gesch. d. Welt u. d. Relig., with a continuation which gave a specially careful treatment of the theology of the middle ages (7 vols., Leipz., 1757 ff.). J. Sal. Semler, in Halle, shook, with a morbidly sceptical criticism, many traditional views in Church history that had previously been regarded as unassailable (Hist. eccl. selecta capita. 3 vols., Halle, 1767 ff.; Versuch e. fruchtb. Auszugs d. K. Gesch. 3 vols., Halle, 1773 ff.). On the other hand, Jon. Matt. Schröckh of Wittenberg produced a gigantic work on church history, which is characterized by patient research, and gives, in so far as the means within his reach allowed, a far-sighted, temperate, and correct statement of facts (Christl. K. G. 45 vols., Leipz., 1772 ff., the last two vols. by Tzschirner). The Würtemburg [Württemberg] minister of state, Baron von Spittler, sketched a Grundriss der K. Gesch., in short and smartly expressed utterances, which in many cases were no better than caricatures (5th ed. by Planck, Gött., 1812). In his footsteps Henke of Helmstedt [Helmstadt], followed, who, while making full acknowledgment of the moral blessing which had been brought by true Christianity to mankind, nevertheless described the “Allg. Gesch. der Kirche” as if it were a bedlam gallery of religious and moral aberrations and strange developments (6 vols., Brsweig., 1788 ff.; 5th ed. revised and continued by Vater in 9 vols.).—In the Reformed Church, Herm. Venema, of Franeker, the Mosheim of this church, distinguished himself by the thorough documentary basis which he gave to his exposition, written in a conciliatory spirit (Institutt. hist. eccl. V. et N. T. 7 vols., Leyd., 1777 ff.). In the Catholic Church, Royko of Prague, favoured by the reforming tendencies of the Emperor Joseph II., was able with impunity to give expression to his anti-hierarchical views in an almost cynically outspoken statement (Einl. in d. chr. Rel. u. K. G. Prague, 1788).

§ 5.4. The 19th Century. In his Handb. d. chr. K. G., publ. in 1801 (in 2nd ed. contin. by Rettberg, 7 vols., Giessen, 1834), Chr. Schmidt of Giessen expressly maintained that the supreme and indeed the only conditions of a correct treatment of history consisted in the direct study of the original documents, and a truly objective exhibition of the results derived therefrom. By objectivity, however, he understood indifference and coolness of the subject in reference to the object, which must inevitably render the representation hard, colourless, and lifeless. Gieseler of Göttingen, † 1854, commended this mode of treatment by his excellent execution, and in his Lehrbuch (5 vols., Bonn, 1824-1857; Engl. transl. “Compendium of Church History.” 5 vols., Edinb., 1846-1856), a master-piece of the first rank, which supports, explains and amplifies the author’s own admirably compressed exposition by skilfully chosen extracts from the documents, together with original and thoughtful criticism under the text. A temperate, objective, and documentary treatment of church history is also given in the Handbuch of Engelhardt of Erlangen (5 vols., Erlang., 1832 ff.). Among the so-called Compendia the most popular was the Universalgeschichte d. K. by Stäudlin, of Göttingen (Hann., 1807; 5th ed. by Holzhausen, 1833). It was superseded by the Lehrbuch of Hase, of Jena (Leipz., 1834; 10th ed., 1877; Engl. transl. from 7th Germ. ed., New York, 1855), which is a generally pregnant and artistically tasteful exposition with often excellent and striking features, subtle perception, and with ample references to documentary sources. The Vorlesungen of Schleiermacher, † 1834, published after his death by Bonell (Brl., 1840), assume acquaintance with the usual materials, and present in a fragmentary manner the general outlines of the church’s course of development. Niedner’s Lehrbuch (2nd ed., Brl., 1866), is distinguished by a philosophical spirit, independent treatment, impartial judgment, and wealth of contents with omission of customary matter, but marred by the scholastic stiffness and awkwardness of its style. Gfrörer’s († 1861) Kirchengeschichte (7 vols. reaching down to A.D. 1000, Stuttg., 1840) treats early Christianity as purely a product of the culture of the age, and knows of no moving principles in the historical development of the Christian church but clerical self-seeking, political interests, machinations and intrigues. Nevertheless the book, especially in the portion treating of the middle ages, affords a fresh and lively account of researches among original documents and of new results, although even here the author does not altogether restrain his undue fondness for over subtle combinations. After his entrance into the Catholic Church his labours in the domain of church history were limited to a voluminous history of Gregory VII., which may be regarded as a continuation of his church history, the earlier work having only reached down to that point. Baur of Tübingen began the publication of monographical treatises on particular periods, reaching down to the Reformation (3 vols., 2nd ed., Tüb., 1860 ff.), a continuation to the end of the 18th cent. (published by his son F. Baur, 1863), and also a further volume treating of the 19th cent. (publ. by his son-in-law Zeller, 2nd ed., 1877). These works of this unwearied investigator show thorough mastery of the immense mass of material, with subtle criticism and in many cases the first establishment of new views. Böhringer’s massive production (Die Kirche Christi und ihre Zeugen, oder Kirchengeschichte in Biographien. 24 vols., Zur., 1842; 2nd ed., Zur., 1873), upon the basis of an independent study of the several ages down to the Reformation, characterizes by means of detailed portraiture the personalities prominent during these periods. In the second edition, thoroughly recast with the assistance of his two sons, there is evidence of a more strictly critical research and a judicial frame of mind, so that the predominantly panegyrical character of the first edition is considerably modified. Rothe’s lectures, edited after his death, with additions from his literary remains, by Weingarten (2 vols., Hdlb., 1875) are quite fragmentary because the usual historical matter was often supplied from Gieseler, Neander, or Hase. The work is of great value in the departments of the Constitution and the Life of the Church, but in other respects does not at all satisfy the expectations which one might entertain respecting productions bearing such an honoured name; thoroughly solid and scholarly, however, are the unfortunately only sparse and short notes of the learned editor.

§ 5.5. Almost contemporaneously with Gieseler, Aug. Neander of Berlin, † 1850, began the publication of his Allg. Gesch. d. chr. Kirche in xi. divisions down to A.D. 1416 (Ham., 1824-1852. Engl. Transl. 9 vols., Edin., 1847-1855), by which ground was broken in another direction. Powerfully influenced by the religious movement, which since the wars of independence had inspired the noblest spirits of Germany, and sympathizing with Schleiermacher’s theology of feeling, he vindicated the rights of subjective piety in the scientific treatment of church history, and sought to make it fruitful for edification as a commentary of vast proportions on the parable of the leaven. With special delight he traces the developments of the inner life, shows what is Christian in even misconceived and ecclesiastically condemned manifestations, and feels for the most part repelled from objective ecclesiasticism, as from an ossification of the Christian life and the crystallization of dogma. In the same way he undervalues the significance of the political co-efficients, and has little appreciation of esthetic and artistic influences. The exposition goes out too often into wearisome details and grows somewhat monotonous, but is on every side lighted up by first hand acquaintance with the original sources. His scholar, Hagenbach of Basel, † 1874, put together in a collected form his lectures delivered before a cultured public upon several periods of church history, so as to furnish a treatise dealing with the whole field (7 vols., Leipz., 1868). These lectures are distinguished by an exposition luminous, interesting, sometimes rather broad, but always inspired by a warm Christian spirit and by circumspect judgment, inclining towards a mild confessional latitudinarianism. What, even on the confessional and ecclesiastical side, had been to some extent passed over by Neander, in consequence of his tendency to that inwardness that characterizes subjective and pectoral piety, has been enlarged upon by Guericke of Halle, † 1878, another of Neander’s scholars, in his Handbuch (2 vols., Leipz., 1833; 9th ed., 3 vols., 1866; Eng. transl. “Manual of Ch. Hist.” Edinb., 1857), by the contribution of his own enthusiastic estimate of the Lutheran Church in a strong but clumsy statement; beyond this, however, the one-sidedness of Neander’s standpoint is not overcome, and although, alongside of Neander’s exposition, the materials and estimates of other standpoints are diligently used, and often the very words incorporated, the general result is not modified in any essential respect. Written with equal vigour, and bearing the impress of a freer ecclesiastical spirit, the Handbuch of Bruno Lindner (3 vols., Leipzig, 1848 ff.) pursues with special diligence the course of the historical development of doctrine, and also emphasizes the influence of political factors. This same end is attempted in detailed treatment with ample production of authoritative documents in the Handbuch of the author of the present treatise (vol. I. in three divisions, in a 2nd ed.; vol. II. 1, down to the end of the Carlovingian Era. Mitau, 1858 ff.). Milman (1791-1868) an English church historian of the first rank (“Hist. of Chr. to Abolit. of Pag. in Rom. Emp.” 3 vols., London, 1840; “History of Latin Christianity to the Pontificate of Nicholas V.” 3 vols., London, 1854), shows himself, especially in the latter work, learned, liberal and eloquent, eminently successful in sketching character and presenting vivid pictures of the general culture and social conditions of the several periods with which he deals. The Vorlesungen of R. Hasse [Hase], published after his death by Köhler (2nd ed., Leipz., 1872), form an unassuming treatise, which scarcely present any trace of the influence of Hegel’s teaching upon their author. Köllner of Giessen writes an Ordnung und Uebersicht der Materien der chr. Kirchengeschichte, Giess., 1864, a diligent, well-arranged, and well packed, but somewhat dry and formless work. H. Schmid of Erlangen has enlarged his compendious Lehrbuch (2nd ed., 1856), into a Handbuch of two bulky volumes (Erlang., 1880); and O. Zöckler of Greifswald has contributed to the Handbuch d. theolog. Wissenschaften (Erlang., 1884; 2nd ed., 1885) edited by him an excellent chronological summary of church history. Ebrard’s Handbuch (4 vols., Erlang., 1865 ff.) endeavours to give adequate expression to this genuine spirit of the Reformed conception of historical writing by bringing church history and the history of doctrines into organic connection. The attempt is there made, however, as Hase has expressed it, with a paradoxical rather than an orthodox tendency. The spirit and mind of the Reformed Church are presented to us in a more temperate, mild and impartial form, inspired by the pectoralism of Neander, in the Handbuch of J. J. Herzog of Erlangen, † 1882 (3 vols., Erlang., 1876), which assumes the name of Abriss or Compendium. This work set for itself the somewhat too ambitious aim of supplying the place of the productions of Gieseler and Neander,—which, as too diffuse, have unfortunately repelled many readers—by a new treatise which should set forth the important advances in the treatment of church history since their time, and give a more concise sketch of universal church history. The Histoire du Christianisme of Prof. Chastel of Geneva, (5 vols., Par., 1881 ff.) in its earlier volumes occupies the standpoint of Neander, and we often miss the careful estimation of the more important results of later research. In regard to modern church history, notwithstanding every effort after objectivity and impartiality, theological sympathies are quite apparent. On the other hand, in the comprehensive History of the Christian Church by Philip Schaff (in 8 vols., Edinb., 1885, reaching down to Gregory VIII., A.D. 1073), the rich results of research subsequent to the time of Neander are fully and circumspectly wrought up in harmony with the general principles of Neander’s view of history. Herzog’s Realencyclopædie für protest. Theol. u. Kirche, especially in its 2nd ed. by Herzog and Plitt, and after the death of both, by Hauck (18 vols., Leipz., 1877 ff.), has won peculiar distinction in the department of church history from the contributions of new and powerful writers. Lichtenberger, formerly Prof. of Theol. in Strassburg, now in Paris, in his Encyclopédie des sciences relig. has produced a French work worthy of a place alongside that of Herzog. The Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects, and Doctrines during the first eight centuries, edited with admirable circumspection and care by Dr. Wm. Smith and Prof. Wace, combines with a completeness and richness of contents never reached before, a thoroughgoing examination of the original sources. (4 vols., Lond., 1877 ff.) Weingarten’s Chronological Tables for Church History (Zeittafeln z. K.G. 2nd ed., Brl., 1874) are most useful to students as the latest and best helps of that kind.

§ 5.6. In the Catholic Church of Germany too a great activity has been displayed in the realm of church history. First of all in general Church history we have the diffuse work of the convert von Stolberg (Gesch. d. Rel. Jesu, 15 vols., down to A.D. 430, Hamb., 1806 ff., continued by von Kerz, vols. 16-45, and by Brischar, vols. 46-52, Mainz, 1825-1859), spreading out into hortatory and uncritical details. The elegant work of Katerkamp (K.G., 5 vols., down to 1153, Münst., 1819 ff.) followed it, inspired by a like mild spirit, but conceived in a more strictly scientific way. Liberal, so far as that could be without breaking with the hierarchy, is the Handbuch der K.G. (3 vols., Bonn, 1826 ff.; 6th ed. by Ennen, 2 vols., 1862), by I. Ign. Ritter. The ample and detailed Gesch. d. Chr. Rel. u. d. K. (8 vols., down to 1073, Ravensb., 1824 ff.) of Locherer reminds one of Schröckh’s work in other respects than that of its voluminousness. A decidedly ultramontane conception of church history, with frequent flashes of sharp wit, first appears in Hortig’s Handbuch (2 vols., Landsh., 1826). Döllinger in 1828 publ. as a 3rd vol. of this work a Handbuch d. Neuern K.G., which, with a similar tendency, assumed a more earnest tone. This theologian afterwards undertook a thoroughly new and independent work of a wider range, which still remains incomplete (Gesch. d. chr. K., I. 1, 2, partially down to A.D. 630, Landsh., 1833-1835). This work with ostensible liberality exposed the notorious fables of Romish historical literature; but, on the other hand, with brilliant ingenuity, endeavoured carefully to preserve intact everything which on ultramontane principles and views might seem capable of even partial justification. His Lehrbuch (I. II. 1., Rgsb., 1836 ff.), reaching down only to the Reformation, treats the matter in a similar way, and confines itself to a simple statement of acknowledged facts. In the meantime J. A. Möhler, by his earlier monographical works, and still more decidedly by his far-reaching influence as a Professor at Tübingen, gave rise to an expectation of the opening up of a new epoch in the treatment of Catholic church history. He represented himself as in spiritual sympathy with the forms and means of Protestant science, although in decided opposition and conflict with its contents, maintaining his faithful adhesion to all elements essential to Roman Catholicism. This master, however, was prevented by his early death, † 1838, from issuing his complete history. This was done almost thirty years after his death by Gams, who published the work from his posthumous papers (K. G., 3 vols., Rgsb., 1867 ff.), with much ultramontane amendment. It shows all the defects of such patchwork, with here and there, but relatively, very few fruitful cases. Traces of his influence still appear in the spirit which pervades the Lehrbücher proceeding from his school, by Alzog († 1878) and Kraus. The Universalgeschichte d. K., by J. Alzog (Mainz, 1841; 9th ed., 2 vols., 1872; transl. into Engl., 3 vols., Lond., 1877), was, in its earlier editions, closely associated with the lectures of his teacher, not ashamed even to draw from Hase’s fresh-sparkling fountains something at times for his own yet rather parched meadows, but in his later editions he became ever more independent, more thorough in his investigation, more fresh and lively in his exposition, making at the same time a praiseworthy endeavour at moderation and impartiality of judgment, although his adhesion to the Catholic standpoint grows more and more strict till it reaches its culmination in the acceptance of the dogma of Papal Infallibility. The 10th ed. of his work appeared in 1882 under the supervision of Kraus, who contributed much to its correction and completion. The Lehrbuch of F. Xav. Kraus of Freiburg (2nd ed., Trier, 1882) is without doubt among all the Roman Catholic handbooks of the present the most solid from a scientific point of view, and while diplomatically reserved and carefully balanced in its expression of opinions, one of the most liberal, and it is distinguished by a clever as well as instructive mode of treatment. On the other hand, the Würzburgian theologian, J. Hergenröther (since 1879 Cardinal and Keeper of the Papal Archives at Rome), who represents the normal attitude of implicit trust in the Vatican, has published a Handbuch (2 vols. in 4 parts, Freib., 1876 ff.; 2nd ed., 1879, with a supplement: Sources, Literat., and Foundations). In this work he draws upon the rich stores of his acknowledged scholarship, which, however, often strangely forsakes him in treating of the history of Protestant theology. It is a skilful and instructive exposition, and may very fitly be represented as “a history of the church, yea, of the whole world, viewed through correctly set Romish spectacles.” Far beneath him in scientific importance, but in obstinate ultramontanism far above him, stands the Lehrbuch of H. Bruck [Brück] (2nd ed., Mainz, 1877). A far more solid production is presented in the Dissertatt. selectæ in hist. ecclst. of Prof. B. Jungmann of Louvain, which treat in chronological succession of parties and controversies prominent in church history, especially of the historical development of doctrine, in a thorough manner and with reference to original documents, not without a prepossession in favour of Vaticanism (vols. i.-iii., Ratisb., 1880-1883, reaching down to the end of the 9th cent.). The Kirchenlexikon of Wetzer and Wette (12 vols., Freib., 1847 ff.) gained a prominent place on account of the articles on church history contributed by the most eminent Catholic scholars, conceived for the most part in the scientific spirit of Möhler. The very copious and of its kind admirably executed 2nd ed. by Kaulen (Freib., 1880 ff.), under the auspices of Card. Hergenröther, is conceived in a far more decidedly Papistic-Vatican spirit, which often does not shrink from maintaining and vindicating even the most glaring productions of mediæval superstition, illusion and credulity, as grounded in indubitable historical facts. Much more important is the historical research in the Hist. Jahrbuch der Görres-Gesellschaft, edited from 1880 by G. Hüffer, and from 1883 by B. Gramich, which presents itself as “a means of reconciliation for those historians with whom Christ is the middle point of history and the Catholic Church the God-ordained institution for the education of the human race.”—In the French Church the following are the most important productions: the Hist. de l’égl. of Berault-Bercastel (24 vols., Par., 1778 ff.), which have had many French continuators and also a German translator (24 vols., Vienna, 1784 ff.); the Hist. ecclst. depuis la création, etc., of Baron Henrion, ed. by Migne (25 vols., Par., 1852 ff.); and the very diffuse compilation, wholly devoted to the glorification of the Papacy and its institutions, Hist. universelle de l’égl. Cath. of the Louvain French Abbé Rohrbacher (29 vols., Par., 1842 ff.; of which an English transl. is in course of publication). Finally, the scientifically careful exposition of the Old Catholic J. Rieks, Gesch. d. chr. K. u. d. Papstthums, Lahr., 1882, though in some respects onesided, may be mentioned as deserving of notice for its general impartiality and love of the truth.

HISTORY OF THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY.

The pre-Christian World preparing the way of the Christian Church.

§ 6. THE STANDPOINT OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY.

The middle point of the epochs and developments of the human race is the incarnation of God in Christ. With it begins, upon it rests, the fulness of the time (Gal. iv. 4), and toward it the whole pre-Christian history is directed as anticipatory or progressive. This preparation has its beginning in the very cradle of humanity, and is soon parted in the two directions of Heathenism and Judaism. In the former case we have the development of merely human powers and capacities; in the latter case this development is carried on by continuous divine revelation. Both courses of development, distinguished not only by the means, but also by the task undertaken and the end aimed at, run alongside of one another, until in the fulness of the time they are united in Christianity and contribute thereto the fruits and results of what was essential and characteristic in their several separate developments.

§ 7. HEATHENISM.

The primitive race of man, surrounded by rich and luxuriant forms of nature, put this abundance of primeval power in the place of the personal and supramundane God. Surrounded by such an inexhaustible fulness of life and pleasures, man came to look upon nature as more worthy of sacrifice and reverence than a personal God removed far off into supramundane heights. Thus arose heathenism as to its general features: a self-absorption into the depths of the life of nature, a deification of nature, a worshipping of nature (Rom. i. 21 ff.), therefore, the religion of nature, in accordance with which, too, its moral character is determined. Most conspicuously by means of its intellectual culture has heathenism given preliminary aid to the church for the performing of her intellectual task. And even the pagan empire, with its striving after universal dominion, as well as the active commercial intercourse in the old heathen world, contributed in preparing the way of the church.

§ 7.1. The Religious Character of Heathenism.—The hidden powers of the life of nature and the soul, not intellectually apprehended in the form of abstract knowledge, but laid hold of in immediate practice, and developed in speculation and mysticism, in natural magic and soothsaying, and applied to all the relations of human life, seemed revelations of the eternal spirit of nature, and, mostly by means of the intervention of prominent personalities and under the influence of various geographical and ethnographical peculiarities, produced manifold systems of the religion of nature. Common to all, and deeply rooted in the nature of heathenism, is the distinction between the esoteric religion of the priests, and the exoteric religion of the people. The former is essentially a speculative ideal pantheism; the latter is for the most part a mythical and ceremonial polytheism. The religious development of heathenism has nevertheless been by no means stripped of all elements of truth. Apart from casual remnants of the primitive divine revelation, which, variously contorted on their transmission through heathen channels, may lie at the foundation or be inwrought into its religious systems, the hothouse-like development of the religion of nature has anticipated many a religious truth which, in the way of divine revelation, could only slowly and at a late period come to maturity, but has perverted and distorted it to such a degree that it was little better than a caricature. To this class belong, for example, the pantheistic theories of the Trinity and the Incarnation, the dualistic acknowledgment of the reality of evil, etc. To this also especially belongs the offering of human victims which has been practised in all religions of nature without exception,—a terrible and to some extent prophetic cry of agony from God-forsaken men, which is first toned down on Golgotha into hymns of joy and thanksgiving. Witness is given to the power and energy, with which the religions of nature in the time of their bloom took possession of and ruled over the minds and emotions of men, by the otherwise unexampled sacrifices and self-inflictions, such as hecatombs, offerings of children, mutilation, prostitution, etc., to which its votaries submitted, and not less the almost irresistible charm which it exercised again and again upon the people of Israel during the whole course of their earlier history. It also follows from this that the religion of heathenism does not consist in naked lies and pure illusions. There are elements of truth in the lies, which gave this power to the religion of nature. There are anticipations of redemption, though these were demoniacally perverted, which imparted to it this charm. There are mysterious phenomena of natural magic and soothsaying which seemed to establish their divine character. But the worship of nature had the fate of all unnatural, precocious development. The truth was soon swallowed up by the lies, the power of development and life, of which more than could possibly be given was demanded, was soon consumed and used up. The blossoms fell before the fruit had set. Mysteries and oracles, magic and soothsaying, became empty forms, or organs of intentional fraud and common roguery. And so it came to pass that one harauspex could not look upon another without laughing. Unbelief mocked everything, superstition assumed its most absurd and utterly senseless forms, and religions of an irrational mongrel type sought in vain to quicken again a nerveless and soulless heathenism.

§ 7.2. The Moral Character of Heathenism.—Religious character and moral character go always hand in hand. Thus, too, the moral life among heathen peoples was earnest, powerful, and true, or lax, defective, and perverse, in the same proportion as was the religious life of that same period. The moral faults of heathenism flow from its religious faults. It was a religion of the present, to whose gods therefore were also unhesitatingly ascribed all the imperfections of the present. In this way religion lost all its power for raising men out of the mire and dust surrounding them. The partly immoral myths sanctioned or excused by the example of the gods the grossest immoralities. As the type and pattern of reproductive power in the deified life of nature, the gratification of lust was often made the central and main point in divine service. The idea of pure humanity was wholly wanting in heathenism. It could only reach the conception of nationality, and its virtues were only the virtues of citizens. In the East despotism crushed, and in the West fierce national antipathies stifled the acknowledgment of, universal human rights and the common rank of men, so that the foreigner and the slave were not admitted to have any claims. As the worth of man was measured only by his political position, the significance of woman was wholly overlooked and repudiated. Her position was at most only that of the maid of the man, and was degraded to the lowest depths in the East by reason of the prevalent polygamy. Notwithstanding all these great and far-reaching moral faults, heathenism, in the days of its bloom and power, at least in those departments of the moral life, such as politics and municipal matters, in which pantheism and polytheism did not exert their relaxing influence, had still preserved much high moral earnestness and an astonishing energy. But when the religion of their fathers, reduced to emptiness and powerlessness, ceased to be the soul and bearer of those departments of life, all moral power was also withdrawn from them. The moral deterioration reached its culminating point in the dissolute age of the Roman Emperors. In this indescribable state of moral degeneration, the church found heathenism, when it began its spiritual regeneration of the world.

§ 7.3. The Intellectual Culture in Heathenism.—The intellectual culture of heathenism has won in regard to the church a twofold significance. On the one hand it affords a pattern, and on the other it presents a warning beacon. Pagan science and art, in so far as they possess a generally culturing influence and present to the Christian church a special type for imitation, are but the ultimate results of the intellectual activity which manifested itself among the Greeks and Romans in philosophy, poetry and historical writing, which have in two directions, as to form and as to contents, become the model for the Christian church, preparing and breaking up its way. On the one side they produced forms for the exercise of the intellectual life, which by their exactness and clearness, by their variety and many-sidedness, afforded to the new intellectual contents of Christianity a means for its formal exposition and expression. But, on the other side, they also produced, from profound consideration of and research into nature and spirit, history and life, ideas and reflections which variously formed an anticipation of the ideas of redemption and prepared the soil for their reception. The influence, however, on the other hand, which oriental forms of culture had upon the development and construction of the history of redemption, had already exhausted itself upon Judaism. What the symbolism of orientalism had contributed to Judaism, namely the form in which the divine contents communicated by Old Testament prophesy should be presented and unfolded, the dialectic of classical heathenism was to Christianity, in which the symbolic covering of Judaism was to be torn off and the thought of divine redemption to be manifested and to be laid hold of in its purely intellectual form. The influence of heathenism upon the advancing church in the other direction as affording a picture of what was to be avoided, was represented not less by Eastern culture than by the classical culture of the Greeks and Romans. Here it was exclusively the contents, and indeed the ungodly anti-Christian contents, the specifically heathen substance of the pagan philosophy, theosophy, and mysteriosophy, which by means of tolerated forms of culture sought to penetrate and completely paganize Christianity. To heathenism, highly cultured but pluming itself in the arrogance of its sublime wisdom, Christianity, by whose suggestive profundity it had been at first attracted, appeared altogether too simple, unphilosophical, unspeculative, to satisfy the supposed requirements of the culture of the age. There was needed, it was thought, fructification and enriching by the collective wisdom of the East and the West before religion could in truth present itself as absolute and perfect.

§ 7.4. The Hellenic Philosophy.—What is true of Greek-Roman culture generally on its material and formal sides, that it powerfully influenced Christianity now budding into flower, is preeminently true of the Greek Philosophy. Regarded as a prefiguration of Christianity, Greek philosophy presents a negative side in so far as it led to the dissolution of heathenism, and a positive side in so far as it, by furnishing form and contents, contributed to the construction of Christianity. From its very origin Hellenic philosophy contributed to the negative process by undermining the people’s faith in heathenism, preparing for the overthrow of idolatry, and leading heathenism to take a despondent view of its own future. It is with Socrates, who died in B.C. 399, that the positive prefiguring of Christianity on the part of Greek philosophy comes first decidedly into view. His humble confession of ignorance, his founding of the claim to wisdom on the Γνῶθι σεαυτόν, the tracing of his deepest thoughts and yearnings back to divine suggestions (his Δαιμόνιον), his grave resignation to circumstances, and his joyful hope in a more blessed future, may certainly be regarded as faint anticipations and prophetic adumbrations of the phenomena of Christian faith and life. Plato, who died B.C. 348, with independent speculative and poetic power, wrought the scattered hints of his teacher’s wisdom into an organically articulated theory of the universe, which in its anticipatory profundity approached more nearly to the Christian theory of the universe than any other outside the range of revelation. His philosophy leads men to an appreciation of his God-related nature, takes him past the visible and sensible to the eternal prototypes of all beauty, truth and goodness, from which he has fallen away, and awakens in him a profound longing after his lost possessions. In regard to matter Aristotle, who died B.C. 322, does not stand so closely related to Christianity as Plato, but in regard to form, he has much more decidedly influenced the logical thinking and systematizing of later Christian sciences. In these two, however, are reached the highest elevation of the philosophical thinking of the Greeks, viewed in itself as well as in its positive and constructive influence upon the church. As philosophy down to that time, consciously or unconsciously, had wrought for the dissolution of the religion of the people, it now proceeded to work its own overthrow, and brought into ever deeper, fuller and clearer consciousness the despairing estimate of the world regarding itself. This is shown most significantly in the three schools of philosophy which were most widely spread at the entrance of the church into the Græco-Roman world, Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Scepticism. Epicurus, who died B.C. 271, in his philosophy seeks the highest good in pleasure, recognises in the world only a play of fortune, regards the soul as mortal, and supposes that the gods in their blissful retirement no longer take any thought about the world. Stoicism, founded by Zeno, who died in B.C. 260, over against the Epicurean deism set up a hylozoistic pantheism, made the development of the world dependent upon the unalterable necessity of fate, which brings about a universal conflagration, out of which again a new world springs to follow a similar course. To look on pleasure with contempt, to scorn pain, and in case of necessity to end a fruitless life by suicide—these constitute the core of all wisdom. When he has reached such a height in the mastery of self and of the world the wise man is his own god, finding in himself all that he needs. Finally, in conflict with Stoicism arose the Scepticism of the New Academy, at the head of which were Arcesilaus who died B.C. 240 and Carneades who died B.C. 128. This school renounced all knowledge of truth as something really unattainable, and in the moderation (ἐποχή) of every opinion placed the sum of theoretic wisdom, while it regarded the sum of all practical wisdom to consist in the evidence of every passionate or exciting effort.

§ 7.5. The Heathen State.—In the grand endeavour of heathenism to redeem itself by its own resources and according to its own pleasure, the attempt was finally made by the concentration of all forces into one colossal might. To gather into one point all the mental and bodily powers of the whole human race, and through them also all powers of nature and the products of all zones and lands, and to put them under one will, and then in this will to recognise the personal and visible representation of the godhead—to this was heathenism driven by an inner necessity. Hence arose a struggle, and in consequence of the pertinacity with which it was carried on, one kingdom after another was overthrown, until the climax was reached in the Roman empire. Yet even this empire was broken and dissolved when opposed by the spiritual power of the kingdom of God. Like all the endeavours of heathenism, this struggle for absolute sovereignty had a twofold aspect; there are thereby made prominent men’s own ways and God’s ways, the undivine aims of men, and the blessed results which God’s government of the world could secure for them. We have here to do first of all simply with the Roman universal empire, but the powers that rose in succession after it are only rejuvenations and powerful continuations of the endeavour of the earlier power, and so that is true of every state which is true of the Roman. Its significance as a preparer of the way for the church is just this, that in consequence of the articulation of the world into one great state organisation, the various stages and elements of culture found among the several civilized races hitherto isolated, contributed now to one universal civilization, and a rapid circulation of the new life-blood driven by the church through the veins of the nations was made possible and easy. With special power and universal success had the exploits of Alexander the Great in this direction made a beginning, which reached perfection under the Roman empire. The ever advancing prevalence of one language, the Greek, which at the time of the beginning of the church was spoken and understood in all quarters of the Roman empire, which seemed, like a temporary suspension of the doom of the confusion of languages which accompanied the rise of heathenism (Gen. xi.), to celebrate its return to the divine favour, belongs also pre-eminently to those preparatory influences. And as the heathen state sought after the concentration of all might, Industry and Trade, moved by the same principle, sought after the concentration of wealth and profit. But as worldly enterprise for its own ends made paths for universal commerce over wastes and seas, and visited for purposes of trade the remotest countries and climes, it served unwittingly and unintentionally the higher purposes of divine grace by opening a way for the spread of the message of the gospel.

§ 8. JUDAISM.

In a land which, like the people themselves, combined the character of insular exclusiveness with that of a central position in the ancient world, Israel, on account of the part which it was called to play in universal history, had to be the receiver and communicator of God’s revelations of His salvation, had to live quiet and apart, taking little to do with the world’s business; having, on the other hand, the assurance from God’s promise that disasters threatened by heathenish love of conquest and oppression would be averted. This position and this task were, indeed, only too often forgotten. Only too often did the Israelites mix themselves up in worldly affairs, with which they had no concern. Only too often by their departure from their God did they make themselves like the heathen nations in religion, worship, and conversation, so that for correction and punishment they had often to be put under a heavy yoke. Yet the remnant of the holy seed (Isa. iv. 3; vi. 13) which was never wholly wanting even in times of general apostasy, as well as the long-suffering and faithfulness of their God, ensured the complete realisation of Israel’s vocation, even though the unspiritual mass of the people finally rejected the offered redemption.

§ 8.1. Judaism under special Training of God through the Law and Prophecy.—Abraham was chosen as a single individual (Isa. li. 2), and, as the creator of something new, God called forth from an unfruitful womb the seed of promise. As saviour and redeemer from existing misery He delivered the people of promise from the oppression of Egyptian slavery. In the Holy Land the family must work out its own development, but in order that the family might be able unrestrainedly to expand into a great nation, it was necessary that it should first go down into Egypt. Moses led the people thus disciplined out of the foreign land, and gave them a theocratic constitution, law, and worship as means for the accomplishment of their calling, as a model and a schoolmaster leading on to future perfection (Gal. iii. 24; Heb. x. 1). The going out of Egypt was the birth of the nation, the giving of the law at Sinai was its consecration as a holy nation. Joshua set forth the last condition for an independent people, the possession of a country commensurate with the task of the nation, a land of their own that would awaken patriotic feelings. Now the theocracy under the form of a purely popular institution under the fostering care of the priesthood could and should have borne fruit, but the period of the Judges proves that those two factors of development were not sufficient, and so now two new agencies make their appearance; the Prophetic order as a distinct and regular office, constituted for the purpose of being a mouth to God and a conscience to the state, and the Kingly order for the protecting of the theocracy against hurt from without and for the establishment of peace within her borders. By David’s successes the theocracy attained unto a high degree of political significance, and by Solomon’s building of the temple the typical form of worship reached the highest point of its development. In spite, however, of prophecy and royalty, the people, ever withdrawing themselves more and more from their true vocation, were not able outwardly and inwardly to maintain the high level. The division of the kingdom, internal feuds and conflicts, their untheocratic entanglement in the affairs of the world, the growing tendency to fall away from the worship of Jehovah and to engage in the worship of high places, and calves, and nature, called down incessantly the divine judgments, in consequence of which they fell a prey to the heathen. Yet this discipline was not in vain. Cyrus decreed their return and their independent organization, and even prophecy was granted for a time to the restored community for its establishment and consolidation. Under these political developments has prophecy, in addition to its immediate concern with its own times in respect of teaching, discipline, and exhortation, given to the promise of future salvation its fullest expression, bringing a bright ray of comfort and hope to light up the darkness of a gloomy present. The fading memories of the happy times of the brilliant victories of David and the glorious peaceful reign of Solomon formed the bases of the delineations of the future Messianic kingdom, while the disasters, the suffering and the humiliation of the people during the period of their decay gave an impulse to Messianic longings for a Messiah suffering for the sins of the people and taking on Himself all their misery. And now, after it had effected its main purpose, prophecy was silenced, to be reawakened only in a complete and final form when the fulness of time had come.

§ 8.2. Judaism after the Cessation of Prophecy.—The time had now come when the chosen people, emancipated from the immediate discipline of divine revelation, but furnished with the results and experiences of a rich course of instruction, and accompanied by the law as a schoolmaster and by the light of the prophetic word, should themselves work out the purpose of their calling. The war of extermination which Antiochus Epiphanes in his heathen fanaticism waged against Judaism, was happily and victoriously repelled, and once more the nation won its political independence under the Maccabees. At last, however, owing to the increasing corruption of the ruling Maccabean family, they were ensnared by the craft of the Roman empire. The Syrian religious persecution and the subsequent oppression of the Romans roused the national spirit and the attachment to the religion of their fathers to the most extreme exclusiveness, fanatical hatred, and proud scorn of everything foreign, and converted the Messianic hope into a mere political and frantically carnal expectation. True piety more and more disappeared in a punctilious legalism and ceremonialism, in a conceited self-righteousness and boastful confidence in their own good works. Priests and scribes were eagerly bent on fostering this tendency and increasing the unsusceptibility of the masses for the spirituality of the redemption that was drawing nigh, by multiplying and exaggerating external rules and by perverse interpretation of scripture. But in spite of all these perverting and far-reaching tendencies, there was yet in quiet obscurity a sacred plantation of the true Israel (John i. 47; Luke i. 6; ii. 25, 38, etc.), as a garden of God for the first reception of salvation in Christ.

§ 8.3. The Synagogues.—The institution of the Synagogues was of the greatest importance for the spread and development of post-exilian Judaism. They had their origin in the consciousness that, besides the continuance of the symbolical worship of the temple, a ministry of the word for edification by means of the revelation of God in the law and the prophets was, after the withdrawal of prophecy, all the more a pressing need and duty. But they also afforded a nursery for the endeavour to widen and contract the law of Moses by Rabbinical rules, for the tendency to external legalism and hypocrisy, for the national arrogance and the carnal Messianic expectations, which from them passed over into the life of the people. On the other hand, the synagogues, especially outside of Palestine, among the dispersion, won a far-reaching significance for the church by reason of their missionary tendency. For here where every Sabbath the holy scripture of the Old Testament was read in the Greek translation of the Septuagint and expounded, a convenient opportunity was given to heathens longing for salvation to gain acquaintance with the revelations and promises of God in the Old Covenant, and here there was already a place for the first ministers of the gospel, from which they could deliver their message to an assembled multitude of people from among the Jews and Gentiles. (Schürer, “Hist. of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ.” Div. ii., vol. 2., “The School and Synagogue.” pp. 44-89, Edin., 1885.)

§ 8.4. Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes.—The strict, traditionally legalistic, carnally particularistic tendency of Post-Exilian Judaism had its representatives and supporters in the sect of the Pharisees (פְרוּשִׁים, ἀφωρισμένοι), so called because their main endeavour was to maintain the strictest separation from everything heathenish, foreign, and ceremonially unclean. By their ostentatious display of zeal for the law, their contempt for everything not Jewish, their democratic principles and their arrogant patriotism, they won most completely the favour of the people; they shared the evil fortunes of the Maccabean princes, and became the bitterest enemies of the Herodians, and entertained a burning fanatical hatred to the Romans. They held sway in the synagogues to such an extent that the names Scribes and Pharisees were regarded as almost synonymous, and even in the Sanhedrim they secured many seats. In the times of Jesus the schools of Hillel and Shammai contended with one another, the former pleading for somewhat lax views, especially in reference to divorce and the obligation of oaths, while the latter insisted upon the most rigorous interpretation of the law. Both, however, were agreed in the recognition of oral tradition, the παραδόσεις τῶν πατέρων, as a binding authority and an essential supplement to the law of Moses. In direct opposition to them stand the Sadducees, out of sympathy with the aspirations of the people, and abandoning wholly the sacred traditions, and joining themselves in league with the Herodians and Romans. The name originally designated them as descendants of the old temple aristocracy represented by the family of the high priest Zadok, and, in consequence of the similarity in sound between צַדּוּקיִם and צַדּיִקיִם, gave expression to their claim to be regarded as essentially and truly righteous because of their outward adherence to the Mosaic law. Proceeding on the principle that virtue as a free act of man has in it its own worth and reward, just as vice has in it its own punishment, they rejected the doctrine of a future judgment, denied the doctrine of a resurrection, the existence of angels and spirits, and the doctrine of the divine foreknowledge.[2] The Essenes, not mentioned in the Bible, but named by Philo, Josephus, and the elder Pliny, form a third sect. Their name was probably derived from חֲסֵא, pious. The original germ of their society is found in distinct colonies on the banks of the Dead Sea, which kept apart from the other Jews, and recognised even among themselves four different grades of initiation, each order being strictly separated from the others. A member was received only after a three years’ novitiate, and undertook to keep secret the mysteries of the order. Community of goods in the several communities and clans, meals in common accompanied by religious ceremonies, frequent prayers in the early morning with the face directed to the rising sun, oft repeated washings and cleansings, diligent application to agriculture and other peaceful occupations, abstaining from the use of flesh and wine, from trade and every warlike pursuit, from slavery and taking of oaths, perhaps also abstinence from marriage in the higher orders, were the main conditions of membership in their association. The Sabbath was observed with great strictness, but sacrifices of blood were abolished, and all anointing with oil was regarded as polluting. They still, however, maintained connection with Judaism by sending gifts to the temple. So far the order may fairly be regarded, as it is by Ritschl, as a spiritualizing exaggeration of the Mosaic idea of the priestly character that had independently grown up on Jewish soil, and indeed especially as an attempt to realize the calling set forth in Exod. xix. 5, 6, and repudiated in Exod. xx. 19, 20, unto all Israelites to be a spiritual priesthood. But when, on the other hand, the Essenes, according to Josephus, considered the body as a prison in which the soul falling from its ethereal existence is to be confined until freed from its fetters by death it returns again to heaven, this can scarcely be explained as originating from any other than a heathen source, especially from the widely spread influences of Neo-Pythagoreanism (§ 24). Lucius (1881) derives the name and seeks their origin from the Asidæans, Chasidim, or Pious, in 1 Macc. ii. 42; vii. 13; and 2 Macc. xiv. 6. Very striking too is Hilgenfeld’s carefully weighed and ably sustained theory (Ketzergesch., pp. 87-149), that their descent is to be traced from the Kenite Rechabites (Jer. xxxv.; Judg. i. 16), and their name from the city Gerasa, west of the Dead Sea, called in Josephus also Essa, where the Rechabites, abandoning their tent life, formed a settlement. In the time of Josephus the Essenes numbered about four thousand. In consequence of the Jewish war, which brought distress upon them, as well as upon the Christians, they were led into friendly relations with Christianity; but even when adopting the Christian doctrines, they still carried with them many of their earlier tenets (§ 28, 2, 3).[3]

§ 9. SAMARITANISM.

The Samaritans, who came into existence at the time of the overthrow of the kingdom of Israel, from the blending of Israelitish and heathenish elements, desired fellowship with the Jewish colony that returned from the Babylonish captivity, but were repelled on account of their manifold compromises with pagan practice. And although an expelled Jew named Manasseh purified their religion as far as possible of heathenish elements, and gave them a temple and order of worship on Mount Gerizim, this only increased the hatred of the Jews against them. Holding fast to the Judaism taught them by Manasseh, the Samaritans never adopted the refinements and perversions of later Judaism. Their Messianic expectations remained purer, their particularism less severe. While thus rendered capable of forming a more impartial estimate of Christianity, they were also inclined upon the whole, because of the hatred and contempt which they had to endure from Pharisaic Judaism, to look with favour upon Christianity despised and persecuted as they themselves had been (John iv. 41; Acts viii. 5 ff.). On the other hand, the syncretic-heathen element, which still flourished in Samaritanism, showed its opposition to Christianity by positive reactionary attempts (§ 25, 2).[4]

§ 10. INTERCOURSE BETWEEN JUDAISM AND HEATHENISM.

Alexander the Great’s conquest of the world brought into connection with one another the most diverse elements of culture in antiquity. Least of all could Judaism outside of Palestine, the diaspora, living amid the influences of heathen or Hellenic culture and ways of viewing things, withdraw itself from the syncretic current of the age. The Jews of Eastern Asia maintained a closer connection and spiritual affinity with the exclusive Palestinian Rabbinism, and the heathen element, which here penetrated into their religious conceptions, became, chiefly through the Talmud, the common property of post-Christian Judaism. But heathenism also, contemptible as Judaism appeared to it, was susceptible to Jewish influences, impressed by the deeper religious contents of Judaism, and though only sporadic, instances of such influence were by no means rare.

§ 10.1. Influence of Heathenism upon Judaism.—This reached its greatest strength in Egypt, the special centre and source of the syncretic tendencies of the age. Forming for itself by means of the adoption of Greek culture and especially of the Platonic philosophy a more universal basis of culture, Jewish Hellenism flourished in Alexandria. After Aristobulus, who wrote Ἐξηγήσεις τῆς Μωυσέως, about B.C. 170, now only found in a fragment of doubtful authority, and the author of the Book of Wisdom, the chief representative of this tendency was the Alexandrian Jew Philo, a contemporary of Christ. His Platonism enriched by elements drawn from Old Testament revelation and from the doctrines of the Essenes has on many points carried its speculation to the very borders of Christianity, and has formed a scaffolding for the Christian philosophy of the Church Fathers. He taught that all nations have received a share of divine truth, but that the actual founder and father of all true philosophy was Moses, whose legislation and teaching formed the source of information for even the Greek Philosophy and Mysteriosophy. But it is only by means of allegorical interpretation that such depths can be discovered. God is τὸ ὄν, matter τὸ μὴ ὄν. An intermediate world, corresponding to the Platonic world of ideas, is the κόσμος νοητός, consisting of innumerable spirits and powers, angels and souls of men, but bound together into a unity in and issuing from the Word of God, who as the λόγος ἐνδιαθετός was embraced in God from eternity, coming forth from God as the λόγος προφορικός for the creation of the world (thought and word). The visible world, on account of the physical impotence of matter, is an imperfect representation of the κόσμος νοητός, etc. On the ground of the writing De vita contemplativa attributed to Philo, the Therapeutæ, or worshippers of God, mentioned therein, had been regarded as a contemplative ascetic sect related to the Essenes, affected by an Alexandrian philosophical spirit, living a sort of monastic life in the neighbourhood of Alexandria, until Lucius (Strassb., 1879) withdrew them from the domain of history to that of Utopian romance conceived in support of a special theory. This scholar has proved that the writing referred to cannot possibly be assigned to Philo, but must have been composed about the end of the third century in the interest of Christian monasticism, for which it presented an idealizing apology. This, however, has been contested by Weingarten, in Herzog, x. 761, on good grounds, and the origin of the book has been assigned to a period soon after Philo, when Hellenistic Judaism was subjected to a great variety of religious and philosophical influences.[5]

§ 10.2. Influence of Judaism upon Heathenism.—The heathen state showed itself generally tolerant toward Judaism. Alexander the Great and his successors, the Ptolemies, to some extent also the Seleucidæ, allowed the Jews the free exercise of their religion and various privileges, while the Romans allowed Judaism to rank as a religio licita. Nevertheless the Jews were universally despised and hated. Tacitus calls them despectissima pars servientium, teterrima gens; and even the better class of writers, such as Manetho, Justin, Tacitus, gave currency to the most absurd stories and malicious calumnies against them. In opposition to these the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus took pains to overcome the prejudices of Greeks and Romans against his nation, by presenting to them its history and institutions in the most favourable light. But on the other side, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, called the Septuagint, as well as the multitude of Jewish synagogues, which during the Roman period were scattered over the whole world, afforded to every heathen interested therein the opportunity of discovering by personal examination and inquiry the characteristic principles of Judaism. When, therefore, we consider the utterly corrupt condition of heathenism, we cannot wonder that Judaism, in spite of all the contempt that was thrown upon it, would attract, by reason of its hoary antiquity and the sublime simplicity of its creed, the significance of its worship, and its Messianic promises, many of the better aspiring heathens, who were no longer satisfied with their sorely degraded forms of religion. And though indeed only a few enrolled themselves as “Proselytes of Righteousness,” entering the Jewish community by submitting to the rite of circumcision, the number of the “Proselytes of the Gate” who without observing the whole of the ceremonial law undertook to abandon their idols and to worship Jehovah, in all ranks of society, mostly women, was very considerable, and it was just among them that Christianity found the most hearty and friendly acceptance.

§ 11. THE FULNESS OF TIME.

The fulness of the olden time had come when the dawn of a new era burst forth over the mountains of Judea. All that Judaism and heathenism had been able to do in preparing the way for this new era had now been done. Heathenism was itself conscious of its impotence and unfitness for satisfying the religious needs of the human spirit, and wherever it had not fallen into dreary unbelief or wild superstition, it struggled and agonized, aspiring after something better. In this way negatively a path was prepared for the church. In science and art, as well as in general intellectual culture, heathenism had produced something great and imperishable; and ineffectual as these in themselves had proved to restore again to man the peace which he had lost and now sought after, they might become effectually helpful for such purposes when made subservient to the true salvation. And so far heathenism was a positive helper to the church. The impression that a crisis in the world’s history was near at hand was universal among Jews and Gentiles. The profound realization of the need was a presage of the time of fulfilment. All true Israelites waited for the promised Messiah, and even in heathenism the ancient hope of the return of the Golden Age was again brought to the front, and had, from the sacred scriptures and synagogues of the Jews, obtained a new holding ground and a definite direction. The heathen state, too, made its own contribution toward preparing the way of the church. One sceptre and one language united the whole world, a universal peace prevailed, and the most widely extended commercial intercourse gave opportunity for the easy and rapid spread of saving truth.

THE HISTORY OF THE BEGINNINGS.

The Founding of the Church by Christ and His Apostles.

§ 12. CHARACTER OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEGINNINGS.

The propriety in a treatise on general church history of separating the Times of Jesus and the Times of the Apostles, closely connected therewith, from the History of the Development of the Church, and giving to them a distinct place under the title of the History of the Beginnings, rests on the fact that in those times we have the germs and principles of all that follows. The unique capacity of the Apostles, resulting from special enlightenment and endowment, makes that which they have done of vital importance for all subsequent development. In our estimation of each later form of the church’s existence we must go back to the doctrine and practice of Christ and His Apostles as the standard, not as to a finally completed form that has exhausted all possibilities of development, and made all further advance and growth impossible or useless, but rather as to the authentic fresh germs and beginnings of the church, so that not only what in later development is found to have existed in the same form in the beginning is recognised as genuinely Christian, but also that which is seen to be a development and growth of that primitive form.

I. THE LIFE OF JESUS.

§ 13. JESUS CHRIST, THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD.

“But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Gal. iv. 4, 5). In accordance with prophetic announcements, He was born in Bethlehem as the Son of David, and, after John the Baptist, the last of the prophets of the Old Covenant, had prepared His way by the preaching of repentance and the baptism of repentance, He began in the thirtieth year of His age His fulfilment by life and teaching of the law and the prophets. With twelve chosen disciples He travelled up and down through the land of the Jews, preaching the kingdom of God, helping and healing, and by miracles and signs confirming His divine mission and doctrine. The Pharisees contradicted and persecuted Him, the Sadducees disregarded Him, and the people vacillated between acclamations and execrations. After three years’ activity, amid the hosannas of the multitude, He made His royal entry into the city of His kingly ancestors. But the same crowd, disappointed in their political and carnal Messianic expectations, a few days later raised the cry: Crucify Him, crucify Him! Thus then He suffered according to the gracious good pleasure of the Father the death of the cross for the sins of the world. The Prince of life, however, could not be holden of death. He burst the gates of Hades, as well as the barriers of the grave, and rose again the third day. For forty days He lingered here below, promised His disciples the gift of His Holy Spirit, and commissioned them to preach the gospel to all nations. Then upon His ascension He assumed the divine form of which He had emptied Himself during His incarnation, and sits now at the right hand of power as the Head of His church and the Lord of all that is named in heaven and on earth, until visibly and in glory, according to the promise, He returns again at the restitution of all things.

§ 13.1. In regard to the year of the birth and the year of the death of the Redeemer no absolutely certain result can now be attained. The usual Christian chronology constructed by Dionysius Exiguus in the sixth century, first employed by the Venerable Bede, and brought into official use by Charlemagne, assumes the year 754 A.U.C. as the date of Christ’s birth, which is evidently wrong, since, in A.D. 750 or 751, Herod the Great was already dead. Zumpt takes the seventh, others the third, fourth, or fifth year before our era. The length of Christ’s public ministry was fixed by many Church Fathers, in accordance with Isaiah lxi. 1, 2, and Luke iv. 19, at one year, and it was consequently assumed that Christ was crucified when thirty years of age (Luke iii. 21). The synoptists indeed speak only of one passover, the last, during Christ’s ministry; but John (ii. 13; vi. 4; xii. 1) speaks of three, and also besides (v. 1) of a ἑορτὴ τῶν Ἰουδαίων.

§ 13.2. Among the non-biblical witnesses to Christ the earliest is probably a Syrian Epistle of Mara to his son Serapion, written, according to Cureton (“Spicileg. Syriacum.” Lond., 1855), about A.D. 73. The father, highly cultured in Greek wisdom but dissatisfied with it, writes from exile words of comfort and exhortation to his son, in which he places Christ alongside of Socrates and Pythagoras, and honours him as the wise King, by whose death the Jews had brought upon themselves the swift overthrow of their kingdom, who would, however, although slain, live for ever in the new land which He has given. To this period also belongs the witness of the Jewish historian Josephus, which in its probably genuine portions praises Jesus as a worker of miracles and teacher of wisdom, and testifies to His death on the cross under Pilate, as well as the founding of the church in His name. Distinctly and wholly spurious is the Correspondence of Christ with Abgar, Prince of Edessa, who entreats Christ to come to Edessa to heal him and is comforted of the Lord by the sending of one of His disciples after His ascension. This document was first communicated by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., i. 13) from the Archives of Edessa in a literal translation from the Syriac, and is also to be found in the Syrian book Doctrina Addæi (§ 32, 6). Of a similar kind are the apocryphal Acta Pilati, as well the heathen form which has perished (§ 22, 7), as the Christian form which is still extant (§ 32, 4). An Epistle of Lentulus, pretending to be from a Roman resident in Palestine on terms of intimacy with Pilate, containing a description of the appearance of Christ, is quoted, and even then as a forgery, by Laurentius Valla in his writing on the Donation of Constantine. Since in many particulars it agrees with the description of the person of Christ given in the Church History by Nicephorus Callisti (§ 5, 1), in accordance with the type then prevailing among Byzantine painters, it may fairly be regarded as an apocryphal Latin retouching of that description originating in the fifteenth century. At Edessa a picture of Christ was known to exist in the fourth century (according to the Doctr. Addæi), which must have been brought thither by the messengers of Abgar, who had picked it up in Jerusalem. During the fourth century mention is made of a statue of Christ, first of all by Eusebius, who himself had seen it. This was said to have been set up in Paneas by the woman cured of the issue of blood (Matt. ix. 20). It represents a woman entreating help, kneeling before the lofty figure of a man who stretches out his hand to her, while at his feet a healing herb springs up. In all probability, however, it was simply a votive figure dedicated to the god of healing, Æsculapius. The legend that has been current since the fifth century of the sweat-marked handkerchief of Veronica—this name being derived either from vera icon, the true likeness, or from Bernice or Beronice, the name given in apocryphal legends to the woman with the issue of blood,—on which the face of the Redeemer which had been wiped by it was imprinted, probably arose through the transferring to other incidents the legendary story of Edessa. On the occurrence of similar transferences see § 57, 5.

II. THE APOSTOLIC AGE.

A.D. 30-70.

§ 14. THE MINISTRY OF THE APOSTLES BEFORE PAUL.

After the Apostolate had been again by means of the lot raised to the significant number of twelve, amid miraculous manifestations, the Holy Spirit was poured out on the waiting disciples as they were assembled together on the day of Pentecost, ten days after the Ascension of the Lord. It was the birthday of the church, and its first members were won by the preaching of Peter to the wondering multitude. By means of the ministry of the Apostles, who at first restricted themselves to Jerusalem, the church grew daily. A keen persecution, however, on the part of the Jews, beginning with the execution of the deacon Stephen, scattered them apart, so that the knowledge of the gospel was carried throughout all Palestine, and down into Phœnicia and Syria. Philip preached with peculiarly happy results in Samaria. Peter soon began a course of visitation through the land of Jews, and at Cæsarea received into the church by baptism the first Gentile family, that of Cornelius, having been prepared for this beforehand by a vision. At the same time there arose independently at Antioch in Syria a Christian congregation, composed of Jews and Gentiles, through the great eagerness of the Gentiles for salvation. The Levite Barnabas, a man of strong faith, was sent down from Jerusalem, took upon himself the care of this church, and strengthened his own ministry by securing Paul, the converted Pharisee, as his colleague. This great man, some years before, by the appearing of Christ to him on the way to Damascus, had been changed from a fanatical persecutor into a zealous friend and promoter of the interests of the church. Thus it came about that the Apostolic mission broke up into two different sections, one of which was purely Jewish and had for its centre and starting point the mother church at Jerusalem, while the other, issuing from Antioch, addressed itself to a mixed audience, and preeminently to the Gentiles.

It is difficult to determine with chronological exactness either the beginning (§ 13, 1) or the close of the Apostolic Age. Still we cannot be far wrong in taking A.D. 30 as the beginning and A.D. 70 as the close of that period. The last perfectly certain and uncontested date of the Apostolic Age is the martyrdom of the Apostle Paul in A.D. 64, or perhaps A.D. 67, see § 15, 1. We have it on good evidence that James the elder died about A.D. 44, and James the Just about A.D. 63 (§ 16, 3), that Peter suffered martyrdom contemporaneously with Paul (§ 16, 1), that about the same time or not long after the most of the other Apostles had been in all probability already taken home, at least in regard to their life and work after the days of Paul, we have not the slightest information that can lay any claim to be regarded as historical. The Apostle John forms the only exception to this statement. According to important witnesses from the middle and end of the second century (§ 16, 2), he entered upon his special field of labour in Asia Minor after the death of Paul, and continued to live and labour there, with the temporary interruption of an exile in Patmos, down to the time of Trajan, A.D. 98-117. But the insufficient data which we possess regarding the nature, character, extent, success, and consequences of his Apostolic activity there are partly, if not in themselves altogether incredible, interesting only as anecdotes, and partly wholly fabulous, and therefore little fitted to justify us, simply on their account, in assigning the end of the first or the beginning of the second century as the close of the Apostolic Age. We are thus brought back again to the year of Paul’s death as indicating approximately the close of that period. But seeing that the precise year of this occurrence is matter of discussion, the adoption of the round number 70 may be recommended, all the more as with this year, in which the last remnant of Jewish national independence was lost, the opposition between Jewish and Gentile Christianity, which had prevailed throughout the Apostolic Age, makes its appearance under a new phase (§ 28).

§ 15. THE MINISTRY OF THE APOSTLE PAUL.

Set apart to the work by the church by prayer and laying on of hands, Paul and Barnabas started from Antioch on their first missionary journey to Asia Minor, A.D. 48-50. Notwithstanding much opposition and actual persecution on the part of the enraged Jews, he founded mixed churches, composed principally of Gentile Christians, comprising congregations at Antioch in Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. When Paul undertook his second missionary journey, A.D. 52-55, Barnabas separated himself from him because of his refusal to accept the company of his nephew John Mark, who had deserted them during their first journey, and along with Mark embarked upon an independent mission, beginning with his native country Cyprus; of the success of this mission nothing is known. Paul, on the other hand, accompanied by Silas and Luke, with whom at a later period Timothy also was associated, passed through Asia Minor, and would thereafter have returned to Antioch had not a vision by night at Troas led him to take ship for Europe. There he founded churches at Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, and Corinth, and then returned through Asia Minor to Syria. Without any lengthened interval he entered upon his third missionary journey, A.D. 55-58, accompanied by Luke, Titus, and Timothy. The centre of his ministerial activity during this period was Ephesus, where he founded a church with a large membership. His success was extraordinary, so that the very existence of heathenism in Asia Minor was seriously imperilled. Driven away by the uprising of a heathen mob, he travelled through Macedonia, pressed on to Illyricum, visited the churches of Greece, and then went to Jerusalem, for the performance of a vow. Here his life, threatened by the excited Jews, was saved by his being put in prison by the Roman captain, and then sent down to Cæsarea, A.D. 58. An appeal to Cæsar, to which as a Roman citizen he was entitled, resulted in his being sent to Rome, where he, beginning with the spring of A.D. 61, lived and preached for several years, enduring a mild form of imprisonment. The further course of his life and ministry remains singularly uncertain. Of the later labours and fortunes of Paul’s fellow-workers we know absolutely nothing.

It may be accepted as a well authenticated and incontestable fact that Paul suffered martyrdom at Rome under Nero. This is established by the testimony of Clement of Rome—μαρτυρήσας ἐπὶ τῶν ἡγουμένων οὕτως ἀπηλλάγη τοῦ κοσμοῦ,—and is further explained and confirmed by Dionysius of Corinth, quoted in Eusebius, and by Irenæus, Tertullian, Caius of Rome (§ 16, 1). On the other hand it is disputed whether it may have happened during the imprisonment spoken about in the Acts of the Apostles, or during a subsequent imprisonment. According to the tradition of the church given currency to by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., ii. 22), which even in our own time has been maintained by many capable scholars, Paul was released from his first Roman imprisonment shortly before the outburst of Nero’s persecution of the Christians in A.D. 64 (§ 22, 1), and made a fourth missionary journey which was brought to a close by his being a second time arrested and subsequently beheaded at Rome in A.D. 67. The proofs, however, that are offered in support of this assertion are of a very doubtful character. Paul certainly in A.D. 58 had the intention (Rom. xv. 24, 28) after a short visit to Rome to proceed to Spain; and when from his prison in Rome he wrote to Philemon (v. 22) and to the Philippians (i. 25; ii. 24), he believed that his cherished hope of yet regaining his liberty would be realised; but there is no further mention of a journey into Spain, for apparently other altogether different plans of travel are in his mind. And indeed circumstances may easily be conceived as arising to blast such hopes and produce in him that spirit of hopeless resignation, which he gives expression to in 2 Tim. iv. 6 ff. But the words of Clement of Rome, chap. 5: δικαιοσύνην διδάξας ὅλον τὸν κόσμον καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ τέρμα τῆς δύσεως ἐλθών, etc., are too indefinite and rhetorical to be taken as a certain testimony on behalf of a Spanish missionary journey. The incomplete reference in the Muratorian Fragment (§ 36, 8) to a profectio Pauli ab Urbe ad Spaniam proficiscentis may be thought to afford more direct testimony, but probably it is nothing more than a reminiscence of Rom. xv. 24, 28. Much more important, nay almost conclusive, in the opposite direction, is the entire absence, not only from all the patristic, but also from all the apocryphal, literature of the second and third centuries, of any allusion to a fourth missionary journey or a second imprisonment of the Apostle. The assertion of Eusebius introduced by a vague λόγος ἔχει can scarcely be regarded as outweighing this objection. Consequently the majority of modern investigators have decided in favour of the theory of one imprisonment. But then the important question arises as to whether the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, claiming to be Pauline, with the journeys referred to or presupposed in them, and the residences of the Apostle and his two assistants, can find a place in the framework of the narrative in the Acts of the Apostles, and if so, what that place may be. In answering this question those investigators take diverse views. Of those who cannot surrender their conviction that the Pastoral Epistles are genuine, some assign them to the Apostle’s residence of almost three years in Ephesus, others to the imprisonment in Cæsarea which lasted two years and a half, and others to the Roman imprisonment of almost three years. Others again, looking upon such expedients as inadmissible, deny the authenticity of the Pastoral Epistles, these having appeared to them worthy of suspicion on other grounds.

§ 16. THE OTHER APOSTLES AFTER THE APPEARANCE OF THE APOSTLE PAUL.

Only in reference to the most distinguished of the Apostles have any trustworthy accounts reached us. James the brother of John, at an early period, in A.D. 44, suffered a martyr’s death at Jerusalem. Peter was obliged by this persecution to quit Jerusalem for a time. Inclination and his special calling marked him out as the Apostle of the Jews (Gal. ii. 7-9). His ministry outside of Palestine was exercised, according to 1 Pet. i. 1, in the countries round about the Black Sea, and, according to chap. v. 13, extended to Babylon. The legend that, contemporaneously with the beheading of Paul, he suffered death by crucifixion under Nero at Rome (John xxi. 18, 19), is doubtful; and it is also questionable whether he ever went to Rome, while the story of his having down to the time of his death been Bishop of Rome for twenty-five years is wholly fabulous. John, according to the tradition of the church, took up Asia Minor as his special field of labour after it had been deprived of its first Apostle by the martyr death of Paul, fixing his residence at Ephesus. At the head of the mother church of Jerusalem stood James the Just, the brother of the Lord. He seems never to have left Jerusalem, and was stoned by the Jews between A.D. 63-69. Regarding the rest of the Apostles and their fellow-workers we have only legendary traditions of an extremely untrustworthy description, and even these have come down to us in very imperfect and corrupt forms.

§ 16.1. The Roman Episcopate of Peter.—The tradition that Peter, after having for some years held the office of bishop at Antioch, became first Bishop of Rome, holding the office for twenty-five years (A.D. 42-67), and suffered martyrdom at the same time with Paul, had its origin in the series of heretical apocryphal writings, out of which sprang, both the romance of the Clementine Homilies and Recognitions (§ 28, 3), and the Ebionite Acts of Peter; but it attained its complete form only at the end of the fourth century, after it had been transplanted into the soil of the church tradition through the Acta Petri et Pauli (§ 32, 6). What chiefly secured currency and development to this tradition was the endeavour, ever growing in strength in Rome, to vindicate on behalf of the Roman Episcopate as the legitimate successor and heir to all the prerogatives alleged to have been conferred on Peter in Matt. xvi. 18, a title to primacy over all the churches (§ 34, 8; 46, 3 ff.). But that Peter had not really been in Rome as a preacher of the gospel previous to the year A.D. 61, when Paul came to Rome as a prisoner, is evident from the absence of any reference to the fact in the Epistle to the Romans, written in A.D. 58, as well as in the concluding chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. According to the Acts, Peter in A.D. 44 lay in prison at Jerusalem, and according to Gal. ii., he was still there in A.D. 51. Besides, according to the unanimous verdict of tradition, as expressed by Irenæus, Eusebius, Rufinus, and the Apostolic Constitutions, not Peter, but Linus, was the first Bishop of Rome, and it is only in regard to the order of his successors, Anacletus and Clement, that any real uncertainty or discrepancy occurs. This, indeed, by no means prevents us from admitting an appearance of Peter at Rome resulting in his martyrdom. But the testimonies in favour thereof are not of such a kind as to render its historical reality unquestionable. That Babylon is mentioned in 1 Pet. v. 13 as the place where this Epistle was composed, can scarcely be used as a serious argument, since the supposition that Babylon is a symbolical designation of Rome as the centre of anti-Christian heathenism, though quite conceivable and widely current in the early church, is not by any means demonstrable. Toward the end of the first century, Clement of Rome relates the martyrdom of Peter as well as of Paul, but he does not even say that it took place at Rome. On the other hand, clear and unmistakable statements are found in Dionysius of Corinth, about A.D. 170, then in Caius of Rome, in Irenæus and Tertullian, to the effect that Peter and Paul exercised their ministry together and suffered martyrdom together at Rome. These statements, however, are interwoven with obviously false and fabulous dates to such a degree that their credibility is rendered extremely doubtful. Nevertheless they prove this much, that already about the end of the second century, the story of the two Apostles suffering martyrdom together at Rome was believed, and that some, of whom Caius tells us, professed to know their graves and to have their bones in their possession.

§ 16.2. The Apostle John.—Soon after the death of Paul, the Apostle John settled in Ephesus, and there, with the temporary break caused by his exile to Patmos (Rev. i. 9), he continued to preside over the church of Asia Minor down to his death in the time of Trajan (A.D. 98-117). This rests upon the church tradition which, according to Polycrates of Ephesus (Eus., Hist. Eccl., v. 24) and Irenæus, a scholar of Polycarp’s (Eus., iv. 14), was first set forth during the Easter controversies (§ 37, 2) in the middle of the second century by Polycarp of Smyrna, and has been accepted as unquestionable through all ages down to our own. According to Irenæus (Eus., iii. 18), his exile occurred under Domitian; the Syrian translation of the Apocalypse, which was made in the sixth century, assigned it to the time of Nero. But seeing that, except in Rev. i. 11, neither in the New Testament scriptures, nor in the extant writings and fragments of the Church Fathers of the second century before Irenæus, is a residence of the Apostle John at Ephesus asserted or assumed, whereas Papias (§ 30, 6), according to Georgius Hamartolus, a chronicler of the 9th cent., who had read the now lost work of Papias, expressly declares that the Apostle John was slain “by Jews” (comp. Matt. xx. 23), which points to Palestine rather than to Asia Minor, modern critics have denied the credibility of that ecclesiastical tradition, and have attributed its origin to a confusion between the Apostle John and a certain John the Presbyter, with whom we first meet in the Papias-Fragment quoted in Eusebius as μαθητὴς τοῦ κυρίου. Others again, while regarding the residence of the Apostle at Ephesus as well established, have sought, on account of differences in style standpoint and general mode of thought in the Johannine Apocalypse on the one hand, and the Johannine Gospel and Epistles on the other hand, to assign them to two distinct μαθηταὶ τοῦ κυρίου of the same name, and by assigning the Apocalypse to the Presbyter and the Gospel and Epistles to the Apostle, they would in this way account for the residence at Ephesus. This is the course generally taken by the Mediation theologians of Schleiermacher’s school. The advanced liberal critics of the school of Baur assign the Apocalypse to the Apostle and the Gospel and Epistles to the Presbyter, or else instead of the Apostle assume a third John otherwise unknown. Conservative orthodox theology again maintains the unity of authorship of all the Johannean writings, explains the diversity of character discernible in the different works by a change on the part of the Apostle from the early Judæo-Christian standpoint (Gal. ii. 9), which is still maintained in the Apocalypse, to the ideal universalistic standpoint assumed in the Gospel and the Epistles, and is inclined to identify the Presbyter of Papias with the Apostle. Even in Tertullian we meet with the tradition that under Nero the Apostle had been thrown into a vat of boiling oil, and in Augustine we are told how he emptied a poisoned cup without suffering harm. It is a charming story at least that Clement of Alexandria tells of the faithful pastoral care which the aged Apostle took in a youth who had fallen so far as to become a bandit chief. Of such a kind, too, is the story told of the Apostle by Jerome, how in the extreme weakness of old age he had to be carried into the assemblies of the congregation, and with feeble accents could only whisper, Little children, love one another. According to Irenæus, when by accident he met with the heretic Cerinthus (§ 27, 1) in the bath, he immediately rushed out to avoid any contact with him.

§ 16.3. James, the brother of the Lord.—The name of James was borne by two of the twelve disciples of Jesus: James, the son of Zebedee and brother of John, who was put to death by the command of Herod Agrippa I. (Acts xii. 2) about A.D. 44, and James, son of Alphæus, about whom we have no further information. A third James, designated in Gal. i. 19 the brother of the Lord, who according to Hegesippus (Euseb., Hist. Eccl., ii. 23) on account of his scrupulous fulfilment of the law received the title of the Just, is met with in Acts xii. 17; xv. 13; xxi. 18, and is recognised by Paul (Gal. i. 19; ii. 9-12) as the President of the church in Jerusalem. According to Hegesippus (§ 31, 7), he was from his childhood a Nazirite, and shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem, the Jews at the Passover having desired of him a testimony against Christ, and he having instead given a powerful testimony on His behalf, he was hurled down from a pinnacle of the temple, stoned, and at last, while praying for his enemies, slain by the blows of a fuller’s club. According to Josephus, however, Ananus, the high priest, after the recall of the Proconsul Festus and before the arrival of his successor Albinus, along with other men hostile to James, hastily condemned him and had him stoned, about A.D. 63. In regard to the person of this last-named James three different theories have been proposed.

1. In the ancient church, the brothers of Jesus, of whom besides James other three, Joses, Simon, and Judas, are named, were regarded undoubtedly as step-brothers of Jesus, sons of Joseph and Mary (Matt. i. 25), and even Tertullian argues from the existence of brothers of the Redeemer according to the flesh against the Docetism of the Gnostics.

2. Soon, however, it came to be felt that the idea that Joseph had conjugal intercourse with Mary after the birth of Jesus was in conflict with the ascetic tendency now rising into favour, and so to help themselves out of this embarrassment, it was assumed that the brothers of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a former wife.

3. The want of biblical foundation for this view was the occasion of its being abandoned in favour of a theory, first hinted at by Jerome, according to which the expression brothers of Jesus is to be taken in a wider sense as meaning cousins, and in this way James the brother of the Lord was identified with James the son of Alphæus, one of the twelve disciples, and the four or five Jameses named in the New Testament were reduced to two, James the son of Zebedee and James son of Alphæus. It was specially urged from John xix. 25 that James the son of Alphæus was the sister’s son of Jesus’ mother. This was done by a purely arbitrary identification of the name Clopas or Cleophas with the Alphæus of the Synoptists, the rendering of the words Μαρία τοῦ Κλωπᾶ by the wife of Clopas, and also the assumption, which is scarcely conceivable, that the sister of the mother of Jesus was also called Mary. We should therefore in this passage regard the sister of the mother of Jesus and Mary wife of Clopas as two distinct persons. In that case the wife of Alphæus may have been called Mary and have had two sons who, like two of the four brothers of Jesus, were named James and Joses (Matt. xxvii. 56; Mark xv. 40; Luke xxiv. 10); but even then, in the James here mentioned, we should meet with another James otherwise unknown, different from the James son of Alphæus in the list of the Apostles, whose name occurs in Luke xv. 16 and Acts i. 13 in the phrase Judas of James, where the genitive undoubtedly means brother of James son of Alphæus. And though in Gal. i. 19, James the brother of the Lord seems to be called an Apostle, when this is compared with Acts xiv. 14, it affords no proof that he belonged to the number of the twelve.

But the fact that the brothers of Jesus are all and always expressly distinguished from His twelve Apostles, and form a group outwardly and inwardly apart from them (Matt. xii. 46; Mark iii. 31; Luke viii. 19; John ii. 12), tells decidedly against that idea. In John vii. 3, 5, they are, at a time when James son of Alphæus and Judas brother of James were already in the Apostolate, described as unbelieving, and only subsequently to the departure of the Lord, who after His resurrection appeared to James (1 Cor. xv. 7), do we meet them, though even then distinguished from the twelve, standing in the closest fellowship with the Christian believing community (Acts i. 14; 1 Cor. ix. 5). Besides, in accordance with Matt. xxviii. 19, none of the twelve could assume the permanent presidency of the mother church, and Hegesippus not only knows of πολλοὶ Ἰάκωβοι, and so surely of more than two, but makes James enter upon his office in Jerusalem first μετὰ τῶν ἀποστόλων.

§ 16.4. The Later Legends of the Apostles.—The tradition that after the Lord’s ascension His disciples, their number having been again made up to twelve (Acts i. 13), in fulfilment of their Lord’s command (Matt. xxviii. 18), had a special region for missionary labour assigned by lot to each, and also the other tradition, according to which, before their final departure from Jerusalem, after a stay there for seven or twelve years, they drew up by common agreement rules for worship, discipline and constitution suited to the requirements of universal Christendom, took shape about the middle of the second century, and gave occasion to the origin of many apocryphal histories of the Apostles (§ 32, 5, 6), as well as apocryphal books of church order (§ 43, 4, 5). Whether any portion at all, and if so, how much, of the various contradictory statements of the apocryphal histories and legends of the Apostles about their mission fields and several fortunes can be regarded as genuine tradition descending from the Apostolic Age, must be left undecided. In any case, the legendary drapery and embellishment of casual genuine reminiscences are in the highest degree fantastic and fabulous. Ancient at least, according to Eusebius, are the traditions of Thomas having preached in Parthia, Andrew in Scythia, and Bartholomew in India; while in later traditions Thomas figures as the Apostle of India (§ 32, 5). The statement by Eusebius, supported from many ancient authorities, that the Apostle Philip exercised his ministry from Hierapolis in Phrygia to Asia Minor, originated perhaps from the confounding of the Apostle with the Evangelist of the same name (Acts xxi. 8, 9). A history of the Apostle Barnabas, attributed to John Mark, but in reality dating only from the fifth century, attaching itself to Acts xv. 39, tells how he conducted his mission and suffered martyrdom in his native country of Cyprus; while another set of legends, probably belonging to the same period, makes him the founder of the church of Milan. John Mark, sister’s son of Barnabas, who appears in Col. iv. 10; 2 Tim. iv. 11; and Philem. 24, as the fellow-labourer of the Apostle Paul, in 1 Pet. v. 13 as companion of Peter at Babylon, and, according to Papias, wrote his gospel at Rome as the amanuensis of Peter, is honoured, according to another very widely received tradition, quoted by Eusebius from a Chronicle belonging to the end of the second century, from which also Julius Africanus drew information, as the founder and first bishop of the church of Alexandria, etc., etc.

§ 17. CONSTITUTION, WORSHIP, AND DISCIPLINE.[6]

Bound under Christ its one head into an articulated whole, the church ought by the co-operation of all its members conditioned and determined by position, talent, and calling, to build itself up and grow (1 Cor. xii. 12 ff.; Eph. i. 22 f.). Development will thus be secured to natural talent and the spiritual calling through the bestowment of special gifts of grace or charismata. The first form of Christian church fellowship, in the Jewish as well as the Gentile Christian churches, was of a thoroughly free character; modelled upon, and attached to, forms of organization already existing and legitimized, or, at least, tolerated by the state, but all the while inspired and leavened by a free Christian spirit. Compelled by the necessity which is felt in all social federations for the recognised ranking of superiority, inferiority, and equality, in which his own proper sphere and task would be assigned to each member, and encroachment and disorderliness prevented, a collegial church council was soon formed by a free compact, the members of which, all possessed of equal rights, were called πρεσβύτεροι in consideration of their personal character, and ἐπίσκοποι in consideration of their official duties. Upon them devolved especially attention and care in regard to all outward things that might affect the common interests of the church, management of the property which had to be realised and spent on the religious services, and of the means required for the support of the poor, as well as the administration of justice and of discipline. But alongside of these were other more independent offices, the holders of which did not go forth like the members of the eldership as the choice of the churches, but rather had the spiritual edification of the church assigned them as their life work by a special divine call and a charismatic endowment of the gift of teaching. To this class belong, besides Apostles and helpers of the Apostles, Prophets, Pastors, and Teachers.

§ 17.1. The Charismata of the Apostolic Age are presented to us in 1 Cor. xii. 4 ff. as signs (φανερώσεις, v. 7) of the presence of the Spirit of God working in the church, which, attaching themselves to natural endowment and implying a free personal surrender to their influence, and manifesting themselves in various degrees of intensity from the natural to the supernatural, qualified certain members of the church with the powers necessary and desirable for the upbuilding and extension of the Christian community. In verses 8-11, the Charismata are arranged in three classes by means of the twice-repeated ἑτέρω.

1. Gifts of Teaching, embracing the λόγος σοφίας and the λόγος γνώσεως.

2. Completeness of Faith, or πίστις with the possession of supernatural powers for healing the sick, working miracles, and prophesying, and alongside of the latter, for sifting and proving it, διάκρισις πνευμάτων.

3. Ecstatic speaking with tongues, γένη γλωσσῶν, γλώσσαις λαλεῖν, alongside of which is placed the interpretation of tongues necessary for the understanding thereof ἑρμενεία γλωσσῶν.

In addition to these three are mentioned, in verse 28, ἀντιλήψεις, care of the poor, the sick and strangers, and κυβερνήσεις, church government. The essential distinction between speaking with tongues and prophesying consists, according to 1 Cor. xiv. 1-18, in this, that whereas the latter is represented as an inspiration by the Spirit of God, acting upon the consciousness, the νοῦς of the prophet, and therefore requiring no further explanation to render it applicable for the edification of the congregation, the former is represented as an ecstatic utterance, wholly uncontrolled by the νοῦς of the human instrument, yet employing the human organs of speech, γλῶσσαι, which leaves the assembled congregation out of view and addresses itself directly to God, so that in ver. 13-15 it is called a προσεύχεσθαι, being made intelligible to the audience only by means of the charismatic interpretation of men immediately acted upon for the purpose by the Spirit of God. In Rom. xii. 6-8, although there the charisms are enumerated in even greater details, so as to include even the showing of mercy with cheerfulness, the γλώσσαις λαλεῖν is wanting. It would thus seem that this sort of spiritual display, if not exclusively (Acts ii. 4; x. 46; xix. 6; Mark xvi. 17), yet with peculiar fondness, which was by no means commended by the Apostle, was fostered in the church of Corinth. The thoroughly unique speaking with tongues which took place on the first Pentecost (Acts ii. 6, 11) is certainly not to be understood as implying that the Apostles had been either temporarily or permanently qualified to speak in the several languages and dialects of those present from all the countries of the dispersion. It probably means simply that the power was conferred upon the speakers of speaking with tongues and that at the same time an analogous endowment of the interpretation of tongues was conferred upon those who heard (Comp., Acts ii. 12, 15, with 1 Cor. xiv. 22 f.).

§ 17.2. The Constitution of the Mother Church at Jerusalem.—The notion which gained currency through Vitringa’s learned work “De synagoga vetere,” publ. 1696, that the constitution of the Apostolic church was moulded upon the pattern of the synagogues, is now no longer seriously entertained. Not only in regard to the Pauline churches wholly or chiefly composed of Gentile Christians, but also in regard to the Palestinian churches of purely Jewish Christians, no evidence in support of such a theory can be found. There is no sort of analogy between any office bearers in the church and the ἀρχισυνάγωγοι who were essentially characteristic of all the synagogues both in Palestine and among the dispersion (Mark v. 22; Luke viii. 41, 49; Acts xiii. 15; xviii. 8, 17), nor do we find anything to correspond to the ὑπήρεται or inferior officers of the synagogue (Luke iv. 20). On the other hand, the office bearers of the Christian churches, who, consisting, according to Acts vi., of deacons, and also afterwards, according to Acts xi. 30, of πρεσβύτεροι, or elders of the church at Jerusalem, occupied a place alongside of the Apostles in the government of the church, are without any analogy in the synagogues. The Jewish πρεσβύτεροι τοῦ λαοῦ mentioned in Matt. xxi. 23; xxvi. 3; Acts iv. 5; xxii. 5, etc., did not exercise a ministry of teaching and edification in the numerous synagogues of Jerusalem, but a legislatory, judicial and civil authority over the whole Jewish commonwealth as members of the Sanhedrim, of chief priest, scribes and elders. Between even these, however, and the elders of the Christian church a far-reaching difference exists. The Jewish elders are indeed representatives of the people, and have as such a seat and vote in the supreme council, but no voice is allowed to the people themselves. In the council of the Christian church, on the other hand, with reference to all important questions, the membership of all believers is called together for consultation and deliverance (Acts vi. 2-6; xv. 4, 22). A complaint on the part of the Hellenistic members of the church that their poor were being neglected led to the election of seven men who should care for the poor, not by the Apostles, but by the church. This is commonly but erroneously regarded as the first institution of the deaconship. To those then chosen, for whom the Acts (xxi. 8) has no other designation than that of “the seven,” the διακονεῖν τραπέζαις is certainly assigned: but they were not and were not called Deacons in the official sense any more than the Apostles, who still continued, according to v. 4, to exercise the διακονία τοῦ λόγου. When the bitter persecution that followed the stoning of Stephen had scattered the church abroad over the neighbouring countries, they also departed at the same time from Jerusalem (Acts viii. 1), and Philip, who was now the most notable of their number, officiated henceforth only as an evangelist, that is, as an itinerant preacher of the gospel, in the region about his own house in Cæsarea (Acts viii. 5; xxi. 8; comp. Eph. iv. 11; 2 Tim. iv. 5). Upon the reorganization of the church at Jerusalem, the Apostles beginning more clearly to appreciate their own special calling (Matt. xxviii. 19), gave themselves more and more to the preaching of the gospel even outside of Jerusalem, and thus the need became urgent of an authoritative court for the conducting of the affairs of the church even during their absence. In these circumstances it would seem, according to Acts xi. 30, that those who ministered to the poor, chosen probably from among the most honourable of the first believers (Acts ii. 41), passed over into a self-constituted college of presbyters. At the head of this college or board stood James, the brother of the Lord (Gal. i. 19; ii. 9; Acts xii. 17; xv. 13; xxi. 15), and after his death, according to Hegesippus, a near relation of the Lord, Simeon, son of Clopas, as a descendant of David, was unanimously chosen as his successor. The episcopal title, however, just like that of Deacon, is first met with in the New Testament in the region of the Pauline missions, and in the terminology of the Palestinian churches we only hear of presbyters as officers of the church (Acts xv. 4, 6, 22; xxi. 18; James v. 14). In 1 Peter v. 2, however, although ἐπίσκοπος does not yet appear as an official title, the official duty of the ἐπισκοπεῖν is assigned to presbyters (see § 17, 6). It is Hegesippus, about A.D. 180, who first gives the title Bishop of Jerusalem to James, after the Clementines (§ 28, 3) had already ten years previously designated him ἐπισκόπων ἐπίσκοπος.

§ 17.3. The Constitution of the Pauline Churches. Founding upon the works of Mommsen and Foucart, first of all Heinrici and soon afterwards the English theologian Hatch[7] has wrought out the theory that the constitution of the churches that were wholly or mainly composed of Gentile Christians was modelled on those convenient, open or elastic rules of associations under which the various Hellenistic guilds prospered so well (θίασοι, ἔρανοι),—associations for the naturalization and fostering of foreign, often oriental, modes of worship. In the same way, too, the Christian church at Rome, for social and sacred purposes, made use of the forms of association employed in the Collegia or Sodalicia, which were found there in large numbers, especially of the funeral societies in which both of those purposes were combined (collegia funeraticia). In both these cases, then, the church, by attaching itself to modes of association already existing, acknowledged by the state, or tolerated as harmless, assumed a form of existence which protected it from the suspicion of the government, and at the same time afforded it space and time for independent construction in accordance with its own special character and spirit. As in those Hellenic associations all ranks, even those which in civil society were separated from one another by impassable barriers, found admission, and then, in the framing of statutes, the reception of fellow members, the exercise of discipline, possessed equal rights; as, further, the full knowledge of their mysteries and sharing in their exercise were open only to the initiated (μεμυημένοι), yet in the exercise of exoteric worship the doors were hospitably flung open even to the ἀμυήτοι; as upon certain days those belonging to the narrow circle joining together in partaking of a common feast; so too all this is found in the Corinthian church, naturally inspired by a Christian spirit and enriched with Christian contents. The church also has its religious common feast in its Agape, its mystery in the Eucharist, its initiation in baptism, by the administration of which the divine service is divided into two parts, one esoteric, to be engaged in only by the baptized, the other exoteric, a service that is open to those who are not Christians. All ranks (Gal. iii. 28) have the same claim to admission to baptism, all the baptized have equal rights in the congregation (see § 17, 7). It is evident, however, that the connection between the Christian churches and those heathen associations is not so to be conceived as if, because in the one case distinctions of rank were abolished, so also they were in the other; or that, because in the one case religious festivals were observed, this gave the first hint as to the observance of the Christian Agape; or that, because and in the manner in which there a mysterious service was celebrated from which all outside were strictly excluded, so also here was introduced an exclusive eucharistic service. These observances are rather to be regarded as having grown up independently out of the inmost being of Christianity; but the church having found certain institutions existing inspired by a wholly different spirit, yet outwardly analogous and sanctioned by the state, it appropriated, as far as practicable, their forms of social organization, in order to secure for itself the advantages of civil protection. That even on the part of the pagans, down into the last half of the second century, the Christian congregational fellowship was regarded as a special kind of the mystery-communities, is shown by Lucian’s satire, De morte Peregrini (§ 23, 1), where the description of Christian communities, in which its hero for a time played a part, is full of technical terms which were current in those associations. “It is also,” says Weingarten, “expressly acknowledged in Tertullian’s Apologeticus, c. 38, 39, written about A.D. 198, that even down to the close of the second century, the Christian church was organized in accordance with the rules of the Collegia funeraticia, so that it might claim from the state the privileges of the Factiones licitæ. The arrangements for burial and the Christian institutions connected therewith are shown to have been carefully subsumed under forms that were admitted to be legal.”

§ 17.4. Confining ourselves meantime to the oldest and indisputably authentic epistles of the Apostle, we find that the autonomy of the church in respect of organization, government, discipline, and internal administration is made prominent as the very basis of the constitution. He never interferes in those matters, enjoining and prescribing by his own authority, but always, whether personally or in spirit, only as associated with their assemblies (1 Cor. v. 3), deliberating and deciding in common with them. Thus his Apostolic importance shows itself not in his assuming the attitude of a lord (2 Cor. i. 24), but that of a father (1 Cor. iv. 14 f.), who seeks to lead his children on to form for themselves independent and manly judgments (1 Cor. x. 15; xi. 13). Regular and fixed church officers do not seem to have existed in Corinth down to the time when the first Epistle was written, about A.D. 57. A diversity of functions (διαιρέσεις διακονιῶν, 1 Cor. xii. 4) is here, indeed, already found, but not yet definitely attached to distinct and regular offices (1 Cor. vi. 1-6). It is always yet a voluntary undertaking of such ministries on the one hand, and the recognition of peculiar piety and faithfulness, leading to willing submission on the other hand, out of which the idea of office took its rise, and from which it obtained its special character. This is especially true of a peculiar kind of ministry (Rom. xvi. 1, 2) which must soon have been developed as something indispensable to the Christian churches throughout the Hellenic and Roman regions. We mean the part played by the patron, which was so deeply grounded in the social life of classical antiquity. Freedmen, foreigners, proletarii, could not in themselves hold property and had no claim on the protection of the laws, but had to be associated as Clientes with a Patronus or Patrona (προστάτης and προστάτις) who in difficult circumstances would afford them counsel, protection, support, and defence. As in the Greek and Roman associations for worship this relationship had long before taken root, and was one of the things that contributed most materially to their prosperity, so also in the Christian churches the need for recognising and giving effect to it became all the more urgent in proportion as the number of members increasing for whom such support was necessary (1 Cor. i. 26-29). Phœbe is warmly recommended in Rom. xvi. 1, 2, as such a Christian προστάτις, at Cenchrea, the port of Corinth, among whose numerous clients the Apostle himself is mentioned. Many inscriptions in the Roman catacombs testify to the deep impress which this social scheme made upon the organization, especially of the Roman church, down to the end of the first century, and to the help which it gave in rendering that church permanent. All the more are we justified in connecting therewith the προϊστάμενος ἐν σπουδῇ (Rom. xii. 8), and in giving this passage in connection with the preceding and succeeding context the meaning: whoever represents any one as patron let him do it with diligence.—The gradual development of stated or independent congregational offices, after privileges and duties were distinguished from one another, was thus brought about partly by the natural course of events, and partly by the endeavour to make the church organization correspond with the Greek and Roman religious associations countenanced by the state by the employment in it of the same or similar forms and names. In the older communities, especially those in capital cities, like Thessalonica, Corinth, Rome, etc., the heads of the families of the first believers attained an authoritative position altogether unique, as at Corinth those of the household of Stephanas, who, according to 1 Cor. xvi. 15, as the ἀπαρχὴ τῆς Ἀχαΐας εἰς διακονίαν τοῖς ἁγίοις ἔταξαν ἑαυτούς. Such honour, too, was given to the most serviceable of the chosen patrons and others, who evidently possessed the gifts of κυβερνήσεις and ἀντιλήψεις, and those who first in an informal way had discharged official duties had amends made them even after death by a formal election. On the other hand, the churches that sprang up at a later period were probably provided immediately with such offices under the direction and with the consent of the Apostle or his apostolic assistants (1 Tim. v. 9; Tit. i. 5).

§ 17.5. Congregational and Spiritual Offices.—While then, down to A.D. 57 no ecclesiastical offices properly so called as yet existed at Corinth, and no injunctions are given by the Apostle for their definite introduction, it is told us in Acts xiv. 23 that, so early as A.D. 50, when Paul was returning from his first missionary journey he ordained with prayer and fasting elders or presbyters in those churches of Asia Minor previously founded by him. Now it is indeed quite conceivable that in these cases he adhered more closely to the already existing presbyterial constitution of the mother church at Jerusalem (Acts xi. 30), than he did subsequently in founding and giving a constitution to the churches of the European cities where perhaps the circumstances and requirements were entirely different. But be this as it may, it is quite certain that the Apostle on his departure from lately formed churches took care to leave them in an organized condition, and the author of the Acts has given expression to the fact proleptically in terms with which he was himself conversant and which were current in his time.—Among the Pauline epistles which are scarcely, if at all, objected to by modern criticism the first to give certain information regarding distinct and independent congregational offices, together with the names that had been then assigned to these offices, is the Epistle to the Philippians, written during the Roman imprisonment of the Apostle. In chap. i. 1, he sends his apostolic greeting and blessing πᾶσι τοῖς ἁγίοις τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν Φιλίπποις σὺν ἐπισκόποις καὶ διακόνοις.[8] The Episcopate and the Diaconate make their appearance here as the two categories of congregational offices, of both of which there are several representatives in each congregation. It is in the so-called Pastoral Epistles that for the first time we find applied in the Gentile Christian communities the title of Presbyter which had been the usual designation of the president in the mother church at Jerusalem. This title, just as in Acts xx. 17, 28, is undoubtedly regarded as identical with that of bishop (ἐπίσκοπος) and is used as an alternative (Tit. i. 5, 7; 1 Tim. iii. 1; iv. 14; v. 17, 19). From the practical identity of the qualifications of bishops (1 Tim. iii. 1) or of deacons (v. 12 f.), it follows that their callings were essentially the same; and from the etymological signification of their names, it would seem that there was assigned to the bishops the duty of governing, administrating and superintending, to the deacons that of serving, assisting and carrying out details as subordinate auxiliaries. It is shown by Rom. xvi. 1, that even so early as A.D. 58, the need of a female order of helpers had been felt and was supplied. When this order had at a later period assumed the rank of a regular office, it became the rule that only widows above sixty years of age should be chosen (1 Tim. v. 9).—We are introduced to an altogether different order of ecclesiastical authorities in Eph. iv. 11, where we have named in the first rank Apostles, in the second Prophets, in the third Evangelists, and in the fourth Pastors and Teachers. What is here meant by Apostles and Prophets is quite evident (§ 34, 1). From 2 Tim. iv. 5 and Acts xxi. 8 (viii. 5), it follows that Evangelists are itinerant preachers of the gospel and assistants of the Apostles. It is more difficult to determine exactly the functions of Pastors and Teachers and their relation to the regular congregational offices. Their introduction in Eph. iv. 11, as together constituting a fourth class, as well as the absence of the term Pastor in the parallel passage, 1 Cor. xii. 28, 29, presupposes such a close connection of the two orders, the one having the care of souls, the other the duties of preaching and catechizing, that we unhesitatingly assume that both were, if not always, at least generally, united in the same person. They have been usually identified with the bishops or presbyters. In Acts xx. 17, 28, and in 1 Pet. v. 2-4, presbyters are expressly called pastors. The order of the ἡγούμενοι in Heb. xiii. 7, οἵτινες ἐλάλησαν ὑμῖν τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ, has also been regarded as identical with that of bishops. In regard to the last named order a confusion already appears in Acts xv., where men, who in v. 22 are expressly distinguished from the elders (presbyters) and in v. 32 are ranked as prophets, are yet called ἡγούμενοι. We should also be led to conclude from 1 Cor. xii. 28, that those who had the qualifications of ἀντιλήψεις and κυβερνήσεις, functions certainly belonging to bishops or presbyters as administrative and diocesan officers, are yet personally distinguished from Apostles, Prophets, and Teachers. Now it is explicitly enjoined in Tit. i. 9 that in the choice of bishops special care should be taken to see that they have capacity for teaching. In 1 Tim. v. 17 double honour is demanded for the καλῶς προεστῶτες πρεσβύτεροι, if they also labour ἐν λόγῳ καὶ διδασκαλίᾳ. This passage, however, shows teaching did not always and in all circumstances, or even ex professo belong to the special functions of the president of the congregation; that it was rather in special circumstances, where perhaps these gifts were not at all or not in sufficient abundance elsewhere to be found, that these duties of teaching were undertaken in addition to their own proper official work of presidency (προϊστάναι). The dividing line between the two orders, bishops and deacons on the one hand, and pastors and teachers on the other, consists in the fundamentally different nature of their calling. The former were congregational offices, the latter, like those of Apostles and Prophets, were spiritual offices. The former were chosen by the congregation, the latter had, like the Apostles and Prophets, a divine call, though according to James iii. 1 not without the consenting will of the individual, and the charismatic capacity for teaching, although not in the same absolute measure. The former were attached to a particular congregation, the latter were, like the Apostles and Prophets, first of all itinerant teachers and had, like them, the task of building up the churches (Eph. iv. 12, εἰς οἰκοδομὴν τοῦ σώματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ). But, while the Apostles and Prophets laid the foundation of this building on Christ, the chief corner stone, preachers and teachers had to continue building on the foundation thus laid (Eph. ii. 20). A place and importance are undoubtedly secured for these three spiritual offices, in so far as continued itinerant offices, by the example of the Lord in His preliminary sending forth of the twelve in Matt. x., and of the seventy disciples in Luke x.—Continuation, § 34, 1.

§ 17.6. The question about the original position of the Episcopate and Presbyterate, as well as their relation to one another, has received three different answers. According to the Roman Catholic theory, which is also that of the Anglican Episcopal Church, the clerical, hierarchical arrangement of the third century, which gave to each of the larger communities a bishop as its president with a number of presbyters and deacons subject to him, existed as a divine institution from the beginning. It is unequivocally testified by the New Testament, and, as appears from the First Epistle of Clement of Rome (ch. 42, 44, 57), the fact had never been disputed down to the close of the first century, that bishops and presbyters are identical. The force of this objection, however, is sought to be obviated by the subterfuge that while all bishops were indeed presbyters, all presbyters were not bishops. The ineptitude of such an evasion is apparent. In Phil. i. 1 the Apostle, referring to this one particular church greeted not one but several bishops. According to Acts xx. 17, 28, all the presbyters of the one Ephesian community are made bishops by the Holy Ghost. Also, Tit. i. 5, 7 unconditionally excludes such a distinction; and according to 1 Pet. v. 2, all such presbyters should be ἐπισκοποῦντες.—In opposition to this theory, which received the sanction of the Council of Trent, the Old Protestant theologians maintained the original identity of the two names and offices. In support of this they could refer not only to the New Testament, but also to Clement of Rome and the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (§ 34, 1), where, just as in Phil. i. 1, only bishops and deacons are named as congregational officers, and as appointed by the free choice of the congregation. They can also point to the consensus of the most respected church fathers and church teachers of later times. Chrysostom (Hom. ix. in Ep. ad Tim.) says: οἱ πρεσβύτεροι τὸ παλαιὸν ἐκαλοῦντο ἐπίσκοποι καὶ διάκονοι Χριστοῦ, καὶ οἱ ἐπίσκοποι πρεσβύτεροι. Jerome (ad Tit. i. 5) says: Idem est presbyter qui et episcopus et antequam diaboli instinctu studia in religione fierent ... communi presbyterorum concilio gubernantur ecclesiæ. Augustine, and other church fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries, as well as Urban II. in A.D. 1091, Petrus [Peter] Lombardus and the Decree of Gratian, may all be referred to as supporting the same view. After such an identification of the person and office, the existence of the two names must be explained from their meaning as words, by assuming that the title ἐπίσκοπος, which arose among the Gentile-Christian churches, pointed more to the duty officially required, while the title πρεσβύτερος, which arose among the Jewish-Christian churches, pointed more to the honourable character of the person (1 Tim. v. 17, 19). The subsequent development of a monarchical episcopacy is quite conceivable as having taken place in the natural course of events (§ 34, 2).—A third theory is that proposed by Hatch, of Oxford, in A.D. 1881, warmly approved of and vigorously carried out by Harnack. According to this theory the two names in question answer to a twofold distinction that appears in the church courts: on the college of presbyters was devolved the government of the community, with administration of law and discipline; on the bishops and their assistants the superintendence and management of the community in the widest sense of the word, including its worship, and first of all and chiefly the brotherly care of the poor, the sick and strangers, together with the collecting, keeping, and dispensing of money needful for those ends. In the course of time the two organizations were combined into one, since the bishops, on account of their eminently important place and work, obtained in the presbytery not only a simple seat and vote, but by-and-by the presidency and the casting vote. In establishing this theory it is pointed out that in the government and management of federations of that time for social and religious purposes in country districts or in cities, in imitation of which the organization of the Christian communities was formed, this twofold distribution is also found, and that especially the administrators of the finances in these societies had not only the title of ἐπίσκοποι, but had also the president’s seat in their assemblies (γερουσία, βουλή), which, however, is not altogether conclusive, since it is demonstrable that this title was also borne by judicial and political officials. It is also pointed out on the other hand that, in accordance with the modified view presented in the Pastoral Epistles, the Acts, and the Epistle of Clement of Rome, the consciousness of the original diversity of calling of the two offices were maintained throughout the whole of the second century, inasmuch as often a theoretical distinction between bishops and presbyters in the way specified was asserted. Now, in the first place, it can scarcely be matter of dispute as to whether the administration of property, with the care of the poor (ἀντιλήψεις) as the principal task, could actually have won a place so superior in respectability, influence and significance to that of congregational government (κυβερνήσεις), or whether the authority which embraced the functions of a judicial bench, a court of discipline, and a court of equity did not rather come to preponderate over that which was occupied in the administration of property and the care of the poor. But above all we shall have to examine the New Testament writings, as the relatively oldest witnesses to the matter of fact as well as to the usage of the language, and see what they have to say on the subject. This must be done even by those who would have the composition of the Pastoral Epistles and the Acts removed out of the Apostolic Age. In these writings, however, there is nowhere a firm and sure foundation afforded to that theory. It has, indeed, been supposed that in Phil. i. 1 mention is made only of bishops and deacons because by them the present from the Philippians had been brought to the Apostle. But seeing that, in the case of there actually existing in Philippi at this time besides the bishops a college of presbyters, the omission of these from the greeting in this epistle, the chief purpose of which was to impart apostolic comfort and encouragement, and which only refers gratefully at the close, ch. iv. 10, to the contribution sent, would have been damaging to them, we must assume that the bishops with their assistants the deacons were the only office-bearers then existing in that community. Thus this passage tells as much against as in favour of the limiting of the episcopal office to economical administration. Often as mention is made in the New Testament of an ἐπισκοπεῖν and a διακονεῖν in and over the community, this never stands in specific and exclusive relation to administration of property and care of the poor. It is indeed assumed in Acts xi. 30 that care of the poor is a duty of the presbyter; so also the charismatic caring for the sick is required of presbyters in James v. 14; and in 1 Pet. v. 2 presbyters are described as ἐπισκοποῦντες; in 1 Pet. ii. 25 Christ is spoken of as ἐπίσκοπος τῶν ψυχῶν; in Acts i. 20 the apostolic office is called ἐπισκοπή, while in Acts i. 25 and often, especially in the Pauline epistles, it is designated a διακονία.[9]—Continuation, § 34, 2.

§ 17.7. Christian Worship.—Even in Jerusalem, where the temple ordinances were still observed, the religious needs of the Christian community demanded that separate services of a distinctly Christian character should be organized. But just as the Jewish services of that day consisted of two parts—the ministry of the word for purposes of instruction and edification in the synagogues, and the symbolic service of a typical and sacramental character in the temple,—the Christian service was in like manner from the first divided into a homiletical-didactic part, and a eucharistic-sacramental part.—The Homiletical and Didactic part, on account of the presence of those who were not Christians, must have had, just like the synagogue service, alongside of its principal aim to instruct and edify the congregation, a definite and deliberately planned missionary tendency. The church in Jerusalem at the first held these morning services in one of the halls of the temple, where the people were wont to assemble for prayer (Acts ii. 46; iii. 1, 11); but at a later period they were held in private houses. In the Gentile churches they seem from the first to have been held in private houses or in halls rented for the purpose. The service consisted in reading of portions of the Old Testament, and at a later period, portions of the Apostolic Epistles and Gospels, and in connection therewith, doctrinal and hortatory discourses, with prayer and singing of psalms. It is more than probable that the liberty of teaching, which had prevailed in the synagogues (Luke ii. 46; iv. 16; Acts xiii. 15), was also permitted in the similar assemblies of Jewish Christians (Acts viii. 4; xi. 19; James iii. 1); and it may be concluded from 1 Cor. xiv. 34 that this also was the practice in Gentile-Christian congregations. The apparent contradiction of women as such being forbidden to speak, while in 1 Cor. xi. 5 it seems to be allowed, can only be explained by supposing that in the passage referred to the woman spoken of as praying or prophesying is praying in an ecstasy, that is, speaking with tongues (1 Cor. xiv. 13-15), or uttering prophetic announcements, like the daughters of Philip (Acts xxi. 9), and that the permission applies only to such cases, the exceptional nature of which, as well as their temporary character, as charismatic and miraculous gifts, would prevent their being used as precedents for women engaging in regular public discourse (1 Thess. v. 19). In 1 Cor. xiv. 24 the ἰδιῶται (synonymous with the ἀμύητοι in the statutes of Hellenic religious associations) are mentioned as admitted along with the ἀπίστοι to the didactic services, and, according to v. 16, they had a place assigned to them separate from the congregation proper. We are thus led to see in them the uninitiated or not yet baptized believers, that is, the catechumens.—The Sacramental part of the service, the separation of which from the didactic part was rendered necessary on account alike of its nature and purpose, and is therefore found existing in the Pauline churches as well as in the church of Jerusalem, was scrupulously restricted in its observance, in Jewish and Gentile churches alike, to those who were in the full communion of the Christian church (Acts ii. 46; 1 Cor. xi. 20-23). The celebration of the Lord’s Supper (δεῖπνον κυριακόν, 1 Cor. xi. 21), after the pattern of the meal of institution, consisting of a meal partaken of in common, accompanied with prayer and the singing of a hymn, which at a later period was named the Ἀγάπη, as the expression of brotherly love (Jude v. 12), was the centre and end of these evening services. The elements in the Lord’s Supper were consecrated to their sacramental purpose by a prayer of praise and thanksgiving (εὐχαριστία, 1 Cor. xi. 24; or εὐλογία, 1 Cor. x. 16), together with a recital of the words of institution which contained a proclamation of the death of Christ (1 Cor. xi. 26). This prayer was followed by the kiss of brotherhood.[10] In the service of song they used to all appearance besides the psalms some Christian hymns and doxologies (Eph. v. 19; Col. iii. 16).[11]—The homiletical as well as the eucharistic services were at first held daily; at a later period at least every Sunday.[12] For very soon, alongside of the Sabbath, and among Gentile Christians, instead of it, the first day of the week as the day of Christ’s resurrection began to be observed as a festival.[13] But there is as yet no trace of the observance of other festivals. It cannot be exactly proved that infant baptism was an Apostolic practice, but it is not improbable that it was so.[14] Baptism was administered by complete immersion (Acts viii. 38) in the name of Christ or of the Trinity (Matt. xxviii. 19). The charism of healing the sick was exercised by prayer and anointing with oil (Jas. v. 14). On the other hand, confession of sin even apart from the public service was recommended (Jas. v. 16). Charismatic communication of the Spirit and admission to office in the church[15] was accomplished by prayer and laying on of hands.[16]

§ 17.8. Christian Life and Ecclesiastical Discipline.—In accordance with the commandment of the Lord (John xiii. 34), brotherly love in opposition to the selfishness of the natural life, was the principle of the Christian life. The power of youthful love, fostered by the prevalent expectation of the speedy return of the Lord, endeavoured at first to find for itself a fitting expression in the mother church of Jerusalem by the voluntary determination to have their goods in common,—an endeavour which without prejudice of its spiritual importance soon proved to be impracticable. On the other hand the well-to-do Gentile churches proved their brotherly love by collections for those originally poor, and especially for the church at Jerusalem which had suffered the special misfortune of famine. The three inveterate moral plagues of the ancient world, contempt of foreign nationalities, degradation of woman, and slavery, were overcome, according to Gal. iii. 28, by gradual elevation of inward feeling without any violent struggle against existing laws and customs, and the consciousness of common membership in the one head in heaven hallowed all the relationships of the earthly life. Even in apostolic times the bright mirror of Christian purity was no doubt dimmed by spots of rust. Hypocrisy (Acts v.) and variance (Acts vi.) in single cases appeared very early in the mother church; but the former was punished by a fearfully severe judgment, the latter was overcome by love and sweet reasonableness. In the rich Gentile churches, such as those of Corinth and Thessalonica, a worldly spirit in the form of voluptuousness, selfishness, pride, etc., made its appearance, but was here also rooted out by apostolic exhortation and discipline. If any one caused public scandal by serious departure from true doctrine or Christian conduct, and in spite of pastoral counsel persisted in his error, he was by the judgment of the church cast out, but the penitent was received again after his sincerity had been proved (1 Cor. v. 1; 2 Cor. ii. 5).

§ 18. HERESIES IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE.[17]

When Christianity began its career of world conquest in the preaching of the Apostle Paul, the representatives of the intellectual culture of the ancient world assumed toward it an attitude, either of utter indifference, or of keen hostility, or of readiness to accept Christian elements, while retaining along with these many of their old notions. From this mixing of heterogeneous elements a fermentation arose which was the fruitful mother of numerous heresies.

§ 18.1. Jewish Christianity and the Council of Apostles.—The Lord had commanded the disciples to preach the gospel to all nations (Matt. xxviii. 19), and so they could not doubt that the whole heathen world was called to receive the church’s heritage; but feeling themselves bound by utterances of the Old Testament regarding the eternal validity of the law of Moses, and having not yet penetrated the full significance of the saying of Christ (Mark v. 17), they thought that incorporation into Judaism by circumcision was still an indispensable condition of reception into the kingdom of Christ. The Hellenist Stephen represented a more liberal tendency (Acts vi. 14); and Philip, also a Hellenist, preached at least occasionally to the Samaritans, and the Apostles recognised his work by sending down Peter and John (Acts viii. 14). On the other hand, it needed an immediate divine revelation to convince Peter that a Gentile thirsting for salvation was just as such fit for the kingdom of God (Acts x.). And even this revelation remained without any decisive influence on actual missionary enterprise. They were Hellenistic Jews who finally took the bold step of devoting themselves without reserve to the conversion of the Gentiles at Antioch (Acts xi. 19). To foster the movement there the Apostles sent Barnabas, who entered into it with his whole soul, and in Paul associated with himself a yet more capable worker. After the notable success of their first missionary journey had vindicated their claim and calling as Apostles of the Gentiles, the arrival of Jewish zealots in the Antiochean church occasioned the sending of Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem, about A.D. 51, in order finally to settle this important dispute. At a Council of the Apostles convened there Peter and James the Just delivered the decision that Gentile converts should only be required to observe certain legal restrictions, and these, as it would seem from the conditions laid down (Acts xv. 20), of a similar kind to those imposed upon proselytes of the gate. An arrangement come to at this time between the two Antiochean Apostles and Peter, James, and John, led to the recognition of the former as Apostles of the Gentiles and the latter as Apostles of the Jews (Gal. ii. 1-10). Nevertheless during a visit to Antioch Peter laid himself open to censure for practical inconsistency and weak connivance with the fanaticism of certain Jewish Christians, and had to have the truth respecting it very pointedly told him by Paul (Gal. ii. 11-14). The destruction of the temple and the consequent cessation of the entire Jewish worship led to the gradual disappearance of non-sectarian Jewish Christianity and its amalgamation with Gentile Christianity. The remnant of Jewish Christianity which still in the altered condition of things continued to cling to its principles and practice assumed ever more and more the character of a sect, and drifted into open heresy. (Comp. § 28).

§ 18.2. The Apostolic Basis of Doctrine.—The need of fixing the apostolically accredited accounts of the life of the Redeemer by written documents, led to the origin of the Gospels. The continued connection of the missionary Apostles with the churches founded by them, or even their authority of general superintendence, called forth the apostolic doctrinal epistles. A beginning of the collection and general circulation of the New Testament writings was made at an early date by the communication of these being made by one church to another (Col. iv. 16). There was as yet no confession of faith as a standard of orthodoxy, but the way was prepared by adopting Matt. xxviii. 19 as a confession by candidates for baptism. Paul set up justification through faith alone (Gal. i. 8, 9), and John, the incarnation of God in Christ (1 John iv. 3), as indispensable elements in a Christian confession.

§ 18.3. False Teachers.—The first enemy from within its own borders which Christianity had to confront was the ordinary Pharisaic Judaism with its stereotyped traditional doctrine, its lifeless work-righteousness, its unreasonable national prejudices, and its perversely carnal Messianic expectations. Its shibboleth was the obligation of the Gentiles to observe the Mosaic ceremonial law, the Sabbath, rules about meats, circumcision, as an indispensable condition of salvation. This tendency had its origin in the mother church of Jerusalem, but was there at a very early date condemned by the Apostolic Council. This party nevertheless pursued at all points the Apostle Paul with bitter enmity and vile calumnies. Traces of a manifestation of a Sadducean or sceptical spirit may perhaps already be found in the denial of the resurrection which in 1 Cor. xv. Paul opposes. On the other hand, at a very early period Greek philosophy got mixed up with Christianity. Apollos, a philosophically cultured Jew of Alexandria, had at first conceived of Christianity from the speculative side, and had in this form preached it with eloquence and success at Corinth. Paul did not contest the admissibility of this mode of treatment. He left it to the verdict of history (1 Cor. iii. 11-14), and warned against an over-estimation of human wisdom (1 Cor. ii. 1-10). Among many of the seekers after wisdom in Corinth, little as this was intended by Apollos, the simple positive preaching of Paul lost on this account the favour that it had enjoyed before. In this may be found perhaps the first beginnings of that fourfold party faction which arose in the Corinthian church (1 Cor. i.). The Judaists appealed to the authority of the Apostle Peter (οἱ τοῦ Κηφᾶ); the Gentile Christians were divided into the parties of Apollos and of Paul, or by the assumption of the proud name οἱ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, sought to free themselves from the recognition of any Apostolic authority. Paul successfully opposes these divisions in his Epistle to the Corinthians. Apprehension of a threatened growth of gnostic teachers is first expressed in the Apostle Paul’s farewell addresses to the elders of Asia Minor (Acts xx. 29); and in the Epistle to the Colossians, as well as in the Pastoral Epistles, this ψευδώνυμος γνῶσις is expressly opposed as manifesting itself in the adoption of oriental theosophy, magic, and theurgy, in an arbitrary asceticism that forbade marriage and restricted the use of food, in an imaginary secret knowledge of the nature and order of the heavenly powers and spirits, and idealistic volatilizing of concrete Christian doctrines, such as that of the resurrection (2 Tim. ii. 18). In the First Epistle of John, again, that special form of Gnosis is pointed out which denied the incarnation of God in Christ by means of docetic conceptions; and in the Second Epistle of Peter, as well as in the Epistle of Jude, we have attention called to antinomian excrescences, unbridled immorality and wanton lust in the development of magical and theurgical views. It should not, however, be left unmentioned, that modern criticism has on many grounds contested the authenticity of the New Testament writings just named, and has assigned the first appearance of heretical gnosis to the beginning of the second century. The Nicolaitans of the Apocalypse (iii. 5, 14, 15, 20) appear to have been an antinomian sect of Gentile Christian origin, spread more or less through the churches of Asia Minor, perhaps without any gnostic background, which in direct and intentional opposition to the decision of the Apostolic Council (Acts xv. 29) took part in heathen sacrificial feasts (comp. 1 Cor. x.), and justified or at least apologized for fleshly impurity.

FIRST DIVISION.

History of the Development of the Church during the Græco-Roman and Græco-Byzantine Periods.

§ 19. CONTENT, DISTRIBUTION AND BOUNDARIES OF THOSE PERIODS.

At the very beginning of the Apostolic Age the universalistic spirit of Christianity had already broken through the particularistic limitations of Judaism. When once the substantial truth of divine salvation had cast off the Judaistic husk in which the kernel had ripened, those elements of culture which had come to maturity in the Roman-Greek world were appropriated as means for giving to Christian ideas a fuller and clearer expression. The task now to be undertaken was the development of Christianity on the lines of Græco-Roman culture, or the expansion of the church’s apostolicity into catholicity. The ancient church of the Roman and Byzantine world fulfilled this task, but in doing so the sound evangelical catholic development encountered at every point elements of a false, because an unevangelical, Catholicism. The centre, then, of all the movements of Church History is to be found in the Teutono-Roman-Slavic empire. The Roman church preserved and increased her importance by attaching herself to this new empire, and undertaking its spiritual formation and education. The Byzantine church, on the other hand, falling into a state of inward stagnation, and pressed from without by the forces of Islam, passes into decay as a national church.

The history of this first stage of the development of the church falls into three periods. The first period reaches down to Constantine the Great, who, in A.D. 323, secured to Christianity and the church a final victory over Paganism. The second period brings us down to the close of the universal catholic or œcumenical elaboration of doctrine attained by the church under its old classical form of culture, that is, down to the close of the Monothelite controversy (§ 52, 8), by the Sixth Œcumenical Council at Constantinople in A.D. 680. But inasmuch as the Concilium quini-sextum in A.D. 692 undertook simply the completion of the work of the two previous œcumenical synods with reference to church constitution and worship, and as here the first grounds were laid for the great partition of the church into Eastern and Western (§ 63, 2), we prefer to make A.D. 692 the closing limit of the second period. The conclusion of the third period, is found in the overthrow of Constantinople by the Turks in A.D. 1453. The first two periods are most evidently distinguished from one another in respect of the outward condition of the church. Before the times of Constantine, it lives and develops its strength amid the oppression and persecution of the pagan state; under Constantine the state itself becomes Christian and the church enjoys all the advantages, all the care and furtherance, that earthly protection can afford. Along with all this worldly splendour, however, a worldly disposition makes its way into the church, and in exchange for its protection of the church the state assumes an autocratic lordship over it. Even in the inner, and pre-eminently doctrinal, development of the church the two periods of this age are essentially distinguished from one another. While it was the church’s endeavour to adopt only the forms of culture of ancient paganism, while rejecting its godless substance, it too often happened that pagan ideas got mixed up with Christianity, and it was threatened with a similar danger from the side of Judaism. It was therefore the special task of the church during the first period to resist the encroachment of anti-Christian Jewish and Pagan elements. In the first period the perfecting of its own genuinely Christian doctrinal content was still a purely subjective matter, resting only on the personal authority of the particular church teachers. In the second period, on the other hand, the church universal, as represented by œcumenical synods with full power, proceeds to the laying down and establishing of an objective-ecclesiastical, œcumenical-catholic system of doctrine, constituting an all-sided development of the truth in opposition to the one-sided development of subjective heretical teaching. In doing so, however, the culture of the old Græco-Roman world exhausted its powers. The measure of development which these were capable of affording the church was now completed, and its future must be looked for among the new nationalities of Teutonic, Romanic, and Slavic origin. While the Byzantine empire, and with it the glory of the ancient church of the East was pressed and threatened by Islam, a new empire arose in the West in youthful vigour and became the organ of a new phase of development in the history of the church; and while the church in the West struggled after a new and higher point in her development, the Eastern church sank ever deeper down under outward oppression and inward weakness. The partition of the church into an Eastern and a Western division, which became imminent at the close of the second period, and was actually carried out during the third period, cut off the church of the East from the influence of those new vital forces, political as well as ecclesiastical, and which it might otherwise, perhaps, have shared with the West. By the overthrow of the East-Roman empire the last support of its splendour and even of its vital activity was taken away. Here too ends the history of the church on the lines of purely antique classical forms of culture. The remnants of the church of the East were no longer capable of any living historical development under the oppression of the Turkish rule.

FIRST SECTION.

History of the Græco-Roman Church during the Second and Third Centuries (A.D. 70-323).[18]

§ 20. CONTENT, DISTRIBUTION AND BOUNDARIES OF THIS PERIOD.[19]

As the history of the beginnings of the church has been treated by us under two divisions, so also the first period of the history of its development may be similarly divided into the Post-Apostolic Age, which reaches down to the middle of the second century, and the Age of the Old Catholic Church, which ends with the establishment of the church under and by Constantine, and at that point passes over into the Age of the œcumenical Catholic or Byzantine-Roman Imperial Church.—As the Post-Apostolic Age was occupied with an endeavour to appropriate and possess in a fuller and more vigorous manner the saving truths transmitted by the Apostles, and presents as the result of its struggles, errors, and victories, the Old Catholic Church as a unity, firmly bound from within, strictly free of all compulsion from without, so on the basis thus gained, the Old Catholic Church goes forward to new conflicts, failures, and successes, by means of which the foundations are laid for the future perfecting of it through its establishment by the state into the Œcumenical Catholic Imperial Church.[20]

§ 20.1. The Post-Apostolic Age.—The peril to which the church was exposed from the introduction of Judaistic and Pagan elements with her new converts was much more serious not only than the Jewish spirit of persecution, crushed as it was into impotence through the overthrow of Jewish national independence, but also than the persecution of anti-Christian paganism which at this time was only engaged upon sporadically. All the more threatening was this peril from the peculiar position of the church during this age. Since the removal of the personal guidance of the Apostles that control was wanting which only at a subsequent period was won again by the establishment of a New Testament canon and the laying down of a normative rule of faith, as well as by the formation of a hierarchical-episcopal constitution. In all the conflicts, then, that occupied this age, the first and main point was to guard the integrity and purity of traditional Apostolic Christianity against the anti-Christian Jewish and Pagan ideas which new converts endeavoured to import into it from their earlier religious life. Those Judaic ideas thus imported gave rise to Ebionism; those Pagan ideas gave rise to Gnosticism (§§ 26-28). And just as the Pauline Gentile Christianity, in so far as it was embraced under this period (§ 30, 2), secured the victory over the moderate and non-heretical Jewish Christianity, this latter became more and more assimilated to the former, and gradually passed over into it (§ 28, 1). Add to this the need, ever more pressingly felt, of a sifting of the not yet uniformly recognised early Christian literature that had passed into ecclesiastical use (§ 36, 7, 8) by means of the establishment of a New Testament canon; that is, the need of a collection of writings admitted to be of Apostolic origin to occupy henceforth the first rank as a standard and foundation for the purposes of teaching and worship, and to form a bulwark against the flood of heretical and non-heretical Pseudepigraphs that menaced the purity of doctrine (§ 32). Further, the no less pressing need for the construction of a universally valid rule of faith (§ 35, 2), as an intellectual bond of union and mark of recognition for all churches and believers scattered over the earth’s surface. Then again, in the victory that was being secured by Episcopacy over Presbyterianism, and in the introduction of a Synodal constitution for counsel and resolution, the first stage in the formation of a hierarchical organization was reached (§ 34). Finally, the last dissolving action of this age was the suppression of the fanatical prophetic and fanatical rigorist spirit, which, reaching its climax in Montanism, directed itself mainly against the tendency already appearing on many sides to tone down the unflinching severity of ecclesiastical discipline, to make modifications in constitution, life and conversation in accordance with the social customs of the world, and to settle down through disregard of the speedy return of the Lord, so confidently expected by the early Christians, into an easy satisfaction in the enjoyment of earthly possessions (§ 40, 5).

§ 20.2. The Age of the Old Catholic Church.—The designation of the universal Christian church as Catholic dates from the time of Irenæus, that is, from the beginning of this second part of our first period. This name characterizes the church as the one universally (καθ’ ὅλου) spread and recognised from the time of the Apostles, and so stigmatizes every opposition to the one church that alone stands on the sure foundation of holy scripture and pure apostolic tradition, as belonging to the manifold particularistic heretical and schismatical sects. The church of this particular age, however, has been designated the Old Catholic Church as distinguished from the œcumenical Catholic church of the following period, as well as from the Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic churches, into which afterwards the œcumenical Catholic church was divided.

At the beginning of this age, the heretical as well as the non-heretical Ebionism may be regarded as virtually suppressed, although some scanty remnants of it might yet be found. The most brilliant period of Gnosticism, too, when the most serious danger from Paganism within the Christian pale in the form of Hellenic and Syro-Chaldaic Theosophy and Mysteriosophy threatened the church, was already past. But in Manichæism (§ 29) there appeared, during the second half of the third century, a new peril of a no less threatening kind, inspired by Parseeism and Buddhism, which, however, the church on the ground of the solid foundations already laid was able to resist with powerful weapons. On the other hand the Pagan element within the church asserted itself more and more decidedly (§ 39, 6) by means of the intrusion of magico-theurgical superstition into the catholic doctrine of the efficacy of the church sacraments and sacramental acts (§ 58). But now also, with Marcus Aurelius, Paganism outside of Christianity as embodied in the Roman state, begins the war of extermination against the church that was ever more and more extending her boundaries. Such manifestation of hostility, however, was not able to subdue the church, but rather led, under and through Constantine the Great, to the Christianizing of the state and the establishment of the church. During the same time the episcopal and synodal-hierarchical organization of the church was more fully developed by the introduction of an order of Metropolitans, and then in the following period it reached its climax in the oligarchical Pentarchy of Patriarchs (§ 46, 1), and in the institution of œcumenical Synods (§ 43, 2). By the condemnation and expulsion of Montanism, in which the inner development of the Post-Apostolic Age reached its special and distinctive conclusion, the endeavour to naturalize Christianity among the social customs of the worldly life was certainly legitimized by the church, and could now be unrestrictedly carried out in a wider and more comprehensive way. In the Trinitarian controversies, too, in which several prominent theologians engaged, the first step was taken in that œcumenical-ecclesiastical elaboration of doctrine which occupied and dominated the whole of the following period (§§ 49-52).

§ 20.3. The Point of Transition from the One Age to the Other may unhesitatingly be set down at A.D. 170. The following are the most important data in regard thereto. The death about A.D. 165 of Justin Martyr, who marks the highest point reached in the Post-Apostolic Age, and forms also the transition to the Old Catholic Age; and Irenæus, flourishing somewhere about A.D. 170, who was the real inaugurator of this latter age. Besides these we come upon the beginnings of the Trinitarian controversies about the year 170. Finally, the rejection of Montanism from the universal Catholic church was effected about the year 170 by means of the Synodal institution called into existence for that very purpose.

I. THE RELATIONSHIP OF EXTRA-CHRISTIAN PAGANISM AND JUDAISM TO THE CHURCH.[21]

§ 21. THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY.

Amid all the persecutions which the church during this period had to suffer it spread with rapid strides throughout the whole Roman empire, and even far beyond its limits. Edessa, the capital of the kingdom of Osrhoëne in Mesopotamia, had, as early as A.D. 170, a Christian prince, named Abgar Bar Maanu, whose coins were the first to bear the sign of the cross. We find Christianity gaining a footing contemporaneously in Persia, Media, Bactria, and Parthia. In the third century we find traces of its presence in Armenia. Paul himself made his way into Arabia (Gal. i. 17). In the third century Origen received an invitation from a ἡγούμενος τῆς Ἀραβίας, who wished to receive information about Christianity. At another time he accepted a call from that country in order to settle an ecclesiastical dispute (§ 33, 6). From Alexandria, where Mark had exercised his ministry, the Christian faith spread out into other portions of Africa, into Cyrene and among the Coptic races, neighbouring upon the Egyptians properly so-called. The church of proconsular Africa, with Carthage for its capital, stood in close connection with Rome. Mauretania and Numidia had, even in the third century, so many churches, that Cyprian could bring together at Carthage a Synod of eighty-seven bishops. In Gaul there were several flourishing churches composed of colonies and teachers from Asia Minor, such as the churches of Lyons, Vienne, etc. At a later period seven missionary teachers of the Christian faith came out of Italy into Gaul, among whom was Dionysius, known as St. Denis, the founder of the church at Paris. The Roman colonies in the provinces of the Rhine and the Danube had several flourishing congregations as early as the third century.

The emptiness and corruption of paganism was the negative, the divine power of the gospel was the positive, means of this wonderful extension. This divine power was manifested in the zeal and self-denial of Christian teachers and missionaries (§ 34, 1), in the life and walk of Christians, in the brotherly love which they showed, in the steadfastness and confidence of their faith, and above all in the joyfulness with which they met the cruellest of deaths by martyrdom. The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church, and it was not an unheard-of circumstance that the executioners of those Christian witnesses became their successors in the noble army of confessors.

§ 22. PERSECUTIONS OF THE CHRISTIANS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE.[22]

The Law of the Twelve Tables had already forbidden the exercise of foreign modes of worship within the Roman empire (Religiones peregrinæ, Collegia illicita), for religion was exclusively an affair of the state and entered most intimately into all civil and municipal relations, and on this account whatever endangered the national religion was regarded as necessarily imperilling the state itself. Political considerations, however, led to the granting to conquered nations the free use of their own forms of worship. This concession did not materially help Christianity after it had ceased, in the time of Nero, to be regularly confounded by the Roman authorities with Judaism, as had been the case in the time of Claudius, and Judaism, after the destruction of Jerusalem, had been sharply distinguished from it. It publicly proclaimed its intention to completely dislodge all other religions, and the rapidity with which it spread showed how energetically its intentions were carried out. The close fellowship and brotherliness that prevailed among Christians, as well as their exclusive, and during times of persecution even secret assemblies, aroused the suspicion that they had political tendencies. Their withdrawal from civil and military services on account of the pagan ceremonies connected with them, especially their refusal to burn incense before the statues of the emperor, also the steadfastness of their faith, which was proof against all violence and persuasion alike, their retiredness from the world, etc., were regarded as evidence of their indifference or hostility to the general well-being of the state, as invincible stiff-neckedness, as contumacy, sedition, and high treason. The heathen populace saw in the Christians the sacrilegious enemies and despisers of their gods; and the Christian religion, which was without temples, altars and sacrifices, seemed to them pure Atheism. The most horrible calumnies, that in their assemblies (Agapæ) the vilest immoralities were practised (Concubitus Œdipodei), children slain and human flesh eaten (Epulæ Thyesteæ, comp. § 36, 5), were readily believed. All public misfortunes were thus attributed to the wrath of the gods against the Christians, who treated them with contempt. Non pluit Deus, duc ad Christianos! The heathen priests also, the temple servants and the image makers were always ready in their own common interests to stir up the suspicions of the people. Under such circumstances it is not to be wondered at that the fire of persecution on the part of the heathen people and the heathen state continued to rage for centuries.

§ 22.1. Claudius, Nero and Domitian.—Regarding the Emperor Tiberius (A.D. 14-37), we meet in Tertullian with the undoubtedly baseless tradition, that, impressed by the story told him by Pilate, he proposed to the Senate to introduce Christ among the gods, and on the rejection of this proposal, threatened the accusers of the Christians with punishment. The statement in Acts xviii. 2, that the Emperor Claudius (A.D. 41-54) expelled from Rome all Jews and with them many Christians also, is illustrated in a very circumstantial manner by Suetonius: Claudius Judæos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes Roma expulit. The tumults, therefore, between the Jews and the Christians, occurring about the year 51 or 52, gave occasion to this decree. The first persecution of the Christians proceeding from a Roman ruler which was directed against the Christians as such, was carried out by the Emperor Nero (A.D. 54-68) in the year 64, in consequence of a nine days’ conflagration in Rome, the origin of which was commonly ascribed by the people to the Emperor himself. Nero, however, laid the blame upon the hated Christians, and perpetrated upon them the most ingeniously devised cruelties. Sewn up in skins of wild animals they were cast out to be devoured of dogs; others were crucified, or wrapt in tow and besmeared with pitch, they were fixed upon sharp spikes in the imperial gardens where the people gathered to behold gorgeous spectacles, and set on fire to lighten up the night (Tac., Ann., xv. 44). After the death of Nero the legend spread among the Christians, that he was not dead but had withdrawn beyond the Euphrates, soon to return as Antichrist. Nero’s persecution seems to have been limited to Rome, and to have ended with his death.—It was under Domitian (A.D. 81-96) that individual Christians were for the first time subjected to confiscation of goods and banishment for godlessness or the refusal to conform to the national religion. Probably also, the execution of his own cousin, the Consul Flavius Clemens [Clement], on account of his ἀθεότης and his ἐξοκέλλειν εἰς τὰ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἔθη (Dio Cass., lxvii. 14), as well as the banishment of Clemens’ [Clement’s] wife, Flavia Domitilla (A.D. 93), was really on account of their attachment to the Christian faith (§ 30, 3). The latter at least is proved by two inscriptions in the catacombs to have been undoubtedly a Christian. Domitian insisted upon having information as to the political significance of the kingdom of Christ, and brought from Palestine to Rome two relatives of Jesus, grandsons of Jude, the brother of the Lord, but their hands horny with labour satisfied him that his suspicions had been unfounded. The philanthropic Emperor Nerva (A.D. 96-98) recalled the exiles and did not listen to those who clamoured bitterly against the Christians, but Christianity continued after as well as before a Religo illicita, or rather was now reckoned such, after it had been more distinctly separated from Judaism.[23]

§ 22.2. Trajan and Hadrian.—With Trajan (A.D. 98-117), whom historians rightly describe as a just, earnest, and mild ruler, the persecutions of the Christians enter upon a new stage. He renewed the old strict prohibition of secret societies, hetæræ, which could easily be made to apply to the Christians. In consequence of this law the younger Pliny, as Governor of Bithynia, punished with death those who were accused as Christians, if they would not abjure Christianity. But his doubts being awakened by the great number of every rank and age and of both sexes against whom accusations were brought, and in consequence of a careful examination, which showed the Christians to be morally pure and politically undeserving of suspicion and to be guilty only of stubborn attachment to their superstition, he asked definite instructions from the Emperor. Trajan approved of what he had done and what he proposed; the Christians were not to be sought after and anonymous accusations were not to be regarded, but those formally complained of and convicted, if they stubbornly refused to sacrifice to the gods and burn incense before the statues of the Emperor were to be punished with death (A.D. 112). This imperial rescript continued for a long time the legal standard for judicial procedure with reference to the Christians. The persecution under Trajan extended even to Syria and Palestine. In Jerusalem the aged bishop Simeon, the successor of James, accused as a Christian and a descendant of David, after being cruelly scourged, died a martyr’s death on the cross in A.D. 107. The martyrdom, too, of the Antiochean bishop, Ignatius, in all probability took place during the reign of Trajan (§ 30, 5). An edict of toleration supposed to have been issued at a later period by Trajan, a copy of which exists in Syriac and Armenian, is now proved to be apocryphal.—During the reign of Hadrian (A.D. 117-138), the people began to carry out in a tumultuous way the execution of the Christians on the occasion of the heathen festivals. On the representation of the proconsul of Asia, Serenius Granianus, Hadrian issued a rescript addressed to his successor, Minucius Fundanus, against such acts of violence, but executions still continued carried out according to the forms of law. The genuineness of the rescript, however, as given at the close of the first Apology of Justin Martyr, has been recently disputed by many. In Rome itself, between A.D. 135 and A.D. 137, bishop Telesphorus, with many other Christians, fell as victims of the persecution. The tradition of the fourth century, that Hadrian wished to build a temple to Christ, is utterly without historical foundation. His unfavourable disposition toward the Christians clearly appears from this, that he caused a temple of Venus to be built upon the spot where Christ was crucified, and a statue of Jupiter to be erected on the rock of the sepulchre, in order to pollute those places which Christians held most sacred.

§ 22.3. Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius.—Under Antoninus Pius (A.D. 138-161), the tumultuous charges of the people against the Christians, on account of visitations of pestilence in many places, were renewed, but the mildly disposed emperor sought to protect them as much as possible from violence. The rescript, however, Ad Commune Asiæ, which bears his name is very probably of Christian authorship.—The persecutions again took a new turn under Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 161-180) who was, both as a man and a ruler, one of the noblest figures of antiquity. In the pride of his stoical wisdom, however, despising utterly the enthusiasm of the Christians, he not only allowed free scope to the popular hatred, but also introduced the system of espionage, giving to informers the confiscated property of the Christians, and even permitting the use of torture, in order to compel them to recant, and thus gave occasion to unexampled triumphs of Christian heroism. At Rome, the noble Apologist Justin Martyr, denounced by his opponent the philosopher Crescens, after cruel and bloody scourging, died under the executioner’s axe about A.D. 165 (§ 30, 9).—In regard to a very severe persecution endured by the church of Smyrna, we possess an original report of it sent from that church to one closely related to it, embellished with legendary details or interpolated, which Eusebius has incorporated in his Church History. The substance of it is a description of the glorious martyr death of their aged bishop Polycarp (§ 30, 6), who, because he refused to curse the Lord whom he had served for eighty-six years, was made to mount the funeral pile, and while rejoicing in the midst of the flames, received the crown of martyrdom. According to the story the flames gathered around him like a wind-filled sail, and when a soldier pierced him with his sword, suddenly a white dove flew up; moreover the glorified spirit also appeared to a member of the church in a vision, clothed in a white garment. Eusebius places the date of Polycarp’s death shortly before A.D. 166. But since it has been shown by Waddington, on the basis of an examination of recently discovered inscriptions, that the proconsul of Asia, Statius Quadratus, mentioned in the report of the church of Smyrna, did not hold that office in A.D. 166, but in A.D. 155-156, the most important authorities have come to regard either A.D. 155 or A.D. 156 as the date of his martyrdom. Still some whose opinions are worthy of respect refuse to accept this view, pointing out the absence of that chronological statement from the report in Eusebius and to its irreconcilability with the otherwise well-supported facts, that Polycarp was on a visit to Rome in A.D. 155 (§ 37, 2), and that the reckoning of the day of his death in the report as ὄντος σαββάτου μεγάλου would suit indeed the Easter of A.D. 155, as well as that of A.D. 166, but not that of A.D. 156.[24] The legend of the Legio fulminatrix, that in the war against the Marcomanni in A.D. 174 the prayers of the Christian soldiers of this legion called forth rain and thunder, and thus saved the Emperor and his army from the danger of perishing by thirst, whereupon this modified law against the accusers of the Christians was issued, has, so far as the first part is concerned, its foundation in history, only that the heathen on the other hand ascribed the miracle to their prayer to Jupiter Pluvius.[25]—Regarding the persecution at Lyons and Vienne in A.D. 177, we also possess a contemporary report from the Christian church of these places (§ 32, 8). Bishop Pothinus, in his ninetieth year, sank under the effects of tortures continued during many days in a loathsome prison. The young and tender slave-girl Blandina was scourged, her body scorched upon a red-hot iron chair, her limbs torn by wild beasts and at last her life taken; but under all her tortures she continued to repeat her joyful confession: “I am a Christian and nothing wicked is tolerated among us.” Under similar agonies the boy Ponticus, in his fifteenth year, showed similar heroism. The dead bodies of the martyrs were laid in heaps upon the streets, until at last they were burnt and their ashes strewn upon the Rhone. Commodus (A.D. 180-192), the son of Marcus Aurelius, who in every other respect was utterly disreputable, influenced by his mistress Marcia, showed himself inclined, by the exercise of his clemency, to remit the sentences of the Christians. The persecution at Scillita in North Africa, during the first year of the reign of Commodus, in which the martyr Speratus suffered, together with eleven companions, was carried out in accordance with the edict of Marcus Aurelius.

§ 22.4. Septimius Severus and Maximinus Thrax.—Septimius Severus (A.D. 193-211), whom a Christian slave, Proculus, had healed of a sickness by anointing with oil, was at first decidedly favourable to the Christians. Even in A.D. 197, after his triumphal entrance into Rome, he took them under his personal protection when the popular clamour, which such a celebration was fitted to excite, was raised against them. The judicial persecution, too, which some years later, A.D. 200, his deputy in North Africa carried on against the Christians on the basis of existing laws because they refused to sacrifice to the genius of the Emperor, he may not have been able to prevent. On the other hand, he did himself, in A.D. 202, issue an edict which forbade conversions to Judaism and Christianity. The storm of persecution thereby excited was directed therefore first of all and especially against the catechumens and the neophytes, but frequently also, overstepping the letter of the edict, it was turned against the older Christians. The persecution seems to have been limited to Egypt and North Africa. At Alexandria Leonidas, the father of Origen, was beheaded. The female slave, Potamiæna, celebrated as much for her moral purity as for her beauty, was accused by her master, whose evil passions she had refused to gratify, as a Christian, and was given over to the gladiators to be abused. She succeeded, however, in defending herself from pollution, and was then, along with her mother Marcella, slowly dipped into boiling pitch. The soldier, Basilides by name, who should have executed the sentence himself embraced Christianity, and was beheaded. The persecution raged with equal violence and cruelty in Carthage. A young woman of a noble family, Perpetua, in her twenty-second year, in spite of imprisonment and torture, and though the infant in her arms and her weeping pagan father appealed to her heart’s affections, continued true to her faith, and was thrown to be tossed on the horns of a wild cow, and to die from the dagger of a gladiator. The slave girl Felicitas who, in the same prison, became a mother, showed similar courage amid similar sufferings. Persecution smouldered on throughout the reign of Septimius, showing itself in separate sporadic outbursts, but was not renewed under his son and successor Caracalla (A.D. 211-217), who in other respects during his reign stained with manifold cruelties, did little to the honour of those Christian influences by which in his earliest youth he had been surrounded (“lacte Christiano educatus,” Tert.).—That Christianity should have a place given it among the senseless religions favoured by Elagabalus or Heliogabalus (A.D. 218-222), was an absurdity which nevertheless secured for it toleration and quiet. His second wife, Severina or Severa, to whom Hippolytus dedicated his treatise Περὶ ἀναστάσεως, was the first empress friendly to the Christians. Alexander Severus (A.D. 222-235), embracing a noble eclecticism, placed among his household gods the image of Christ, along with those of Abraham, Orpheus, and Apollonius of Tyana, and showed himself well disposed toward the Christians; while at the same time his mother, Julia Mammæa, encouraged and furthered the scholarly studies of Origen. The golden saying of Christ, Luke vi. 31, was inscribed upon the gateway of his palace. His murderer, Maximinus Thrax (A.D. 235-238), from very opposition to his predecessor, became at once the enemy of the Christians. Clearly perceiving the high importance of the clergy for the continued existence of the church, his persecuting edict was directed solely against them. The imperial position which he had usurped, however, was not sufficiently secure to allow him to carry out his intentions to extremities. Under Gordianus the Christians had rest, and Philip the Arabian (A.D. 244-249) favoured them so openly and decidedly, that it came to be thought that he himself had been a Christian.

§ 22.5. Decius, Gallus and Valerianus [Valerian].—Soon after the accession of Decius (A.D. 249-251), in the year 250, a new persecution broke out that lasted without interruption for ten years. This was the first general persecution and was directed at first against the recognised heads of the churches, but by-and-by was extended more widely to all ranks, and exceeded all previous persecutions by its extent, the deliberateness of its plan, the rigid determination with which it was conducted, and the cruelties of its execution. Decius was a prudent ruler, an earnest man of the old school, endued with an indomitable will. But it was just this that drove him to the conclusion that Christianity, as a godless system and one opposed to the interests of the state, must be summarily suppressed. All possible means, such as confiscation of goods, banishment, severe tortures, or death, were tried in order to induce the Christians to yield. Very many spoiled by the long peace that they had enjoyed gave way, but on the other hand crowds of Christians, impelled by a yearning after the crown of martyrdom, gave themselves up joyfully to the prison and the stake. Those who fell away, the lapsi, were classified as the Thurificati or Sacrificati, who to save their lives had burnt incense or sacrificed to the gods, and Libellatici, who without doing this had purchased a certificate from the magistrates that they had done so, and Acta facientes, who had issued documents giving false statements regarding their Christianity. Those were called Confessores who publicly professed Christ and remained steadfast under persecution, but escaped with their lives; those were called Martyrs who witnessing with their blood, suffered death for the faith they professed. The Roman church could boast of a whole series of bishops who fell victims to the storm of persecution: Fabianus [Fabian] in A.D. 250, and Cornelius in A.D. 253, probably also Lucius in A.D. 254, and Stephanus in A.D. 257. And as in Rome, so also in the provinces, whole troops of confessors and martyrs met a joyful death, not only from among the clergy, but also from among the general members of the church.—Then again, under Gallus (A.D. 251-253), the persecution continued, excited anew by plagues and famine, but was in many ways restricted by political embarrassment. Valerianus [Valerian] (A.D. 253-260), from being a favourer of the Christians, began from A.D. 257, under the influence of his favourite Macrianus, to show himself a determined persecutor. The Christian pastors were at first banished, and since this had not the desired effect, they were afterwards punished with death. At this time, too, the bishop of Carthage, Cyprian, who under Decius had for a short season withdrawn by flight into the wilderness, won for himself the martyr’s crown. So, likewise, in A.D. 258, suffered Sixtus II. of Rome. The Roman bishop was soon followed by his deacon Laurentius, a hero among Christian martyrs, who pointed the avaricious governor to the sick, the poor and the orphans of the congregation as the treasures of the church, and was then burnt alive on a fire of glowing coal. But Valerian’s son, Gallienus (A.D. 260-268), by an edict addressed to the bishops, abolished the special persecuting statutes issued by his father, without, however, as he is often erroneously said to have done, formally recognising Christianity as a Religio licita. The Christians after this enjoyed a forty years’ rest; for the commonly reported cruel persecution of Christians under Claudius II., (A.D. 268-270) has been proved to be a pure fable of apocryphal Acts of the Martyrs; and also the persecution planned by Aurelian (A.D. 270-275), toward the close of his reign, was prevented by his assassination committed by a pagan officer.

§ 22.6. Diocletian and Galerius.—When Diocletian (A.D. 284-305) was proclaimed Emperor by the army in Chalcedon, he chose Nicomedia in Bithynia as his residence, and transferred the conduct of the war to the general Maximianus [Maximian] Herculius with the title of Cæsar, who, after the campaign had been closed successfully in A.D. 286, was raised to the rank of Augustus or joint-Emperor. New harassments from within and from without led the two Emperors in A.D. 286 to name two Cæsars, or sub-Emperors, who by their being adopted were assured of succession to imperial rank. Diocletian assumed the administration of the East, and gave up Illyricum as far as Pontus to his Cæsar and son-in-law Galerius. Maximian undertook the government of the West, and surrendered Gaul, Spain and Britain to his Cæsar, Constantius Chlorus. According to Martyrologies, there was a whole legion, called Legio Thebaica, that consisted of Christian soldiers. This legion was originally stationed in the East, but was sent into the war against the Gauls, because its members refused to take part in the persecution of their brethren. After suffering decimation twice over without any result, it is said that Maximian left this legion, consisting of 6,600 men, along with its commander St. Maurice, to be hewn down in the pass of Agaunum, now called St. Moritz, in the Canton Valais. According to Rettberg,[26] the historical germ of this consists in a tradition reported by Theodoret as originating during the fifth or sixth century, in a letter of Eucherius bishop of Lyons, about the martyrdom of St. Maurice, who as Tribunus Militum was executed at Apamea along with seventy soldiers, by the orders of Maximian. Diocletian, as the elder and supreme Emperor, was an active, benevolent, clear-sighted statesman and ruler, but also a zealous adherent of the old religion as regenerated by Neo-platonic influences (§ 24, 2), and as such was inclined to hold Christianity responsible for many of the internal troubles of his kingdom. He was restrained from interfering with the Christians, however, by the policy of toleration which had prevailed since the time of Gallienus, as well as by his own benevolent disposition, and not least by the political consideration of the vast numbers of the Christian population. His own wife Prisca and his daughter Valeria had themselves embraced Christianity, as well as very many, and these the truest and most trustworthy, of the members of his household. Yet the incessant importunities and whispered suspicions of Galerius were not without success. In A.D. 298 he issued the decree, that all soldiers should take part in the sacrificial rites, and thus obliged all Christian soldiers to withdraw from the army. During a long sojourn in Nicomedia he finally prevailed upon the Emperor to order a second general persecution; yet even then Diocletian persisted, that in it no blood should be shed. This persecution opened in A.D. 303 with the imperial command to destroy the stately church of Nicomedia. Soon after an edict was issued forbidding all Christian assemblies, ordering the destruction of the churches, the burning of the sacred scriptures, and depriving Christians of their offices and of their civil rights. A Christian tore up the edict and was executed. Fire broke out in the imperial palace and Galerius blamed the Christians for the fire, and also charged them with a conspiracy against the life of the Emperor. A persecution then began to rage throughout the whole Roman empire, Gaul, Spain and Britain alone entirely escaping owing to the favour of Constantius Chlorus who governed these regions. All conceivable tortures and modes of death were practised, and new and more horrible devices were invented from day to day. Diocletian, who survived to A.D. 313, and Maximian, abdicated the imperial rank which they had jointly held in A.D. 305. Their places were filled by those who had been previously their Cæsars, and Galerius as now the chief Augustus proclaimed as Cæsars, Severus and Maximinus Daza, the most furious enemies of the Christians that could be found, so that the storm of persecution which had already begun in some measure to abate, was again revived in Italy by Severus and in the East by Maximinus. Then in order to bring all Christians into inevitable contact with idolatrous rites, Galerius in A.D. 308 had all victuals in the markets sprinkled with wine or water that had been offered to idols. Seized with a terrible illness, mortification beginning in his living body, he finally admitted the uselessness of all his efforts to root out Christianity, and shortly before his death, in common with his colleague, he issued in A.D. 311, a formal edict of toleration, which permitted to all Christians the free exercise of their religion and claimed in return their intercession for the emperor and the empire.—During this persecution of unexampled cruelty, lasting without intermission for eight years, many noble proofs were given of Christian heroism and of the joyousness that martyrdom inspired. The number of the Lapsi, though still considerable, was in proportion very much less than under the Decian persecution. How much truth, if any, there may have been in the later assertion of the Donatists (§ 63, 1), that even the Roman bishop, Marcellinus [Marcellus] (A.D. 296-304), and his presbyters, Melchiades, Marcellus and Sylvester, who were also his successors in the bishopric, had denied Christ and sacrificed to idols, cannot now be ascertained. Augustine denies the charge, but even the Felician Catalogue of the Popes reports that Marcellinus [Marcellus] during the persecution became a Thurificatus, adding, however, the extenuation, that he soon thereafter, seized with deep penitence, suffered martyrdom. The command to deliver up the sacred writings gave rise to a new order of apostates, the so-called Traditores. Many had recourse to a subterfuge by surrendering heretical writings instead of the sacred books and as such, but the earnest spirit of the age treated these as no better than traditors.[27]

§ 22.7. Maximinus Daza, Maxentius and Licinius.—After the death of Galerius his place was taken by the Dacian Licinius, who shared with Maximinus the government of the East, the former taking the European, the latter the Asiatic part along with Egypt. Constantius Chlorus had died in A.D. 306, and Galerius had given to the Cæsar Severus the empire of the West. But the army proclaimed Constantine, son of Constantius, as Emperor. He also established himself in Gaul, Spain and Britain. Then also Maxentius, son of the abdicated emperor Maximian, claimed the Western Empire, was proclaimed Augustus by the Prætorians, recognised by the Roman senate, and after the overthrow of Severus, ruled in Italy and Africa.—The pagan fanaticism of Maximinus prevailed against the toleration edict of Galerian. He heartily supported the attempted expulsion of Christians on the part of several prominent cities, and commended the measure on brazen tablets. He forbade the building of churches, punished many with fines and dishonour, inflicted in some cases bodily pains and even death, and gave official sanction to perpetrating upon them all sorts of scandalous enormities. The Acta Pilati, a pagan pseudepigraph filled with the grossest slanders about the passion of Christ, was widely circulated by him and introduced as a reading-book for the young in the public schools. Constantine, who had inherited from his father along with his Neo-platonic eclecticism his toleration of the Christians, secured to the professors of the Christian faith in his realm the most perfect quiet. Maxentius, too, at first let them alone; but the rivalry and enmity that was daily increasing between him and Constantine, the favourer of the Christians, drew him into close connection with the pagan party, and into sympathy with their persecuting spirit. In A.D. 312 Constantine led his army over the Alps. Maxentius opposed him with an army drawn up in three divisions; but Constantine pressed on victoriously, and shattered his opponent’s forces before the gates of Rome. Betaking himself to flight, Maxentius was drowned in the Tiber, and Constantine was then sole ruler over the entire Western Empire. At Milan he had a conference with Licinius, to whom he gave in marriage his sister Constantia. They jointly issued an edict in A.D. 313, which gave toleration to all forms of worship throughout the empire, expressly permitting conversion to Christianity, and ordering the restoration to the Christians of all the churches that had been taken from them. Soon thereafter a decisive battle was fought between Maximinus and Licinius. The former was defeated and took to flight. The friendly relations that had subsisted between Constantine and Licinius gave way gradually to estrangement and were at last succeeded by open hostility. Licinius by manifesting zeal as a persecutor identified himself with the pagan party, and Constantine threw in his lot with the Christians. In A.D. 323 a war broke out between these two, like a struggle for life and death between Paganism and Christianity. Licinius was overthrown and Constantine was master of the whole empire (§ 42, 2). Eusebius in his Vita Constantini reports, on the basis probably of a sworn statement of the emperor, that during the expedition against Maxentius in A.D. 312, after praying for the aid of the higher powers, when the sun was going down, he saw in heaven a shining cross in the sun with a bright inscription: τούτῳ νίκα. During the night Christ appeared to him in a dream, and commanded him to take the cross as his standard in battle and with it to go into battle confident of victory. In his Church History, Eusebius makes no mention of this tradition of the vision. On the other hand there is here the fact, contested indeed by critics, that after the victory over Maxentius the emperor had erected his statue in the Roman Forum, with the cross in his hand, and bearing the inscription: “By this sign of salvation have I delivered your city from the yoke of the tyrant.” This only is certain, that the imperial standard, which had the unexplained name Labarum, bore the sign of the cross with the monogram of the name of Christ.

§ 23. CONTROVERSIAL WRITINGS OF PAGANISM.

Pagan writers in their published works passed spiteful and contemptuous judgments upon Christians and Christianity (Tacitus, Pliny, Marcus Aurelius, and the physician Galen), or, like the rhetorician Fronto, argued against them with violent invective; while popular wit ran riot in representing Christianity by word and picture as the devout worship of an ass. But even the talented satirist Lucian of Samosata was satisfied with ridiculing the Christians as senseless fools. The first and also the most important of all really pagan advocates was Celsus, who in the second century, with brilliant subtlety and scathing sarcasm sought to prove that the religion of the Christians was the very climax of unreason. In respect of ability, keenness and bitterness of polemic he is closely followed by the Neo-platonist Porphyry. Far beneath both stands Hierocles, governor of Bithynia. Against such attacks the most famous Christian teachers took the field as Apologists. They disproved the calumnies and charges of the pagans, demanded fair play for the Christians, vindicated Christianity by the demonstration of its inner truth, the witness borne to it by the life and walk of Christians, its establishment by miracles and prophecies, its agreement with the utterances and longings of the most profound philosophers, whose wisdom they traced mediately or immediately from the Old Testament, and on the other hand, they sought to show the nothingness of the heathen gods, and the religious as well as moral perversity of paganism.

§ 23.1. Lucian’s Satire De Morte Peregrini takes the form of an account given by Lucian to his friend Cronius of the Cynic Peregrinus Proteus’ burning of himself during the Olympic games of A.D. 165, of which he himself was a witness. Peregrinus is described as a low, contemptible man, a parricide and guilty of adultery, unnatural vice and drunkenness, who having fled from his home in Palestine joined the Christians, learnt their θαυμαστὴ σοφία, became their prophet (§ 34, 1), Thiasarch (§ 17, 3) and Synagogeus, and as such expounded their sacred writings, even himself composed and addressed to the most celebrated Greek cities many epistles containing new ordinances and laws. When cast into prison he was the subject of the most extravagant attentions on the part of the Christians. Their γραΐδια and χῆραι (deaconesses) nursed him most carefully, δεῖπνα ποικίλα and λόγοι ἱεροί (Agapæ) were celebrated in his prison, they loaded him with presents, etc. Nevertheless on leaving prison, on account of his having eaten a forbidden kind of meat (flesh offered to idols) he was expelled by them. He now cast himself into the arms of the Cynics, travelled as the apostle of their views through the whole world, and ended his life in his mad thirst for fame by voluntarily casting himself upon the funeral pile. Lucian tells with scornful sneer how the superstitious people supposed that there had been an earthquake and that an eagle flew up from his ashes crying out: The earth I have lost, to Olympus I fly. This fable was believed, and even yet it is said that sometimes Peregrinus will be seen in a white garment as a spirit.—It is undoubtedly recorded by Aulus Gellius that a Cynic Peregrinus lived at this time whom he describes as vir gravis et constans. This too is told by the Apologist Tatian, who in him mocks at the pretension on the part of heathen philosophers to emancipation from all wants. But neither of them knows anything about his Christianity or his death by fire. It is nevertheless conceivable that Peregrinus had for some time connection with Christianity; but without this assumption it seems likely that Lucian in a satire which, under the combined influence of personal and class antipathies, aimed first and chiefly at stigmatizing Cynicism in the person of Peregrinus, should place Christianity alongside of it as what seemed to him with its contempt of the world and self-denial to be a new, perhaps a nobler, but still nothing more than a species of Cynicism. Many features in the caricature which he gives of the life, doings and death of Peregrinus seem to have been derived by him from the life of the Apostle Paul as well as from the account of the martyrdom of Ignatius, and especially from that of Polycarp (§ 22, 3).[28]

§ 23.2. Worshippers of an Ass (Asinarii) was a term of reproach that was originally and from early times applied to the Jews. They now sought to have it transferred to the Christians. Tertullian tells of a picture publicly exhibited in Carthage which represented a man clothed in a toga, with the ears and hoof of an ass, holding a book in his hand, and had this inscription: Deus Christianorum Onochoetes. This name is variously read. If read as ὄνου χοητής it means asini sacerdos. Alongside of this we may place the picture, belonging probably to the third century, discovered in A.D. 1858 scratched on a wall among the ruins of a school for the imperial slaves, that were then excavated. It represents a man with an ass’s head hanging on a cross, and beneath it the caricature of a worshipper with the words written in a schoolboy’s hand; Alexamenos worships God (A. σεβετε θεον); evidently the derision of a Christian youth by a pagan companion. The scratching on another wall gives us probably the answer of the Christian: Alexamenos fidelis.

§ 23.3. Polemic properly so-called.—

1. The Λόγος ἀληθής of Celsus is in great part preserved in the answer of Origen (§ 31, 5). He identifies the author with that Celsus to whom Lucian dedicated the little work Alexander or Pseudomantis in which he so extols the philosophy of Epicurus that it seems he must be regarded as an Epicurean. Since, however, the philosophical standpoint of our Celsus is that of a Platonist the assumption of the identity of the two has been regarded as untenable. But even our Celsus does not seem to have been a pure Platonist but an Eclectic, and as such might also show a certain measure of favour to the philosophy of Epicurus. Their age is at least the same. Lucian wrote that treatise soon after A.D. 180, and according to Keim, the Λόγος ἀληθής was probably composed about A.D. 178. Almost everything that modern opponents down to our own day have advanced against the gospel history and doctrine is found here wrought out with original force and subtlety, inspired with burning hatred and bitter irony, and highly spiced with invective, mockery, and wit. First of all the author introduces a Jew who repeats the slanders current among the Jews, representing Jesus as a vagabond impostor, His mother as an adulteress, His miracles and resurrection as lying fables; then enters a heathen philosopher who proves that both Judaism and Christianity are absurd; and finally, the conditions are set forth under which alone the Christians might claim indulgence: the abandonment of their exclusive attitude toward the national religion and the recognition of it by their taking part in the sacrifices appointed by the state.[29]

2. The Neo-platonist Porphyry, about A.D. 270, as reported by Jerome, in the XV. Book of his Κατὰ Χριστιανῶν points to a number of supposed contradictions in holy scripture, calls attention to the conflict between Paul and Peter (Gal. ii.), explains Daniel’s prophecies as Vaticinia post eventum, and censures the allegorical interpretation of the Christians. Although even among the Christians themselves Porphyry as a philosopher was highly esteemed, and notwithstanding contact at certain points between his ethical and religious view of the world and that of the Christians, perhaps just because of this, he is the worst and most dangerous of all their pagan assailants. Against his controversial writings, therefore, the edict of Theodosius II. ordering them to be burnt was directed in A.D. 448 (§ 42, 4), and owing to the zeal with which his works were destroyed the greater part of the treatises which quoted from it for purposes of controversy also perished with it—the writings of Methodius of Tyre (§ 31, 9), Eusebius of Cæsarea (§ 47, 2), Philostorgius (§ 5, 1) and Apollinaris the younger (§ 47, 5). Of these according to Jerome those of the last named were the most important. In the recently discovered controversial treatise of Macarius Magnes (§ 47, 6) an unnamed pagan philosopher is combated whose attacks, chiefly directed against the Gospels, to all appearance verbally agree with the treatise of Porphyry, or rather, perhaps, with that of his plagiarist Hierocles.

3. Hierocles who as governor of Bithynia took an active part in the persecution of Galerius, wrote two books Λόγοι φιλαλήθεις against the Christians, about A.D. 305, which have also perished. Eusebius’ reply refers only to his repudiation of the equality assigned to Christ and Apollonius of Tyana (§ 24, 1). While the title of his treatise is borrowed from that of Celsus, he has also according to the testimony of Eusebius in great part copied the very words of both of his predecessors.

§ 24. ATTEMPTED RECONSTRUCTION OF PAGANISM.

All its own more thoughtful adherents had long acknowledged that paganism must undergo a thorough reform and reconstruction if it were to continue any longer in existence. In the Augustan Age an effort was made to bolster up Neopythagoreanism by means of theurgy and magic. The chief representative of this movement was Apollonius of Tyana. In the second century an attempt was made to revivify the secret rites of the ancient mysteries, of Dea Syra, and Mithras. Yet all this was not enough. What was needed was the setting up of a pagan system which would meet the religious cravings of men in the same measure as Christianity with its supernaturalism, monotheism and universalism had done, and would have the absurdities and impurities that had disfigured the popular religion stripped off. Such a regeneration of paganism was undertaken in the beginning of the third century by Neoplatonism. But even this was no more able than pagan polemics had been to check the victorious career of Christianity.

§ 24.1. Apollonius of Tyana in Cappadocia, a contemporary of Christ and the Apostles, was a philosopher, ascetic and magician esteemed among the people as a worker of miracles. As an earnest adherent of the doctrine of Pythagoras, whom he also imitated in his dress and manner of life, claiming the possession of the gifts of prophecy and miracle working, he assumed the role of a moral and religious reformer of the pagan religion of his fathers. Accompanied by numerous scholars, teaching and working miracles, he travelled through the whole of the then known world until he reached the wonderland of India. He settled down at last in Ephesus where he died at an advanced age, having at least passed his ninety-sixth year. At the wish of the Empress Julia, wife of Septimius Severus, in the third century, Philostratus the elder composed in the form of a romance in eight books based upon written and oral sources, a biography of Apollonius, in which he is represented as a heathen counterpart of Christ, who is otherwise completely ignored, excelling Him in completeness of life, doctrine and miraculous powers.[30]

§ 24.2. In Neo-platonism, by the combination of all that was noblest and best in the exoteric and esoteric religion, in the philosophy, theosophy and theurgy of earlier and later times in East and West, we are presented with a universal religion in which faith and knowledge, philosophy and theology, theory and practice, were so perfectly united and reconciled, and all religious needs so fully met, that in comparison with its wealth and fulness, the gnosis as well as the faith, the worship and the mysteries of the Christians must have seemed one-sided, commonplace and incomplete. The first to introduce and commend this tendency, which was carried out in three successive schools of philosophy, the Alexandrian-Roman, the Syrian and the Athenian, was the Alexandrian Ammonius Saccas,—this surname being derived from his occupation as a porter. He lived and taught in Alexandria till about A.D. 250. He sought to combine in a higher unity the Platonic and the Aristotelian philosophies, giving to the former a normative authority, and he did not hesitate to enrich his system by the incorporation of Christian ideas. His knowledge of Christianity came from Clement of Alexandria and from Origen, whose teacher in philosophy he had been. Porphyry indeed affirms that he had previously been himself a Christian, but had at a later period of life returned to paganism.—The most distinguished of his scholars, and also the most talented and profound of all the Neo-platonists, was Plotinus, who was in A.D. 254 a teacher of philosophy at Rome, and died in A.D. 270. His philosophico-theological system in its characteristic features is a combination of the Platonic antithesis of the finite world of sense and the eternal world of ideas with the stoical doctrine of the world soul. The eternal ground of all being is the one supramundane, unintelligible and indescribable good (τὸ ἕν, τὸ ἀγαθόν), from which all stages of being are radiated forth; first; spirit or the world of ideas (νοῦς, κόσμος νοητός), the eternal type of all being; and then, from this the world soul (ψυχή); and from this, finally, the world of phenomena. The outermost fringe of this evolution, the forms of which the further they are removed from the original ground become more and more imperfect, is matter, just as the shadow is the outermost fringe of the light. It is conceived of as the finite, the fleeting, even as evil in itself. But imperfect as the world of sense is, it is nevertheless the vehicle of the ideal world and in many ways penetrated by the ideas, and the lighting up imparted by the ideas affords it its beauty. In consequence of those rays shining in from the realm of ideas, a whole vast hierarchy of divine forms has arisen, with countless dæmons good and bad, which give room for the incorporation of all the divine beings of the Greek and oriental mythologies. In this way myths that were partly immoral and partly fantastic can be rehabilitated as symbolical coverings of speculative ideas. The souls of men, too, originate from the eternal world soul. By their transition, however, into the world of sense they are hampered and fettered by corporeity. They themselves complete their redemption through emancipation from the bonds of sense by means of asceticism and the practice of virtue. In this way they secure a return into the ideal world and the vision of the highest good, sometimes as moments of ecstatic mystical union with that world, even during this earthly life, but an eternally unbroken continuance thereof is only attained unto after complete emancipation from all the bonds of matter.[31]—Plotinus’ most celebrated scholar, who also wrote his life, and collected and arranged his literary remains, was Porphyry. He also taught in Rome and died there in A.D. 304. His ἐκ τῶν λογίων φιλοσοφία, a collection of oracular utterances, was a positive supplement to his polemic against Christianity (§ 23, 3), and afforded to paganism a book of revelation, a heathen bible, as Philostratus had before sought to portray a heathen saviour. Of greater importance for the development of mediæval scholasticism was his Commentary on the logical works of Aristotle, published in several editions of the Aristotelian Organon.—His scholar Iamblichus of Chalcis in Cœle-Syria, who died A.D. 333, was the founder of the Syrian school. The development which he gave to the Neo-platonic doctrine consisted chiefly in the incorporation of a fantastic oriental mythology and theurgy. This also brought him the reputation of being a magician.—Finally, the Athenian school had in Proclus, who died in A.D. 485, its most distinguished representative. While on the one hand, he proceeded along the path opened by Iamblichus to develop vagaries about dæmons and theurgical fancies, on the other hand, he gave to his school an impulse in the direction of scholarly and encyclopædic culture.—The Neo-platonic speculation exercised no small influence on the development of Christian philosophy. The philosophizing church fathers, whose darling was Plato, got acquaintance with his philosophical views from its relatively pure reproduction met with in the works of the older Neo-platonists. The influence of their mystico-theosophic doctrine, especially as conveyed in the writings of the Pseudo-Dionysius (§ 47, 11), is particularly discernible in the Christian mysticism of the middle ages, and has been thence transmitted to modern times.[32]

§ 25. JEWISH AND SAMARITAN REACTION.

The Judaism of the Apostolic Age in its most characteristic form was thoroughly hostile to Christianity. The Pharisees and the mass of the people with their expectation of a political Messiah, took offence at a Messiah crucified by the Gentiles (1 Cor. i. 13); their national pride was wounded by the granting of equality to Samaritans and heathens, while their legal righteousness and sham piety were exposed and censured by the teachings of Christianity. On the other side, the Sadducees felt no less called upon to fight to the death against Christianity with its doctrine of the resurrection (Acts iv. 2; xxiii. 6). The same hostile feeling generally prevailed among the dispersion. The Jewish community at Berea (Acts xvii. 2) is praised as a pleasing exception to the general rule. Finally, in A.D. 70 destruction fell upon the covenant people and the holy city. The Christian church of Jerusalem, acting upon a warning uttered by the Lord (Matt. xxiv. 16), found a place of refuge in the mountain city of Pella, on the other side of Jordan. But when the Pseudo-Messiah, Bar-Cochba (Son of a Star, Num. xxiv. 17), roused all Palestine against the Roman rule, in A.D. 132, the Palestinian Christians who refused to assist or recognise the false Messiah, had again to endure a bloody persecution. Bar-Cochba was defeated in A.D. 135. Hadrian now commanded that upon pain of death no Jew should enter Ælia Capitolina, the Roman colony founded by him on the ruins of Jerusalem. From that time they were deprived of all power and opportunity for direct persecution of the Christians. All the greater was their pleasure at the persecutions by the heathens and their zeal in urging the pagans to extreme measures. In their seminaries they gave currency to the most horrible lies and calumnies about Christ and the Christians, which also issued thence among the heathens. On the other hand, however, they intensified their own anti-Christian attitude and sought protection against the advancing tide of Christianity by strangling all spiritual movement under a mass of traditional interpretations and judgments of men. The Schools of Tiberias and Babylon were the nurseries of this movement, and the Talmud, the first part of which, the Mishna, had its origin during this period, marks the completion of this anti-Christian self-petrifaction of Judaism. The disciples of John, too, assumed a hostile attitude toward Christianity, and formed a distinct set under the name of Hemerobaptists. Contemporaneously with the first successes of the Apostolic mission, a current set in among the Samaritans calculated to checkmate Christianity by the setting up of new religions. Dositheus, Simon Magus and Menander here made their appearance with claims to the Messiahship, and were at a later period designated heresiarchs by the church fathers, who believed that in them they found the germs of the Gnostic heresy (§§ 26 ff.).

§ 25.1. Disciples of John.—Even after their master had been beheaded the disciples of John the Baptist maintained a separate society of their own, and reproached the disciples of Jesus because of their want of strict ascetic discipline (Matt. ix. 14, etc.). The disciples of John in the Acts (xviii. 25; xix. 1-7) were probably Hellenist Jews, who on their visits to the feasts had been pointed by John to Christ, announced by him as Messiah, without having any information as to the further developments of the Christian community. About the middle of the second century, however, the Clementine Homilies (§ 28, 3), in which John the Baptist is designated a ἡμεροβαπτίστης, speaks of gnosticizing disciples of John, who may be identical with the Hemerobaptists, that is, those who practise baptism daily, of Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., iv. 22). They originated probably from a coalition of Essenes (§ 8, 4) and disciples of the Baptist who when orphaned by the death of John persistently refused to join the disciples of Christ.—We hear no more of them till the Carmelite missionary John a Jesu in Persia came upon a sect erroneously called Christians of St. John or Nazoreans.[33] Authentic information about the doctrine, worship and constitution of this sect that still numbers some hundred families, was first obtained in the 19th century by an examination of their very comprehensive sacred literature, written in an Aramaic dialect very similar to that of the Babylonian Talmud. The most important of those writings the so-called Great Book (Sidra rabba), also called Ginza, that is, thesaurus, has been faithfully reproduced by Petermann under the title Thesaurus s. Liber magnus, etc., 2 vols., Berl., 1867.—Among themselves the adherents of this sect were styled Mandæans, after one of their numerous divine beings or æons, Manda de chaje, meaning γνῶσις τῆς ζωῆς. In their extremely complicated religious system, resembling in many respects the Ophite Gnosis (§ 27, 6) and Manicheism (§ 29), this Æon takes the place of the heavenly mediator in the salvation of the earthly world. Among those without, however, they called themselves Subba, Sabeans from צבא or צבע to baptize. Although they cannot be identified right off with the Disciples of John and Hemerobaptists, a historical connection between them, carrying with it gnostic and oriental-heathen influences, is highly probable. The name Sabean itself suggests this, but still more the position they assign to John the Baptist as the only true prophet over against Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed. As adherents of John the Baptist rejected by the Jews the old Disciples of John had an anti-Jewish character, and by their own rejection of Christ an anti-Christian character. By shifting their residence to Babylon, however, they became so dependent on the Syro-Chaldean mythology, theosophy and theurgy, that they sank completely into paganism, and so their opposition to Judaism and Christianity increased into fanatical hatred and horrid calumniation.[34]

§ 25.2. The Samaritan Heresiarchs.—

1. Dositheus was according to Origen a contemporary of Jesus and the Apostles, and gave himself out as the prophet promised in Deut. xviii. 18. He insisted upon a curiously strict observance of the Sabbath, and according to Epiphanius he perished miserably in a cave in consequence of an ostentatiously prolonged fast. Purely fabulous are the stories of the Pseudo-Clementine writings (§ 28, 3) which bring him into contact with John the Baptist as his scholar and successor, and with Simon Magus as his defeated rival. More credible is the account of an Arabic-Samaritan Chronicle,[35] according to which the sect of the Dostanians at the time of Simon Maccabæus traced their descent from a Samaritan tribe, while also the Catholic heresiologies (§ 26, 4) reckon the Dositheans among the pre-Christian sects. According to a statement of Eulogius of Alexandria recorded by Photius, the Dositheans and Samaritans in Egypt in A.D. 588 disputed as to the meaning of Deut. xviii. 18.

2. Simon Magus, born, according to Justin Martyr, at Gitta in Samaria, appeared in his native country as a soothsayer with such success that the infatuated people hailed him as the δύναμις τοῦ θεοῦ ἡ καλουμένη μεγάλη. When Philip the Deacon preached the gospel in Samaria, Simon also received baptism from him, but was sternly denounced by Peter from whom he wished to buy the gift of communicating the Spirit (Acts viii). As to the identity of this man with Simon the Magician, according to Josephus hailing from Cyprus, who induced the Herodian Drusilla to quit her husband and become the wife of the Governor Felix (Acts xxiv. 24), it can scarcely claim to be more than a probability. A vast collection of fabulous legends soon grew up around the name of Simon Magus, not only from the Gentile-Christian and Catholic side, but also from the Jewish-Christian and heretical side; the latter to be still met with in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies and Recognitions, while in the Acta Petri et Pauli, we have the Catholic revision and reproduction of the no longer extant Ebionistic Acts of Peter (§ 32, 6). These Judaizing heretics particularly amused themselves by making a very slightly veiled vile caricature of the great Apostle of the Gentiles by transferring to the name of the magician many distorted representations of occurrences in the life and works of the Apostle Paul. This representation, however, was recognised in the Acts above referred to and by the church fathers as originally descriptive of Simon Magus. On the basis of this legendary conglomerate Irenæus, after the example of Justin, describes him as Magister ac progenitor omnium hæreticorum. From a house of ill fame in Tyre he bought a slave girl Helena, to whom he assigned the role of the world creating Ἔννοια of God. The angels born of her for the purpose of creating the world had rebelled against her; she was enslaved, and was imprisoned, sometimes in this, sometimes in that, human body; at one time in the body of Helen of Troy, and at last in that of the Tyrian prostitute. In order to redeem her and with her the world enslaved by the rebel angels, the supreme God (ὁ ἐστώς) Himself came down and assumed the form of man, was born unbegotten of man, suffered in appearance in Judea, and reveals Himself to the Samaritans as Father, to the Jews as Son, and to the Gentiles as the Holy Spirit. The salvation of man consists simply in acknowledging Simon and his Helena as the supreme gods. By faith only, not by works, is man justified. The law originated with the evil angels and was devised by them merely to keep men in bondage under them. This last point is evidently transferred to the magician partly from the Apostle Paul, partly from Marcion (§ 27, 11), and is copied from Ebionite sources. The Simon myth is specially rich in legends about the magician’s residence in Rome, to which place he had betaken himself after being often defeated in disputation by the Apostle Peter, and where he was so successful that the Romans erected a column in his honour on an island in the Tiber, which Justin Martyr himself is said to have seen, bearing the inscription: Simoni sancto Deo. The discovery in A.D. 1574 of the column dedicated to the Sabine god of oaths, inscribed “Semoni Sanco Deo Fidio,” explains how such a legend may have arisen out of a misunderstanding. Although by a successful piece of jugglery—decapitation and rising again the third day, having substituted for himself a goat whom he had bewitched to assume his appearance, whose head was cut off—he won the special favour of Nero, he was thereafter in public disputation before the emperor unmasked by Peter. In order to rehabilitate himself he offered to prove his divine power by ascending up into heaven. For this purpose he mounted a high tower. Peter adjured the angel of Satan, which carried him through the air, and the magician fell with a crash to the ground. Probably there is here transferred to one magician what is told by Suetonius (Nero, xii.) and Juvenal (Sat. iii. 79 ff.) as happening to a soothsayer in Nero’s time who made an attempt to fly. The school of Baur (§ 182, 7), after Baur himself had discovered in the Simon Magus of the Clementine Homilies a caricature of the Apostle Paul, has come to question the existence of the magician altogether, and has attempted to account for the myth as originating from the hatred of the Jewish Christians to the Apostle of the Gentiles. Support for this view is sought from Acts viii., the offering of money by the magician being regarded as a maliciously distorted account of the contribution conveyed by Paul to the church at Jerusalem.[36] Recently, however, Hilgenfeld, who previously maintained this view, has again recognised as well grounded the tradition of the Church Fathers, that Simon was the real author of the ψευδώνυμος γνῶσις, and has carried out this idea in his “Ketzergeschichte.”

3. Menander was, according to Justin Martyr, a disciple of Simon. Subsequently he undertook to play the part of the Saviour of the world. In doing so, however, he was always, as Irenæus remarks, modest enough not to give himself out as the supreme god, but only as the Messiah sent by Him. He taught, however, that any one who should receive his baptism would never become old or die.[37]

II. DANGER TO THE CHURCH FROM PAGAN AND JEWISH ELEMENTS WITHIN ITS OWN PALE.

§ 26. GNOSTICISM IN GENERAL.[38]

The Judaism and paganism imported into the church proved more dangerous to it than the storm of persecution raging against it from without. Ebionism (§ 28) was the result of the attempt to incorporate into Christianity the narrow particularism of Judaism; Heretical Gnosis or Gnosticism was the result of the attempt to blend with Christianity the religious notions of pagan mythology, mysteriology, theosophy and philosophy. These two tendencies, moreover, were combined in a Gnostic Ebionism, in the direction of which Essenism may be regarded as a transitional stage (§ 8, 4). In many respects Manichæism (§ 29), which sprang up at a later period, is related to the Gnosticism of Gentile Christianity, but also in character and tendency widely different from it. The church had to employ all her powers to preserve herself from this medley of religious fancies and to purify her fields from the weeds that were being sown on every side. In regard to Ebionism and its gnosticizing developments this was a comparatively easy task. The Gnosticism of Gentile Christianity was much more difficult to deal with, and although the church succeeded in overcoming the weed in her fields, yet many of its seeds continued hidden for centuries, from which sprouts grew up now and again quite unexpectedly (§§ 54, 71, 108). This struggle has nevertheless led to the furtherance of the church in many ways, awakening in it a sense of scientific requirements, stirring it up to more vigorous battling for the truth, and endowing it with a more generous and liberal spirit. It had learnt to put a Christian gnosis in the place of the heretical, a right and wholesome use of speculation and philosophy, of poetry and art, in place of their misuse, and thus enabled Christianity to realise its universal destination.

§ 26.1. Gnosticism was deeply rooted in a powerful and characteristic intellectual tendency of the first century. A persistent conviction that the ancient world had exhausted itself and was no longer able to resist its threatened overthrow, now prevailed and drove the deepest thinkers to adopt the boldest and grandest Syncretism the world has ever beheld, in the blending of all the previously isolated and heterogeneous elements of culture as a final attempt at the rejuvenating of that which had become old (§ 25). Even within the borders of the church this Syncretism favoured by the prevailing spirit of the age influenced those of superior culture, to whom the church doctrine of that age did not seem to make enough of theosophical principles and speculative thought, while the worship of the church seemed dry and barren. Out of the fusing of cosmological myths and philosophemes of oriental and Greek paganism with Christian historical elements in the crucible of its own speculation, there arose numerous systems of a higher fantastic sort of religious philosophy, which were included under the common name of Gnosticism. The pagan element is upon the whole the prevailing one, inasmuch as in most Gnostic systems Christianity is not represented as the conclusion and completion of the development of salvation given in the Old Testament, but often merely as the continuation and climax of the pagan religion of nature and the pagan mystery worship. The attitude of this heretical gnosis toward holy scripture was various. By means of allegorical interpretation some endeavoured to prove their system from it; others preferred to depreciate the Apostles as falsifiers of the original purely gnostic doctrine of Christ, or to remodel the apostolic writings in accordance with their own views, or even to produce a bible of their own after the principles of their own schools in the form of gnostic pseudepigraphs. With them, however, for the most part the tradition of ancient wisdom as the communicated secret doctrine stood higher than holy scripture. Over against the heretical gnosis, an ecclesiastical gnosis was developed, especially in the Alexandrian school of theology (Clement and Origen, § 31, 4, 5), which, according to 1 Cor. xii. 8, 9; xiii. 2, was esteemed and striven after as, in contradistinction to faith, a higher stage in the development of the religious consciousness. The essential distinction between the two consisted in this, that the latter was determined, inspired and governed by the believing consciousness of the universal church, as gradually formulated in the church confession, whereas the former, completely emancipated therefrom, disported itself in the unrestricted arbitrariness of fantastic speculation.

§ 26.2. The Problems of Gnostic Speculation are: the origin of the world and of evil, as well as the task, means and end of the world’s development. In solving these problems the Gnostics borrowed mostly from paganism the theory of the world’s origin, and from Christianity the idea of redemption. At the basis of almost all Gnostic systems there lies the dualism of God and matter (ὕλη); only that matter is regarded sometimes in a Platonic sense as non-essential and non-substantial (=μὴ ὄν) and hence without hostile opposition to the godhead, sometimes more in the Parsee sense as inspired and dominated by an evil principle, and hence in violent opposition to the good God. In working out the theosophical and cosmological process it is mainly the idea of emanation (προβολή) that is called into play, whereby from the hidden God is derived a long series of divine essences (αἰῶνες), whose inherent divine power diminishes in proportion as they are removed to a distance from the original source of being. These æons then make their appearance as intermediaries in the creation, development and redemption of the world. The substratum out of which the world is created consists in a mixture of the elements of the world of light (πλήρωμα) with the elements of matter (κένωμα) by means of nature, chance or conflict. One of the least and weakest of the æons, who is usually designated Δημιουργός, after the example of Plato in the Timæus, is brought forward as the creator of the world. Creation is the first step toward redemption. But the Demiurge cannot or will not carry it out, and so finally there appears in the fulness of the times one of the highest æons as redeemer, in order to secure perfect emancipation to the imprisoned elements of light by the communication of the γνῶσις. Seeing that matter is derived from the evil, he appears in a seeming body or at baptism identifies himself with the psychical Messiah sent by the Demiurge. The death on the cross is either only an optical illusion, or the heavenly Christ, returning to the pleroma, quits the man Jesus, or gives His form to some other man (Simon of Cyrene, Matt. xxvii. 32) so that he is crucified instead of Him (Docetism). The souls of men, according as the pleromatic or hylic predominates in them, are in their nature, either Pneumatic, which alone are capable of the γνῶσις, or Psychical, which can only aspire to πίστις, or finally, Hylic (χοϊκοί, σαρκικοί), to which class the great majority belongs, which, subject to Satanic influences, serve only their lower desires. Redemption consists in the conquest and exclusion of matter, and is accomplished through knowledge (γνῶσις) and asceticism. It is therefore a chemical, rather than an ethical process. Seeing that the original seat of evil is in matter, sanctification is driven from the ethical domain into the physical, and consists in battling with matter and withholding from material enjoyments. The Gnostics were thus originally very strict in their moral discipline, but often they rushed to the other extreme, to libertinism and antinomianism, in consequence partly of the depreciation of the law of the Demiurge, partly of the tendency to rebound from one extreme to the other, and justified their conduct on the ground of παραχρῆσθαι τῇ σαρκί.

§ 26.3. Distribution.—Gieseler groups the Gentile Christian Gnostics according to their native countries into Egyptian or Alexandrian, whose emanationist and dualistic theories were coloured by Platonism, and the Syrian, whose views were affected by Parseeism.—Neander divides Gnostic systems into Judaistic and Anti-Jewish, subdividing the latter into such as incline to Paganism, and such as strive to apprehend Christianity in its purity and simplicity.—Hase arranges them as Oriental, Greek and Christian.—Baur classifies the Gnostic systems as those which endeavour to combine Judaism and paganism with Christianity, and those which oppose Christianity to these.—Lipsius marks three stages in the development of Gnosticism: the blending of Asiatic myths with a Jewish and Christian basis which took place in Syria; the further addition to this of Greek philosophy either Stoicism or Platonism which was carried out in Egypt; and recurrence to the ethical principles of Christianity, the elevation of πίστις above γνῶσις.—Hilgenfeld arranges his discussion of these systems in accordance with their place in the early heresiologies.—But none of these arrangements can be regarded as in every respect satisfactory, and indeed it may be impossible to lay down any principle of distribution of such a kind. There are so many fundamental elements and these of so diverse a character, that no one scheme of division may suffice for an adequate classification of all Gnostic systems. The difficulty was further enhanced by the contradiction, approximation, and confusion of systems, and by their construction and reconstruction, of which Rome as the capital of the world was the great centre.

§ 26.4. Sources of Information.—Abundant as the literary productions were which assumed the name or else without the name developed the principles of Gnosticism, comparatively little of this literature has been preserved. We are thus mainly dependent upon the representations of its catholic opponents, and to them also we owe the preservation of many authentic fragments. The first church teacher who ex professo deals with Gnosticism is Justin Martyr (§ 30, 9), whose controversial treatise, however, as well as that of Hegesippus (§ 31, 7), has been lost. The most important of extant treatises of this kind are those of Irenæus in five books Adv. hæreses, and of Hippolytus Ἔλεγχος κατὰ πασῶν αἱρέσεων, the so-called Philosophoumena (§ 31, 3). The Σύνταγμα κ. π. αἱρ. of Hippolytus is no longer extant in the original; a Latin translation of it apparently exists in the Libellus adv. omnes hæreses, which has been attributed to Tertullian. Together with the work of Irenæus, it formed a query for the later heresiologists, Epiphanius and Philaster (§ 47, 10, 14), who were apparently unacquainted with the later written but more important and complete Elenchus. Besides these should be mentioned the writings of Tertullian (§ 31, 10) and Theodoret (§ 47, 9) referring to this controversy, the Stromata of Clement of Alexandria, and the published discussions of Origen (§ 31, 4, 5), especially in his Commentary on John, also the five Dialogues of the Pseudo-Origen (Adamantius) against the Gnostics from the beginning of the fourth century;[39] and finally many notices in the Church History of Eusebius. The still extant fragments of the Gnostic Apocryphal historian of the Apostles afford information about the teaching and forms of worship of the later syncretic vulgar Gnosticism, and also from the very defective representations of them in the works of their Catholic opponents.

§ 27. THE GENTILE CHRISTIAN GNOSTICISM.

In the older heretical Gnosticism (§ 18, 3), Jewish, pagan, and Christian elements are found, which are kept distinct, or are amalgamated or after examination are rejected, what remains being developed, consolidated and distributed, but in a confused blending. This is the case with Cerinthus. In Basilides again, who attaches himself to the doctrines of Stoicism, we have Gnosticism developed under the influence of Alexandrian culture; and soon thereafter in Valentinus, who builds on Plato’s philosophy, it attains its richest, most profound and noblest expression. From the blending of Syro-Chaldæan mythology with Greek and Hellenistic-Gnostic theories issue the divers Ophite systems. Antinomian Gnosticism with loose practical morality was an outgrowth from the contempt shown to the Jewish God that created the world and gave the law. The genuinely Syrian Gnosticism with its Parseeist-dualistic ruggedness was most purely represented by Saturninus, while in Marcion and his scholars the exaggeration of the Pauline opposition of law and grace led to a dualistic contrast of the God of the Old Testament and of the New. From the middle of the second century onwards there appears in the historical development of Gnosticism an ever-increasing tendency to come to terms with the doctrine of the church. This is shown by the founders of new sects, Marcion, Tatian, Hermogenes; and also by many elaborators of early systems, by Heracleon, Ptolomæus and Bardesanes who developed the Valentinian system, in the so-called Pistis Sophia, as the exposition of the Ophite system. This tendency to seek reconciliation with the church is also shown in a kind of syncretic popular or vulgar Gnosticism which sought to attach itself more closely to the church by the composition of apocryphal and pseudepigraphic Gospels and Acts of Apostles under biblical names and dates (§ 32, 4-6).—The most brilliant period in the history of Gnosticism was the second century, commencing with the age of Hadrian. At the beginning of the third century there was scarcely one of the more cultured congregations throughout the whole of the Roman empire and beyond this as far as Edessa, that was not affected by it. Yet we never find the numbers of regular Gnostic congregations exceeding that of the Catholic. Soon thereafter the season of decay set in. Its productive power was exhausted, and while, on the one side, it was driven back by the Catholic ecclesiastical reaction, on the other hand, in respect of congregational organization it was outrun and outbidden by Manichæism, and also by Marcionism.

§ 27.1. Cerinthus, as Irenæus says, resting on the testimony of Polycarp, was a younger contemporary of the Apostle John in Asia Minor; the Apostle meeting the heretic in a bath hastened out lest the building should fall upon the enemy of the truth. In his Gnosticism, resting according to Hippolytus on a basis of Alexandrian-Greek culture, we have the transition from the Jewish-Christian to a more Gentile than Jewish-Christian Gnostic standpoint. The continued hold of the former is seen according to Epiphanius in the maintaining of the necessity of circumcision and of the observances by Christians of the law given by disposition of angels, as also, according to Caius of Rome, who regards him as the author of the New Testament Apocalypse, in chiliastic expectations. Both of these, however, were probably intended only in the allegorical and spiritual sense. At the same time, according to Irenæus and Theodoret, the essentially Gnostic figure of the Demiurge already appears in his writings, who without knowing the supreme God is yet useful to Him as the creator of the world. Even Jesus, the son of Joseph and Mary, knew him not, until the ἄνω Χριστός descended upon him at his baptism. Before the crucifixion, which was a merely human mischance without any redemptive significance, the Christ had again withdrawn from him.

§ 27.2. The Gnosticism of Basilides.—Basilides (Βασιλείδης) was a teacher in Alexandria about A.D. 120-130. He pretends to derive the gnostic system from the notes of the esoteric teaching of Christ taken down by the Apostle Matthew and an amanuensis of Peter called Glaucias. He also made use of John’s Gospel and Paul’s Epistles to the Romans, Corinthians and Ephesians. He himself left behind 24 books Ἐξηγητικά and his equally talented son Isidorus has left a treatise under the title Ἠθικά. Fragments of both are found in Clement of Alexandria, two passages from the first are given also in the “Acts of Disputation,” by Archelaus of Cascar (§ 29, 1). Irenæus, i. 24, who refers to him as a disciple of Menander (§ 25, 2), and the Pseudo-Tertullian, c. 41, Epiphanius, 21, and Theodoret, i. 4, describe his system as grossly dualistic and decidedly emanationist. Hippolytus, vii. 14 ff., on the other hand, with whom Clement seems to agree, describes it as a thoroughly monistic system, in which the theogony is developed not by emanation from above downwards but by evolution from below upwards. This latter view which undoubtedly presents this system in a more favourable light,—according to Baur, Uhlhorn, Jacobi, Möller, Funk, etc., its original form: according to Hilgenfeld, Lipsius, Volkmar, etc., a later form influenced by later interpolations of Greek pantheistic ideas,—makes the development of God and the world begin with pure nothing: ἦν ὅτε ἦν οὐδέν. The principle of all development is ὁ οὐκ ὢν θεός, who out of Himself (ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων) calls chaos into being. This chaos was still itself an οὐκ ὄν, but yet also the πανσπερμία τοῦ κόσμου upon which now the οὐκ ὢν θεός as ἀκίνητος κινητής operated attractively by his beauty. The pneumatic element in the newly created chaos is represented in a threefold sonship (υἱότης τριμερής) of which the first and most perfect immediately after creation with the swiftness of thought takes its flight to the happy realm of non-existence, the Pleroma. The second less perfect sonship struggles after the first (hence called, μιμητική), but must, on reaching the borders of the happy realm, cast aside the less perfect part of its being, which now as the Holy Spirit (μεθόριον πνεῦμα) forms the vestibule (στερέωμα) or boundary line between the Pleroma (τὰ ὑπερκόσμια) and the cosmos, and although severed from the sonship, still, like a vessel out of which sweet ointment has been taken, it bears to this lower world some of the perfume adhering to it. The third sonship being in need of purifying must still remain in the Panspermia, and is as such the subject of future redemption. On the other hand, the greatest archon as the most complete concentration of all wisdom, might and glory which was found in the psychical elements of chaos, flew up to the firmament as ἀῤῥητῶν ἀῤῥητότερος. He now fancied himself to be the Supreme God and ruler of all things, and begot a son, who according to the predetermination of the non-existing excelled him in insight and wisdom. For himself and Son, having with them besides six other unnamed principalities, he founded the higher heavens, the so-called Ogdoas. After him there arose of chaos a second inferior Archon with the predicate ἄῤῥητος, who likewise begat a son mightier than himself, and founded a lower heavenly realm, the so-called Hebdomas, the planetary heavens. The rest of the Panspermia was the developed κατὰ φύσιν, that is, in accordance with the natural principle implanted in it by the non-existent “at our stage” (τὸ διάστημα τὸ καθ’ ἡμᾶς). As the time drew near for the manifestation of the children of God, that is, of men whose pneumatical endowment was derived from the third sonship, the son of the great Archon through the mediation of the μεθόριον πνεῦμα first devised the saving plan of the Pleroma. With fear and trembling now the great Archon too acknowledged his error, repented of this self-exaltation and with the whole Ogdoas rejoiced in the scheme of salvation. Through him also the son of the second Archon is enlightened, and he instructs his father, who now as the God of the Old Testament prepares the way for the development of salvation by the law and prophecy. The beginning is made by Jesus, son of the virgin Mary, who first himself absorbed the ray of the higher light, and as “the firstborn of the children of God” became also the Saviour (σωτήρ) of his brethren. His sufferings were necessary for removing the psychical and somatical elements of the Panspermia adhering to him. They were therefore actual, not mere seeming sufferings. His bodily part returned to the formlessness out of which it sprang; his psychical part arose from the grave, but in his ascension returned into the Hebdomas, while his pneumatic being belonging to the third sonship went up to the happy seat of the οὐκ ὢν θεός. And as he, the firstborn, so also all the children of God, have afterwards to perform their task of securing the highest possible development and perfection of the groaning creation (Rom. viii. 19), that is, of all souls which by their nature are eternally bound “to our stage.” Then finally, God will pour over all ranks of being beginning from the lowest the great ignorance (τὴν μεγάλην ἄγνοιαν) so that no one may be disturbed in their blessedness by the knowledge of a higher. Thus the restitution of all things is accomplished.—The mild spirit which pervades this dogmatic system preserved from extravagances of a rigoristic or libertine sort the ethical system resulting from it. Marriage was honoured and regarded as holy, though celibacy was admitted to be helpful in freeing the soul from the thraldom of fleshly lusts.

§ 27.3. The system set forth by Irenæus and others, as that of Basilides, represents the Supreme God as Pater innatus or θεὸς ἄῤῥητος. From him emanates the Νοῦς, from this again the Λόγος, from this the Φρόνησις, who brings forth Σοφία and Δύναμις. From the two last named spring the Ἀρχαί, Ἐξουσίαι and Ἄγγελοι, who with number seven of the higher gods, the primal father, at their head, constitute the highest heaven. From this as its ἀντίτυπος radiates forth a second spiritual world, and the emanation continues in this way, until it is completed and exhausts itself in the number of 365 spiritual worlds or heavens under the mystic name Ἀβραξάς or Ἀβρασάξ which has in its letters the numerical value referred to. This last and most imperfect of these spiritual worlds with its seven planet spirits forms the heaven visible to us. Through this three hundred and sixty-five times repeated emanation the Pleroma approaches the borders of the hyle, a seething mass of forces wildly tossing against one another. These rush wildly against it, snatch from it fragments of light and imprison them in matter. From this mixture the Archon of the lowest heaven in fellowship with his companions creates the earth, and to each of them apportions by lot a nation, reserving to himself the Jewish nation which he seeks to raise above all other nations, and so introduces envy and ambition into heaven, and war and bloodshed upon earth. Finally, the Supreme God sends his First-born, the Νοῦς, in order to deliver men from the power of the angel that created the world. He assumes the appearance of a body, and does many miracles. The Jews determined upon his death; nevertheless they crucified instead of him Simon the Cyrenian, who assumed his shape. He himself returned to his Father. By means of the Gnosis which he taught men’s souls are redeemed, while their bodies perish.—The development of one of these systems into the other might be most simply explained by assuming that the one described in the Elenchus of Hippolytus is the original and that its reconstruction was brought about by the overpowering intrusion of current dualistic, emanationistic, and docetic ideas. All that had there been said about the great Archon must now be attributed to the Supreme God, the Pater innatus, while the inferior archon might keep his place as ruler of the lowest planetary heaven. The 365 spiritual worlds had perhaps in the other system a place between the two Archons, for even Hippolytus, vii. 26, mentions in addition the 365 heavens to which also he gives the name of the great Archon Abrasax.—It is a fact of special importance that even Irenæus and Epiphanius distinguish from the genuine disciples of Basilides the so-called Pseudo-Basilideans as representing a later development, easily deducible from the second but hardly traceable from the first account of the system. That with their Gnosis they blended magic, witchcraft and fantastic superstition appears from the importance which they attached to mystic numbers and letters. Their libertine practice can be derived from their antinomian contempt of Judaism as well as from the theory that their bodies are doomed to perish. So, too, their axiom that to suffer martyrdom for the crucified, who was not indeed the real Christ, is foolish, may be deduced from the Docetism of their system. Abrasax gems which are still to be met with in great numbers and in great variety are to be attributed to these Basilideans; but these found favour and were used as talismans not only among other Gnostic sects but also among the Alchymists of the Middle Ages.

§ 27.4. Valentinian Gnosticism.—Valentinus, the most profound, talented and imaginative of all the Gnostics, was educated in Alexandria, and went to Rome about A.D. 140, where, during a residence of more than twenty years, he presided over an influential school, and exercised also a powerful influence upon other systems. He drew the materials for his system partly from holy scripture, especially from the Gospel of John, partly from the esoteric doctrine of a pretended disciple of Paul, Theodades. Of his own voluminous writings, in the form of discourses, epistles and poems, only a few fragments are extant. The reporters of his teaching, Irenæus, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Epiphanius, differ greatly from one another in details, and leave us in doubt as to what really belongs to his own doctrine and what to its development by his disciples—The fundamental idea of his system rests on the notion that according to a law founded in the depths of the divine nature the æons by emanation come into being as pairs, male and female. The pairing of these æons in a holy marriage is called a Syzygy. With this is joined another characteristic notion, that in the historical development of the Pleroma the original types of the three great crises of the earthly history, Creation, the Fall, and Redemption, are met with. On the basis of this he develops the most magnificently poetic epic of a Christian mythological Theogony and Cosmogony. From the Βυθός or Αὐτοπάτωρ and its Ἔννοια or Σιγή, evolving his thought hitherto only in silent contemplation of his own perfection, emanates the first and highest pair of æons, the Νοῦς or Μονογενής who alone of all æons can bear to look into the depths of the perfection of the Father of all, and beside him his bride Ἀλήθεια. From them spring the Λόγος and Ζωή as the second pair, and from this pair again Ἄνθρωπος and Ἐκκλησία as the third pair. The Αὐτοπάτωρ and his Ennoia, with the first and highest pair of æons emanating for them, and these together with the second Tetras, form the Ogdoas. The Logos then begets a further removed circle of five pairs, the Decas, and finally the Anthropos begets the last series of six pairs, the Dodecas. Therewith the Pleroma attains a preliminary completion. A final boundary is fixed for it by the Ὅρος emanating from the Father of all, who, being alone raised above the operation of the law of the Syzygy, is endowed with a twofold ἐνεργεία, an ἐνεργεία διοριστική, by means of which he wards off all from without that would hurt, and an ἐνεργεία ἑδραστική, the symbol of which is the cross, with which he maintains inward harmony and order. How necessary this was is soon made apparent. For the Σοφία, the last and least member of the fourteen æon pairs, impelled by burning desire, tears herself away from her partner, and seeks to plunge into the Bythos in order to embrace the Father of All himself. She is indeed prevented from this by the Horos; but the breach in the Pleroma has been made. In order to restore the harmony that has thus been broken, the Monogenes begets with Aletheia a new æon pair, the Ἄνω Χριστός and the Πνεῦμα ἅγιον which emancipates the Sophia from her disorderly, passionate nature (Ἐνθύμησις), cuts out this latter from the Pleroma, but unites again the purified Sophia with her husband, and teaches all the æons about the Father’s unapproachable and incomprehensible essence, and about the reason and end of the Syzygies. Then they all, amid hymns of praise and thanksgiving, present an offering to the Father, each one of the best that he has, and form thereof an indescribably glorious æon-being, the Ἄνω Σωτήρ, and for his service myriads of august angels, who bow in worship before him.—The basis for the origination of the sensible world, the Ὑστέρημα, consist of the Enthymesis ejected from the Pleroma into the desert, void and substanceless Kenoma, which is by it for the first time filled and vitalized. It is an ἔκτρωμα, an abortion, which however retains still the æon nature of its divine present, and as such bears the name of Ἔξω (κάτω) Σοφία or Ἀχαμώθ (הַחָכְמוֹת). Hence even the blessed spirits of the Pleroma can never forsake her. They all suffer with the unfortunate, until she who had sprung from the Pleroma is restored to it purified and matured. Hence they espouse her, the Ektroma of the last and least of the æons, to the Ano-Soter, the noblest, most glorious and most perfect being in the æon-heaven, as her redeemer and future husband. He begins by comforting the despondent and casting out from her the baser affections. Among the worst, fear, sorrow, doubt, etc., is found the basis of the hylic stage of existence; among the better, repentance, desire, hope, etc., that of the psychic stage of existence (φύσεις). Over the beings issuing forth from the former presides Satan; over the psychical forms of being, as their highest development, presides the Demiurge, who prepares as his dwelling-place the seven lower heavens, the Hebdomas. But Achamoth had retired with the pneumatic substratum still remaining in her into the Τόπος τῆς μεσότητος, between the Pleroma and the lower world, whence she, inspired by the Ano-Soter, operates upon the Demiurge, who, knowing nothing of her existence, has no anticipation thereof. From the dust of the earth and pneumatic seed, which unobserved she conveys into it, he formed man, breathed into him his own psychical breath of life, and set him in paradise, that is, in the third of his seven heavens, but banished him to earth, when he disobeyed his command, and instead of his first ethereal garment clothed him in a material body. When men had spread upon the earth, they developed these different natures: Pneumatical, which free from the bondage of every outward law and not subject to the impulses of the senses, a law unto themselves, travel toward the Pleroma; next, the Hylic, which, hostile to all spirit and law, and the sport of all lusts and passions, are doomed to irremediable destruction; and finally, the Psychical, which under the discipline of outward law attain not indeed to a perfect divine life, but yet to outward righteousness, while on the other hand they may sink down to the rank and condition of the Hylic natures. The Psychical natures were particularly numerous among the Jews. Therefore the Demiurge chose them as his own, and gave them a strict law and through his prophets promised them a future Messiah. The Hylic natures which were found mostly among the heathens, were utterly hateful to him. The Pneumatical natures with their innate longing after the Pleroma, he did not understand and therefore disregarded; but yet, without knowing or designing it, he chose many of them for kings, priests, and prophets of his people, and to his amazement heard from their lips prophecies of a higher soul, which originated from Achamoth, and which he did not understand. When the time was fulfilled, he sent his Messiah in the person of Jesus. When he was baptized by John, the heaven opened over him and the Ano-Soter descended upon him. The Demiurge saw it and was astonished, but submitted himself awe-stricken to the will of the superior deities. The Soter remained then a year upon the earth. The Jews, refusing to receive him, nailed his organ, the psychical Messiah, to a cross; but his sufferings were only apparent sufferings, since the Demiurge had supplied him in his origin with an ethereal and only seemingly material body. In consequence of the work of the Ano-Soter the Pneumatical natures by means of the Gnosis taught by him, but the Psychical natures by means of Pistis, attain unto perfection after their kind. When once everything pneumatical and psychical which was bound up in matter, has been freed from it, the course of the world has reached its end and the longed-for time of Achamoth’s marriage will have come. Accompanied by myriads of his angels, the Soter leads the noble sufferer into the Pleroma. The pneumatical natures follow her, and as the Soter is married to Achamoth, the angels are married to them. The Demiurge goes with his tried and redeemed saints into the Τόπος τῆς μεσότητος. But from the depths of the Hyle breaks forth a hidden fire which utterly consumes the Hylic natures and the Hyle itself.[40]

§ 27.5. According to Hippolytus the Valentinian school split up into two parties—an Italian party, the leaders of which, Heracleon and Ptolemæus [Ptolemy], were at Rome, and an Eastern party to which Axionicus and Bardesanes belonged. Heracleon of Alexandria was a man of a profoundly religious temperament, who in his speculation inclined considerably toward the doctrine of the church, and even wrote the first commentary on the Gospel of John, of which many fragments are preserved in Origen’s commentary on that gospel. Ptolemæus [Ptolemy] drew even closer than his master to the church doctrine. Epiphanius quotes a letter of his to his pupil Flora in which, after Marcion’s example (see § 27, 11), the distinction of the divine and the demiurgical in the Old Testament, and the relation of the Old Testament to the New, are discussed. A position midway between that of the West and of the East is apparently represented by Marcus and his school. He combined with the doctrine of Valentinus the Pythagorean and cabbalistic mysticism of numbers and letters, and joined thereto magical and soothsaying arts. His followers, the Marcosians, had a form of worship full of ceremonial observances, with a twofold baptism, a psychical one in the Kato-Christus for the forgiveness of sins, and a pneumatical one for affiance with the future heavenly syzygy. Of the Antiochean Axionicus we know nothing but the name. Of far greater importance was Bardesanes, who flourished according to Eusebius in the time of Marcus Aurelius, but is assigned by authentic Syrian documents to the beginning of the third century. The chief sources of information about his doctrine are the 56 rhyming discourses of Ephraem [Ephraim] against the heretics. Living at the court and enjoying the favour of the king of Edessa, he never attacked in his sermons the doctrinal system of the church, but spread his Gnostic views built upon a Valentinian basis in lofty hymns of which, besides numerous fragments in Ephraem [Ephraim], some are preserved in the apocryphal Acta Thomae (§ 32, 6). Among his voluminous writings there was a controversial treatise against the Marcionites (see § 27, 11). In a Dialogue, Περὶ εἱμαρμένης, attributed to him, but probably belonging to one of his disciples named Philippus, from which Eusebius (Præp. Ev. vi. 10) quotes a passage, the Syrian original of which, “The Book of the Laws of the Land,” was only recently discovered,[41] astrology and fatalism are combated from a Christian standpoint, although the author is still himself dominated by many Zoroastrian ideas. Harmonius, the highly gifted son of Bardesanes, distinguished himself by the composition of hymns in a similar spirit.

§ 27.6. The Ophites and related Sects.—The multiform Ophite Gnosis is in general characterized by fantastic combinations of Syro-Chaldaic myths and Biblical history with Greek mythology, philosophy and mysteriosophy. In all its forms the serpent (ὄφις, נָחָשׁ) plays an important part, sometimes as Kakodemon, sometimes as Agathodemon. This arose from the place that the serpent had in the Egyptian and Asiatic cosmology as well as in the early biblical history. One of the oldest forms of Ophitism is described by Hippolytus, who gives to its representatives the name of Naassenes, from נָחָשׁ. The formless original essence, ὁ προών, revealed himself in the first men, Ἀδάμας, Adam, Cadmon, in whom the pneumatic, psychical and hylic principles were still present together. As the instrument in creation he is called Logos or Hermes. The serpent is revered as Agathodemon; it proceeds from the Logos, transmitting the stream of life to all creatures. Christ, the redeemer, is the earthly representative of the first man, and brings peace to all the three stages of life, because he, by his teaching, directs every one to a mode of life in accordance with his nature.—The Sethites, according to Hippolytus, taught that there were two principles: an upper one, τὸ φῶς, an under one, τὸ σκότος, and between these τὸ πνεῦμα, the atmosphere that moves and causes motion. From a blending of light with darkness arose chaos, in which the pneuma awakened life. Then from chaos sprang the soul of the world as a serpent, which became the Demiurge. Man had a threefold development: hylic or material in Cain, psychical in Abel, and pneumatical in Seth, who was the first Gnostic.—The founders of the Perates, who were already known to Clement of Alexandria, are called by Hippolytus Euphrates and Celbes. Their name implies that they withdrew from the world of sense in order to secure eternal life here below, περᾶν τὴν φθοράν. The original divine unity, they taught, had developed into a Trinity: τὸ ἀγέννητον, ἀυτογενές and γεννητόν, the Father, the Son, and the Hyle. The Son is the world serpent that moves and quickens all things (καθολικός ὄφις). It is his task to restore everything that has sunk down from the two higher worlds into the lower, and is held fast by its Archon. Sometimes he turns himself serpent-like to his Father and assumes his divine attributes, sometimes to the lower world to communicate them to it. In the shape of a serpent he delivers Eve from the law of the Archon. All who are outlawed by this Archon, Cain, Nimrod, etc., belong to him. Moses, too, is an adherent of his, who erected in the wilderness the healing brazen serpent to represent him, while the fiery biting serpent of the desert represent the demons of the Archon. The Cainites, spoken of by Irenæus and Epiphanius, were closely connected with the Perates. All the men characterized in the Old Testament as godless are esteemed by them genuine pneumatical beings and martyrs for the truth. The first who distinguished himself in conflict with the God of the Jews was Cain; the last who led the struggle on to victory, by bringing the psychical Messiah through his profound sagacity to the cross, was Judas Iscariot. The Gnostic Justin is known to us only through Hippolytus, who draws his information from a Book of Baruch. He taught that from the original essence, ὁ Ἀγαθός or Κύριος, יְהוָֹה, emanated a male principle, Ἐλωείμ, אֱלֹהִים, which had a pneumatical nature, and a female principle, Ἐδέμ, עֵדֶן, which was above man (psychical) and below the serpent (hylic). From the union of this pair sprang twelve ἄγγελοι πατρικοί, who had in them the father’s nature, and twelve ἄγγελοι μητρικοί, on whom the mother’s nature was impressed. Together they formed Paradise, in which Baruch, an angel of Elohim, represented the tree of life, and Naas, an Edem-angel, represented the tree of knowledge. The Elohim-angel formed man out of the dust of Paradise; Edem gave him a soul, Elohim gave him a spirit. Pressing upward by means of his pneumatical nature Elohim raised himself to the borders of the realms of light. The Agathos took him and set him at his right hand. The forsaken Edem avenged himself by giving power to Naas to grieve the spirit of Elohim in man. He tempted Eve to commit adultery with him, and got Adam to commit unnatural vice with him. In order to show the grieved spirit of man the way to heaven, Elohim sent Baruch first to Moses and afterwards to other Prophets of the Old Testament; but Naas frustrated all his efforts. Even from among the heathen Elohim raised up prophets, such as Hercules whom he sent to fight against the twelve Edem-angels (his twelve labours), but one of them named Babel or Aphrodite robbed even this divine hero of his power (a reminiscence of the story of Omphale). Finally, Elohim sent Baruch to the peasant boy Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary. He resisted all the temptations of Naas, who therefore got him nailed upon the cross. Jesus commended his spirit into the hands of the Father, into whose heaven he ascended, leaving his body and soul with Edem. So, after his example, do all the pious.

§ 27.7. The Gnosis of the Ophites, described by Irenæus, etc., is distinguished from that of the earlier Naasenes [Naassenes] by its incorporation of Valentinian and dualistic or Saturninian (see § 27, 9) ideas. From the Bythos who, as the primary being, is also called the first man, Adam Cadmon, emanates the thought, ἔννοια, of himself as the second man or son of man, and from him the Holy Spirit or the Ano-Sophia, who in turn bears the Ano-Christus and Achamoth. The latter, an imperfect being of light, who is also called Προύνικος, which according to Epiphanius means πόρνη, drives about through the dark ocean of chaos, over which the productive mother, the Holy Spirit, broods, in order to found for himself in it an independent world of his own. There dense matter unites with the element of light and darkens it to such a degree that even the consciousness of its own divine origin begins to fade away from it. In this condition of estrangement from God she produces the Demiurge, Jaldabaoth, יַלְדָּא בָּהוּת, son of chaos; and he, a wicked as well as limited being, full of arrogance and pride, determines that he himself alone will be lord and master in the world which he creates. This brings Achamoth to penitent deliberation. By the vigorous exercise of all the powers of light dwelling in her, and strengthened by a gleam of light from above, she succeeds in raising herself from the realm of chaos into the Τόπος τῆς μεσότητος. Nevertheless Jaldabaoth brought forth six star spirits or planets after his own image, and placed himself as the seventh at their head. But they too think of rebelling. Enraged at this Jaldabaoth glances wildly upon the deep-lying slime of the Hyle; his frightfully distorted countenance is mirrored in this refuse of chaos; the image there comes to life and forms Ophiomorphus or Satan. By order of Jaldabaoth the star spirits make man; but they produce only an awkward spiritless being that creeps along the ground. In order to quicken it and make it stand erect the Demiurge breathes into it his own breath, but thereby deprives himself of a great part of that pneumatical element which he had from his mother. The so-called fall, in which Ophiomorphus or the serpent was only the unconscious instrument of Achamoth, is in truth the beginning of the redemption of man, the advance to self-consciousness and moral freedom. But as a punishment for his disobedience Jaldabaoth drove him out of the higher material world, Paradise, into the lower, where he was exposed to the annoyances of Ophiomorphus, who also brought the majority of mankind, the heathens, under his authority, while the Jews served Jaldabaoth, and only a small number of pneumatical natures by the help of Achamoth kept themselves free from both. The prophets whom Jaldabaoth sent to his people, were at the same time unconscious organs of Achamoth, who also sent down the Ano-Christus from the Pleroma upon the Messiah, whose kingdom is yet to spread among all nations. Jaldabaoth now let his own Messiah be crucified, but the Ano-Christus was already withdrawn from him and had set himself unseen at the right hand of the Demiurge, where he deprives him and his angels of all the light element which they still had in them, and gathers round himself the pneumatical from among mankind, in order to lead them into the Pleroma.—The latest and at the same time the noblest product of Ophite Gnosticism is the Pistis Sophia,[42] appearing in the middle of the third century, with a strong tincture of Valentinianism. It treats mainly of the fall, repentance, and complaint of Sophia, and of the mysteries that purify for redemption, often approaching very closely the doctrine of the church.

§ 27.8. Antinomian and Libertine Sects.—The later representatives of Alexandrian Gnosticism on account of the antinomian tendency of their system fell for the most part into gross immorality, which excused itself on the ground that the pneumatical men must throw contempt upon the law of the Demiurge, ἀντιτάσσεσθαι, (whence they were also called Antitactes), and that by the practice of fleshly lusts one must weaken and slay the flesh, παραχρῆσθαι τῇ σαρκί, so as to overcome the powers of the Hyle. The four following sects may be mentioned as those which maintained such views.—

1. The Nicolaitans, who in order to give themselves the sanction of primitive Christianity sought to trace their descent from Nicolaus [Nicolas] the Deacon (Acts vi. 5). But while they have really no connection with him, they are just as little to be identified with the Nicolaitans of the Apocalypse (§ 18, 3).

2. In a similar way the Simonians sought to attach themselves to Simon Magus (§ 25, 2). They gave to the fables associated with the name of Simon a speculative basis borrowed from the central idea of the philosophy of Heraclitus, that the principle of all things (ἡ ἀπέραντος δύναμις) is fire. From it in three syzygies, νοῦς and ἐπίνοια, φωνή and ὄνομα, λογισμός and ἐνθύμησις, proceed the six roots of the supersensible world, and subsequently the corresponding six roots of the sensible world, Heaven and earth, Sun and moon, Air and water, in which unlimited force is present as ὁ ἐστώς, στάς, and στησόμενος. Justin Martyr was already acquainted with this sect, and also Hippolytus, who quotes many passages from their chief treatise, entitled, Ἀπόφασις μεγάλη and reports scandalous things about their foul worship.

3. The Carpocratians. In the system of their founder Carpocrates, who lived at Alexandria in the first half of the second century, God is the eternal Mould, the unity without distinctions, from whom all being flows and to whom all returns again. From Him the ἄγγελοι κοσμοποιοί revolted. By the creation of the world they established a distinct order of existence apart from God and consolidated it by the law issuing from them and the national religions of Jews and Gentiles founded by them. Thus true religion or the way of return for the human spirit into the One and All consists theoretically in Gnosis, practically in emancipation from the commands of the Demiurge and in a life κατὰ φύσιν. The distinction of good and bad actions rests merely on human opinions. Man is redeemed by faith and love. In order to be able to overcome the powers that created the world, he is in need of magic which is intimately connected with Gnosis. Every human spirit who has not fully attained to this end of all religious endeavour, is subjected, until he reaches it, to the assumption of one bodily form after another. Among the heroes of humanity who with special energy and success have assailed the kingdom of the Demiurge by contempt of his law and spread of the true Gnosis, a particularly conspicuous place is assigned to Jesus, the son of Joseph. What he was for the Jews, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, etc., were for the Gentiles. To the talented son of Carpocrates, named Epiphanes, who died in his seventeenth year, after impressing upon his father’s Gnostic system a boundless communistic and libertine tendency with community of goods and wives, his followers erected a temple at Cephalonia, in which they set up for divine honours the statues of Christ and the Greek philosophers. At the close of their Agapæ, they indulged in Concubitus promiscuus.

4. The Prodicians flourished about the time of Clement of Alexandria, and were connected, perhaps, through their founder Prodicus, with the Carpocratians. In order to prove their dominion over the sensible world they were wont to appear in their assemblies naked, and hence are also called Adamites. So soon as they succeeded in thus reaching the state of innocence that had preceded the fall, they maintained that as pneumatical king’s sons they were raised above all law and entitled to indulge in unbridled lust.

§ 27.9. Saturninus, or Satornilus of Antioch, according to Irenæus, a disciple of Menander, was one of the oldest Syrian Gnostics, during the age of Hadrian, and the one in whose system of Dualism the most decided traces of Parsee colouring is found. From the θεὸς ἄγνωστος the spirit world of the kingdom of light emanates in successive stages. On the lowest stage stand the seven planet spirits, ἄγγελοι κοσμοκράτορες, at their head the creator of the world and the god of the Jews. But from eternity over against the realm of light stands the Hyle in violent opposition under the rule of Satanas. The seven star spirits think to found therein a kingdom free and independent of the Pleroma, and for this purpose make an inroad upon the kingdom of the Hyle, and seize upon a part of it. Therefore they form the sensible world and create man as keeper thereof after a fair model sent by the good God of which they had a dim vision. But they could not give him the upright form. The supreme God then takes pity upon the wretched creature. He sends down a spark of light σπινθήρ into it which fills it with pneumatical life and makes it stand up. But Satanas set a hylic race of men over against this pneumatical race, and persecuted the latter incessantly by demons. The Jewish god then plans to redeem the persecuted by a Messiah, and inspires prophets to announce his coming. But Satan, too, has his prophets, and the Jewish god is not powerful enough to make his views prevail over his enemy’s. Finally the good God sends to the earth the Aeon [Æon] Νοῦς, in what has the appearance of a body, in order that he as σωτήρ may teach the pneumatical how to escape, by Gnosis and asceticism, abstaining from marriage and the eating of flesh, not only the attacks of Satan, but also the dominion of the Jewish god and his star spirits, how to emancipate themselves from all connection with matter, and to raise themselves into the realm of light.

§ 27.10. Tatian and the Encratites.—The Assyrian Tatian, converted to Christianity at Rome by Justin Martyr, makes his appearance as a zealous apologist of the faith (§ 30, 10). In his later years, however, just as in the case of Marcion, in consequence of his exaggeration of the Pauline antithesis of flesh and spirit, law and grace, he was led to propound a theory of the dualistic opposition between the god of the law, the Demiurge, and the god of the gospel, which found expression in a Gnostic-ascetic system, completely breaking away from the Catholic church, and reaching its conclusion in the hyperascetic sect of the Encratites that arose in Rome about A.D. 172. He now became head and leader of this sect, which, with its fanatical demand of complete abstinence from marriage, from all eating of flesh and all spirituous liquors, won his approval, and perhaps from him received its first dogmatic Gnostic impress. Of Tatian’s Gnostic writings, Προβλήματα and Περὶ τοῦ κατὰ τὸν σωτῆρα καταρτισμοῦ, only some fragments, with scanty notices of his Gnostic system, are preserved. His dualistic opposition of the god of the Old Testament and the god of the New Testament cannot have meant a thorough hostility, for he makes the Demiurge sitting in darkness address himself to the supreme God in the language of prayer, “Let there be light.” He declares, however, that Adam, as the author of the fall, is incapable of redemption.—His followers were also called Ὑδροπαραστάται, Aquarii, because at the Supper they used water instead of wine. See Lit. at § 30, 10.

§ 27.11. Marcion and the Marcionites.—Marcion of Sinope in Pontus, who died about A.D. 170, was, according to Tertullian, a rich shipmaster who, on his arrival in Rome, in his early enthusiasm for the faith, bestowed upon the Church there a rich present, but was afterwards excommunicated by it as a heretic. According to the Pseudo-Tertullian and others he was the son of a bishop who excommunicated him for incontinence with one under the vow of virginity. The story may possibly be based upon a later misunderstanding of the charge of corrupting the church as the pure bride of Christ. He was a man of a fiery and energetic character, but also rough and eccentric, of a thoroughly practical tendency and with little speculative talent. He was probably driven by the hard inward struggles of his spiritual life, somewhat similar to those through which Paul had passed, to a full and hearty conception of the free grace of God in Christ; but conceived of the opposition between law and gospel, which the Apostle brought into harmony by his theory of the pædogogical office of the law, as purely hostile and irreconcileable. At Rome in A.D. 140, the Syrian Gnostic Cerdo, who already distinguished between the “good” God of Christianity and the “just” God of Judaism, gained an influence over him. He consequently developed for himself a Gnostic system, the dominating idea of which was the irreconcileable opposition of righteousness and grace, law and gospel, Judaism and Christianity. He repudiated the whole of the Old Testament, and set forth the opposition between the two Testaments in a special treatise entitled Antitheses. He acknowledged only Paul as an Apostle, since all the rest had fallen back into Judaism, and of the whole New Testament he admitted only ten Pauline epistles, excluding the Pastoral Epistles and the Epistles to the Hebrews, and admitting the Gospel of Luke only in a mutilated form.[43] Marcion would know nothing of a secret doctrine and tradition and rejected the allegorical interpretation so much favoured by the Gnostics, as well as the theory of emanation and the subordination of Pistis under Gnosis. While other Gnostics formed not churches but only schools of select bands of thinkers, or at most only small gatherings, Marcion, after vainly trying to reform the Catholic church in accordance with his exaggerated Paulinism, set himself to establish a well organised ecclesiastical system, the members of which were arranged as Perfecti or Electi and Catechumeni. Of the former he required a strict asceticism, abstinence from marriage, and restriction in food to the simplest and least possible. He allowed the Catechumens, however, in opposition to the Catholic practice (§ 35, 1), to take part in all the services, which were conducted in the simplest possible forms. The moral earnestness and the practical tendency of his movement secured him many adherents, of whom many congregations maintained their existence for a much longer time than the members of other Gnostic sects, even down to the seventh century. None of the founders of the old Gnostic sects were more closely connected in life and doctrine to the Catholic Church than Marcion, and yet, or perhaps just for that reason, none of them were opposed by it so often, so eagerly and so bitterly. Even Polycarp, on his arrival in Rome (§ 37, 2), in reply to Marcion’s question whether he knew him, said: Ἐπιγνώσκω τὸν πρωτότοκον τοῦ Σατανᾶ.—The general scope and character of the System of Marcion have been variously estimated. All older ecclesiastical controversialists, Justin, Rhodon in Eusebius, Tertullian and Irenæus, in their description and refutation of it seem to recognise only two principles (ἀρχαί), which stand in opposition to one another, as θεὸς ἀγαθός and θεὸς δίκαιος. The latter appears as creator of the world, or Demiurge, the god of the Jews, the giver of the law, unable, however, by his law to save the Jews and deter them from breaking it, or to lead back the Gentiles to the observance of it. Then of his free grace the “good” God, previously quite unknown, determined to redeem men from the power of the Demiurge. For this purpose he sends his Logos into the world with the semblance of a body. By way of accommodation he gives himself out as the Messiah of the Jewish god, proclaims the forgiveness of sins through free grace, communicates to all who believe the powers of the divine life, is at the instigation of the angry Demiurge nailed to the cross to suffer death in appearance only, preaches to Gentiles imprisoned in Hades, banishes the Demiurge to Hades, and ordains the Apostle Paul as teacher of believers.—The later heresiologists, however, Hippolytus, in his Elenchus, Epiphanius, Theodoret, and especially the Armenian Esnig (§ 64, 3), are equally agreed in saying that Marcion recognised three principles (ἀρχαί); that besides the good God and the righteous God he admitted an evil principle, the Hyle concentrated in Satan, so that even the pre-Christian development of the world was viewed from the standpoint of a dualistic conflict between divine powers. The righteous God and the Hyle, as a quasi female principle, united with one another in creating the world, and when the former saw how fair the earth was, he resolved to people it with men created of his own likeness. For this purpose the Hyle at his request afforded him dust, from which he created man, inspiring him with his own spirit. Both divine powers rejoiced over man as parents over a child, and shared in his worship. But the Demiurge sought to gain undivided authority over man, and so commanded Adam, under pain of death, to worship him alone, and the Hyle avenged himself by producing a multitude of idols to whom the majority of Adam’s descendants, falling away from the God of the law, gave reverence.—The harmonizing of these two accounts may be accomplished by assuming that the older Church Fathers, in their conflict with Marcion had willingly restricted themselves to the most important point in the Marcionite system, its characteristic opposition of the Gods of the Old and New Testaments, passing over the points in which it agreed more or less with other Gnostic systems; or by assuming that later Marcionites, such as Prepon (§ 27, 12), in consequence of the palpable defectiveness and inadequacy of the original system of two principles, were led to give it the further development that has been described.[44]

§ 27.12. The speculative weakness and imperfection of his system led Marcion’s Disciples to expand and remodel it in many ways. Two of these, Lucanus and Marcus, are pre-eminent as remodellers of the system, into which they imported various elements from that of Saturninus. The Assyrian Prepon placed the “righteous” Logos as third principle between the “good” God and the “evil” Demiurge. Of all the more nameful Marcionites, Apelles, who died about A.D. 180, inclined most nearly to the church doctrine. Eusebius tells about a Disputation which took place in Rome between him and Rhodon, a disciple of Tatian. At the head of his essentially monistic system Apelles places the ἀγέννητος θεός as the μία ἀρχή. This God, besides a higher heavenly world, had created an order of angels, of whom the first and most eminent, the so-called Angelus inclytus or gloriosus as Demiurge made the earthly world after the image and to the glory of the supreme God. But another angel, the ἄγγελος πυρετός, corrupted his creation, which was already in itself imperfect, by bringing forth the σὰρξ ἁμαρτίας, with which he clothed the souls enticed down from the upper world. It was he, too, who spoke to Moses out of the burning bush, and as the god of the Jews gave the law from Sinai. The Demiurge soon repented of his ill-fated performance, and prayed the supreme God to send his Son as redeemer. Christ appeared, lived, wrought and suffered in a real body. It was not, however, the σὰρξ ἁμαρτίας that he assumed, but a sinless body composed out of the four elements which he gave back to the elements on his ascension to heaven. Towards the close of his life Apelles seems, under the influence of the mystic revelations of a prophetess, Philoumena, whose φανερώσεις he published, to have more and more renounced his Gnostic views. He had already admitted in his Disputation with Rhodon, that even on the Catholic platform one may be saved, for the main thing is faith in the crucified Christ and the doing of his works. He would even have been prepared to subscribe to the Monotheism of the church, had he not been hindered by the opposition between the Old Testament and the New.

§ 27.13. The painter Hermogenes in North Africa, about A.D. 200, whom Tertullian opposed, took offence at the Catholic doctrine of creation as well as at the Gnostic theory of emanation, because it made God the author of evil. He therefore assumed an eternal chaos, from whose striving against the creative and formative influence of God he explained the origin of everything evil and vile.

§ 28. EBIONISM AND EBIONITIC GNOSTICISM.[45]

The Jewish-Christianity that maintained separation from Gentile-Christianity even after the overthrow of the Holy City and its temple, assumed partly a merely separatist, partly a decidedly heretical character. Both tendencies had in common the assertion of the continued obligation to observe the whole of the Mosaic law. But while the former limited this obligation to the Christians of Jewish descent as the peculiar stem and kernel of the new Messianic community, and allowed the Gentile Christians as Proselytes of the Gate to omit those observances, the latter would tolerate no such concession and outran the Old Testament monotheism by a barren monarchianism that denied the divinity of Christ (§ 33, 1). At a later period the two parties were distinguished as Nazareans and Ebionites. On the other hand, in the Ebionites described to us by Epiphanius we have a form of Jewish Christianity permeated by Gnostic elements. These Ebionites, settling along with the Essenes (§ 8, 4) on the eastern shores of the Dead Sea, came to be known under the name of Elkesaites. In the Pseudo-Clementine scheme of doctrine, this Ebionitic Gnosis was carried out in detail and wrought up into a comprehensive and richly developed system.

§ 28.1. Nazareans and Ebionites.—Tertullian and with him most of the later Church Fathers derive the name Ebionite from Ebion, a founder of the sect. Since the time of Gieseler, however, the name has generally been referred to the Hebrew word אֶבְיוֹן meaning poor, in allusion partly to the actual poverty of the church of Jerusalem (Gal. ii. 10), partly to the association of the terms poor and pious in the Psalms and Prophets (comp. Matt. v. 3). Minucius Felix, c. xxxvi. testifies that the Gentile Christians were also so designated by those without: Ceterum quod plerique “Pauperes” dicimur, non est infamia nostra, sed gloria. Recently, however, Hilgenfeld has recurred to the patristic derivation of the name.—In Irenæus the name Ebionæi makes its first appearance in literature, and that as a designation of Jewish Christians as heretics who admitted only a Gospel according to Matthew, probably the so-called Gospel according to the Hebrews (§ 32, 4), branded the Apostle Paul as an apostate, insisted upon the strict observance of the Jewish law, and taught on Christological questions “consimiliter ut Cerinthus et Carpocrates” (§ 27, 1, 8), while they denied that Christ was born of a virgin, and regarded Him as a mere man. Origen († A.D. 243) embraced all Jewish Christians under the name Ἐβιωναῖοι but did not deny the existence of two very different parties among them (διττοὶ and ἀμφότεροι Ἐβιωναῖοι). Eusebius does the same. Jerome again is the first to distinguish the more moderate party by the name Nazareans (Acts xxiv. 5) from the more extreme who are designated Ebionites. This too is the practice of Augustine and Theodoret. The former party acknowledged the virgin birth of Christ and so His divine origin, assigned to Paul his place as Apostle to the Gentiles, and made no demand of Gentile Christians that they should observe the ceremonial law of Moses, although they believed that they themselves were bound thereby. The latter again regarded it as absolutely necessary to salvation, and also held that Christ was the Messiah, but only a man, son of Joseph by Mary, endowed with divine powers in His baptism. His Messianic work, according to them, consisted in His fulfilling by His teaching the Mosaic law. His death was an offence to them, but they took comfort from the promise of His coming again, when they looked for the setting up of an earthly Messianic kingdom. Paul was depreciated by them and made of little account. Ebionites of both parties continued to exist in small numbers down to the fifth century, especially in Palestine and Syria. Both however had sunk by the middle of the second century into almost utter insignificance. The scanty remains of writings issuing from the party prove that especially the non-heretical Jewish Christianity before the close of this century had in great part abandoned its national Jewish character, and therewith its separate position as a religious sect, and by adopting the views of the Pauline Gentile Christianity (§ 30, 2) became gradually amalgamated with it.[46]

§ 28.2. The Elkesaites.—Independent accounts of this sect in substantial agreement with one another are given by Hippolytus in his Elenchus, by Origen as quoted in Eusebius, and by Epiphanius. Their designation has also led the Church Fathers to assume a sect founder of the name of Elxai or Elchasai, who is said to have lived in the time of Hadrian. The members of the sect themselves derived their name from חֵיל כְּסָי, δύναμις κεκαλυμμένη, the hidden power of God operating in them, that is, the Holy Spirit, the δύναμις ἄσαρκος of the Clementine Homilies. Probably it was the title of a book setting forth their esoteric doctrine, which circulated only among those bound under oath to secrecy. Origen says that the book was supposed to have fallen down from heaven; Hippolytus says that it was held to have been revealed by an angel who was the Son of God himself. Elxai obtained it from the Serians in Parthia and communicated it to the Sobiai, probably from שֹׁבְעַ; then the Syrian Alcibiades brought it from Apamea to Rome in the third century. The doctrinal system of the Elkesaites was very variable, and is represented by the Church Fathers referred to as a confused mixture of Christian elements with the legalism of Judaism, the asceticism of Essenism, and the naturalism of paganism, and exhibiting a special predilection for astrological and magical fancies. The law was regarded as binding, especially the precepts concerning the Sabbath and circumcision, but the sacrificial worship was abandoned, and the portions of the Old Testament referring to it as well as other parts. Their doctrine of baptism varied from that of baptism once administered to that of a baptism by oft repeated washings on days especially indicated by astrological signs. Baptism was for the forgiveness of sins and also for the magical cure of the sick. It was administered in the name of the Father and the Son, and in addition there were seven witnesses called, the five elements, together with oil and salt, the latter as representative of the Lord’s Supper, which was celebrated with salt and bread without wine. Eating of flesh was forbidden, but marriage was allowed and highly esteemed. Their Christology presented the appearance of unsettled fermentation. On the one hand Christ was regarded as an angel, and indeed as the μέγας βασιλεύς, of gigantic size, 96 miles high, and 24 miles broad; but on the other hand, they taught also a repeated incarnation of Christ as the Son of God, the final One being the Christ born of the virgin. He represents the male principle, and by his side, as the female principle, stands the Holy Spirit. Denial of Christ in times of persecution seemed to them quite allowable. At the time of Epiphanius,—who identifies them with the Sampseans, whose name was derived from שֶׁמֶשׁ the sun, because in prayer they turned to the sun, called also Ἡλιακοί,—they had for the most part their residence round about the Dead Sea, where they got mixed up with the Essenes of that region.—More recently the Elkesaites have been brought into connection with the still extant sect of the Sabeans or Mandeans (§ 25, 1). These Sabeans, from צבע meaning טבע, βαπτίζειν, are designated by the mediæval Arabic writers Mogtasilah, those who wash themselves, and Elchasaich is named as their founder, and as teaching the existence of two principles a male and a female.[47]

§ 28.3. The Pseudo-Clementine Series of Writings forms a literature of a romantic historico-didactic description which originated between A.D. 160 and 170.

1. The so-called Homiliæ XX Clementis[48] were prefaced by two letters to the Apostle James at Jerusalem. The first of these is from Peter enjoining secrecy in regard to the “Kerugma” sent therewith. The second is from Clement of Rome after the death of Peter, telling how he as the founder and first bishop of the church of Rome had ordained Clement as his successor, and had charged him to draw up those accounts of his own career and of the addresses and disputations of Peter which he had heard while the Apostle pursued and contended with Simon Magus, and to send them to James as head of the church, “bishop of bishops, who ruled the church of Jerusalem and all the churches,” that they might be certified by him. The historical framework of the book represents a distinguished Roman of philosophical culture and of noble birth, named Clement, as receiving his first acquaintance with Christianity at Rome, and then as going forth on his travels to Judea as an eager seeker after the truth. At Alexandria (§ 16, 4) Barnabas convinces him of the truth of Christianity, and Clement follows him to Cæsarea where he listens to a great debate between Peter and Simon Magus (§ 25, 2). Simon defeated betakes himself to flight, but Peter follows him, accompanied by Clement and two who had been disciples of the magician, Niceta and Aquila. Though he goes after him from place to place, Peter does not get hold of Simon, but founds churches all along his route. On the way Clement tells him how long before his mother, Mattidia, and his two brothers had gone on a journey to Athens, and how his father, Faustus, had gone in search of them, and no trace of any of them had ever been found. Soon thereafter the mother is met with, and then it is discovered that Niceta and Aquila are the lost brothers Faustinus and Faustinianus. At the baptism of the mother the father also is restored. Finally at Laodicea Peter and Simon engage a second time in a four-days’ disputation which ends as the first. The story concludes with Peter’s arrival at Antioch.

2. The ten books of the so-called Recognitiones Clementis,[49] present us again with the Clement of the historical romance, the historical here overshadowing the didactic, and a closer connection with church doctrine being here maintained. Critical examinations of the relations between the two sets of writings have more and more established the view that an older Jewish-Christian Gnostic work lay at the basis of both. This original document seems to have been used contemporaneously, but in a perfectly independent manner in the composition of both; the Homilies using the materials in an anti-Marcionite interest (§ 27, 11), the Recognitions using them in such a way as to give as little offence as possible to their Catholic readers. Still it is questionable whether this original document, which probably bore the title of Κηρύγματα Πέτρου, embraced in its earliest form the domestic romance of Clement, or only treated of the disputation of Peter with Simon at Cæsarea, and was first enlarged by addition of the Ἀναγνωρισμοί Κλήμεντος giving the story of Peter’s travels (Περίοδοι).

3. Finally, extracts from the Homilies, worthless and of no independent significance, are extant in the form of two Greek Epitomæ (ed. Dressel, Lps., 1859). Equally unimportant is the Syrian Epitome, edited by Lagarde, Lps., 1861, a compilation from the Recognitions and the Homilies. All the three writers of the Epitomes had an interest only in the romantic narrative.

§ 28.4. The Pseudo-Clementine Doctrinal System is represented in the most complete and most original manner in the Homilies. In the conversations, addresses, and debates there reported the author develops his own religious views, and by putting them in the mouth of the Apostle Peter seeks to get them recognised as genuine unadulterated primitive Christianity, while all the doctrines of Catholic Paulinism which he objects to, as well as those of heretical Gnosticism and especially of Marcionism, are put into the mouth of Simon Magus, the primitive heretic; and then an attempt is made at a certain reconciliation and combination of all these views, the evil being indeed contended against, but an element of truth being recognised in them all. He directs his Polemics against the polytheism of vulgar paganism, the allegorical interpretation by philosophers of pagan myths, the doctrine of the creation of the world out of nothing and the sacrificial worship of Judaism, against the hypostatic Trinity of Catholicism, the chiliasm of the Ebionites, the pagan naturalistic element in Elkesaism, the dualism, the doctrine of the Demiurge, the Docetism and Antinomianism of the Gentile Christian Gnostics. He attempts in his Ironies to point out the Ebionitic identity of genuine Christianity with genuine Judaism, emphasizes the Essenic-Elkesaitic demand to abstain from eating flesh, to observe frequent fasts, divers washings and voluntary poverty (through a recommendation of early marriages), as well as the Catholic doctrine of the necessity of baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and justifies the Gnostic tendency of his times by setting up a system of doctrine of which the central idea is the connection of Stoical Pantheism with Jewish Theism, and is itself thoroughly dualistic: God the eternal pure Being was originally a unity of πνεῦμα and σῶμα, and his life consisted in extension and contraction, ἔκτασις and συστολή, the symbol of which the human heart was a later copy. The result of such an ἔκτασις was the separation of πνεῦμα and σῶμα, wherewith a beginning of the development of the world was made. The πνεῦμα is thus represented as Υἱός, also called Σοφία or Ἄρχων τοῦ αἰῶνος τοῦ μέλλοντος; the Σῶμα is represented as Οὐσία or Ὕλη which four times parts asunder in twofold opposition of the elements. Satan springs from the mixing of these elements, and is the universal soul of the Ἄρχων τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου. The Σῶμα has thereby become ἔμψυχον and ζῶον. Thus the Monas has unfolded itself into a Dyas, as the first link of a long chain of contrasted pairs or Syzygies, in the first series of which the large and male stands opposite the small and female, heaven and earth, day and night, etc. The last Syzygy of this series is Adam as the true male, and Eve as the false female prophet. In the second series that relation had come to be just reversed, Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, etc. In the protoplasts this opposition of truth and falsehood, of good and evil, was still a physical and necessary one; but in their descendants, because both elements of their parents are mixed up in them, it becomes an ethical one, conditioning and requiring freedom of self-determination. Meanwhile Satan tempted men to error and sin; but the true prophet (ὁ ἀληθὴς προφήτης) in whom the divine Πνεῦμα dwelt as ἔμφυτον and ἀένναον, always leads them back again into the true way of Gnosis and the fulfilment of the law. In Adam, the original prophet, who had taught whole and full truth, he had at first appeared, returning again after every new obscuration and disfigurement of his doctrine under varying names and forms, but always anew proclaiming the same truth. His special manifestations were in Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and finally, in Christ. Alongside of them all, however, stand false prophets inspired by the spirit of lies, to whom even John the Baptist belongs, and in the Old Testament many of their doctrines and prophecies have slipped in along with the true prophecy. The transition from the original pantheistic to the subsequent theistic standpoint, in which God is represented as personal creator of the world, lawgiver, and governor, seems to have been introduced by means of the primitive partition of the divine being into Πνεῦμα and Σῶμα. In vain, however, do we seek an explanation of the contradiction that, on the one hand, the end of the development of the world is represented as the separation of the evil from the good for the eternal punishment of the former, but on the other hand, as a return, through the purification of the one and the destruction of the other, of all into the divine being, the ἀνάπαυσις. Equally irreconcilable is the assertion of the unconditional necessity of Christian baptism with the assertion of the equality of all stages of revelation.

§ 29. MANICHÆISM.

Manichæism makes its appearance in Persia about the middle of the third century, independently of the Gentile-Christian Gnosticism of the Roman empire, which was more or less under the influence of the Greek philosophy of the second century, but bearing undoubted connection with Mandæism (§ 25, 1), and Elkesaism (§ 28, 2). In principle and tendency, it was at various points, as e.g. in its theory of emanation, its doceticism, etc., connected with Gnosticism, but was distinguished therefrom pre-eminently by using Christian soteriological ideas and modes of thought as a mere varnish for oriental pagan or Babylonian-Chaldaic theosophy, putting this in place of Platonic or Stoical notions which are quite foreign to it, basing the system on Persian dualism and impregnating it with elements from Buddhist ethics. Another point in which it is distinguished from Gnosticism is that it does not present itself as an esoteric form of religion meant only for the few specially gifted spirits, but distinctly endeavours to build up a community of its own with a regularly articulated constitution and a well organized ritual.

§ 29.1. The Founder.—What the Greek and Latin Fathers (Titus of Bostra, Epiphanius, Augustine, etc.) say about the person and history of the founder of this sect is derived mainly from an account of a disputation which a bishop Archelaus of Cascar in Mesopotamia is said to have held with Manes or Manichæus. This document is written in Syriac and dates about A.D. 320, but it is simply a polemical work under the guise of a debate between men with historical names. These “Acts” have come down to us in a very corrupt Latin version, and contain, especially in their historical allusions, much that is incredible and legendary, while in their representation of the doctrine of Manes they are much more deserving of confidence. According to them the origin of Manichæism is to be attributed to a far travelled Saracen craftsman, named Scythianus, who lived in the age of the Apostles. His disciple, Terebinthus, who subsequently in Babylon took the name Buddas, and affirmed that he had been born of a virgin, wrote at the master’s dictation four books, Mysteria, Capitula, Evangelium, Thesaurus, which after his death came into the possession of a freed slave, Cubricus or Corbicus. This man made the wisdom taught therein his own, developed it more fully, appeared in Persia as the founder of a new religion, and called himself Manes. He was even received at court, but his failure to heal a prince was used by the jealous magicians to secure his overthrow. He escaped, however, from prison, and found a safe hiding place in Arabion, an old castle in Mesopotamia. Meanwhile he had got access to the sacred writings of the Christians and borrowed much from them for the further development of his system. He now gave himself out as the Paraclete promised by Christ, and by means of letters and messengers developed a great activity in the dissemination of his views, especially among Christians. This led to the disputation of Archelaus above referred to, in which Manes suffered utter defeat. He was soon thereafter seized by order of the Persian king, flayed alive, and his stuffed skin publicly exhibited as a warning.

The reports in Persian documents of the ninth and tenth centuries though later seem much more credible, and the dates derivable from Manes’ own writings and those of his disciples quoted in Arabic documents of the tenth and eleventh centuries, are quite worthy of acceptance.[50] According to them Fatak the father of Manes, called Πατέκιος in a Greek oath formula still extant, was descended from a noble Persian family in Hamadan or Ecbatana, married a princess of the Parthian Asarcidae, not long before this, in A.D. 226, driven out by the Persian Sassanidæ, and settled down with her at Ctesiphon, the Parthian capital. Here he met with the Mogtasilah, Mandeans or Elkesaites (§ 28, 2), then removed to Southern Chaldea, and trained his son, born in A.D. 216, with great care in this faith. But even in his twelfth year Manes received a divine revelation, which ordained him to be the founder of a new religion, and in his twenty-fourth year he was commissioned to preach this religion publicly. On his first appearance in Persia, on the coronation day of king Sapor I., in A.D. 242, he met with so little support that he found it necessary to keep away from the Persian empire for several decades, which he spent in foreign lands developing his system and successfully prosecuting missionary work. It was only about the end of Sapor’s reign († A.D. 272) that he ventured again to return. He won over to his views the king’s brother Peroz and through him found favour temporarily with Sapor, which, however, soon again turned into dislike. Sapor’s successor, Hormuz or Hormisdas I., seemed inclined to be tolerant toward him. For this very reason Bahram or Baranes I. showed himself all the more hostile, and had him crucified in A.D. 276, his body flayed, and the skin stuffed with straw thrown out at the gate of the city.

The two accounts may, according to Kessler, be brought into harmony thus. The name Scythianus was given to Fatak as coming from Parthia or Scythia. Terebinthus, a corruption of the Aramaic tarbitha, sapling, was given originally as Nomen appell. to the son of Fatak, and was afterwards misunderstood and regarded as Nomen propr. of an additional member of the family, intermediate between Fatak and Manes. In the Latin Cubricus, however, we meet with a scornful rendering of his original name, which he, on his entering independently on his work, exchanged for the name Manes.[51] The name Buddas seems to indicate some sort of connection with Buddhism. We also meet with the four Terebinthus books among the seven chief works of Manes catalogued in the Fihrist. According to a Persian document the Evangelium bore the title Ertenki Mani, was composed by Manes in a cave in Turkestan, in which he stayed for a long time during his banishment, and was adorned with beautiful illustrations, and passed for a book sent down to him direct from heaven.

§ 29.2. The System.—The different sets of documents give very different accounts of the religious system of Manichæism. This is not occasioned so much by erroneous tradition or misconception as by the varying stages through which the doctrine of Manes passed. In Western and Christian lands it took on a richer Christian colouring than in Eastern and pagan countries. In all its forms, however, we meet with a groundwork of magical dualism. As in Parseeism, Ahriman and his Devas stand opposed to Ormuzd and his Ameshaspentas and Izeds, so also here from all eternity a luminous ether surrounding the realm of light, the Terra lucida, of the good God, with his twelve æons and countless beings of light, stands opposed to the realm of darkness, the Terra pestifera, with Satan and his demons. Each of the two kingdoms consists of five elements: the former of bright light, quickening fire, clear water, hot air, soft wind; the latter of lurid flame, scorching fire, grimy slime, dark clouds, raging tempest. In the one, perfect concord, goodness, happiness, and splendour prevail; in the other, wild, chaotic and destructive waves dash confusedly about. Clothing himself in a borrowed ray of light, Satan prepared himself for a robber campaign in the realm of light. In order to keep him off the Father of Lights caused to emanate from him the “Mother of Life,” and placed her as a watcher on the borders of his realm. She brought forth the first man (ὁ πρῶτος ἄνθρωπος), who armed with the five pure elements engaged in battle with the demons. When he sank before their furious onslaught, God sent a newly emanated æon for his deliverance, the “living spirit” (ζῶον πνεῦμα), who freed him and vanquished the demons. But a portion of the ethereal substance of the first man, his armour of light, had been already devoured by the demoniac Hyle, and as the Jesus patibilis, υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου ἐμπαθής, remains imprisoned in it. Out of the elements of light which he saved the living Spirit now forms the Sun and Moon, and settles there the first man as Jesus impatibilis, υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου ἀπαθής, while out of the Hyle impregnated with elements of light he constructs the present earthly world, in order gradually to deliver the fragments of light bound up in it, the Jesus patibilis or the soul of the world, and to fit them for restoration to their eternal home. The first man dwelling in the sun and the Holy Spirit enthroned in the luminous ether have to further and direct this process of purification. The sun and moon are the two light-ships, lucidæ naves, which the light particles wrenched out of the world further increase. The zodiac with its twelve signs operates in this direction like a revolving wheel with twelve buckets, while the smaller ship, as new moon, receives them, and as full moon empties them again into the sun, which introduces them into the realm of light. In order to check this process of purification Satan, out of the Hyle and the imprisoned particles of light, of which he still had possession, made Adam and Eve after his own image and that of the first man, and incited them to fleshly lusts and carnal intercourse, so that the light of their soul became dim and weak, and more and more the body became its gloomy prison. His demons, moreover, were continually busying themselves in fastening the chains of darkness more tightly about their descendants by means of the false religions of Judaism and paganism. Therefore at last the Jesus impatibilis, clothed with the appearance of a body, descended from the sun to the earth, to instruct men about their souls and the means and end of their redemption. The sufferings and death inflicted upon him by the Prince of Darkness were only in appearance. The death of the cross and the resurrection were only sensible representations of the overthrow and final victory of the Jesus patibilis. As in the macrocosm of the earthly world there is set forth the emancipation of this suffering Christ from the bonds of hylic matter, so also in the microcosm represented in each individual man, we have the dominion of the spirit over the flesh, the redemption of the soul of light from the prison of the body, and its return to the realm of light, conceived of as the end and aim of all endeavour. The method for attaining this consists in the greatest possible abstinence from all connection and intercourse with the world of sense; the Signaculum oris in particular demands absolute abstinence from all animal food and restriction in the use even of vegetable food, for in the slaughtering of the animal all elements of light are with the life withdrawn from its flesh, and only hylic elements remain, whereas in vegetable fare the substances of light there present contribute to the strengthening of the light in the man’s own soul. Wine and all intoxicating drinks as “Satan’s gall” are strictly forbidden, as well as animal food. The Signaculum manuum prohibits all injuring of animal or plant life, all avoidable contact with or work upon matter, because the material is thereby strengthened. The Signaculum sinus forbids all sensual pleasure and carnal intercourse. The souls of those men who have perfectly satisfied the threefold injunction, return at death immediately into the blessed home of light. Those who only partially observe them must, by transmigration of the soul into other bodies, of animals, plants or men, in proportion to the degree of purification attained unto, that is, by metempsychosis, have the purifying process carried to perfection. But all who have not entered upon the way of sanctification, are finally delivered over unreservedly to Satan and hell. The Apostles greatly misunderstood and falsified this doctrine of Christ; but in the person of Manes the promised Paraclete appeared, who taught it again in its original purity. For the most part Manes accepted the Pauline epistles in which the doctrines of the groaning creation and the opposition of flesh and spirit must have been peculiarly acceptable to him; all the more decidedly did he reject the Acts of the Apostles, and vigorously did he oppose the account which it gave of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as in conflict with his doctrine of the Paraclete. According to the Fihrist, Manes distinguished from the Jesus impatibilis who as true redeemer descended to earth in the appearance of a body, the historical Jesus as prophet of the Devil, and the false Messiah who for the punishment of his wickedness suffered actual death on the cross instead of the true Jesus. The Old Testament he wholly rejected. The god of the Jews was with him the Prince of Darkness; the prophets with Moses at their head were the messengers of the Devil. As his own true precursors—the precursors of the Paraclete—he named Adam, Seth, Noah, Abraham, Buddha, and Zoroaster.

§ 29.3. Constitution, Worship, and Missionarizing.—Manes was still regarded after his death as the invisibly present head (Princeps) of the church. At the head of the hierarchical order as his visible representative stood an Imam or Pope, who resided at Babylon. The first of these, appointed by Manes himself before his death, was named Sis or Sisinius. The Manichæan ministry was distributed under him into twelve Magistri and seventy-two Bishops, with presbyters and deacons in numbers as required. The congregations consisted of Catechumens (Auditores) and Elect (Electi, Perfecti). The latter were strictly bound to observe the threefold Signaculum. The Auditores brought them the food necessary for the support of their life and out of the abundance of their holiness they procured pardon to these imperfect ones for their unavoidable violation of mineral and vegetable life in making this provision. The Auditores were also allowed to marry and even to eat animal food; but by voluntary renunciation of this permission they could secure entrance into the ranks of the Electi. The worship of the Manichæans was simple, but orderly. They addressed their prayers to the sun and moon. The Sunday was hallowed by absolute fasting, and the day of common worship was dedicated to the honour of the spirit of the sun; but on Monday the Electi by themselves celebrated a secret service. At their annual chief festival, that of the Pulpit (βῆμα), on the day of their founder’s death, they threw themselves down upon the ground in oriental fashion before a beautifully adorned chair of state, the symbol of their departed master. The five steps leading up to it represented the five hierarchical decrees of the Electi, Diaconi, Presbyteri, Episcopi and Magistri. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the former with oil, the latter with bread without wine, belonged to the secret worship of the Perfect. Oil and bread were regarded as the most luminous bearers of the universal soul in the vegetable world.—Notwithstanding the violent persecution which after the execution of Manes was raised against the adherents of his doctrine throughout the whole Persian empire, their number increased rapidly in all quarters, especially in the East, but also in the West, in Syria, Palestine, Egypt, etc. Proconsular Africa became the centre of its Western propaganda; and thence it spread into Italy and Spain. In A.D. 290 Diocletian issued an edict by which the Proconsul of Africa was required to burn the leaders of this sect, doubly dangerous as springing from the hostile Persian empire, along with their books, to execute with the sword its persistent adherents, or send them to work in the quarries, and confiscate their goods.—Continuation at § 54, 1.

III. THE DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT AND APOLOGETICAL ACTIVITY OF THE CHURCH.[52]

§ 30. THE THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE OF THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE, A.D. 70-170.[53]

The literary remains of the so-called Apostolic Fathers constitute the first fruits of Patristic-Christian literature. These are in respect of number and scope insignificant, and, inasmuch as they had their origin, from the special individual circumstances of their writers, they were composed for the most part in the form of epistles. The old traditional view that the authors of these treatises had enjoyed the immediate fellowship and instruction of the Apostles is at once too narrow and too wide. Among these writings must be included first of all the recently discovered “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles.” About A.D. 130, when Christianity was making its way among the ranks of the cultured, Christian writers began to feel themselves called upon to engage with paganism in a literary warfare defensive and offensive, in order to repel the charges and calumnies raised against their religion and to demonstrate its inner worth in opposition to the moral and religious degradation of heathenism. These writings had a more theological and scientific character than those of the Apostolic Fathers, which had more of a practical and hortatory tendency. The works of these Apologists still extant afford interesting and significant glimpses of the life, doctrine, and thinking of the Christians of that age, which but for these writings would have been almost unknown.

§ 30.1. The Beginnings of Patristic Literature.—According to the established rule of the church we have to distinguish between New Testament and Patristic literature in this way: to the former belongs those writings to which, as composed by Apostles or at least under Apostolic authority, the ancient church assigned an objectively fundamental and regulative significance for further ecclesiastical development; while in the latter we have represented the subjective conception and estimation which the Church Fathers made of the Christian message of salvation and the structure they reared upon this foundation. The so-called Apostolic Fathers may be regarded as occupying a position midway between the two and forming a transition from the one to the other, or as themselves constituting the first fruits of Patristic literature. Indeed as regards the New Testament writings themselves the ancient church was long uncertain and undecided as to the selection of them from the multitude of contemporary writings;[54] and Eusebius still designated several of the books that were subsequently definitely recognised ἀντιλεγόμενα; while modern criticism has not only repeated such doubts as to the genuineness of these writings but has extended these doubts to other books of the New Testament. But even this criticism cannot deny the historical significance assigned above to those New Testament books contested by it, even though it may feel obliged to reject the account of them given by the ancient church, and to assign their composition to the Post-Apostolic Age.—When we turn to the so-called Apostolic Fathers, on closer examination the usual designation as well as the customary enumeration of seven names as belonging to the group will be found too narrow because excluding the New Testament writings composed by disciples of the Apostles, and too wide because including names which have no claim to be regarded as disciples or contemporaries of the Apostles, and embracing writings of which the authenticity is in some cases clearly disproved, in other cases doubtful or at least only problematical. We come upon firm ground when we proceed to deal with the Apologists of the age of Hadrian. It was not, however, till the period of the Old Catholic Church, about A.D. 170, that the literary compositions of the Christians became broadened, deepened and universalized by a fuller appropriation and appreciation of the elements of Græco-Latin culture, so as to form an all-sided universal Christian literature representative of Christianity as a universal religion.

§ 30.2. The Theology of the Post-Apostolic Age.—By far the greater number of the ecclesiastical writers of this period belong to the Gentile Christian party. Hence we might suppose that it would reflect the Pauline type of doctrine, if not in its full depth and completeness, yet at least in its more significant and characteristic features. This expectation, however, is not altogether realised. Among the Church Fathers of this age we rather find an unconscious deterioration of the original doctrine of Paul revealing itself as a smoothing down and belittling or as an ignoring of the genuine Paulinism, which, therefore, as the result of the struggle against the Gnostic tendency, only in part overcome, was for the first time fully recognised and proved finally victorious in the Reformation of the 16th century. On the one hand, we see that these writers, if they do not completely ignore the position and task assigned to Israel as the chosen people of God, minimise their importance and often fail to appreciate the pædagogical significance of the Mosaic law (Gal. iii. 24), so that its ceremonial parts are referred to misunderstanding, want of sense, and folly, or are attributed even to demoniacal suggestion. But on the other hand, even the gospel itself is regarded again as a new and higher law, purified from that ceremonial taint, and hence the task of the ante-mundane Son of God, begotten for the purpose of creating the world, but now also manifest in the flesh, from whose influence upon Old Testament prophets as well as upon the sages of paganism all revelations of pre-Christian Judaism as well as all σπέρματα of true knowledge in paganism have sprung, is pre-eminently conceived of as that of a divine teacher and lawgiver. In this way there was impressed upon the Old Catholic Church as it grew up out of Pauline Gentile Christianity a legalistic moral tendency that was quite foreign to the original Paulinism, and the righteousness of faith taught by the Apostle when represented as obedience to the “new law” passed over again unobserved into a righteousness of works. Redemption and reconciliation are indeed still always admitted to be conditioned by the death of Christ and their appropriation to be by the faith of the individual; but this faith is at bottom nothing more than the conviction of the divinity of the person and doctrine of the new lawgiver evidencing itself in repentance and rendering of practical obedience, and in confident expectation of the second coming of Christ, and in a sure confidence of a share in the life everlasting.—The introduction of this legalistic tendency into the Gentile Christian Church was not occasioned by the influence of Jewish Christian legalism, nor can it be explained as the result of a compromise effected between Jewish Christian Petrinism and Gentile Christian Paulinism, which were supposed by Baur, Schwegler, etc., to have been, during the Apostolic Age, irreconcilably hostile to one another. This has been already proved by Ritschl, who charges its intrusion rather upon the inability of Gentile Christianity fully to understand the Old Testament bases of the Pauline doctrine. By means of a careful analysis of the undisputed writings of Justin Martyr and by a comparison of these with the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, Engelhardt has proved that anything extra-, un-, or anti-Pauline in the Christianity of these Fathers has not so much an Ebionitic-Jewish Christian, but rather a pagan-philosophic, source. He shows that the prevalent religio-moral mode of thought of the cultured paganism of that age reappears in that form of Christianity not only as an inability to reach a profound understanding of the Old Testament, but also just as much as a minimising and depreciating, or disdaining of so many characteristic features of the Pauline doctrinal resting on Old Testament foundations.

§ 30.3. The so-called Apostolic Fathers.[55]—

1. Clement of Rome was one of the first Roman bishops, probably the third (§ 16, 1). The opinion that he is to be identified with the Clement named in Phil. iv. 3 is absolutely unsupported. The sameness of age and residence in some small measure favours the identifying him with Tit. Flav. Clemens [Clement], the consul, and cousin of the Emperor, who on account of his Christianity (?) was executed in A.D. 95 (§ 22, 1). Besides a multitude of other writings which subsequently assumed his well-known name (§ 28, 3; 43, 4), there are ascribed to him two so-called Epistles to the Corinthians, of which however, the second certainly is not his. The First Epistle which in the ancient church was considered worthy to be used in public worship, was afterwards lost, but fragments of it were recovered in A.D. 1628 in the so-called Codex Alexandrinus (§ 152, 2), together with a portion of the so-called “Second Epistle.” Recently however both writings were found in a complete form by Bryennius, Metropolitan of Serrä in Macedonia, in a Jerusalem Codex of A.D. 1056 discovered at Constantinople and published by him.[56] In the following year a Codex of the Syrian New Testament at Cambridge was more closely examined,[57] and in it there was found a complete Syriac translation of both writings inserted between the Catholic and the Pauline Epistles, while in Codex Alexandrinus they are placed after the Apocalypse. The “First” Epistle, the date of which is generally given as A.D. 93-95, does not give the author’s name, but is assigned to Clement of Rome by Dionysius of Corinth in A.D. 170, as quoted in Eusebius, and by Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, and described as written from Rome in name of the church of that place to the church of Corinth, counselling peace and unity. In the passage c. 58-63, formerly wanting but now restored, the exhortation passes into a long prayer with intercessions for those in authority and for the church according to what was perhaps already the customary form of public prayer in Rome. Both churches, those of Rome and Corinth, are admitted without dispute to have been Gentile Christian churches, which had accepted the Pauline type of doctrine, without however fully fathoming or understanding it. But Peter also occupies a position of equal honour alongside of Paul, and nowhere does any trace appear of a consciousness of any opposition between the two apostles. The divine sonship of the Redeemer and His consequent universal sovereignty are the basis of the Christian confession, but no sort of developed doctrine of the divinity of Christ is here found, and even His pre-existence is affirmed only as the presupposition of the view that He was already operative in the prophets by His spirit. The Old Testament, allegorically and typically interpreted, is therefore the source and proof of Christian doctrine. Of a particular election of Israel the author knows nothing. Christians as such, whether descended from Gentiles or from Jews, are the chosen people of God; Abraham by reason of his faith is their father; and it is only by faith in the Almighty God that men of all ages have been justified before God.—In the so-called Second “Epistle” the completed form of the second half proves what the less complete form rendered probable, that it is no Epistle but a sermon, and indeed the oldest specimen of a sermon, that we here possess. The author, who delivered it somewhere about A.D. 144-150, wrote it out first for his own use, and then for the church. As it has in its theological views many points of contact with the Shepherd of Hermas (§ 30, 4), Harnack thinks it probable that a younger Clement of Rome mentioned by Hermas may be the author; while Hilgenfeld is inclined to regard it as a youthful work of Clement of Alexandria (§ 31, 4). It contains a forcible exhortation to thorough repentance and conversion in accordance with the command of Christ, with a reference to the judgment and the future glory. This shows in a remarkable way what rapid progress had been made from the religio-moral mode of thought of cultured paganism toward moralizing legalism, and the smoothing down of Christianity thereby introduced into the Gentile-Christian Catholic Church, during the half century between the composition of the Epistle of Clement and this Clementine discourse. For in the latter already the gospel is represented as a new law, a higher divine doctrine of virtue and reward, in which alms, fasts, and prayer appear as specially meritorious works. The righteousness that avails with God is still indeed derived from faith, but this faith is reduced to a belief in the future recompense of eternal life. Christ as Son of God is conceived of by the author as a pneumatical heavenly being, created before the world, who, sent by God into the world for man’s redemption, took upon Him human σάρξ. But besides Him, he also knows a second pneumatical hypostasis created before the world, “before sun and moon,” the ἐκκλησία ζῶσα, which, as the heavenly body of Christ, is at the same time the presupposition for the making of the world restored by His work of salvation. For the creation of this divine pair of æons, that is, of Christ as the ἄνθρωπος ἐπουράνιος and of the church as His heavenly σύζυγος, the author refers to the account of the creation in Gen. i. 27. Of passages quoted as sayings of Christ several are not to be found in our Gospels.

§ 30.4.

1. The Epistle known by the name of Paul’s travelling companion Barnabas (Acts iv. 36) was first recovered in the 17th century. The first 4½ chapters were added from an old Latin translation, till in the 19th century the Codex Sinaiticus of the New Testament, and recently also the Jerusalem Codex of Bryennius above referred to, supplied the complete Greek text.[58] The date of the epistle has been variously assigned to the age of Domitian, to that of Nerva, to that of Hadrian; and is placed by Harnack between A.D. 96 and A.D. 125. Its extravagant allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament betrays its Alexandrian origin, and in Gentile-Christian depreciation of the ceremonial law of the Old Testament it goes so far as to attribute the conception and actual composition of its books to diabolical inspiration. It admits indeed a covenant engagement between God and Israel, but maintains that this was immediately terminated by Moses’ breaking of the tables of the law. All things considered the composition of this Epistle by Barnabas is scarcely conceivable. This was acknowledged by Eusebius who counted it among the νόθοι, and by Jerome, who placed it among the Apocrypha. For the rest, however, its type of doctrine is in essential agreement with that of Paul, though it fails to penetrate the depths of apostolic truth. It is at least decidedly free from any taint of that legalistic-moral conception of Christianity which is so strongly masked in the discourse of Clement. The divine sonship, pre-existence, and world-creating activity of Christ is expressly acknowledged and taught, though there is yet no reference to the doctrine of the Logos.

2. The prophetical writing known to us as Pastor Hermæ [Hermas],[59] which was first erroneously attributed by Origen to Hermas the scholar of Paul at Rome (Rom. xvi. 14), was so highly esteemed in the ancient church that it was used in public like the canonical books of the New Testament. Irenæus quotes it as holy scripture; Clement and Origen regarded it as inspired, and the African church of the 3rd century included it in the New Testament canon. On the other hand, the Muratorian canon (§ 36, 8) had already ranked it among the Apocrypha that might be used in private but not in public worship. The book owes its title to the circumstance that in it an angel appears in the form of a shepherd instructing Hermas. It contains four visions, in which the church, which πάντων πρώτη ἐκτίσθη, appears to the author as an old woman giving instruction (πρεσβυτέρα); it contains also twelve Mandata of the angel, and finally, ten Similitudines or parables. The Gentile-Christian origin of the author is shown by the position which he assigns to the church as coeval with the creation of the world and as at first embracing all mankind. The sending of the Son of God into the world has for its end not the founding but only the renewing and perfecting of the church, and the twelve tribes to which the Apostles were to preach the gospel are “the twelve peoples who dwell on the whole earth” (comp. Deut. xxxii. 8). In all the three parts the book takes the form of a continuous earnest call to repentance in view of the early coming again of Christ, dominated throughout by that same legalistic conception of the Gospel that we meet with in the discourse of Clement. Indeed this is more fully carried out, for it teaches that the true penitent is able not only to live a perfectly righteous life, but also in good works, such as fasts, alms, etc., to do more than fulfil the commands of God, and in this way to win for himself a higher measure of the divine favour and eternal blessedness. In Hermas we find no trace of any application of the doctrine of the Logos to the person of Christ, and the ideas of the Son of God and the Holy Spirit are confused with one another. The Son of God as the Holy Spirit is προγενέστερος πάσης τῆς κτίσεως; at His suggestion and by His means God created the world; through Him He bears, sustains, and upholds it; and by Him He redeems it by means of His incarnation, for the Son of God as the Holy Spirit descends upon the man Jesus in His baptism. From its prophetical utterances, its eager expectation of the early return of the Lord, and its promises of a new outpouring of the Spirit for the quickening of the church already become too worldly, the book may be characterized as a precursor of the Montanist movement (§ 40), although on questions of practical morality, such as second marriages, martyrdom, fasting, etc., it exhibits a milder tendency than that of Montanistic rigorism, and in reference to penitential discipline (§ 39, 2), while acknowledging the inadmissibility of absolution for a mortal sin committed after baptism, it nevertheless, owing to the nearness of the second coming, allows to be proclaimed by the angel a repeated, though only short, space for repentance. The date of the composition of this book is still matter of controversy. Since Hermas is commanded in the second vision to send a copy of his book to “Clement” in order to secure its further circulation, most of the earlier scholars, and among the moderns specially Zahn, identifying this Clement with the celebrated Roman Presbyter-Bishop of that name, fix its date at somewhere about A.D. 100. Recently, however, Harnack, v. Gebhardt, and others have rightly assigned much greater importance to the testimony of the Muratorian canon, according to which it was written somewhere between A.D. 130-160, “nuperrime temporibus nostris in urbe Roma,” by Hermas, the brother of the Roman bishop Pius (A.D. 139-154).

§ 30.5.

1. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, is said to have been a pupil of the Apostle John, though no evidence of this can be produced from the Epistles ascribed to him. The Acta martyrii sancti Ignatii, extant in five parts, are purely legendary and full of contradictory statements. According to a later document, that of the Byzantine chronographer Joh. Malalas, at the time of the Parthian war during the visit of Trajan to Antioch in A.D. 115, soon after an earthquake had been experienced there, he was torn asunder by lions in the circus as a despiser of the gods. According to the martyrologies he was transported to Rome and suffered this fate there, as usually supposed in A.D. 115, in the opinion of Wieseler and others in A.D. 107 (Lightfoot says between A.D. 100-118), according to Harnack soon after A.D. 130.[60] The epistles to various churches and one to Polycarp ascribed to him have come down to us in three recensions differing from one another in extent, number and character. There is a shorter Greek recension containing seven, a larger Greek form, with expansions introduced for a purpose, containing thirteen epistles, twelve by and one to Ignatius, and the shortest of all in a Syriac translation containing three epistles, those to the Romans, to the Ephesians, and to Polycarp.[61] According to the first-named recension, Ignatius is represented as writing all his epistles during his martyr journey to Rome, but no reference to this is made in the Syrian recension. Vigorous polemic against Judaistic and Docetic heresy, undaunted confession of the divinity of Christ, and unwearied exhortation to recognise the bishop as the representative of Christ, while the presbyters are described as the successors of the Apostles, distinguish these epistles from all other writings of this age, especially in the two Greek recensions, and have led many critics to question their genuineness. Bunsen, Lipsius, Ritschl, etc., regarded the Syrian recension, in which the hierarchical tendency was more in the background, as the original and authentic form. Uhlhorn, Düsterdieck, Zahn, Funk, Lightfoot, Harnack, etc., prefer the shorter Greek recension, and view the Syrian form as abbreviated perhaps for liturgical purposes, Baur, Hilgenfeld, Volkmar, etc., deny the genuineness of all three. But even on this assumption, in determining the date of the composition of the two shorter recensions, to whichever of them we may ascribe priority and originality, we cannot on internal grounds put them later than the middle of the second century, whereas the larger Greek recension paraphrased and expanded into thirteen epistles belongs certainly to a much later date (§ 43, 4).[62]

§ 30.6.

1. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, had also been according to Irenæus ordained to this office by the Apostle John. He died at the stake under Marcus Aurelius (Antoninus Pius?) in A.D. 166 (or A.D. 155) at an extreme old age (§ 22, 3). We possess an epistle of his to the Philippians of practical contents important on account of its New Testament quotations. Its genuineness, however, has been contested by modern criticism. It stands and falls with the seven Ignatian epistles, as it occupies common ground with them. We have a legendary biography of Polycarp by Pionius dating from the 4th century, which is reproduced in Lightfoot’s work.

2. Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis in Galatia, was also, according to Irenæus, a pupil of the Apostle John. This statement, however, in the opinion of Eusebius and many moderns, rests upon a confusion between the Apostle and another John, whom Papias himself distinguishes by the title πρεσβύτερος (§ 16, 2). He is said to have suffered death as a martyr under Marcus Aurelius, about A.D. 163. With great diligence he collected mediately and immediately from the mouths of the πρεσβύτεροι, that is, from such as had intercourse with the Apostles, or had been, like the above-mentioned John the Presbyter, μαθηταὶ τοῦ κυρίου, oral traditions about the discourses of the Lord, and set down the results of his inquiries in a writing entitled Λογίων κυριακῶν ἐξήγησις. A passage quoted by Eusebius in his Ch. Hist., iii. 29, from the preface of this treatise has given rise to a lively controversy as to whether Papias was a pupil of the Apostle John and was acquainted with the fourth Gospel. Another fragment on the history of the origin of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark has occasioned a dispute as to whether only these two Gospels were known to him. Finally, there is preserved in Irenæus a passage giving a reputed saying of Christ regarding the fantastically rich fruitfulness of the earth during the thousand years’ reign (§ 33, 9). He so revels in fantastic and sensuous chiliastic dreams that Eusebius, who had previously spoken of him as a learned and well-read man, is driven to pass upon him the harsh judgment: σφόδρα γάρ τοι σμικρὸς ὢν τὸν νοῦν.[63]

3. Finally, we must here include an epistle to a certain Diognetus by an unknown writer, who has described himself as μαθητὴς τῶν ἀποστόλων. Justin Martyr, among whose writings this epistle got inserted, cannot possibly have been the author, as both his style and his point of view are different. The epistle controverts in a spirited manner the objections of Diognetus to Christianity, views the pagan deities not, like the other Church Fathers, as demons, but as unsubstantial phantoms, explains the Old Testament institutions as human, and so in part foolish enactments, and maintains keenly and determinedly the opinion that God for the first time revealed Himself to man in Christ. He thus, as Dräseke thinks, to some extent favours the Marcionite view of the Old Testament, so that he regards it as not improbable that our epistle was composed by a disciple of Marcion, one perhaps like Apelles, who in the course of the later development of the school had rejected many of his master’s crudities (§ 27, 12). He addresses his discourse to Diognetus, the stoical philosopher who boasts of Marcus Aurelius as his master. On the other hand, Overbeck assigns its composition to the Post-Constantine Age, and the French scholar Doulcet, setting it down to the age of Hadrian, thinks he has discovered the author to be the Athenian philosopher Aristides. This idea has been more fully carried out by Kihn, who endeavours to make out not only the identity of the author, but that of him to whom the epistle is addressed: Κράτιστε Διόγνητε, “Almighty son of Zeus,” that is, Hadrian.

§ 30.7. The Didache or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles.—The celebrated little treatise bearing the title Διδαχὴ κυρίου διὰ τῶν δώδεκα ἀποστόλων τοῖς ἔθνεσιν was discovered by Bryennius (then metropolitan of Serrä, now of Nicomedia) in the Jerusalem Codex, to which we also owe the perfect text of the two so-called Epistles of Clement, and it was edited by this scholar with prolegomena and notes in Greek, at Constantinople in 1883. It at once set in motion many learned pens in Germany, France, Holland, England, and North America.—Eusebius, who first expressly names it in his list of New Testament writings as τῶν ἀποστόλων αἱ λεγόμεναι διδαχαί, which Rufinus renders by Doctrina quæ dicitur App., places it in the closest connection with the Epistle of Barnabas among the ἀντιλεγόμενα νόθα (§ 36, 8). Four years later Athanasius ranks it as διδαχὴ καλουμένη τῶν ἀπ. along with the Shepherd of Hermas, giving it the first place, as a New Testament supplement corresponding to the Old Testament ἀναγινωσκόμενα (§ 59, 1). Clement of Alexandria quoting a passage from it uses the formula, ὑπὸ τῆς γραφῆς εἴρηται, and thus treats it as holy scripture. In Origen again no sort of reference to it has as yet been found. From the 39th Festival Epistle of Athanasius, A.D. 367, which ranks it, as we have just seen, as a New Testament supplement like the Old Testament Anaginoskomena, we know that it like these were used at Alexandria παρὰ τῶν πατέρων in the instruction of catechumens. In the East, according to Rufinus, when enumerating in his Expos. Symb. Ap. the Athanasian Anaginoskomena, we find alongside of Hermas, instead of the Didache, the “Two Ways,” Duæ viæ vel Judicium secundum Petrum. Jerome, too, in his De vir. ill., mentions among the pseudo-Petrine writings a Judicium Petri. We have here no doubt a Latin translation or recension of the first six chapters of the Didache beginning with the words: Ὅδοι δύο εἰσι, these two ways being the way of life and the way of death. The second title instead of the twelve Apostles names their spokesman Peter as the reputed author of the treatise. Soon after the time of Athanasius our tract passed out of the view of the Church Fathers, but it reappears in the Ecclesiastical Constitutions of the 4th century (§ 43, 4, 5), of which it formed the root and stem. The Didache itself, however, should not be ranked among the pseudepigraphs, for it never claims to have been written by the twelve Apostles or by their spokesman Peter.—Bryennius and others, from the intentional prominence given to the twelve Apostles in the title and from the legalistic moralizing spirit that pervades the book, felt themselves justified in seeking its origin in Jewish-Christian circles. But this moralizing character it shares with the other Gentile-Christian writings of the Post-Apostolic Age (§ 30, 2), and the restriction of the term “Apostles” by the word “twelve” was occasioned by this, that the itinerant preachers of the gospel of that time, who in the New Testament are called Evangelists (§ 17, 5) were now called Apostles as continuators of the Apostles’ missionary labours, and also the exclusion of the Apostle Paul is to be explained by the consideration that the book is founded upon the sayings of the Lord, the tradition of which has come to us only through the twelve. It has been rightly maintained on the other hand by Harnack, that the author must rather have belonged to Gentile-Christian circles which repudiated all communion with the Jews even in matters of mere form; for in chap. viii. 1, 2, resting upon Matt. vi. 5, 16, he forbids fasting with the hypocrites, “the Jews,” or perhaps in the sense of Gal. ii. 13, the Jewish-Christians, on Monday and Thursday, instead of Wednesday and Friday according to the Christian custom (§ 37, 3), and using Jewish prayers instead of the Lord’s Prayer. The address of the title: τοῖς ἔθνεσιν is to be understood according to the analogy of Rom. xi. 13; Gal. ii. 12-14; and Eph. iii. 1. The author wishes in as brief, lucid, easily comprehended, and easily remembered form as possible, to gather together for Christians converted from heathenism the most important rules for their moral, religious and congregational life in accordance with the precepts of the Lord as communicated by the twelve Apostles, and in doing so furnishes us with a valuable “commentary on the earliest witnesses for the life, type of doctrine, interests and ordinances of the Gentile-Christian churches in the pre-Catholic age.” As to the date of its composition, its connection with the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas indicates the period within which it must fall, for the connection is so close that it must have employed them or they must have employed it. However, not only is the age of the Epistle of Barnabas, as well as that of the Shepherd of Hermas, still undetermined, but it is also disputed whether one or other of these two or the Didache has priority and originality. On the other hand, the Didache itself in almost all its data and presuppositions bears so distinct an impress of an archaic character that one feels obliged to assign its date as near the Apostolic Age as possible. Harnack who feels compelled to ascribe priority not only to the Pseudo-Barnabas, but also to the Shepherd of Hermas, fixes its date between A.D. 140-165, after Hermas and before Marcion. On the other hand, Zahn and Funk, Lechler, Taylor, etc., give the Didache priority even over the Epistle of Barnabas. The place as well as the time of the composition of this work is matter of dispute. Those who maintain its Jewish-Christian origin think of the southern lands to the east or west of the Jordan; others think of Syria. On account of its connection with the Epistle of Barnabas, and with reference to Clement and Athanasius (see above), Harnack has decided for Egypt, and, on account of its agreement with the Sahidic translation of the New Testament in omitting the doxology from Matt. v. 13, he fixes more exactly upon Upper Egypt. The objection that the designation of the grain of which the bread for the Lord’s Supper is made in the eucharistic prayer given in chap. ix. 4 as ἐπάνω τῶν ὀρέων, does not correspond with that grown there, is sought to be set aside with the scarcely satisfactory remark that “the origin of the eucharistic prayer does not decide the origin of the whole treatise.” That the book, however, does not bear in itself any specifically Alexandrian impress, such as, e.g., is undeniably met with in the Epistle of Barnabas, has been admitted by Harnack.[64]

§ 30.8. The Writings of the Earliest Christian Apologists[65] are lost. At the head of this band stood Quadratus of Athens, who addressed a treatise in defence of the faith to Hadrian, in which among other things he shows that he himself was acquainted with some whom Jesus had cured or raised from the dead. No trace of this work can be found after the 7th century. His contemporary, Aristides the philosopher, in Athens after his conversion addressed to the same emperor an Apology that has been praised by Jerome. A fragment of an Armenian translation of this treatise, which according to its superscription belongs to the 5th century, was found in a codex of the 10th century by the Mechitarists at S. Lazzaro, and was edited by them along with a Latin translation. This fragment treats of the nature of God as the eternal creator and ruler of all things, of the four classes of men,—barbarians who are sprung from Belos, Chronos, etc., Greeks from Zeus, Danaus, Hellenos, etc., Jews from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Christians from Christ,—and of Jesus Christ as the Son of God born of a Jewish virgin, who sent His twelve Apostles into all the world to teach the nations wisdom. This probably formed the beginning of the Apology. The antique character of its point of view and the complete absence of any reference to the Logos doctrine or to any heretical teaching, lends great probability to the authenticity of this fragment, although the designation of the mother of Jesus as the “bearer of God” must be a later interpolation (comp. § 52, 3). The genuineness of the second piece, however, taken from another Armenian Codex,—an anti-docetic homily, De Latronis clamore et Crucifixi responsione (Luke xxiii. 42), which from the words of Christ and those crucified with Him proves His divinity—is both on external and on internal grounds extremely doubtful. According to the Armenian editor this Codex has the title: By the Athenian philosopher Aristeas. This is explained as a corruption of the name Aristides, but recently another Catholic scholar, Dr. Vetter, on close examination found that the name was really that of Aristides.—To a period not much later must be assigned the apologetic dialogue between the Jewish Christian Jason and the Alexandrian Jew Papiscus, in which the proof from prophecy was specially emphasized, and the in principio of Gen. i. 1 was interpreted as meaning in filio. The pagan controversialist Celsus is the first to mention this treatise. He considers it, on account of its allegorical fancies, not so much fitted to cause laughter as pity and contempt, and so regards it as unworthy of any serious reply. Origen, too, esteemed it of little consequence. Subsequently, however, in the 5th century, it obtained high repute and was deemed worthy of a Latin translation by the African bishop Celsus. The controversialist Celsus, and also Origen, Jerome, and the Latin translator, do not name the writer. His name is first given by Maximus Confessor as Ariston of Pella. Harnack has rendered it extremely probable that in the “Altercatio Simonis Judæi et Theophili Christiani” discovered in the 18th century, reported on by Gennadius (§ 47, 16), and ascribed by him to a certain Evagrius, we have a substantially correct Latin reproduction of the old Greek dialogue, in which everything that is told us about the earlier document is met with, and which, though written in the 5th century, in its ways of looking at things and its methods of proof moves within the circle of the Apologists of the 2nd century. In it, just as in those early treatises the method of proof is wholly in accordance with the Old Testament; by it every answer of the Christian to the Jew is supported; at last the Jew is converted and asks for baptism, while he regards the Christians as lator salutis and ægrotorum bone medice with a play probably upon the word Ἰάσων=ἰατρός and from this it is conceivable how Clement of Alexandria supposed Luke, the physician, to be the author of the treatise. Harnack’s conclusion is significant inasmuch as it lends a new confirmation to the fact that the non-heretical Jewish Christianity of the middle of the second century had already completely adopted the dogmatic views of Gentile Christianity. Claudius Apollinaris, bishop of Hierapolis, and the rhetorician Miltiades of Athens addressed very famous apologies to the emperor Marcus Aurelius. Melito of Sardis was also a highly esteemed apologist, and a voluminous writer in many other departments of theological literature.[66] The elaborate introduction to the mystical interpretation of scripture by investigating the mystical meaning of biblical names and words published in Pitra’s “Spicileg. Solesm.” II. III., as “Clavis Melitonis,” belongs to the later period of the middle ages. Melito’s six books of Eclogues deal with the Old Testament as a witness for Christ and Christianity, where he takes as his basis not the LXX. but the Hebrew canon (§ 36, 1).[67]

§ 30.9. Extant Writings of Apologists of the Post-Apostolic Age.

1. The earliest and most celebrated of these is Justin Martyr.[68] Born at Shechem (Flavia Neapolis) of Greek parents, he was drawn to the Platonic doctrine of God and to the Stoical theory of ethics, more than to any of the other philosophical systems to which, as a pagan, he turned in the search after truth. But full satisfaction he first found in the prophets and apostles, to whom he was directed by an unknown venerable old man, whom he once met by the sea-side. He now in his thirtieth year cast off his philosopher’s cloak and adopted Christianity, of which he became a zealous defender, but thereby called down upon himself the passionate hatred of the pagan sages. His bitterest enemy was the Cynic Crescens in Rome, who after a public disputation with him, did all he could to compass his destruction. In A.D. 165, under Marcus Aurelius, Justin was condemned at Rome to be scourged and beheaded.—His two Apologies, addressed to Antoninus Pius and his son Marcus Aurelius are certainly genuine. Of these, however, the shorter one, the so-called second Apology is probably only a sort of appendix to the first. His Dialogus cum Tryphone Judæo is probably a free rendering of a disputation which actually occurred. Except a few fragments, his Σύνταγμα κατὰ Μαρκίωνος have been lost. It is disputed whether that was an integral part of the Σύνταγμα κατὰ πασῶν αἱρέσεων of which he himself makes mention, or a later independent work. The following are of more than doubtful authenticity: the Λόγος παραινετικὸς πρὸς Ἕλληνας (Cohortatio ad Græcos), which seeks to prove that not by the poets nor by the philosophers, but only by Moses and the prophets can the true knowledge of God be found, and that whatever truth is spoken by the former, they had borrowed from the latter; also, the shorter Λόγος πρὸς Ἕλληνας (Oratio ad Græcos), on the irrationality and immorality of the pagan mythology; further, the short treatise Περὶ μοναρχίας, which proves the vanity of polytheism from the admissions of heathen poets and philosophers; and a fragment Περὶ ἀναστάσεως.—Justin’s theology is of the Gentile Christian type, quite free from any Ebionitic taint, inclining rather to the speculation and ethics of Greek philosophy and to an Alexandrian-Hellenistic conception and exposition of scripture. To these sources everything may be traced in which he unconsciously departs from biblical Paulinism and Catholic orthodoxy. Then in his idea of God and creation, he has not quite overcome the partly pantheistic, partly dualistic, principles derived from the Platonic philosophy. He shows traces of Alexandrian influences in his conception of the person and work of Christ, to whom he assigns merely the role of a divine teacher, who has made known the true idea of God the Creator, of righteousness, and of eternal life, and has won power by death, resurrection and ascension, and will give evidence of it by His coming again to reward the righteousness of the saints with immortal blessedness. He was also led into doctrinal aberrations in the anthropological domain, because his idea of freedom and virtue borrowed from Greek philosophy prevented him from fully grasping the Pauline doctrine of sin. His theory of morals, with its legalistic tendency and its righteousness of works, was grounded not in Judaism but in Stoicism. His chiliasm, too, is not Ebionitic but is immediately derived from scripture, and has less significance for his speculation than the other eschatological principles of Resurrection, Judgment, and Recompence. His Christianity consists essentially of only three elements: Worship of the true God, a virtuous life according to the commandments of Christ, and belief in rewards and punishments hereafter. Over against the pagan philosophy it represents itself as the true philosophy, and over against the Mosaic law as the new law freed from the fetters of ceremonialism. Even in the natural man, in consequence of the divine reason that is innate in him, there dwells the power of living as a Christian: Abraham and Elias, Socrates and Heraclitus, etc., have to such a degree lived according to reason that they must be called Christians. But even they possessed only σπέρματα Λόγου, only a μέρος Λόγου; for the divine reason dwells in men only as Λόγος σπερματικός; in Christ alone as the incarnate Logos it dwells as ὁ πᾶς Λόγος or τὸ Λογικὸν τὸ ὅλον. He is the only true Son of God, pre-mundane but not eternal, the πρῶτον γέννημα τοῦ θεοῦ, or the πρωτότοκος τοῦ θεοῦ, by whom God in the beginning created all things. The Father alone is ὄντως θεός, and the Logos only a divine being of the second rank, a ἕτερος θεὸς παρὰ τὸν ποιητὴν τῶν ὅλων, to whom, however, as such, worship should be rendered. In Justin’s theological speculation the Holy Spirit stands quite in the background, though the baptismal and congregational Trinitarian confession obliged him to assign to the Spirit the rank of an independent divine being, whom the Logos had used for the enlightening of His prophets. Justin too knows nothing of a particular election of Israel as the people of God; with him the Christians as such are the true Israel, the people of God, the children of the faith of Abraham. From the Old Testament he proves the divinity of the person and doctrine of Christ, and from the Ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν ἀποστόλων (§ 36, 7) he derives his information about the historical life, teaching, and works of Jesus. The Gospel of John, although never mentioned, was not unknown to him, but it appeared to him more as a doctrinal and hortatory treatise than as a historical document, and undoubtedly his Logos doctrine is connected with that of John. He shows himself familiar with the Epistles of Paul, although he never expressly quotes from them.

§ 30.10.

1. Tatian, a Greek born in Assyria (according to Zahn, a Semite) while engaged as a rhetorician at Rome, was won to Christianity by Justin Martyr, according to Harnack about A.D. 150. As the fruit of youthful zeal, he published an Apologetical Λόγος πρὸς Ἕλληνας, in which he treats the Greek paganism and its culture with withering scorn for even its noblest manifestations, and shared with his teacher the hatred and persecution of the philosopher Crescens. His later written Εὐαγγέλιον διὰ τεσσάρων (§ 36, 7) was a Gospel harmony, in which the removal of all reference to the descent of Jesus from the seed of David, according to the flesh, objected to by Theodoret, was occasioned perhaps more by antipathy to Ebionism than by any sympathy with Gnosticism. Zahn affirms, while Harnack decidedly denies, that this work was originally composed in Syriac. The exclusive use by the Syrians of the Greek name Diatessaron seems to afford a strong argument for a Greek original. Its general agreement with the readings of the so-called Itala (§ 36, 8) witnesses to the West as the place of its composition. The introduction of a Syriac translation of it into church use in the East is to be explained by a longer residence of the author in his eastern home; and its neglect on the part of many of the Greek and Latin Church Fathers, and even their complete ignorance of it, may be accounted for by the fact that, while in the far East it was unsuspected, elsewhere it came to be branded as heretical (§ 27, 10).[69]

2. Athenagoras, about whose life we have no authentic information, in A.D. 177 addressed his Πρεσβεία (Intercessio) περὶ Χριστιανῶν to Marcus Aurelius, in which he clearly and convincingly disproves the hideous calumnies of Atheism, Ædipodean atrocities, Thyestean feasts (§ 22), and extols the excellence of Christianity in life and doctrine. In the treatise Περὶ ἀναστάσεως νέκρων he proves, from the general philosophical rather than distinctively Christian standpoint, the necessity of resurrection from the vocation of man in connection with the wisdom, omnipotence and righteousness of God.

3. Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch (†   after A.D. 180), was by birth a pagan. His writing Πρὸς Αὐτόλυκον περὶ τῆς τῶν Χριστιανῶν πίστεως is one of the most excellent apologetical treatises of this period. Autolycus was one of his heathen acquaintances. His commentaries and controversial works have been lost. Zahn, indeed, has sought to prove that an extant Latin Commentary on selected passages from the four Gospels in the allegorical style belonging to the first half of the 3rd  century, and bearing the name of Theophilus of Antioch, is a substantially faithful translation of the authentic Greek original of A.D. 170. He has also called attention to the great importance of this commentary, not only for the oldest history of the Canon, Text and Exposition, but also for that of the church life, the development of doctrine and the ecclesiastical constitution, especially of the monasticism already appearing in those early times. But while Zahn reached those wonderful results from a conviction that the verbal coincidences of the Latin Church Fathers of the 3rd to the 5th centuries with the supposed Theophilus commentary were examples of their borrowing from it, Harnack has convincingly proved that this so-called commentary is rather to be regarded as a compilation from these same Latin Church Fathers made at the earliest during the second half of the 5th century.

4. Finally, an otherwise unknown author Hermias wrote under the title Διασυρμὸς τῶν ἔξω φιλοσόφων (Irrisio gentilium philos.) a short abusive treatise, in a witty but superficial style, of which the fundamental principle is to be found in 1 Cor. iii. 19.

§ 31. THE THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE OF THE OLD CATHOLIC AGE, A.D. 170-323.

From about A.D. 170, during the Old Catholic Age, scientific theology in conflict with Judaizing, paganizing and monarchianistic heretics progressed in a more vigorous and comprehensive manner than in the apologetical and polemical attempt at self-defence of Post-Apostolic Times. Throughout this period, however, the zeal for apologetics continued unabated, but also in other directions, especially in the department of dogmatics, important contributions were made to theological science. While these developments were in progress, there arose within the Catholic church three different theological schools, each with some special characteristic of its own, the Asiatic, the Alexandrian, and the North African.

§ 31.1. The Theological Schools and Tendencies.—The School of Asia Minor was the outcome of John’s ministry there, and was distinguished by firm grasp of scripture, solid faith, conciliatory treatment of those within and energetic polemic against heretics. Its numerous teachers, highly esteemed in the ancient church, are known to us only by name, and in many cases even the name has perished. Only two of their disciples resident in the West—Irenæus and Hippolytus—are more fully known. A yet greater influence, more widely felt and more enduring, was that of the Alexandrian School.[70] Most of its teachers were distinguished by classical culture, a philosophical spirit, daring speculativeness and creative power. Their special task was the construction of a true ecclesiastical gnosis over against the false heretical gnosis, and so the most celebrated teachers of this school have not escaped the charge of unevangelical speculative tendencies. The nursery of this theological tendency was especially this Catechetical School of Alexandria which from an institution for the training of educated Catechumens had grown up into a theological seminary. The North African School by its realism, a thoroughly practical tendency, formed the direct antithesis of the idealism and speculative endeavours of the Alexandrian. It repudiated classical science and philosophy as fitted to lead into error, but laid special stress upon the purity of Apostolic tradition, and insisted with all emphasis upon holiness of life and strict asceticism.—Finally, our period also embraces the first beginnings of the Antiochean School, whose founders were the two presbyters Dorotheus and Lucian. The latter especially gave to the school in its earlier days the tendency to critical and grammatico-historical examination of scripture. At Edessa, too, as early as the end of the 2nd century, we find a Christian school existing.

1. Church Fathers Writing in Greek.

§ 31.2. Church Teachers of the Asiatic Type.

1. Irenæus, a pupil of Polycarp, was a native of Asia Minor. According to the Vita Polycarpi of Pionius he lived in Rome at the time of Polycarp’s death as a teacher, and it is not improbable that he had gone there in company with his master (§ 37, 2). Subsequently he settled in Gaul, and held the office of presbyter at Lyons. During his absence at Rome as the bearer of a tract by the imprisoned confessors of Lyons on the Montanist controversy to the Roman bishop Eleutherus, Pothinus, the aged bishop of Lyons, fell a victim to the dreadful persecution of Marcus Aurelius which raged in Gaul. Irenæus succeeded him as bishop in A.D. 178. About the time and manner of his death nothing certain is known. Jerome, indeed, once quite casually designates him a martyr, but since none of the earlier Church Fathers, who speak of him, know anything of this, it cannot be maintained with any confidence. Gentleness and moderation, combined with earnestness and decision, as well as the most lively interest in the catholicity of the church and the purity of its doctrine according to scripture and tradition, were the qualities that make him the most important and trustworthy witness to his own age, and led to his being recognised in all times as one of the ablest and most influential teachers of the church and a most successful opponent of heretical Gnosticism. His chief work against the Gnostics: Ἔλεγχος καὶ ἀνατροπὴ τῆς ψευδονύμου γνώσεως (Adv. hæreses) in 5 books, is mainly an ex professo directed against the Valentinians and the schools of Ptolemy and Marcus There is appended to it, beyond what had been proposed at the beginning, a short discussion of the views of other Gnostics, the basis of which may be found in an older treatise, perhaps in the Syntagma of Justin. The last four books give the express scripture proofs to sustain the general confutation, without doing this, however, in a complete manner; at the same time there is rapid movement amid many digressions and excursuses. This work has come down to us in a complete form only in an old translation literally rendered in barbarous Latin, even to the reproduction of misunderstood words, which was used as early as by Tertullian in his treatise against the Valentinians. We are indebted to the writings of the heresiologists Hippolytus and Epiphanius for the preservation of many remarkable fragments of the original, with or without the author’s name. Of his other writings we have only a few faint reminiscences. Two epistles addressed to the Roman presbyter Florinus combat the Valentinian heresy to which Florinus was inclined. During the controversy about Easter (§ 37, 2) he wrote several epistles of a conciliatory character, especially one to Blastus in Rome, an adherent of the Asiatic practice, and in the name of the whole Gallic church, he addressed a letter to the Roman bishop, Victor, and afterwards a second letter in his own name.[71]

§ 31.3.

1. Hippolytus, a presbyter and afterwards schismatical bishop at Rome, though scarcely to be designated of Asia Minor, but rather a Lyonese, if not a Roman pupil of Irenæus, belonged to the same theological school. He was celebrated for his comprehensive learning and literary attainments, and yet his career until quite recently was involved in the greatest obscurity. Eusebius, who is the first to refer to him, places him in the age of Alex. Severus (A.D. 222-235), calls him a bishop, without, however, naming his supposed oriental diocese, which even Jerome was unable to determine. The Liberian list of Popes of A.D. 354, describes him as Yppolytus presbyter who was burnt in Sardinia about A.D. 235 along with the Roman bishop, Pontianus (§ 41, 1). In the fifth century, the Roman church gave him honour as a martyr. The poet Prudentius († A.D. 413) who himself saw the crypt in which his bones were laid and which in the book of his martyrdom was pictorially represented, celebrated his career in song. According to him Hippolytus was an adherent of the Novatian schism (§ 41, 3), but returned to the Catholic church and suffered martyrdom at Portus near Rome. According to his own statement quoted by Photius he was a hearer of the doctrinal discourses of Irenæus. A statue representing him in a sitting posture which was exhumed at Rome in A.D. 1551, has on the back of the seat a list of his writings along with an Easter cycle of sixteen years drawn up by him (§ 56, 3). Finally, there was found among the works of Origen a treatise on the various philosophical systems entitled Philosophoumena, which professes to be the first book of a writing in ten books found in Greece in A.D. 1842, Κατὰ πασῶν αἱρέσεων ἔλεγχος. Starting from the position, and seeking to establish it, that the heretics have got their doctrines not from holy scripture, but from astrology, pagan mysteries and the Greek philosophers, this treatise is generally of great importance not only for the history of the heresies of the Gnostics and Monarchians, but also for the history of philosophy. The English editor, E. Miller (Oxon., 1851), attributed the authorship of the whole to Origen, which, however, from the complete difference of style, point of view and position was soon proved to be untenable. Since the writer admits that he was himself the author of a book Περὶ τῆς τοῦ πάντος οὐσίας, and Photius ascribes a book with the same title to the Roman Caius (§ 31, 7), Baur attributes to the latter the composition of the Elenchus. Photius, however, founds his opinion simply upon an apocryphal note on the margin of his copy of the book. Incomparably more important are the evidences for the Hippolytus authorship, which is now almost universally admitted. The Elenchus is not, indeed, enumerated in the list of works on the statue. The book Περὶ τῆς τοῦ πάντος οὐσίας, however, appears there, and it contains the statement that its author also wrote the Elenchus. The author of the Elenchus also states that he had previously written a similar work in a shorter form, and Photius describes such a shorter writing of Hippolytus, dating from the time of his intercourse with Irenæus, under the title Σύνταγμα κατὰ πασῶν αἱρέσεων. Lipsius has made it appear extremely probable that in the Libellus adv. omnes hæreticos appended to Tertullian’s De præscriptione hæreticorum, and so usually styled a treatise of the Pseudo-Tertullian, we have an abbreviated Latin reproduction of that work; for this one as well as the other begins with Dositheus and ends with Noëtus, and both deal with thirty-two heresies. Epiphanius and Philastrius [Philaster] have used it largely in their heresiological works. The discussion in the Elenchus agrees therewith in many passages but also in many is essentially different, which, however, when we consider the much later date of the first named treatise affords no convincing evidence against the theory that both are by one author. The Elenchus thereby wins a high importance as giving information about the condition of the Roman church during the first decades of the 3rd century, about the position of the author who describes himself in his treatise as a pupil of Irenæus, about his own and his opponents’ way of viewing things, and about his conflict with them leading to schism, though all is told from the standpoint of an interested party (§§ 33, 5; 41, 1). A considerable fragment directed against the errors of Noëtus (§ 33, 5) was perhaps originally a part of his Syntagma,—though not perhaps of the anonymous, so-called Little Labyrinth against the Artemonites (§ 33, 3) or probably against the Monarchians generally, from which Eusebius makes extensive quotations, especially about the Theodotians. This work is ascribed by Photius to the Roman Caius, but without doubt wrongly. Great probability has been given to the recently advanced idea that this book too may have been written by Hippolytus.[72]

§ 31.4. The Alexandrian Church Teachers.

1. The first of the teachers of the catechetical school at Alexandria known by name was Pantænus, who had formerly been a Stoic philosopher. About A.D. 190 he undertook a missionary journey into Southern Arabia or India, and died in A.D. 202 after a most successful and useful life. Jerome says of him: Hujus multi quidem in s. Scri. exstant Commentarii, sed Magis viva voce ecclesiis profuit. Of his writings none are preserved.

2. Titus Flavius Clemens [Clement] was the pupil of Pantænus and his successor at the catechetical school in Alexandria. On his travels undertaken in the search for knowledge he came to Alexandria as a learned pagan philosopher, where probably Pantænus gained an influence over him and was the means of his conversion. During the persecution under Septimius Severus in A.D. 202 he sought in flight to escape the rage of the heathens, in accordance with Matt. x. 23. But he continued unweariedly by writing and discourse to promote the interests of the church till his death in A.D. 220. The most important and most comprehensive of his writings is the work in three parts of which the first part entitled Λόγος προτρεπτικὸς πρὸς Ἕλληνας (Cohortatio ad Græcos) with great expenditure of learning seeks to prepare the minds of the heathen for Christianity by proving the vanity of heathenism; the second part, Ὁ παιδαγωγός in three books, with a Hymnus in Salvatorem attached, gives an introduction to the Christian life; and the third part, Στρωματείς (Stromata), that is, patchwork, so-called from the aphoristic style and the variety of its contents, in eight books, setting forth the deep things of Christian gnosis, but in the form rather of a collection of materials than a carefully elaborated treatise. The little tractate Τίς ὁ σωζόμενος πλούσιος (Quis dives salvetur) shows how even wealth may be made contributory to salvation. Among his lost treatises the most important was the Ὑποτυπώσεις in eight books, an expository review of the contents of holy scripture.[73]

§ 31.5.

1. Great as was the reputation of Clement, he was far outstripped by his pupil and successor Origen, acknowledged by pagan and Christian contemporaries to be a miracle of scholarship. On account of his indomitable diligence, he was named Ἀδαμάντιος. Celebrated as a philosopher, philologist, critic, exegete, dogmatist, apologist, polemist, etc., posterity has with equal right honoured him as the actual founder of an ecclesiastical and scientific theology, and reproached him as the originator of many heretical opinions (§§ 51; 52, 6). He was born of Christian parents at Alexandria about A.D. 185, was educated under his father Leonidas, Pantænus and Clement, while still a boy encouraged his father when he suffered as a martyr under Septimius Severus in A.D. 202, became the support of his helpless mother and his six orphaned sisters, and was called in A.D. 203 by bishop Demetrius to be teacher of the catechetical school. In order to qualify himself for the duties of his new calling, he engaged eagerly in the study of philosophy under the Neo-Platonist Ammonius Saccas. His mode of life was extremely simple and from his youth he was a strict ascetic. In his eager striving after Christian perfection he had himself emasculated, from a misunderstanding of Matt. xix. 12, but afterwards he admitted that that was a wrong step. His fame advanced from day to day. About A.D. 211 he visited Rome. Accepting an honourable invitation in A.D. 215 he wrought for a long time as a missionary in Arabia, he was then appointed by the celebrated Julia Mammæa (§ 22, 4) to Antioch in A.D. 218; and in A.D. 230 undertook in the interest of the church a journey to Greece through Palestine, where the bishops of Cæsarea and Jerusalem admitted him to the rank of a presbyter. His own bishop, Demetrius, jealous of the daily increasing fame of Origen and feeling that his episcopal rights had been infringed upon, recalled him, and had him at two Alexandrian Synods, in A.D. 231 and 232, arraigned and excommunicated for heresy, self-mutilation and contempt of the ecclesiastical laws of his office. Origen now went to Cæsarea, and there, honoured and protected by the Emperor, Philip the Arabian, opened a theological school. His literary activity here reached its climax. But under Decius he was cast into prison at Tyre, in A.D. 254, and died in consequence of terrible tortures which he endured heroically.—Of his numerous writings[74] only a comparatively small number, but those of great value, are preserved; some in the original, others only in a Latin translation.

1. To the department of Biblical Criticism belongs the fruit of twenty-seven years’ labour, the so-called Hexapla, that is, a placing side by side the Hebrew text of the O.T. (first in Hebr. and then in the Gr. letters) and the existing Greek translations of the LXX., Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion; by the addition in some books of other anonymous translations, it came to be an Octopla or Enneapla. By critical marks on the margin all variations were carefully indicated. The enormous bulk of fifty volumes hindered its circulation by means of transcripts; but the original lay in the library at Cæsarea open to the inspection of all, until lost, probably in the sack of the city by the Arabians in A.D. 653.[75]

2. His Exegetical works consist of Σημειώσεις or short scholia on separate difficult passages, Τόμοι or complete commentaries on whole books of the bible, and Ὁμιλίαι or practical expository lectures. Origen, after the example of the Rabbinists and Hellenists, gave a decided preference to the allegorical method of interpretation. In every scripture passage he distinguished a threefold sense, as σῶμα, ψυχή, πνεῦμα, first a literal, and then a twofold higher sense, the tropical or moral, and the pneumatical or mystical. He was not just a despiser of the literal sense, but the unfolding of the mystical sense seemed to him of infinitely greater importance. All history in the bible is a picture of things in the higher world. Most incidents occurred as they are told; but some, the literal conception of which would be unworthy or irrational, are merely typical, without any outward historical reality. The Old Testament language is typical in a twofold sense: for the New Testament history and for the heavenly realities. The New Testament language is typical only of the latter. He regarded the whole bible as inspired, with the exception of the books added by the LXX., but the New Testament in a higher degree than the Old. But even the New Testament had defects which will only be overcome by the revelation of eternity.

3. To the department of Dogmatics belongs his four books Περὶ ἀρχῶν (De Principiis), which have come down to us in a Latin translation of Rufinus with arbitrary interpolations. His Στρωματεῖς in ten books which sought to harmonize the Christian doctrine with Greek philosophy is lost, and also his numerous writings against the heretics. His comprehensive apologetical work in eight books, Contra Celsum (§ 23, 3), has come down to us complete.[76] Gregory of Nazianzus [Nazianzen] and Basil the Great made a book entirely from his writings under the title Φιλοκαλία, which contains many passages from lost treatises, and a valuable original fragment from his Περὶ ἀρχῶν. His principal doctrinal characteristics are the following: There is a twofold revelation, the primitive revelation in conscience to which the heathen owe their σπέρματα ἀληθείας, and the historical revelation in holy scripture; there are three degrees of religious knowledge, that of the ψιλὴ πίστις, an unreasoned acceptance of the truth, wrought by God immediately in the heart of men, that of γνῶσις or ἐπιστήμη to which the reasoning mind of man can reach by the speculative development of scripture revelation in his life, and finally, that of σοφία or θεωρία, the vision of God, the full enjoyment of which is attained unto only hereafter. For his doctrine of the Trinity, see § 33, 6. His cosmological, angelological and anthropological views represent a mixture of Platonic, Gnostic and spiritualistic ideas, and run out into various heterodoxies; thus, he believes in timeless or eternal creation, an ante-temporal fall of human souls, their imprisonment in earthly bodies, he denies the resurrection of the body, he believed in the animation and the need and capacity of redemption of the stars and star-spirits, in the restoration of all spirits to their original, ante-temporal blessedness and holiness, ἀποκατάστασις τῶν πάντων.

4. Of his Ascetical Works, the treatise Περὶ εὐχῆς with an admirable exposition of the Lord’s prayer, and a Λόγος προτρεπικὸς εἰς μαρτύριον have been preserved. Of his numerous epistles, the Epistola ad Julium Africanum defends against his correspondent the genuineness of the history of Susannah.

§ 31.6.

1. Among the successors of Origen in the school of Alexandria the most celebrated, from about A.D. 232, was Dionysius Alexandrinus [of Alexandria]. He was raised to the rank of bishop in A.D. 247, and died in A.D. 265. In speculative power he was inferior to his teacher Origen. His special gift was that of κυβέρνησις. He was honoured by his own contemporaries with the title of The Great. During the Decian persecution he manifested wisdom and good sense as well as courage and steadfastness. The ecclesiastical conflicts of his age afforded abundant opportunities for testing his noble and gentle character, as well as his faithful attachment to the church and zeal for the purity of its doctrine, and on all hands his self-denying amiability wrought in the interests of peace. Of his much-praised writings, exegetical, ascetical, polemical (Περὶ ἐπαγγελιῶν § 33, 9), apologetical (Περὶ φύσεως against the Atomism of Democritus and Epicurus), and dogmatical (§ 33, 7), only fragments are preserved, mostly from his Epistles in quotations by Eusebius. We have, however, one short tract complete addressed to Novatian at Rome (§ 31, 12), containing an earnest entreaty that he should abandon his schismatic rigorism.

2. Gregory Thaumaturgus was one of Origen’s pupils at Cæsarea. Origen was the means of converting the truth-seeking heathen youth to Christianity, and Gregory clung to his teacher with the warmest affection. He subsequently became bishop of his native city of Neo-Cæsarea, and was able on his death-bed in A.D. 270 to comfort himself with the reflection that he left to his successor no more unbelievers in the city than his predecessor had left him of believers (their number was seventeen). He was called the second Moses and the power of working miracles was ascribed to him. We have from his pen a panegyric on Origen, an Epistle on Church Discipline, a Μετάφρασις εἰς Ἐκκλησιάστην, a Confession of Faith important for the history of the Ante-Nicene period (§ 50, 1): Ἔκθεσις πίστεως. Two other tracts in a Syrian translation are ascribed to him: To Philagrius on Consubstantiality, and To Theopompus on the Passibility of God. Dräseke, however, identifies the first-named with Oratio 45 of Gregory Nazianzus [Nazianzen] and assigns to him the authorship.[77]

3. The learned presbyter Pamphilus of Cæsarea, the friend of Eusebius (§ 47, 2) and founder of a theological seminary and the celebrated library of Cæsarea, who died as a martyr under Maximinus, belongs to this group. His Old Testament Commentaries have been lost. In prison he finished his work in five books which he undertook jointly with Eusebius, the Apology for Origen, to which Eusebius independently added a sixth book. Only the first book is preserved in Rufinus’ Latin translation.

§ 31.7. Greek-speaking Church Teachers in other Quarters.

1. Hegesippus wrote his five books Ὑπομνήματα, about A.D. 180, during the age of the Roman bishop Eleutherus. From his knowledge of the Hebrew language, literature and traditions Eusebius concludes that he was a Jew by birth. He himself says distinctly that in A.D. 155 during the time of bishop Anicetus he was staying in Rome, and that on his way thither he visited Corinth. The opinion formerly current that his Hypomnemata consisted of a collection of historical traditions from the time of the Apostles down to the age of the writer, and so might be called a sort of Church History, arose from the historical character of the contents of eight quotations made from this treatise by Eusebius in his own Church History. It is, however, not borne out by the fact that what Hegesippus tells in his detailed narrative of the end of James the Just (§ 16, 3) occurs, not in the first or second but in the fifth and last book of his treatise. Moreover, among writers against the heretics or Gnostics, Eusebius enumerates in the first place one Hegesippus, having it would seem his Hypomnemata in view. From this circumstance, in conjunction with everything else quoted from and told about him by Eusebius, we may with great probability conclude that the purpose of his writing was to confute the heresies of his age. In doing so he traces them partly to Gentile sources, but partly and mainly to pre-Christian Jewish heresies, seven of which are enumerated. He treats in the first three books of the so-called Gnostics and their relations to heathenism and false Judaism. Then in the fourth book he discusses the heretical Apocrypha and, as contrasted with them, the orthodox ecclesiastical writings, mentioning among them expressly the Epistle of Clemens [Clement] Romanus [of Rome] to the Corinthians. Finally, in the fifth book, he proves from the Apostolic succession of the leaders of the church, the unity and truth of ecclesiastically transmitted doctrine. The historical value of his writing, owing to the confusion and want of critical power shown in the instances referred to, cannot be placed very high. The school of Baur, more particularly Schwegler (see § 20), attached greater importance to him as a supposed representative of the anti-Pauline Judaism of his time. The value of his testimony in this direction, however, is reduced by his acknowledgment of the Epistle of Clement that accords so high a place to the Apostle Paul. His relations to Rome and Corinth, with his judgment on the general unity of faith in the church of his age, prove that he would be by no means disposed to repudiate the Apostle Paul in favour of any Ebionitic tendency.

2. Caius of Rome, a contemporary of bishop Zephyrinus about A.D. 210, was one of the most conspicuous opponents of Montanism. Eusebius who characterizes him as ἀνὴρ ἐκκλησιαστικός and λογιώτατος, quotes four times from his now lost controversial tract in dialogue form against Proclus the Roman Montanist leader.

§ 31.8.

1. Sextus Julius Africanus, according to Suidas a native of Libya, took part, as he says himself in his Κεστοῖς, in the campaign of Septimius Severus against Osrhoëne in A.D. 195, became intimate with the Christian king Maanu VIII. of Edessa, whom in his Chronographies he calls ἱερὸς ἀνὴρ, and was often companion in hunting to his son and successor Maanu IX. About A.D. 220 we find him, according to Eusebius and others, in Rome at the head of an embassy from Nicopolis or Emmaus in Palestine petitioning for the restoration of that city. In consequence of Origen addressing him about A.D. 227 as ἀγαπητὸς ἀδελφός it has been rashly concluded that he was then a presbyter or at least of clerical rank. The five books, Χρονογραφίαι, were his first and most important work. This work which was known partly in the original, partly in the citations from it in the Eusebian Chronicle (§ 47, 2), together with its Latin continuation by Jerome proved a main source of information in general history during the Byzantine period and the Latin Middle Age. Beginning with the creation of the world and fixing the whole course of the world’s development at 6,000 years, he set the middle point of this period to the age of Peleg (Gen. x. 25), and in accordance with the chronology of the LXX. and reckoning by Olympiads, proceeded to synchronize biblical and profane history. He assigned the birth of Christ to the middle of the sixth of the thousand year periods, at the close of which he probably expected the beginning of the millennium. From the fragments preserved by later Byzantine chroniclers, Gelzer has attempted to reproduce as far as possible the original work, carefully indicating its sources and authorities. Of the other works of Africanus we have in a complete form only an Epistle to Origen, “a real gem of brilliant criticism spiced with a gentle touch of fine irony” (Gelzer), which combats the authenticity and credibility of the Pseudo-Daniel’s history of Susannah. We have also a fragment quoted in Eusebius from an Epistle to a certain Aristides, which attempts a reconciliation of the genealogies in Matt. and Luke by distinguishing παῖδες νόμῳ and παῖδες φύσει with reference to Deut. xxv. 5. According to Eusebius “the chronologist Julius Africanus,” according to Suidas “Origen’s friend Africanus with the prænomen Sextus,” is also the author of the so called Κεστοί (embroidery), a great comprehensive work of which only fragments have been preserved, in which all manner of wonderful things from the life of nature and men, about agriculture, cattle breeding, warfare, etc., were recorded, so that it had the secondary title Παράδοξα. The excessive details of pagan superstition here reported, much of which, such as that relating to the secret worship of Venus, was distinctly immoral, and its dependence on the secret writings of the Egyptians seem now as hard to reconcile with the standpoint of a believing Christian, as with the sharpness of intellect shown in his criticism of the letter of Susannah. It has therefore been assumed that alongside of the Christian chronologist Julius Africanus there was a pagan Julius Africanus who wrote the Κεστοί,—or, seeing the identity of the two is strongly evidenced both on internal and external grounds, the composition of the Κεστοί is assigned to a period when the author was still a heathen. The facts, however, that the Chronicles close with A.D. 221 and that the Κεστοί is dedicated to Alex. Severus (A.D. 222-235), seem to guarantee the earlier composition of the Chronicles. The author of the Κεστοί, too, by his quotation of Ps. xxxiv. 9 with the formula θεία ῥήματα, shows himself a Christian, and on the other hand, the author of the Chronicles says that at great cost he had made himself acquainted in Egypt with a celebrated secret book.

§ 31.9.

1. Methodius bishop of Olympus in Lycia, subsequently at Tyre, a man highly esteemed in his day, died as a martyr in A.D. 311. He was a decided opponent of the spiritualism prevailing in the school of Origen. His Συμπόσιον τῶν δέκα παρθένων is a dialogue between several virgins regarding the excellence of virginity written in eloquent and glowing language (transl. in Ante-Nicene Lib., Edin., 1870). Of his other works only outlines and fragments are preserved by Epiphanius and Photius. To these belong Περὶ αὐτεξουσίου καὶ ποθὲν κακά, a polemic against the Platonic-Gnostic doctrine of the eternity of matter as the ultimate ground and cause of sin, which are to be sought rather in the misuse of human freedom; the dialogues Περὶ ἀναστάσεως and Περὶ τῶν γεννητῶν, the former of which combats Origen’s doctrine of the resurrection, and the latter his doctrine of creation. His controversial treatise against Porphyry (§ 23, 3) has been completely lost.

2. The martyr Lucian of Samosata, born and brought up in Edessa, was presbyter of Antioch and co-founder of the theological school there that became so famous (§ 47, 1), where he, deposed by a Syrian Synod of A.D. 269, and persecuted by the Emperor Aurelian in A.D. 272, as supporter of bishop Paul of Samosata (§ 33, 8), maintained his position under the three following bishops (till A.D. 303) apart from the official church, and died a painful martyr’s death under the Emperor Maximinus in A.D. 312. That secession, however, was occasioned less perhaps through doctrinal and ecclesiastical, than through national and political, anti-Roman and Syrian sympathies with his heretical countrymen of Samosata. For though in the Arian controversy (§ 50, 1) Lucian undoubtedly appears as the father of that Trinitarian-Christological view first recognised and combated as heretical in his pupil Arius in A.D. 318, this was certainly essentially different from the doctrine of the Samosatian. About Lucian’s literary activity only the scantiest information has come down to us. His most famous work was his critical revision of the Text of the Old and New Testaments, which according to Jerome was officially sanctioned in the dioceses of the Patriarchs of Antioch and Constantinople, and thus probably lies at the basis of Theodoret’s and Chrysostom’s exegetical writings. Rufinus’ Latin translation of Eusebius’ Church History gives an extract from the “Apologetical Discourse” in which he seems to have openly confessed and vindicated his Christian faith before his heathen judge.

2. Church Fathers Writing in Latin.

§ 31.10. The Church Teachers of North Africa.—Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus [Tertullian] was the son of a heathen centurion of Carthage, distinguished as an advocate and rhetorician, converted somewhat late in life, about A.D. 190, and, after a long residence in Rome, made presbyter at Carthage in A.D. 220. He was of a fiery and energetic character, in his writings as well as in his life pre-eminently a man of force, with burning enthusiasm for the truth of the gospel, unsparingly rigorous toward himself and others. His “Punic style” is terse, pictorial and rhetorical, his thoughts are original, brilliant and profound, his eloquence transporting, his dialectic clear and convincing, his polemic crushing, enlivened with sharp wit and biting sarcasm. He shows himself the thoroughly accomplished jurist in his use of legal terminology and also in the acuteness of his deductions and demonstrations. Fanatically opposed to heathen philosophy, though himself trained in the knowledge of it, a zealous opponent of Gnosticism, in favour of strict asceticism and hostile to every form of worldliness, he finally attached himself, about A.D. 220, to the party of the Montanists (§ 40, 3). Here he found the form of religion in which his whole manner of thought and feeling, the energy of his will, the warmth of his emotions, his strong and forceful imagination, his inclination to rigorous asceticism, his love of bald realism, could be developed in all power and fulness, without let or hindrance. If amid all his enthusiasm for Montanism he kept clear of many of its absurdities, he had for this to thank his own strong common sense, and also, much as he affected to despise it, his early scientific training. He at first wrote his compositions in Greek, but afterwards exclusively in Latin, into which he also translated the most important of his earlier writings. He is perhaps not the first who treated of the Christian truth in this language (§ 31, 12a), but he has been rightly recognised as the actual creator of ecclesiastical Latin. His writings may be divided into three groups.

1. Apologetical and Controversial Treatises against Jews and Pagans, which belong to his pre-Montanist period. The most important and instructive of these is the Apologeticus adv. Gentes, addressed to the Roman governor. A reproduction of this work intended for the general public, less learned, but more vigorous, scathing and uncompromising, is the treatise in two books entitled Ad Nationes. In the work Ad Scapulam, who as Proconsul of Africa under Septimius Severus had persecuted the Christians with unsparing cruelty, he calls him to account for this with all earnestness and plainness of speech. In the book, De testimonio animæ he carries out more fully the thought already expressed in the Apologeticus c. 17 of the Anima humana naturaliter christiana, and proves in an ingenious manner that Christianity alone meets the religious needs of humanity. The book Adv. Judæos had its origin ostensibly in a public disputation with the Jews, in which the interruptions of his audience interferes with the flow of his discourse.

2. Controversial Treatises against the Heretics. In the tract De præscriptione hæreticorum he proves that the Catholic church, because in prescriptive possession of the field since the time of the Apostles, is entitled on the legal ground of præscriptio to be relieved of the task of advancing proof of her claims, while the heretics on the other hand are bound to establish their pretensions. A heresiological appendix to this book has been erroneously attributed to Tertullian (see § 31, 3). He combats the Gnostics in the writings: De baptismo (against the Gnostic rejection of water baptism); Adv. Hermogenem; Adv. Valentinianos; De anima (an Anti-Gnostic treatise, which maintains the creatureliness, yea, the materiality of the soul, traces its origin to sexual intercourse, and its mortality to Adam’s sin); De carne Christi (Anti-Docetic): De resurrectione carnis Scorpiace (an antidote to the scorpion-poison of the Gnostic heresy); finally, the five books, Adv. Marcionem. The book Adv. Praxeam is directed against the Patripassians (§ 33, 4). In this work his realism reaches its climax at c. 7 in the statement: “Quis enim negabit, Deum corpus esse, etsi Deus spiritus est? Spiritus enim corpus sui generis in sua effigie,”—where, however, he is careful to state that with him corpus and substantia are identical ideas, so that he can also say in c. 10 de carne Christi: “Omne quod est, corpus est sui generis. Nihil est incorporate nisi quod non est.”

3. Practical and Ascetical Treatises. His pre-Montanist writings are characterized by moderation as compared with the fanatical rigorism and scornful bitterness against the Psychical, i.e. the Catholics, displayed in those of the Montanist period. To the former class belong: De oratione (exposition of the Lord’s Prayer); De baptismo (necessity of water baptism, disapproval of infant baptism); De pœnitentia; De idolatria; Ad Martyres; De spectaculis; De cultu feminarum (against feminine love of dress); De patientia; Ad uxorem (a sort of testament for his wife, with the exhortation after his death not to marry again, but at least in no case to marry an unbeliever). To the Montanist period belong: De virginibus velandis; De corona militis (defending a Christian soldier who suffered imprisonment for refusing to wear the soldier’s crown); De fuga in persecutione (which with fanatical decision is declared to be a renunciation of Christianity); De exhortatione castitatis and De monogamia (both against second marriages which are treated as fornication and adultery); De pudicitia (recalling his milder opinion given in his earlier treatise De pœnitentia, that every mortal sin is left to the judgment of God, with the possibility of reconciliation); De jejuniis adv. Psychicos (vindication of the fasting discipline of the Montanists, § 40, 4); De pallio (an essay full of wit and humour in answer to the taunts of his fellow-citizens about his throwing off the toga and donning the philosopher’s mantle, i.e. the Pallium, which even the Ascetics might wear).[78]

§ 31.11. Thascius Cæcilius Cyprianus [Cyprian], descended from a celebrated pagan family in Carthage, was at first a teacher of rhetoric, then, after his conversion in A.D. 245, a presbyter and from A.D. 248 bishop in his native city. During the Decian persecution the hatred of the heathen mob expressed itself in the cry Cyprianum ad leonem; but he withdrew himself for a time in flight into the desert in A.D. 250, from whence he guided the affairs of the church by his Epistles, and returned in the following year when respite had been given. The disturbances that had meanwhile arisen afforded him abundant opportunity for the exercise of that wisdom and gentleness which characterized him, and the earnestness, energy and moderation of his nature, as well as his Christian tact and prudence all stood him in good stead in dealing, on the one hand, with the fallen who sought restoration, and on the other, the rigorous schismatics who opposed them (§ 41, 2). When persecution again broke out under Valerian in A.D. 257 he was banished to the desert Curubis, and when he returned to his oppressed people in A.D. 258, he was beheaded. His epoch-making significance lies not so much in his theological productions as in his energetic and successful struggle for the unity of the church as represented by the monarchical position of the episcopate, and in his making salvation absolutely dependent upon submission to episcopal authority, as well as in the powerful impetus given by him to the tendency to view ecclesiastical piety as an opus operatum (§ 39). As a theologian and writer he mainly attaches himself to the giant Tertullian, whose thoughts he reproduces in his works, with the excision, however, of their Montanist extravagances. Jerome relates that no day passed in which he did not call to his amanuensis: Da magistrum! In originality, profundity, force and fulness of thought, as well as in speculative and dialectic gifts, he stands indeed far below Tertullian, but in lucidity and easy flow of language and pleasant exposition he far surpasses him. His eighty-one Epistles are of supreme importance for the Ch. Hist. of his times, and next to them in value is the treatise “De unitate ecclesiæ” (§ 34, 7). His Liber ad Donatum s. de gratia Dei, the first writing produced after his conversion, contains treatises on the leadings of God’s grace and the blessedness of the Christian life as contrasted with the blackness of the life of the pagan world. The Apologetical writings De idolorum vanitate and Testimonia adv. Judæos, II. iii., have no claims to independence and originality. This applies also more or less to his ascetical tracts: De habitu virginum, De mortalitate, De exhortatione martyrii, De lapsis, De oratione dominica, De bono patientiæ, De zelo et livore, etc. His work De opere et eleemosynis specially contributed to the spread of the doctrine of the merit of works.[79]

§ 31.12. Various Ecclesiastical Writers using the Latin Tongue.

1. The Roman attorney Minucius Felix, probably of Cirta in Africa, wrote under the title of Octavius a brilliant Apology, expressed in a fine Latin diction, in the form of a conversation between his two friends the Christian Octavius and the heathen Cæcilius, which resulted in the conversion of the latter. It is matter of dispute whether it was composed before or after Tertullian’s Apologeticus, and to which of the two the origin of thoughts and expressions common to both is to be assigned. Recently Ebert has maintained the opinion that Minucius is the older, and this view has obtained many adherents; whereas the contrary theory of Schultze has reached its climax in assigning the composition of the Octavius to A.D. 300-303, so that he is obliged to ascribe the Octavius as well as the Apologeticus to a compiler of the fourth or fifth century, plagiarizing from Cyprian’s treatise De idolorum vanitate!

2. Commodianus [Commodus], born at Gaza, was won to Christianity by reading holy scripture, and wrote about A.D. 250 his Instructiones adv. Gentium Deos, consisting of eighty acrostic poems in rhyming hexameters and scarcely intelligible, barbarous Latin. His Carmen apologeticum adv. Jud. et Gent. was first published in 1852.

3. The writings of his contemporary the schismatical Novatian of Rome (§ 41, 3) show him to have been a man of no ordinary dogmatical and exegetical ability. His Liber de Trinitate s. de Regula fidei is directed in a subordinationist sense against the Monarchians (§ 33). The Epistola de cibis Judaici repudiates any obligation on the part of Christians to observe the Old Testament laws about food; and the Epistola Cleri Romani advocates milder measures in the penitential discipline.

4. Arnobius was born at Sicca in Africa, where he was engaged as a teacher of eloquence about A.D. 300. For a long time he was hostilely inclined toward Christianity, but underwent a change of mind by means of a vision in a dream. The bishop distrusted him and had misgivings about admitting him to baptism, but he convinced him of the honesty of his intentions by composing the seven books of Disputationes adv. Gentes. This treatise betrays everywhere defective understanding of the Christian truth; but he is more successful in combating the old religion than in defending the new.

5. The bishop Victorinus of Pettau (Petavium in Styria), who died a martyr during the Diocletian persecution in A.D. 303, wrote commentaries on the Old and New Testament books that are no longer extant. Only a fragment De fabrica mundi on Gen. i. and Scholia on the Apocalypse have been preserved.

6. Lucius Cœlius Firmianus Lactantius († about A.D. 330), probably of Italian descent, but a pupil of Arnobius in Africa, was appointed by Diocletian teacher of Latin eloquence at Nicomedia. At that place about A.D. 301 he was converted to Christianity and resigned his office on the outbreak of the persecution. Constantine the Great subsequently committed to him the education of his son Crispus, who, at his father’s command, was executed in A.D. 326. From his writings he seems to have been amiable and unassuming, a man of wide reading, liberal culture and a warm heart. The purity of his Latin style and the eloquence of his composition, in which he excels all the Church Fathers, has won for him the honourable name of the Christian Cicero. We often miss in his writings grip, depth and acuteness of thinking; especially in their theological sections we meet with many imperfections and mistakes. He was not only carried away by a fanatical chiliasm, but adopted also many opinions of a Manichæan sort. The Institutiones divinæ in seven bks., a complete exposition and defence of the Christian faith, is his principal work. The Epitome div. inst. is an abstract of the larger works prepared by himself with the addition of many new thoughts. His book De mortibus persecutorum (Engl. trans. by Dr. Burnett, “Relation of the Death of the Primitive Persecutors.” Amsterdam, 1687), contains a rhetorically coloured description of the earlier persecutions as well as of those witnessed by himself during his residence in Nicomedia. It is of great importance for the history of the period but must be carefully sifted owing to its strongly partisan character. Not only the joy of the martyrs but also the proof of a divine Nemesis in the lives of the persecutors are regarded as demonstrating the truth of Christianity. The tract De ira Dei seeks to prove the failure of Greek philosophy to combine the ideas of justice and goodness in its conception of God. The book De opificio Dei proves from the wonderful structure of the human body the wisdom of divine providence. Jerome praises him as a poet; but of the poems ascribed to him only one on the bird phœnix, which, as it rises into life out of its own ashes is regarded as a symbol of immortality and the resurrection, can lay any claim to authenticity.

§ 32. THE APOCRYPHAL AND PSEUDEPIGRAPHICAL LITERATURE.[80]

The practice, so widely spread in pre-Christian times among pagans and Jews, of publishing treatises as original and primitive divine revelations which had no claim to such a title found favour among Christians of the first centuries, and was continued far down into the Greek and Latin Middle Ages. The majority of the apocryphal or anonymous and pseudepigraphic writings were issued in support of heresies Ebionite or Gnostic. Many, however, were free from heretical taint and were simply undertaken for the purpose of glorifying Christianity by what was then regarded as a harmless pia fraus through a vaticinia post eventum, or of filling up blanks in the early history with myths and fables already existing or else devised for the occasion. They took the subjects of their romances partly from the field of the Old Testament, and partly from the field of the New Testament in the form of Gospels, Acts, Apostolic Epistles and Apocalypses. A number of them are professedly drawn from the prophecies of old heathen seers. Of greater importance, especially for the history of the constitution, worship and discipline of the church are the Eccles. Constitutions put forth under the names of Apostles. Numerous apocryphal Acts of Martyrs are for the most part utterly useless as historical sources.

§ 32.1. Professedly Old Heathen Prophecies.—Of these the Sibylline Writings occupy the most conspicuous place. The Græco-Roman legend of the Sibyls, σιοῦ βούλη (Æol. for θεοῦ βούλη), i.e. prophetesses of pagan antiquity, was wrought up at a very early period in the interests of Judaism and afterwards of Christianity, especially of Ebionite heresy. The extant collection of such oracles in fourteen books were compiled in the 5th or 6th century. It contains in Greek verses prophecies partly purely Jewish, partly Jewish wrought up by a Christian hand, partly originally Christian, about the history of the world, the life and sufferings of Christ, the persecutions of His disciples and the stages in the final development of His kingdom. The Christian participation in the composition of the Sibylline oracles began in the first century, soon after the irruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79, and continued down to the 5th century. The Apologists, especially Lactantius, made such abundant use of these prophecies that the heathens nicknamed them Sibyllists.—Of the prophecies about the coming of Christ ascribed to an ancient Persian seer, Hystaspes, none have been preserved.

§ 32.2. Old Testament Pseudepigraphs.[81]—These are mostly of Jewish Origin, of which, however, many were held by the early Christians in high esteem.

1. To this class belongs pre-eminently the Book of Enoch, written originally in Hebrew in the last century before Christ, quoted in the Epistle of Jude, and recovered only in an Ethiopic translation in A.D. 1821. In its present form in which a great number of older writings about Enoch and Noah have been wrought up, the book embraces accounts of the fall of a certain part of the angels (Gen. vi. 1-4; Jude 6; and 2 Pet. ii. 4), also statements of the holy angels about the mysteries of heaven and hell, the earth and paradise, about the coming of the Messiah, etc.

2. The Assumptio Mosis (ἀνάληψις), from which, according to Origen, the reference to the dispute between Michael and Satan about the body of Moses in the Epistle of Jude is taken, was discovered by the librarian Ceriani at Milan. He found the first part of this book in an old Latin translation and published it in A.D. 1860. In the exercise of his official gift Moses prophesies to Joshua about the future fortunes of his nation down to the appearing of the Messiah. The second part, which is wanting, dealt with the translation of Moses. The exact date of its composition is not determined, but it may be perhaps assigned to the first Christian century.

3. The so-called Fourth Book of Ezra is first referred to by Clement of Alexandria. It is an Apocalypse after the manner of the Book of Daniel. It was probably written originally in Greek but we possess only translations: a Latin one and four oriental ones—Ethiopic, Arabic, Syriac and Armenian. From these oriental translations the blanks in the Latin version have been supplied, and its later Christian interpolations have been detected. The angel Uriel in seven visions makes known to the weeping Ezra the signs of the approaching destruction of Jerusalem, the decay of the Roman empire, the founding of the Messianic kingdom, etc. The fifth vision of the eagle with twelve wings and three heads seems to fix the date of its composition to the time of Domitian.

4. In the year 1843 the missionary Krapff sent to Tübingen the title of an Ethiopic Codex, in which Ewald recognised the writing referred to frequently by the Church Fathers as the Book of Jubilees (Ἰωβελαῖα) or the Little Genesis (Λεπτογένεσις). This book, written probably about A.D. 50 or 60, is a complete summary of the Jewish legendary matter about the early biblical history from the creation down to the entrance into Canaan, divided into fifty jubilee periods. The name Little Genesis was given it, notwithstanding its large dimensions, as indicating a Genesis of the second rank.[82]

§ 32.3. The following Pseudepigraphs are of Christian Origin.

1. The short romantic History of Assenath, daughter of Potiphar and wife of Joseph (Gen. xli. 45). Its main point is the conversion of Assenath by an angel.

2. The Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs, after the style of Gen. xlix., written in Greek in the 2nd cent., and quoted by Origen. As in the chapter of Gen. referred to parting counsels are put in the mouth of Jacob, they are here ascribed to his twelve sons. These discourses embrace prophecies of the coming of Christ and His atoning sufferings and death, statements about baptism and the Lord’s supper, about the great Apostle of the Gentiles, the rejection of the O.T. covenant people and the election of the Gentiles, the destruction of Jerusalem and the final completion of the kingdom of God. The book is thus a cleverly compiled and comprehensive handbook of Christian faith, life and hope.

3. Of the Ascensio Isaiæ (Ἀναβατικόν) and the Visio Isaiæ (Ὅρασις) traces are to be found as early as in Justin Martyr and Tertullian. The Greek original is lost. Dillmann published an old Ethiopic version (Lps., 1877), and Gieseler an old Lat. text (Gött., 1832). Its Cabbalistic colouring commended it to the Gnostics. In its first part, borrowed from an old Jewish document, it tells about the martyrdom of Isaiah who was sawn asunder by King Manasseh; in its second part, entitled Visio Isaiæ it is told how the prophet in an ecstasy was led by an angel through the seven heavens and had revealed to him the secrets of the divine counsels regarding the incarnation of Christ.

4. A collection in Syriac belonging perhaps to the 5th or 6th century in which other legends about early ages are kept together, is called Spelunca thesaurorum. We are here told about the sepulchre of the patriarch Lamech and the treasures preserved there from which the wise men obtained the gifts which they presented to the infant Saviour. The Ethiopic Vita Adami is an expansion of the book just referred to. This book is manifestly a legendary account of the changes wrought upon all relations of life in our first parents by means of the fall (hence the title: “Conflict of Adam and Eve”), and Golgotha is named as Adam’s burying place. A second and shorter part treats of the Sethite patriarchs down to Noah. The still shorter third part relates the post-diluvian history down to the time of Christ.[83]

§ 32.4. New Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigraphs.—The Gnostics especially produced these in great abundance. Epiphanius speaks of them as numbering thousands. But the Catholics, too, were unable to resist the temptation to build up the truth by these doubtful means.

1. Apocryphal Gospels.

1. Complete Gospels existed in considerable numbers, i.e. embracing the period of Christ’s earthly labours, more or less corrupted in the interests of Gnostic or Ebionitic heresy, or independently composed Gospels; but only of a few of these do we possess any knowledge.[84] The most important of these are the following: The Gosp. of the Egyptians, esteemed by the Encratites, according to Origen one of the writings referred to in Luke i. 1; also the Gosp. of the XII. Apostles, generally called by the Fathers Εὐαγγ. καθ’ Ἑβραίους originally written in Aramaic; and finally, the Gosp. of Marcion (§ 27, 11). The most important of these is the Gospel of the Hebrews, on account of its relation to our canonical Gospel of Matthew, which is generally supposed to have been written originally in Aramaic.[85] Jerome who translated the Hebrew Gospel says of it: Vocatur a plerisque Matthæi authenticum; but this is not his own opinion, nor was it that of Origen and Eusebius. The extant fragments show many divergences as well as many similarities, partly in the form of apocryphal amplifications, partly of changes made for dogmatic reasons.

2. Gospels dealing with particular Periods—referring to the days preceding the birth of Jesus and the period of the infancy or to the closing days of His life, where the heretical elements are wanting or are subordinated to the general interests of Christianity. Of these there was a large number and much of their legendary or fabulous material, especially about the family history of the mother of Jesus (§ 57, 2), has passed over into the tradition of the Catholic Church. Among them may be mentioned;

1. The Protevangel. Jacobi minoris, perhaps the oldest, certainly the most esteemed and most widely spread, written in Greek, beginning with the story of Mary’s birth and reaching down to the death of the children of Bethlehem;

2. The Ev. Pseudo Matthæi, similar in its contents, but continued down to the period of Jesus’ youth, and now existing only in a Lat. translation;

3. The Ev. de nativitate Mariæ, only in Lat., containing the history of Mary down to the birth of Jesus;

4. The Hist. Josephi fabri lignarii down to his death, dating probably from the 4th cent., only now in an Arabic version;

5. The Ev. Infantiæ Salvatoris, only in Arabic, a compilation with no particular dogmatic tendency;

6. Also the so-called Ascension of Mary (§ 57, 2) soon became the subject of apocryphal treatment, for which John was claimed as the authority (John xix. 26), and is preserved in several Greek, Syriac, Arabic and Latin manuscripts;

7. The Ev. Nicodemi (John xix. 39) in Greek and Lat. contains two Jewish writings of the 2nd century. The first part consists of the Gesta or Acta Pilati. There can be no doubt of its identity with the Acta Pilati quoted by Justin, Tert., Euseb., Epiph. It contains the stories of the canonical Gospels variously amplified and an account of the judicial proceedings evidently intended to demonstrate Jesus’ innocence of the charges brought against Him by His enemies. The second part, bearing the title Descensus Christi ad inferos, is of much later origin, telling of the descent of Christ into Hades along with two of the saints who rose with him (Matt. xxvii. 52), Leucius and Carinus, sons of Simeon (Luke ii. 25).[86]

§ 32.5.

1. The numerous Apocryphal Histories and Legends of the Apostles were partly of heretical, and partly of Catholic, origin. While the former have in view the establishing of their heretical doctrines and peculiar forms of worship, constitution and life by representing them as Apostolic institutions, the latter arose mostly out of a local patriotic intention to secure to particular churches the glory of being founded by an Apostle. Those inspired by Gnostic influences far exceed in importance and number not only the Ebionitic but also the genuinely Catholic. The Manichæans especially produced many and succeeded in circulating them widely. The more their historico-romantic contents pandered to the taste of that age for fantastic tales of miracles and visions the surer were they to find access among Catholic circles.—A collection of such histories under the title of Περίοδοι τῶν ἀποστόλων was received as canonical by Gnostics and Manichæans, and even by many of the Church Fathers. Augustine first named as its supposed author one Leucius. We find this name some decades later in Epiphanius as that of a pupil of John and opponent of the Ebionite Christology, and also in Pacianus of Barcelona as that of one falsely claimed as an authority by the Montanists. According to Photius this collection embraced the Acts of Peter, John, Andrew, Thomas and Paul, and the author’s full name was Leucius Carinus, who also appears in the second part of the Acta Pilati, but in quite other circumstances and surroundings. That all the five books were composed by one author is not probable; perhaps originally only the Acts of John bore the name of Leucius, which was subsequently transferred to the whole. Zahn’s view, on the other hand, is, that the Περίοδοι τῶν ἀποστόλων, especially the Acts of John, was written under the falsely assumed name of John’s pupil Leucius, about A.D. 130, at a time when the Gnostics had not yet been separated from the Church as a heretical sect, was even at a later period accepted as genuine by the Catholic church teachers notwithstanding the objectionable character of much of its contents, its modal docetic Christology and encratite Ethics with contempt of marriage, rejection of animal food and the use of wine and the demand of voluntary poverty, and held in high esteem as a source of the second rank for the Apostolic history. Lipsius considers that it was composed in the interests of the vulgar Gnosticism (§ 27) in the second half of the 2nd, or first half of the 3rd cent., and proves that from Eusebius down to Photius, who brands it as πασῆς αἱρέσεως πηγὴν καὶ μητέρα, the Catholic church teachers without exception speak of it as heretical and godless, and that the frequent patristic references to the Historiæ ecclesiasticiæ do not apply to it but to Catholic modifications of it, which were regarded as the genuine and generally credible original writing of Leucius which were wickedly falsified by the Manichæans.—Catholic modifications of particular Gnostic Περίοδοι, as well as independent Catholic writings of this sort in Greek are still preserved in MS. in great numbers and have for the most part been printed. The Hist. certaminis apostolici in ten books, which the supposed pupil of the Apostles Abdias, first bishop of Babylon, wrote in Hebrew, was translated by his pupil Eutropius into Greek and by Julius Africanus into Latin.[87]—They are all useless for determining the history of the Apostolic Age, although abundantly so used in the Catholic church tradition. For the history of doctrines and sects, the history of the canon, worship, ecclesiastical customs and modes of thought during the 2nd-4th cents., they are of the utmost importance.

§ 32.6. From the many apocryphal monographs still preserved on the life, works and martyrdom of the biblical Apostles and their coadjutors, in addition to the Pseudo-Clementines already discussed in § 28, 3, the following are the most important.

1. The Greek Acta Petri et Pauli. These describe the journeys of Paul to Rome, the disputation of the two Apostles at Rome with Simon Magus, and the Roman martyrdom of both, and constitute the source of the traditions regarding Peter and Paul which are at the present day regarded in the Roman Catholic Church as historical. These Acts, however, as Lipsius has shown, are not an original work, but date from about A.D. 160, and consist of a Catholic reproduction of Ebionite or Anti-Pauline, Acts of Peter, with additions from Gentile-Christian traditions of Paul. The Acts of Peter take up the story where the Pseudo-Clementines end, as may be seen even from their Catholic reproduction, for they make Simon Magus, followed everywhere and overcome by the Apostle Peter, at last seek refuge in Rome, where, again unmasked by Peter, he met a miserable end (§ 25, 2). As the Κηρύγματα Πέτρου which formed the basis of the Pseudo-Clementine writings combats the specifically Pauline doctrines as derived from Simon Magus (§ 28, 4), so the Acts of Peter identify him even personally with Paul, for they maliciously and spitefully assign well-known facts from the Apostle’s life to Simon Magus, which are bona fide in the Catholic reproduction assumed to be genuine works of Simon.—The Gnostic Acts of Peter and Acts of Paul had wrought up the current Ebionite and Catholic traditions about the doings and martyr deaths of the two Apostles with fanciful adornments and embellishments after the style and in the interests of Gnosticism. A considerable fragment of these, purified indeed by Catholic hands, is preserved to us in the Passio Petri et Pauli, to which is attached the name of Linus, the pretended successor of Peter. The fortunes of the two Apostles are related quite independently of one another: Paul makes his appearance at Rome only after the death of Peter. Of the non-heretical Acts of Paul which according to Eusebius were in earlier times received in many churches as holy scripture (§ 36, 8), no trace has as yet been discovered.

2. Among the Greek Acts of John, the remnants of the Leucian Περίοδοι Ἰωάννου preserved in their original form deserve to be first mentioned. According to Zahn, they are one of the earliest witnesses for the genuineness of the Gospel of John, and give the deathblow to the theory that with and after the Apostle John, there was in Ephesus another John the Presbyter distinct from him (§ 16, 2). Lipsius, on the other hand, places their composition in the second half of the 2nd cent., and deprives them of that significance for the life of the Apostle, but admits their great value for a knowledge of doctrines, principles and forms of worship of the vulgar Gnosticism then widely spread. The Πράξεις Ἰωάννου, greatly esteemed in the Greek church, and often translated into other languages, written in the 5th cent. by a Catholic hand and ascribed to Prochoros [Prochorus] the deacon of Jerusalem (Acts vi. 5), is a poetic romance with numerous raisings from the dead, exorcisms, etc., almost wholly the creation of the writer’s own imagination, without a trace of any encratite tendency like the Leucian Περίοδοι and without any particular doctrinal significance.

3. To the same age and the same Gnostic party as the Leucian Acts of John, belong the Acts of Andrew preserved in many fragments and circulated in various Catholic reproductions. Of these latter the most esteemed were the Acts of Andrew and Matthew in the city of the cannibals.

4. d. The Catholic reproductions in Greek and Syriac that have come down to us of the Leucian Acts of Thomas are of special value because of the many Gnostic elements which, particularly in the Greek, have been allowed to remain unchanged in the very imperfectly purified text. The scene of the Apostle’s activity is said to be India. The central point in his preaching to sinners is the doctrine that only by complete abstinence from marriage and concubinage can we become at last the partner of the heavenly bridegroom (§ 27, 4). A highly poetical hymn on the marriage of Sophia (Achamoth) is left in the Greek text unaltered, while the Syriac text puts the church in place of Sophia. Then we have two poetical consecration prayers for baptism and the eucharist, in which the Syriac substituted Christ for Achamoth. But besides, even in the Syriac text, a grandly swelling hymn, which is wanting in the Greek text, romances about the fortunes of the soul, which, sent from heaven to earth to fetch a pearl watched by the serpent forgets its heavenly origin and calling, and only remembers this after repeated reminders from heaven, etc. Gutschmied has shown it to be probable that the history groundwork of the Acts of Thomas is borrowed from older Buddhist legends (§ 68, 6).

5. The Acta Pauli et Thecla, according to Tertullian and Jerome, were composed by a presbyter of Asia Minor who, carried away by the mania for literary forging, excused himself by saying that he had written Pauli amore, but was for this nevertheless deprived of his office. According to these Acts Thecla, the betrothed bride of a young man of importance at Iconium, was won to Christianity by a sermon of Paul on continence as a condition of a future glorious resurrection, forsook her bridegroom, devoted herself to perpetual virginity, and attached herself forthwith to the Apostle whose bodily presence is described as contemptible,—little, bald-headed, large nose, and bandy legs,—but lighted up with heavenly grace. Led twice to martyrdom she was saved by miraculous divine interposition, first from the flames of the pile, then, after having baptized herself in the name of Christ by plunging into a pit full of water, from the rage of devouring animals; whereupon Paul, recognising that sort of baptism in an emergency as valid, sent her forth with the commission: Go hence and teach the word of God! After converting and instructing many, she died in peace in Seleucia. Although Jerome treats our book as apocryphal, the legends of Thecla as given in it were regarded in the West as genuine, and St. Thecla was honoured throughout the whole of the Latin middle ages next to the mother of Jesus as the most perfect pattern of virginity. In the Greek church where we meet with the name first in the Symposium of Methodius, the book remained unsuspected and its heroine, as ἡ ἀπόστολος and ἡ πρωτομάρτυς, was honoured still more enthusiastically than in the West.

6. The Syriac Doctrina Addæi Apost. was according to its own statement deposited in the library of Edessa, but allusions to later persons and circumstances show that it could not have been written before A.D. 280 (according to Zahn about A.D. 270-290; acc. to Lipsius not before A.D. 360). It assigns the founding of the church of Edessa, which is proved to have been not earlier than A.D. 170, according to local tradition to the Apostle Addai [Addæi] (in Euseb. and elsewhere, Thaddeus: comp. Matt. x. 3; Mark iii. 18), whom it represents as one of the seventy disciples and as having been sent by Thomas to Abgar Uchomo in accordance with Christ’s promise (§ 13, 2).[88]

§ 32.7.

1. Apostolic Epistles. The apocryphal Epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans (Col. iv. 16), and that to the Corinthians suggested by the statement in 1 Cor. v. 9, are spiritless compilations from the canonical Epistles. From the Correspondence of Paul with Seneca, quotations are made by Jerome and Augustine. It embraces fourteen short epistles. The idea of friendly relations between these two men suggested by Acts xviii. 12, Gallio being Seneca’s brother, forms the motive for the fiction.

2. The apocryphal Apocalypses that have been preserved are of little value. An Apocalypsis Petri was known to Clement of Alexandria. The Apoc. Pauli is based on 2 Cor. xii. 2.

3. Apostolical Constitutions, comp. § 43, 4, 5.[89]

§ 32.8. The Acts of the Martyrs.—Of the numerous professedly contemporary accounts of celebrated martyrs of the 2nd and 3rd cents., those adopted by Eusebius in his Church History may be accepted as genuine; especially the Epistle of the Church of Smyrna to the Church at Philomelium about the persecution which it suffered (§ 22, 3); also the Report of the Church at Lyons and Vienne to the Christians in Asia and Phrygia about the persecution under Marcus Aurelius in A.D. 177 (§ 22, 3); and an Epistle of Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria to Fabian of Antioch about the Alexandrian martyrs and confessors during the Decian persecution. The Acts of the Martyrs of Scillita are also genuine (§ 22, 3); so too the Montanistic History of the sufferings of Perpetua, Felicitas, and their companions (§§ 22, 4; 40, 3); as well as the Acta s. Cypriani. The main part of the Martyrdom of Justin Martyr by Simeon Metaphr. (§ 68, 4) belongs probably to the 2nd cent. The Martyrdom of Ignatius (§ 30, 5) professedly by his companions in his last journey to Rome, and the Martyrdom of Sympherosa in the Tiber, who was put to death with her seven sons under Hadrian, as well as all other Acts of the Martyrs professedly belonging to the first four centuries, are of more than doubtful authenticity.

§ 33. THE DOCTRINAL CONTROVERSIES OF THE OLD CATHOLIC AGE.[90]

The development of the system of Christian doctrine must become a necessity when Christianity meeting with pagan culture in the form of science is called upon to defend her claim to be the universal religion. In the first three centuries, however, there was as yet no official construction and establishment of ecclesiastical doctrine. There must first be a certain measure of free subjective development and wrestling with antagonistic views. A universally acknowledged organ is wanting, such as that subsequently found in the Œcumenical Councils. The persecutions allowed no time and peace for this; and the church had enough to do in maintaining what is specifically Christian in opposition to the intrusion of such anti-Christian, Jewish and Pagan elements as sought to gain a footing in Ebionism and Gnosticism. On the other hand, friction and controversy within the church had already begun as a preparation for the construction of the ecclesiastical system of doctrine. The Trinitarian controversy was by far the most important, while the Chiliastic discussions were of significance for Eschatology.

§ 33.1. The Trinitarian Questions.—The discussion was mainly about the relation of the divine μοναρχία (the unity of God) to the οἰκονομία (the Trinitarian being and movement of God). Then the relation of the Son or Logos to the Father came decidedly to the front. From the time when the more exact determination of this relationship came to be discussed, toward the end of the 2nd cent., the most eminent teachers of the Catholic church maintained stoutly the personal independence of the Logos—Hypostasianism. But the necessity for keeping this view in harmony with the monotheistic doctrine of Christianity led to many errors and vacillations. Adopting Philo’s distinction of λόγος ἐνδιάθετος and λόγος προφορικός (§ 10, 1), they for the most part regarded the hypostasizing as conditioned first by the creating of the world and as coming forth not as a necessary and eternal element in the very life of God but as a free and temporal act of the divine will. The proper essence of the Godhead was identified rather with the Father, and all attributes of the Godhead were ascribed to the Son not in a wholly equal measure as to the Father, for the word of Christ: “the Father is greater than I” (John xiv. 28), was applied even to the pre-existent state of Christ. Still greater was the uncertainty regarding the Holy Spirit. The idea of His personality and independence was far less securely established; He was much more decidedly subordinated, and the functions of inspiration and sanctification proper to Him were ascribed to Christ, or He was simply identified with the Son of God. The result, however, of such subordinationist hypostasianism was that, on the one hand, many church teachers laid undue stress on the fundamental anti-pagan doctrine of the unity of God, just as on the other hand, many had indulged in exaggerated statements about the divinity of Christ. It seemed therefore desirable to set aside altogether the question of the personal distinction of the Son and Spirit from the Father. This happened either in the way clearly favoured by the Ebionites who regarded Christ as a mere man, who, like the prophets, though in a much higher measure, had been endued with divine wisdom and power (dynamic Monarchianism), or in a way more accordant with the Christian mode of thought, admitting that the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Christ, and either identifying the Logos with the Father (Patripassianism), or seeing in Him only a mode of the activity of the Father (modal Monarchianism). Monarchianism in all these forms was pronounced heretical by all the most illustrious fathers of the 3rd cent., and hypostasianism was declared orthodox. But even under hypostasianism an element of error crept in at a later period in the form of subordinationism, and modal Monarchianism approached nearer to the church doctrine by adopting the doctrine of sameness of essence (ὁμοουσία) in Son and Father. The orthodox combination of the two opposites was reached in the 3rd cent, in homoousian hypostasianism, but only in the 4th cent. attained universal acceptance (§ 50).

§ 33.2. The Alogians.—Soon after A.D. 170 in Asia Minor we meet with the Alogians as the first decided opponents from within the church of Logos doctrine laid down in the Gospel by John and the writings of the Apologists. They started in diametrical opposition to the chiliasm of the Montanists and their claims to prophetic gifts, and were thus led not only to repudiate the Apocalypse but also the Gospel of John; the former on account of its chiliast-prophetic contents which embraced so much that was unintelligible, yea absurd and untrue; the latter, first of all on account of the use the Montanists made of its doctrine of the Paraclete in support of their prophetic claims (§ 40, 1), but also on account of its seeming contradictions of and departures from the narratives of the Synoptists, and finally, on account of its Logos doctrine in which the immediate transition from the incarnation of the Logos to the active life of Christ probably seemed to them too closely resembling docetic Gnosticism. They therefore attributed to the Gnosticizing Judaist, Cerinthus, the authorship both of the Fourth Gospel and of the Apocalypse. Of their own Christological theories we have no exact information. Irenæus and Hippolytus deal mildly with them and recognise them as members of the Catholic church. It is Epiphanius who first gives them the equivocal designation of Alogians (which may either be “deniers of the Logos” or “the irrational”), denouncing them as heretical rejecters of the Logos doctrine and the Logos-Gospel. This is the first instance which we have of historical criticism being exercised in the Church with reference to the biblical books.

§ 33.3. The Theodotians and Artemonites.—Epiphanius describes the sect of the Theodotians at Rome as an ἀπόσπασμα τῆς ἀλόγου αἱρέσεως. The main source of information about them is the Little Labyrinth (§ 31, 3), and next to it Hippolytus in his Syntagma, quoted by the Pseudo-Tertullian and Epiphanius, and in his Elenchus. The founder of this sect, Theodotus ὁ σκυτεύς, the Tanner, a man well trained in Greek culture, came A.D. 190 to Byzantium where, during the persecution, he denied Christ, and on this account changed his residence to Rome and devoted himself here to the spread of his dynamic Monarchianism. He maintained ψιλὸν ἄνθρωπον εἶναι τὸν Χριστόν,—Spiritu quidem sancto natum ex virgine, sed hominem nudum nulla alia præ cæteris nisi sola justitæ auctoritate. He sought to justify his views by a one-sided interpretation of scripture passages referring to the human nature of Christ.[91] But since he acknowledged the supernatural birth of Christ as well as the genuineness of the Gospel of John, and in other respects agreed with his opponents, he could still represent himself as standing on the basis of the Old Catholic Regula fidei (§ 35, 2). Nevertheless the Roman bishop Victor (A.D. 189-199) excommunicated him and his followers. The most distinguished among his disciples was a second Theodotus ὁ τραπεζίτης, the Money-changer. By an exegesis of Heb. v. 6, 10; vi. 20; vii. 3, 17, he sought to prove that Melchisedec was δύναμις τίς μεγίστη and more glorious than Christ; the former was the original type, the latter only the copy; the former was intercessor before God for the angels, the latter only for men; the origin of the former is secret, because truly heavenly, that of Christ open, because born of Mary. The later heresiologists therefore designate his followers Melchisedecians. Laying hold upon the theory φύσει τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν ἰδέᾳ ἀνθρώπου τότε τῷ Ἀβραὰμ πεφηνέναι which, according to Epiphanius, was held even by Catholics, and also, like the Shepherd of Hermas, identifying the Son of God with the Holy Spirit that descended in baptism on the man Jesus, Theodotus seems from those two points of view to have proceeded to teach, that the historical Christ, because operated upon only dynamically by the Holy Spirit or the Son of God, was inferior to the purely heavenly Melchisedec who was himself the very eternal Son of God. The reproaches directed against the Theodotians by their opponents were mainly these: that instead of the usual allegorical exegesis they used only a literal and grammatical, that they practised an arbitrary system of Textual criticism, and that instead of holding to the philosophy of the divine Plato, they took their wisdom from the empiricists (Aristotle, Euclid, Galen, etc.), and sought by such objectionable means to support their heretical views. We have thus probably to see in them a group of Roman theologians, who, towards the close of the 2nd cent. and the beginning of the 3rd cent. maintained exegetical and critical principles essentially the same as those which the Antiochean school with greater clearness and definiteness set forth toward the end of the 3rd cent. (§§ 31, 1; 47, 1). The attempt, however, which they made to found an independent sect in Rome about A.D. 210 was an utter failure. According to the report of the Little Labyrinth, they succeeded in getting for their bishop a weak-minded confessor called Natalius. Haunted by visions of judgment and beaten sore one night by good angels till in a miserable plight, he hasted on the following morning to cast himself at the feet of bishop Zephyrinus (A.D. 199-217), successor of Victor, and showing his stripes he begged for mercy and restoration.—The last of the representatives of the Theodotians in Rome, and that too under this same Zephyrinus, was a certain Artemon or Artemas. He and his followers maintained that their own doctrine (which cannot be very exactly determined but was also of the dynamic order) had been recognised in Rome as orthodox from the time of the Apostles down to that of bishop Victor, and was first condemned by his successor Zephyrinus. This assertion cannot be said to be altogether without foundation in view, on the one hand, of the agreement above referred to between Theodotus the younger and the Roman Hermas, and on the other hand, of the fact that the Roman bishops Zephyrinus and Callistus had passed over to Noëtian Modalism. Artemon must have lived at least until A.D. 260, when Paul of Samosata (§ 33, 8), who also maintained fellowship with the excommunicated Artemonites in Rome, conducted a correspondence with him.

§ 33.4. Praxeas and Tertullian.—Patripassianism, which represented the Father Himself as becoming man and suffering in Christ, may be characterized as the precursor and first crude form of Modalism. It also had its origin during the 2nd cent., in that same intellectually active church of Asia Minor, and from thence the movement spread to Rome, where after a long and bitter struggle it secured a footing in the 3rd cent.—Praxeas, a confessor of Asia Minor and opponent of Montanism, was its first representative at Rome, where unopposed he expounded his views about A.D. 190. As he supported the Roman bishop Victor in his condemnation of Montanism (§ 40, 2), so he seems to have won the bishop’s approval for his Christological theory.[92] Perhaps also the excommunication which was at this time uttered against the dynamic Monarchian, Theodotus the Elder, was the result of the bishop’s change of views. From Rome Praxeas betook himself, mainly in the interest of his Anti-Montanist crusade, to Carthage, and there also won adherents to his Christology. Meanwhile, however, Tertullian returned to Carthage, and as a convert to Montanism, hurled against Praxeas and his followers a controversial treatise, in which he laid bare with acute dialectic the weaknesses and inconsistencies, as well as the dangerous consequences of their theory. Just like the Alogians, Praxeas and his adherents refused to admit the doctrine of the Logos into their Christology, and feared that it in connection with the doctrine of the hypostasis would give an advantage to Gnosticism. In the interests of monotheism, as well as of the worship of Christ, they maintained the perfect identity of Father and Son. God became the Son by the assumption of the flesh; under the concept of the Father therefore falls the divinity, the spirit; under that of the Son, the humanity, the flesh of the Redeemer.—Tertullian himself in his Hypostasianism had not wholly got beyond the idea of subordinationism, but he made an important advance in this direction by assuming three stages in the hypostasizing of the Son (Filiatio). The first stage is the eternal immanent state of being of the Son in the Father; the second is the forthcoming of the Son alongside of the Father for the purpose of creating the world; and the third is the going forth of the Son into the world by means of the incarnation.

§ 33.5. The Noëtians and Hippolytus.—The Patripassian standpoint was maintained also by Noëtus of Smyrna, who summed up his Christological views in the sentence: the Son of God is His own, and not another’s Son. One of his pupils, Epigonus, in the time of bishop Zephyrinus brought this doctrine to Rome, where a Noëtian sect was formed with Cleomenes at its head. Sabellius too, who in A.D. 215 came to Rome from Ptolemais in Egypt, attached himself to it, but afterwards constructed an independent system of doctrine in the form of a more speculative Modalism. The most vigorous opponent of the Noëtians was the celebrated presbyter Hippolytus (§ 31, 3). He strongly insisted upon the hypostasis of the Son and of the Spirit, and claimed for them divine worship. But inasmuch as he maintained in all its strictness the unity of God, he too was unable to avoid subordinating the Son under the Father. The Son, he taught, owed His hypostasizing to the will of the Father; the Father commands and the Son obeys; the perfect Logos was the Son from eternity, but οὐ λόγος ὡς φωνὴ, ἀλλ’ ἐνδιάθετος τοῦ πάντος λογισμός, therefore in a hypostasis, which He became only at the creation of the world, so that He became perfect Son first in the incarnation. Bishop Zephyrinus, on the other hand, was not inclined to bear hard upon the Noëtians, but sought in the interests of peace some meeting-point for the two parties. The conflagration fairly broke out under his successor, Callistus (A.D. 217-222; comp. § 41, 1). Believing that truth and error were to be found on both sides he defined his own position thus: God is a spirit without parts, filling all things, giving life to all, who as such is called Logos, and only in respect of name is distinguished as Father and Son. The Pneuma become incarnate in the Virgin is personally and essentially identical with the Father. That which has thereby become manifest, the man Jesus, is the Son. It therefore cannot be said that the Father as such has suffered, but rather that the Father has suffered in and with the Son. Decidedly Monarchian as this formula of compromise undoubtedly is, it seems to have afforded the bridge upon which the official Roman theology crossed over to the homoousian Hypostasianism which forty years later won the day (§ 33, 7). Among the opposing parties it found no acceptance. Hippolytus denounced the bishop as a Noëtian, while the Noëtians nicknamed him a Dytheist. The result was that the two party leaders, Sabellius and Hippolytus, were excommunicated. The latter formed the company of his adherents in Rome into a schismatic sect.

§ 33.6. Beryllus and Origen.—Beryllus of Bostra[93] in Arabia also belonged to the Patripassians; but he marks the transition to a nobler Modalism, for though he refuses to the deity of Christ the ἰδία θεότης, he designates it πατρικὴ θεότης, and sees in it a new form of the manifestation (πρόσωπον) of God. In regard to him an Arabian Synod was held in A.D. 244, to which Origen was invited. Convinced by him of his error, Beryll [Beryllus] retracted.—All previous representatives of the hypostasis of the Logos had understood his hypostatizing as happening in time for the purpose of the creation and the incarnation. Origen removed this restriction when he enunciated the proposition: The Son is from eternity begotten of the Father and so from eternity an hypostasis. The generation of the Son took not place simply as the condition of creation, but as of itself necessary, for where there is light there must be the shedding forth of rays. But because the life of God is bound to no time, the objectivizing of His life in the Son must also lie outside of all time. It is not therefore an act of God accomplished once and for ever, but an eternally continued exercise of living power (ἀεὶ γεννᾲ τὸν υἱόν). Origen did not indeed get beyond subordinationism, but he restricted it within the narrowest possible limits. He condemns the expression that the Son is ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ πατρός, but only in opposition to the Gnostic theories of emanation. He maintained a ἑτερότης τῆς οὐσίας, but only in opposition to the ὁμοούσιος in the Patripassian sense. He teaches a generation of the Son ἐκ τοῦ θελήματος θεοῦ, but only because he sees in Him the objectified divine will. He calls Him a κτίσμα, but only in so far as He is θεοποιούμενος, not αὐτόθεος, though indeed the Son is αὐτοσοφία, αὐτοαλήθεια, δεύτερος θεός. Thus what he teaches is not a subordination of essence or nature, but only of existence or origin.

§ 33.7. Sabellius and Dionysius of Alex. and Dionysius of Rome.—We have already seen that Sabellius had founded in Rome a speculative Manichæan system, which found much favour among the bishops of his native region. His assigning an essential and necessary place in his system to the Holy Spirit indicates an important advance. God is a unity (μονάς) admitting of no distinctions, resting in Himself as θεὸς σιωπών coming forth out of Himself (for the purpose of creation) as θεὸς λαλῶν. In the course of the world’s development the Monas for the sake of redemption assumes necessarily three different forms of being (ὀνόματα πρόσωπα), each of which embraces in it the complete fulness of the Monas. They are not ὑποστάσεις, but πρόσωπα, masks, we might say roles, which the God who manifests Himself in the world assumes in succession. After the prosopon of the Father accomplished its work in the giving of the law, it fell back into its original condition; advancing again through the incarnation as Son, it returns by the ascension into the absolute being of the Monas; it reveals itself finally as the Holy Spirit to return again, after securing the perfect sanctification of the church, into the Monas that knows no distinctions, there to abide through all eternity. This process is characterized by Sabellius as an expansion (ἔκτασις) and contraction (συστολή). By way of illustration he uses the figure of the sun ὄντος μὲν ἐν μίᾳ ὑποστάσει, τρεῖς δὲ ἔχοντος τὰς ἐνεργείας, namely τὸ τῆς περιφερείας σχῆμα, τὸ φωτιστικὸν καὶ τὸ θάλπον.—At a Synod of Alexandria in A.D. 261 Dionysius the Great (§ 31, 6) entered the lists against the Sabellianism of the Egyptian bishops, and with well-intentioned zeal employed subordinationist expressions in a highly offensive way (ξένον κατ’ οὐσίαν αὐτὸν εἶναι τοῦ Πατρὸς ὥσπερ ἐστὶν ὁ γεωργὸς πρὸς τὴν ἄμπελον καὶ ὁ ναυπηγὸς πρὸς τὸ σκάφος,—ὡς ποίημα ὢν οὐκ ἦν πρὶν γέννηται). When bishop Dionysius of Rome (A.D. 259-268) was informed of these proceedings he condemned his Alexandrian colleague’s modes of expression at a Synod at Rome in A.D. 262, and issued a tract (Ἀνατροπή), in which against Sabellius he affirmed hypostasianism and against the Alexandrians, notwithstanding the suspicion of Manichæanism that hung about it, the doctrine of the ὁμοουσία and the eternal generation of the Son. With a beautiful modesty Dionysius of Alexandria retracted his unhappily chosen phrases and declared himself in thorough agreement with the Roman exposition of doctrine.

§ 33.8. Paul of Samosata.—In Rome and throughout the West general dynamical Monarchianism expired with Artemon and his party. In the East, however, it was revived by Paul of Samosata, in A.D. 260 bishop of the Græco-Syrian capital Antioch, which, however, was then under the rule of Queen Zenobia of Palmyra. Attaching himself to the other dynamists, especially the Theodotians and Artemonites, he went in many respects beyond them. Maintaining as they did the unipersonality of God (ἓν πρόσωπον), he yet admitted a distinction of Father, Son (λόγος) and Spirit (σοφία) the two last, however, being essentially identical attributes of the first, and also the distinction of the λόγος προφορικός from the λόγος ἐνδιάθετος, the one being the ἐπιστήμη ἀνυπόστατος operative in the prophets, the other the ἐπ. ἀνυπ. latent in God. Further, while placing like the dynamists the personality of Christ in His humanity and acknowledging His supernatural birth from the Holy Spirit by the Virgin, he conceived of Him, like the modern Socinians, as working the way upward, ἐκ προκοπῆς τεθεοποιῆσθαι, i.e. by reason of His unique excellence to divine rank and the obtaining of the divine name.—Between A.D. 264-269 the Syrian bishops held three large Synods in regard to him at Antioch, to which also many other famous bishops of the East were invited. The first two were without result, for he knew how to conceal the heterodox character of his views. It was only at the third that the presbyter Malchion, a practised dialectician and formerly a rhetorician, succeeded in unmasking him at a public disputation. The Synod now declared him excommunicated and deprived him of his office, and also transmitted to all the catholic churches, first of all to Rome and Alexandria, the records of the disputation together with a complete report in which he was described as a proud, vain, pompous, covetous and even immoral man (§ 39, 3). Nevertheless by the favour of the Queen he kept possession of his bishopric, and holding a high office at the court he exercised not only spiritual functions but also great civil authority. But when Zenobia was overcome by Aurelian in A.D. 272, the rest of the bishops accused him before the pagan emperor, who decided that the ecclesiastical buildings should be made over to that one of the contending bishops whom the Christian bishops of Rome and Italy should recognise. In these conflicts undoubtedly a national and political antagonism lay behind the dogmatic and ecclesiastical dispute (§ 31, 9e).—At the Synod of A.D. 269 the expression ὁμοούσιος, which since it had been first used by Sabellius was always regarded with suspicion in church circles, was dragged into the debate and expressly condemned; and so it is doubtful whether Paul himself had employed it, or whether, on the contrary, he wished to charge his opponents with heresy as being wont to use this term.

§ 33.9. Chiliasm or the doctrine of an earthly reign of the Messiah in the last times full of splendour and glory for His people arose out of the literal and realistic conception of the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The adoption of the period of a thousand years for its duration rested on the idea that as the world had been created in six days, so, according to Ps. xc. 4 and 2 Pet. iii. 8, its history would be completed in six thousand years. Under the oppression of the Roman rule this notion came to be regarded as a fundamental doctrine of Jewish faith and hope (Matt. xx. 21; Acts i. 6). The Apocalypse of St. John was chiefly influential in elaborating the Christian chiliastic theory. In chap. xx. under the guise of vision the doctrine is set forth that after the finally victorious conflict of the present age there will be a first and partial resurrection, the risen saints shall reign with Christ a thousand years, and then after another revolt of Satan that is soon suppressed the present age will be closed in the second universal resurrection, the judgment of the world and the creation of new heavens and a new earth. What fantastic notions of the glory of the thousand years’ reign might be developed from such passages, is seen in the traditional saying of the Lord given by Papias (Iren., v. 33) about the wonderful fruitfulness of the earth during the millennium: one vine-stock will bear 10,000 stems (palmites), each stem will have 10,000 branches (bracchia), each branch 10,000 twigs (flagella), each twig 10,000 clusters (botrus), each cluster 10,000 grapes, and every grape will yield 25 measures of wine; “et quum eorum apprehenderit aliquis Sanctorum, alius clamabit: Botrus ego melior sum, me sume, per me Dominum benedic!” After the time of Papias Chiliasm became the favourite doctrine of the Christians who under the severe pressure of pagan persecution longed for the early return of the Lord. The Apologists of the 2nd century do indeed pass it over in silence, but only perhaps because it seemed to them impolitic to give it a marked prominence in works directly addressed to the pagan rulers; at least Justin Martyr does not scruple in the Dialog. c. Tryph. addressed to another class of readers to characterize it as a genuinely orthodox doctrine. Asia Minor was the chief seat of these views, where, as we have seen (§ 40), Montanism also in its most fanatical and exaggerated form was elevated into a fundamental article of the Christian faith. Irenæus enthusiastically adopted chiliastic views and gave a full though fairly moderate exposition of them in his great work against the Gnostics (v. 24-36). Tertullian also championed these notions, at the same time rejecting many outgrowths of a grossly carnal nature (Adv. Marc., iii. 24, and in a work no longer extant, De spe fidelium). The most vigorous opposition is shown to Chiliasm by the Alogians, Praxeas the Patripassian and Caius of Rome, who were also the determined opponents of Montanism. The last named indeed went so far in his controversial writing against Proclus the Montanist, as to ascribe the authorship of the Johannine Apocalypse to the heretic Cerinthus (§ 27, 1). The Alexandrian spiritualists too, especially Origen (De Prin., ii. 11), were decided opponents of every form of Chiliasm and explained away the Scripture passages on which it was built by means of allegorical interpretation. Nevertheless even in Egypt it had numerous adherents. At their head about the middle of the 3rd cent. stood the learned bishop Nepos of Arsinoe, whose Ἔλεγχος τῶν ἀλληγοριστῶν directed against the Alexandrians is no longer extant. After his death his party under the leadership of the presbyter Coracion separated from the church of Alexandria, the bishop Dionysius the Great going down himself expressly to Arsinoe in order to heal the breach. In a conference of the leaders of the parties continued for three days he secured the sincere respect of the dissentients by his counsels, and even Coracion was induced to make a formal recantation. Dionysius then wrote for the confirmation of the converts his book: Περὶ ἐπαγγελιῶν. But not long after, opposition to the spiritualism of the school of Origen made Methodius, the bishop of Olympus, play the part of a new herald of Chiliasm, and in the West, Commodian, Victor of Poitiers, and especially Lactantius, became its zealous advocates in a particularly materialistic form. Its day, however, was already past. What tended most to work its complete overthrow was the course of events under Constantine. Amid the rejoicings of the national church as a present reality, interest in the expectation of a future thousand years’ reign was lost. Among post-Constantine church teachers only Apollinaris the Younger favoured Chiliasm (§ 47, 5). Jerome indeed, in deference to the cloud of witnesses from the ancient church, does not venture to pronounce it heretical, but treats it with scornful ridicule; and Augustine (De civ. Dei), though at an earlier period not unfavourable to it, sets it aside by showing that the scriptural representations of the thousand years’ reign are to be understood as referring to the church obtaining dominion through the overthrow of the pagan Roman empire, the thousand years being a period of indefinite duration, and the first resurrection being interpreted of the reception of saints and martyrs into heaven as sharers in the glory of Christ.—See Candlish, “The Kingdom of God.” Edin., 1884. Especially pp. 409-415, “Augustine on the City of God.”

IV. CONSTITUTION, WORSHIP, LIFE AND DISCIPLINE.[94]

§ 34. THE INNER ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH.[95]

From the beginning of the 2nd cent. the episcopal constitution was gradually built up, and the superiority of one bishop over the whole body of the other presbyters (§ 17, 6) won by degrees universal acceptance. The hierarchical tendency inherent in it gained fresh impetus from two causes: (1) from the gradual disappearance of the charismatic endowments which had been continued from the Apostolic Age far down into post-Apostolic times, and the disposition of ecclesiastical leaders more and more to monopolise the function of teaching; and (2) from the reassertion of the idea of a special priesthood as a divine institution and the adoption of Old Testament conceptions of church officers. The antithesis of Ordo or κλῆρος (sc. τοῦ θεοῦ) and Plebs or λαός (λαϊκοί) when once expression had been given to it, tended to become even more marked and exclusive. In consequence of the successful extension of the churches the functions, rights and duties of the existing spiritual offices came to be more precisely determined and for the discharge of lower ecclesiastical service new offices were created. Thus arose the partition of the clergy into Ordines majores and Ordines minores. As it was in the provincial capital that common councils were held, which were convened, at first in consequence of the requirements of the hour, afterwards as regular institutions (Provincial Synods), the bishop of the particular capital assumed the president’s chair. Among the metropolitans pre-eminence was claimed by churches founded by Apostles (sedes apostolicæ), especially those of Rome, Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Ephesus and Corinth. To the idea of the unity and catholicity of the church, which was maintained and set forth with ever increasing decision, was added the idea of the Apostle Peter being the single individual representative of the church. This latter notion was founded on the misunderstood word of the Lord, Matt. xvi. 18, 19. Rome, as the capital of the world, where Peter and Paul suffered death as martyrs (§ 16, 1), arrogated to itself the name of Chair (Cathedra) of Peter and transferred the idea of the individual representation of the church to its bishops as the supposed successors of Peter.

§ 34.1. The Continuation of Charismatic Endowments into Post-Apostolic Times has, by means of the Apostolic Didache recently rendered accessible to us (§ 30, 7), not only received new confirmation, but their place in the church and their relation to it has been put in a far clearer light. In essential agreement with 1 Cor. xii. 28, and Eph. iv. 11 (§ 17, 5), it presents to us the three offices of Apostle, Prophet and Teacher. The Pastors and Teachers of the Epistle to the Ephesians, as well as of the passage from Corinthians, are grouped together in one; and the Evangelists, that is, helpers of the Apostles, appear now after the decease of the original Apostles, as their successors and heirs of their missionary calling under the same title of Apostles. Hermas indeed speaks only of Apostles and Teachers; but he himself appears as a Prophet and so witnesses to the continuance of that office. The place and task of the three offices are still the same as described in § 17, 5 from Eph. iv. 11, 12 and ii. 20. These three were not chosen like the bishops and deacons by the congregations, but appointment and qualifications for office were dependent on a divine call, somewhat like that of Acts xiii. 2-4, or on a charism that had evidently and admittedly been bestowed on them. They are further not permanent officials in particular congregations but travel about in the exercise of their teaching function from church to church. Prophets and Teachers, however, but not Apostles, might settle down permanently in a particular church.—In reference exclusively to the Apostles the Didache teaches as follows: In the case of their visiting an already constituted church they should stay there at furthest only two days and should accept provision only for one day’s journey but upon no account any money (Matt. x. 9, 10). Eusebius too, in his Ch. Hist., iii. 37, tells that after the death of the twelve the gospel was successfully spread abroad in all lands by means of itinerating Apostolic men, whom he designates, however, by the old name of evangelists, and praises them for having according to the command of the Lord (Matt. x. and Luke x.) parted their possessions among the poor, and having adhered strictly to the rule of everywhere laying only the foundations of the faith and leaving the further care of what they had planted to the settled pastors.—The Didache assigns the second place to the Prophets: they too, inasmuch as like the Apostles they are itinerants, are without a fixed residence; but they are distinguished from the latter by having their teaching functions directed not to the founding of a church but only to its edification, and in this respect they are related to the Teachers. Their distinguishing characteristic, however, is the possession of the charism of prophesying in the wider sense, whereas the Teachers’ charism consisted in the λόγος σοφίας and the λόγος γνώσεως (§ 17, 1). When they enter into a church as ἐν πνεύματι λαλοῦντες, that church may not, according to the Didache, in direct opposition to 1 Thess. v. 21; 1 Cor. xii. 10; xiv. 29; 1 John iv. 1, exercise the right of trying their doctrine, for that would be to commit the sin against the Holy Ghost who speaks through them, but the church may inquire of their life, and thus distinguish true prophets from the false. If they wish to settle down in a particular church, that church should make provision for their adequate maintenance by surrendering to them, after the pattern of the Mosaic law, all firstlings of cattle, and first fruits of grain and oil and wine, and also the first portion of their other possessions, “for they are your high priests.” This phrase means either, that for them they are with their prophetic gift what the high priests of the old covenant with their Urim and Thummim were to ancient Israel, or, as Harnack understands it on the basis of chap. x. 7: τοῖς προφήταις ἐπιτρέπετε εὐχαριστεῖν ὅσα θέλουσιν, while ordinary ministers had to confine themselves to the usual formularies, that they were pre-eminently entrusted with the administration of the Lord’s Supper which was the crowning part of the worship. If, however, there were no Prophets present, these first fruits were to be distributed among the poor.—The rank also of Teachers (διδάσκαλοι, Doctores) is still essentially the same as described in § 17, 5. As their constant association with the Apostles and Prophets would lead us to expect, they also were properly itinerant teachers, who like the Prophets had to minister to the establishment of existing churches in the Christian life, in faith and in hope. But when they settled down in a particular church, whether in consequence of that church’s special needs, or with its approval in accordance with their own wish, that church had to provide for their maintenance according to the principle that the labourer is worthy of his reward. The author of the Didache, as appears from the whole tenor of his book, was himself such a teacher. Hermas, who at the same time makes no mention of the Prophets, speaks only twice and that quite incidentally of the Teachers, without indicating particularly their duties and privileges.—The continuance of those three extraordinary offices down to the end of the 2nd cent. was of the utmost importance. The numerous churches scattered throughout all lands had not as yet a firmly established New Testament Canon nor any one general symbol in the form of a confession of faith, and so were without any outward bond of union: but these Teachers, by means of their itinerant mode of life and their authoritative position, which was for the first time clearly demonstrated by Harnack, contributed powerfully to the development of the idea of ecclesiastical unity. According to Harnack, the composition of the so-called Catholic Epistles and similar early Christian literature is to be assigned to them, and in this way he would account for the Apostolic features which are discoverable in these writings. He would not, however, attribute to them the fiction of claiming for their works an Apostolic origin, but supposes that the subsequently added superscriptions and the author’s name in the address rest upon an erroneous tradition.—The gradual disappearance of charismatic offices was mainly the result of the endeavour, that became more and more marked during the 2nd cent., after the adoption of current social usages and institutions, which necessarily led to a repression of the enthusiastic spirit out of which those offices had sprung and which could scarcely reconcile itself with what seemed to it worldly compromises and concessions. The fanatical and eccentric pretension to prophetic gifts in Montanism, with its uncompromising rigour (§ 40) and its withdrawal from church fellowship, gave to these charismatic offices their deadly blow. A further cause of their gradual decay may certainly be found in their relation to the growing episcopal hierarchy. At the time of the Didache, which knows nothing of a subordination of presbyters under the bishop (indeed like Phil. i. 1, it makes no mention of presbyters), this relation was one of thoroughly harmonious co-ordination and co-operation. In the 13th chap. the exhortation is given to choose only faithful and approved men as bishops and deacons, “for they too discharge for you τὴν λειτουργίαν τῶν προφητῶν καὶ διδασκάλων and so they represent along with those the τετιμημένοι among you.” The service of prophets, according to the Didache, was pre-eminently that of the ἀρχιερεῖς and so there was entrusted to them the consecration of the elements in the Lord’s Supper. This service the bishops and deacons discharged, inasmuch as, in addition to their own special duties as presidents of the congregation charged with its administration and discipline, they were required in the absence of prophets to conduct the worship. Then also they had to officiate as Teachers (1 Tim. v. 17) when occasion required and the necessary qualifications were possessed. But this peaceful co-operating of the two orders undoubtedly soon and often gave place to unseemly rivalry, and the hierarchical spirit obtruding itself in the Protepiscopate (§ 17, 6), which first of all reduced its colleagues from their original equality to a position of subordination soon asserted itself over against the extraordinary offices which had held a place co-ordinate with and in the department of doctrine and worship even more authoritative and important than that of the bishops themselves. They were only too readily successful in having their usurpation of their offices recognised as bearing the authority of a divine appointment. These soon completed the theory of the hierarchical and monarchical rank of the clergy and the absurd pretension to having obtained from God the absolute fulness of His Spirit and absolute sovereign power.

§ 34.2. The Development of the Episcopal Hierarchy was the result of an evolution which in existing circumstances was not only natural but almost necessary. In the deliberations and consultations of the college of presbyters constituting the ecclesiastical court, just as in every other such assembly, it must have been the invariable custom to confer upon one of their number, generally the eldest, or at least the one among them most highly esteemed, the presidency, committing to him the duty of the orderly conduct of the debates, as well as the formulating, publishing and enforcing of their decrees. This president must soon have won the pre-eminent authority of a primus inter pares, and have come to be regarded as an ἐπίσκοπος of higher rank. From such a primacy to supremacy, and from that to a monarchical position, the progress was natural and easy. In proportion as the official authority, the ἐπισκοπή, concentrated itself more and more in the president, the official title, ἐπίσκοπος, at first by way of eminence, then absolutely, was appropriated to him. This would be all the more easily effected since, owing to the twofold function of the office (§ 17, 5, 6), he who presided in the administrative council still bore the title of πρεσβύτερος. It was not accomplished, however, without a long continued struggle on the part of the presbyters who were relegated to a subordinate rank, which occasioned keen party contentions and divisions lasting down even into the 3rd century (§ 41). But the need of the churches to have in each one man to direct and control was mightier than this opposition. That need was most keenly felt when the church was threatened with division and dissolution by the spread of heretical and separatist tendencies. The need of a single president in the local churches was specially felt in times of violent persecution, and still more just after the persecution had ceased when multitudes who had fallen away during the days of trial sought to be again restored to the membership of the church (§ 39, 2), in order to secure the reorganization of the institution which, by violence from without and weakness within, had been so sorely rent. Both in the Old and in the New Testament there seemed ground for regarding the order of things that had grown up in the course of time as jure divino and as existing from the beginning. After the idea of a distinct sacerdotal class had again found favour, the distribution of the clergy in the Old Testament into High priest, priests and Levites was supposed to afford an exact analogy to that of the episcopate, presbyterate and diaconate. To effect this the charismatic offices of teaching had to be ignored and their divinely ordained functions had to be set aside. It was even supposed that the relative ranks in the offices of the Christian church must be determined by the corresponding orders in the Old Testament. Then in the gospels, it seemed as if the relations of Christ to His disciples corresponded to that of the bishop to the presbyters; and from the Acts of the Apostles the preponderating authority of James at the head of the Jerusalem presbytery or eldership (§ 17, 2) might be used as a witness for the supremacy of the bishop. The oldest and most important contender for the monarchical rank of the bishop is the author of the Ignatian Epistles (§ 30, 5). In every bishop he sees the representative of Christ, and in the college of presbyters the representatives of the Apostles. In the Clementines too the bishop appears as ἐπὶ τῆς Χριστοῦ καθέδρας καθεσθείς. This view also finds expression in the Apostolic Constitutions (2, 26), and even in the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite (§ 47, 11). Another theory, according to which the bishops are successors of the Apostles and as such heirs of the absolute dominion conferred in Matt. xiv. 18, 19 upon Peter and through him on all the Apostles, sprang up in the West and gained currency by means of Cyprian’s eloquent enunciation of it (§ 34, 7).

§ 34.3. The Regular Ecclesiastical Offices of the Old Catholic Age. The Ordines Majores embraced the Bishops, Presbyters and Deacons. Upon the Bishop, elected by the people and the clergy in common, there devolved in his monarchical position the supreme conduct of all the affairs of the church. The exclusively episcopal privileges were these: the ordination of presbyters and deacons, the absolving of the penitent, according to strict rule also the consecration of the eucharistic elements, in later times also the right of speaking at Synods, and in the West also the confirmation of the baptised. In large cities where a single church was no longer sufficient daughter churches were instituted. Country churches founded outside of the cities were supplied with presbyters and deacons from the city. If they increased in importance, they chose for themselves their own bishop, who remained, however, as Χωρεπίσκοπος dependent upon the city bishop. Thus distinctly official episcopal dioceses came to be formed. And just as the city bishops had a pre-eminence over the country bishops, so also the bishops of the chief cities of provinces soon came as metropolitans to have a pre-eminence over those of other cities. To them was granted the right of calling and presiding at the Synods, and of appointing and ordaining the bishops of their province. The name Metropolitan, however, was first used in the Acts of the Council of Nicæa in A.D. 325.—The Presbyters were now only the advisers and assistants of the bishop, whose counsel and help he accepted just in such ways and at such times as seemed to him good. They were employed in the directing of the affairs of the church, in the administration of the sacrament, in preaching and in pastoral work, but only at the bidding or with the express permission of the bishop. During the following period for the first time, when demands had multiplied, and the episcopal authority was no longer in need of being jealously guarded, were their functions enlarged to embrace an independent pastoral care, preaching and dispensation of the sacraments for which they were personally responsible.—In regard to official position the Deacons had a career just the converse of this; for their importance increased just as the range of their official functions was enlarged. Seeing that in the earliest times they had occupied a position subordinate to the presbyter-bishops, they could not be regarded in this way as their rivals; and the development of the proto-presbyterate into a monarchical episcopate was too evidently in their own interests to awaken any opposition on their part. They therefore stood in a far closer relation to the bishops than did the presbyters. They were his confidants, his companions in travel, often also his deputies and representatives at the Synods. To them he committed the distribution of the church’s alms, for which their original charge of the poor qualified them. To these duties were added also many of the parts of divine service; they baptised under the commission of the bishop, obtained and prepared the sacramental elements, handed round the cup, at the close of the service carried to the sick and imprisoned the body and blood of the Lord, intimated the beginning and the close of the various parts of divine service, recited the public prayers, read the gospels, and kept order during worship. Often, too, they preached the sermon. In consequence of the preponderating position given to the Old Testament idea of the priesthood the bishop was compared to the high priest, the presbyters to the priests, and the deacons to the Levites, and so too did they already assume the name, from which the German word “Priester,” English “Priest,” French “Prêtre,” Italian “Prête,” is derived.

Among the Ordines Minores the oldest was the office of Reader, Ἀναγνώστης. In the time of Cyprian this place was heartily accorded to the Confessors. In later times it was usual to begin the clerical career with service in the readership. The duties of this office were the public reading of the longer scripture portions and the custody of the sacred books. Somewhat later than the readership the office of the Subdiaconi, ὑποδιάκονοι was instituted. They were assistants to the Deacons, and as such took first rank among the Ordines Minores, and of these were alone regarded as worthy of ordination. Toward the end of the 3rd century the office of the Cantores, ψαλταί, was instituted for the conducting of the public service of praise. The Acolytes, who are met with in Rome first about the middle of the 3rd century, were those who accompanied the bishop as his servants. The Exorcists discharged the spiritual function of dealing with those possessed of evil spirits, ἐνεργούμενοι, δαιμονιζόμενοι, over whom they had to repeat the public prayers and the formula of exorcism. As there was also an exorcism associated with baptism, the official functions of the exorcists extended to the catechumens. The Ostiarii or Janitores, θυρωροί, πυλωροί, occupied the lowest position.—In the larger churches for the instruction of the catechumens there were special Catechists appointed, Doctores audientium, and where the need was felt, especially in the churches of North Africa speaking the Punic tongue, there were also Interpreters whose duty it was to translate and interpret the scripture lessons. To the Deaconesses, for the most part widows or virgins, was committed the care of the poor and sick, the counselling of inexperienced women and maidens, the general oversight of the female catechumens. They had no clerical character.—The Ordination of the clergy was performed by the laying on of hands. Those were disqualified who had just recently been baptised or had received baptism only during severe illness (Neophyti, Clinici), also all who had been excommunicated and those who had mutilated themselves.—Continuation, § 45, 3.

§ 34.4. Clergy and Laity.—The idea that a priestly mediation between sinful men and a gracious deity was necessary had been so deeply implanted in the religious consciousness of pre-Christian antiquity, pagan as well as Jewish, that a form of public worship without a priesthood seemed almost as inconceivable as a religion without a god. And even though the inspired writings of the New Testament decidedly and expressly taught that the pre-Christian or Old Testament institution of a special human priesthood had been abolished and merged in the one eternal mediation of the exalted Son of God and Son of man, and that there was now a universal spiritual priesthood of all Christians with the right and privilege of drawing near even to the heavenly throne of grace (Heb. iv. 16; 1 Pet. ii. 5, 9; Rev. i. 6), yet, in consequence of the idea of the permanence of Old Testament institutions which prevailed, even in the Post-Apostolic Age, the sacerdotal theory came more and more into favour. This relapse to the Old Testament standpoint was moreover rendered almost inevitable by the contemporary metamorphosis of the ecclesiastical office which existed as the necessary basis of human organisation (§ 17, 4) into a hierarchical organisation resting upon an assumed divine institution. For clericalism, with its claims to be the sole divinely authorised channel for the communication of God’s grace, was the correlate and the indispensable support of hierarchism, with its exclusive claims to legislative, judicial, disciplinary and administrative precedence in the affairs of the church. The reaction which Montanism (§ 40) initiated in the interests of the Christian people against the hierarchical and clerical tendencies spreading throughout the church, was without result owing to its extreme extravagance. Tertullian emphasised indeed very strongly the Apostolic idea of the universal priesthood of all Christians, but in Cyprian this is allowed to fall quite behind the priesthood of the clergy and ultimately came to be quite forgotten.—The Old Catholic Age, however, shows many reminiscences of the original relation of the congregation to the ecclesiastical officers, or as it would now be called, of the laity to the clergy. That the official teaching of religion and preaching in the public assemblies of the church, although as a rule undertaken by the Ordines majores, might even then in special circumstances and with due authorisation be discharged by laymen, was shown by the Catechetical institution at Alexandria and by the case of Origen who when only a Catechist often preached in the church. The Apostolic Constitutions, too, 8, 31, supported the view that laymen, if only they were skilful in the word and of irreproachable lives, should preach by a reference to the promise: “They shall be all taught of God.” The repeated expressions of disapproval of the administration of the eucharist by laymen in the Ignatian Epistles presupposes the frequent occurrence of the practice; Tertullian would allow it in case of necessity, for “Ubi tres, ecclesia est, licet laici.” Likewise in reference to the administration of baptism he teaches that under ordinary circumstances propter ecclesiæ honorem it should be administered only by the bishop and the clergy appointed by him to the work, alioquin (e.g. in times of persecution) etiam laicis jus est. This, too, is the decision of the Council of Elvira in A.D. 306. The report which Cyprian gives of his procedure in regard to the vast number of the Lapsi of his time (§ 39, 2; 41, 2) affords evidence that at least in extraordinary and specially difficult cases of discipline the whole church was consulted. The people’s right to take part in the choice of their minister had not yet been questioned, and their assistance at least in the Synods was never refused.

§ 34.5. The Synods.—The Council of Apostles at Jerusalem (Acts xv.) furnished an example of Synodal deliberation and issuing of decrees. But even in the pagan world such institutions had existed. The old religio-political confederacies in Greece and Asia Minor had indeed since the time of the Roman conquest lost their political significance; but their long accustomed assemblies (κοιναὶ σύνοδοι, Concilia) continued to meet in the capitals of the provinces under the presidency of the Roman governor. The fact that the same nomenclature was adopted seems to show that they were not without formal influence on the origin of the institution of the church synod. The first occasion for such meetings was given by the Montanist movements in Asia Minor (§ 40, 1); and soon thereafter by the controversies about the observance of Easter (§ 37, 2). In the beginning of the 3rd century the Provincial Synods had already assumed the position of fixed and regularly recurring institutions. In the time of Cyprian, the presbyters and deacons took an active part in the Synods alongside of the bishops, and the people generally were not prevented from attending. No decision could be arrived at without the knowledge and the acquiescence of the members of the church. From the time of the Nicene Council, in A.D. 325, the bishops alone had a vote and the presence of the laity was more and more restricted. The decrees of Synods were communicated to distant churches by means of Synodal rescripts, and even in the 3rd century the claim was made in these, in accordance with Acts xv., to the immediate enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.—Continuation, § 43, 2.

§ 34.6. Personal and Epistolary Intercourse.—From the very earliest times the Christian churches of all lands maintained a regular communication with one another through messengers or itinerating brethren. The Teaching of the XII. Apostles furnishes the earliest account of this: Any one who comes from another place in the name of the Lord shall be received as a brother; one who is on his journey, however, shall not accept the hospitality of the church for more than two, or at furthest than three days; but if he chooses to remain in the place, he must engage in work for his own support, in which matter the church will help him; if he will not so conduct himself he is to be sent back as a χριστέμπορος, who has been seeking to make profit out of his profession of Christ. The Didache knows nothing as yet of the letters of authentication among the earlier messengers of the church which soon became necessary and customary. As a guarantee against the abuse of this custom such συστατικαὶ ἐπιστολαί (2 Cor. iii. 1) had come into use even in Tertullian’s time, who speaks of a Contesseratio hospitalitatis, in such a form that they were understood only by the initiated as recognisable tokens of genuineness, and were hence called Litteræ formatæ, or γράμματα τετυπωμένα. The same care was also taken in respect of important epistolary communications from one church to another or to other churches. Among these were included, e.g. the Synodal rescripts, the so-called γράμματα ἐνθρονιστικά by which the newly-chosen bishops intimated their entrance upon office to the other bishops of their district, the Epistolæ festales (paschales) regarding the celebration of a festival, especially the Easter festival (§ 56, 3), communications about important church occurrences, especially about martyrdoms (§ 32, 8), etc. According to Optatus of Mileve (§ 63, 1): “Totus orbis” could boast of “comnmercio formatarum in una communionis societate concordat.”

§ 34.7. The Unity and Catholicity of the Church.—The fact that Christianity was destined to be a religion for the world, which should embrace all peoples and tongues, and should permeate them all with one spirit and unite them under one heavenly head, rested upon the presupposition that the church was one and universal or catholic. The inward unity of the spirit demanded also a corresponding unity in manifestation. It is specially evident from the Teaching of the XII. Apostles that the consciousness of the unity of the church had deeply rooted itself even in the Post-Apostolic Age (§ 20, 1). “The points which according to it prove the unity of Christendom are the following: firstly, the disciplina in accordance with the ethical requirements of the Lord, secondly, baptism in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, thirdly, the order of fasting and prayer, especially the regular use of the Lord’s Prayer, and fourthly and lastly, the eucharist, i.e. the sacred meal in partaking of which the church gives thanks to God, the creator of all things, for the revelation imparted to it through Jesus, for faith and knowledge and immortality, and implores the fulfilment of its hope, the overthrow of this world, the coming again of Christ, and reception into the kingdom of God. He who has this doctrine and acts in accordance with it is a ‘Christian,’ belongs to ‘the saints,’ is a ‘brother,’ and ought to be received even as the Lord” (Harnack). The struggle against the Gnostics had the effect of transforming this primitive Christian idea of unity into a consciousness of the necessity of adopting a common doctrinal formula, which again this controversy rendered much more definite and precise, to which a concise popular expression was given in one common Regula fidei (§ 35, 2), and by means of which the specific idea of catholicity was developed (§ 20, 2).—The misleading and dangerous thing about this construction and consolidation of one great Catholic church was that every deviation from external forms in the constitution and worship as well as erroneous doctrine, immorality and apostasy, was regarded as a departing from the one Catholic church, the body of Christ, and consequently, since not only the body was put upon the same level with the head, but even the garment of the body was identified with the body itself, as a separating from the communion of Christ, involving the loss of salvation and eternal blessedness. This notion received a powerful impulse during the 2nd century when the unity of the church was threatened by heresies, sects and divisions. It reached its consummation and won the Magna Charta of its perfect enunciation in Cyprian’s book De Unitate Ecclesiæ. In the monarchical rank of the bishop of each church, as the representative of Christ, over the college of presbyters, as representatives of the Apostles, Ignatius of Antioch sees the guarantee of the church’s unity. According to Cyprian, this unity has its expression in the Apostolate; in the Episcopate it has its support. The promise of Christ, Matt. xvi. 18, is given to Peter, not as the head but as the single representative of the Apostles (John xx. 21). The Apostolic office, with the promise attached to it, passed from the Apostles by means of ordination to the bishops. These, through their monarchical rank, represent continuously for the several churches (Ecclesia est in episcopo), and through their combined action, for the whole of Christendom, the unity of the church; Episcopatus unus est, cujus a singulus in solidum, pars tenetur. All the bishops, just as all the Apostles, have perfect parity with one another; pares consortio, jure et honore. Each of them is a successor of Peter and heir of the promise given first to Peter but for all.—He who cuts himself off from the bishops, cuts himself off from the church. Habere non potest Deum patrem, qui ecclesiam non habet matrem.... Extra ecclesiam nulla spes salutis. Alongside of the Apostolic writings, the tradition which prevailed among the Apostolic churches (Sedes apostolicæ) was regarded as a standard of catholicity in constitution, worship and doctrine; indeed, it must even have ranked above the Apostolic writings themselves in settling the question of the New Testament Canon (§ 36, 8), until these had secured general circulation and acceptance.

§ 34.8. The Roman Primacy.—The claims of the Roman bishopric to the primacy over the whole church, which reached its fuller development in the 4th and 5th centuries (§ 46, 7), were founded originally and chiefly on the assertion that the promise of Matt. xvi. 18, 19, was given only and exclusively to the Apostle Peter as the Primate of the Apostles and the head of the church. This assumption overlooked the fact that in Matt. xviii. 18 and John xx. 21 ff., this promise was given with reference to all the Apostles. These claims were further supposed to be supported by the words addressed to Peter, “strengthen thy brethren” (Luke xxii. 31), which seemed to accord to Peter a primacy over his fellow Apostles; and also by the interpretation given of John xxi. 15 ff., where “lambs” were understood of laymen and “sheep” of the Apostles. It was likewise assumed that the bishop of Rome was the successor of Peter, and so the legitimate and only heir of all his prerogatives. The fable of the Roman bishopric of Peter (§ 16, 1) was at an early period unhesitatingly adopted, all the more because no one expected the results which in later times were deduced from a quite different understanding of Matt. xvi. 18. During this whole period such consequences were never dreamt of either by a Roman bishop or by anybody else. Only this was readily admitted at least by the West that Rome was the foremost of all the Apostolic churches, that there the Apostolic tradition had been preserved in its purest form, and that, therefore, its bishops should have a particularly influential voice in all questions that were to be judged of by the whole episcopate, and the Roman bishops were previously content with taking advantage of this concession in the largest measure possible.[96]

§ 35. THE ADMINISTRATION OF BAPTISM.[97]

As an indispensable means to participation in salvation and as a condition of reception into the communion of the church, baptism was practised from the earliest times. Infant baptism, though not universally adopted, was yet in theory almost universally admitted to be proper. Tertullian alone is found opposing it. All adults who desired baptism had, as Catechumens, to pass through a course of training under a Christian teacher. Many, however, voluntarily and purposely postponed their baptism, frequently even to a deathbed, in order that all the sins of their lives might be certainly removed by baptismal grace. After a full course of instruction had been passed through, the Catechumens prepared themselves for baptism by prayer and fasting, and before the administration of the sacred ordinance they were required to renounce the devil and all his works (Abrenuntiare diabolo et pompæ et angelis ejus) and to recite a confession of their faith. The controversy as to whether baptism administered by heretics should be regarded as valid was conducted with great bitterness during the 3rd century.

§ 35.1. The Preparation for Receiving Baptism.—After a complete exposition of the evangelical moral code in chap. 1-6, the Teaching of the XII. Apostles proceeds thus: Ταῦτα πάντα προειπόντες βαπτίσατε εἰς τὸ ὄνομα, etc. At this time, therefore, besides the necessarily presupposed acquaintance with the chief points in the gospel history, the initiation into the moral doctrine of the gospel of the person receiving baptism was regarded as most essential in the baptismal instruction. In this passage there is no mention of a doctrinal course of teaching based upon a symbol. But what here is still wanting is given in a summary way in chaps. 7 ff. in the instructions about baptism and the Lord’s supper attached to the baptismal formula and the eucharistic prayers. This therefore was reserved for that worship from which the candidates for baptism and the newly baptized had to gather their faith and hope as to the future completion of the kingdom of God. First the struggle against Gnosticism obliged the church to put more to the front the doctrines of faith which were thereby more fully developed, and to concern itself with these questions even in the instruction of the Catechumens. The custom, which the Didache and Justin Martyr show to have been prevalent in post-Apostolic times, of the baptiser together with others voluntarily offering themselves taking part with the candidate for baptism in completing the preparation for the holy ordinance by observing a two days’ fast, seems soon, so far as the baptiser and the others were concerned, to have fallen into desuetude, and is never again mentioned.—Since the development of the Old Catholic church the preparation of candidates for baptism has been divided into two portions of very unequal duration, namely, that of instruction, for which on an average a period of two years was required, and that of immediate preparation by prayer and fasting after the instructions had been completed. During the former period the aspirants were called κατηχοῦμενοι, Catechumeni; during the latter, φωτιζόμενοι, Competentes. As to their participation in the public divine service, the Catechumens were first of all as ἀκροώμενοι admitted only to the hearing of the sermon, and had thus no essential privileges over the unbelievers. They first came into closer connection with the church only when it was permitted them to take part in the devotional exercises, yet only in those portions which had reference to themselves, kneeling as γονυκλίνοντες, while also the congregation prayed kneeling. Only in cases of dangerous illness could baptism be given before the Catechumen had completed his full course (Baptismus Clinicorum). The Council of Neo-Cæsarea soon after A.D. 314 ordained that a Catechumen who as a γονυκλίνων had been guilty of an open sin, should be put back to the first stage of the Catechumenate, namely, to that of the ἀκροᾶσθαι, and if he then again sinned he should be cast off altogether; and the Œcumenical Council of Nicæa in A.D. 325 demanded that offending (παραπέσοντες) Catechumens should remain ἀκροώμενοι for three years and only then should be allowed to take part in the devotional service of the church.[98]

§ 35.2. The Baptismal Formula.—In close connection with the words of institution of baptism (Matt. xxviii. 19) and hence in a trinitarian framework, an outline of the doctrine common to all the churches, introduced first of all as a confession of faith professed by candidates for baptism, obtained currency at a very early date. Only a few unimportant modifications were afterwards made upon it, and amid all the varieties of provincial and local conditions, the formula remained essentially the same. Hence it could always be properly characterized with Irenæus as ἀκλινής, and with Tertullian as immobilis et irreformabilis. As a token of membership in the Catholic church it is called the Baptismal Formula or Symbolum. After the introduction of the Disciplina arcani (§ 36, 4) it was included in that, and hence was kept secret from heathens and even from catechumens, and first communicated to the competentes. As the “unalterable and inflexible” test and standard of the faith and doctrine, as well as an intellectual bond of union between churches scattered over all the earth, it was called Regula fidei and Κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας. That we never find it quoted in the Old Catholic Age, is to be explained from its inclusion in the disciplina arcani and by this also, that the ancient church in common with Jeremiah (xxxi. 33), laid great stress upon its being engraven not with pen and ink on paper, but with the pen of the Holy Spirit on the hearts of believers. Instead then of literal quotation we find among the fathers of the Old Catholic Age (Irenæus, Tertullian, Origen, Novatian, etc.) only paraphrastic and explanatory references to it which, seeing that no sort of official sanction was accorded them in the church, are erroneously spoken of as Regulæ fidei. These paraphrases, however, are valuable as affording information about the creed of the early church, because what is found the same in them all must be regarded as an integral part of the original document. In harmony with this is the testimony of Rufinus, about A.D. 390, who in his Expositio Symb. apost. produces three different recensions, namely, the Roman, the Aquileian and the Oriental. The oldest and simplest was that used in Rome, traces of which may be found as early as the middle of the 2nd century. In the time of Rufinus there was a tradition that this Roman creed had been composed by the XII. Apostles in Jerusalem at the time of their scattering, as a universal rule of faith, and had been brought to Rome by Peter. It is not quite the same as that known among us as the Apostles’ Creed. It wants the phrases “Creator of heaven and earth,” “suffered, dead, descended into hell,” “catholic, communion of saints, eternal life.” The creed of Aquileia adopted the clause “Descendit ad infera,” and intensified the clause Carnis resurrectio by the addition of “hujus” and the phrase Deus pater omnipotens by the addition of the anti-Patripassian predicate (§ 33, 4) invisibilis et impassibilis.

§ 35.3. The Administration of Baptism.—According to the showing of the Teaching of the XII. Apostles baptism was ordinarily administered by a thrice-repeated immersion in flowing water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. If there be no flowing water at hand, any other kind, even warm water, may be used, and in case of necessity sprinkling may be substituted for the thrice-repeated immersion. At a later time sprinkling was limited to the baptism of the sick, Baptismus clinicorum. We hear nothing of a consecration of the water to its holy use, nor is there any mention of the renunciation and exorcism which became customary first in the 3rd century through the use of a form of adjuration previously employed only in cases of possession. Upon immersion followed an anointing, χρίσμα (still unknown to the Didache), as a symbol of consecration to a spiritual priesthood (1 Pet. ii. 9), and then, in accordance with Acts viii. 16 f., the laying on of hands as the vehicle for the communication of the Holy Spirit. Soon the immersion came to be regarded as the negative part of the ordinance, the putting away of sin, and the anointing with the laying on of hands as the positive part, the communication of the Spirit. In the Eastern church presbyters and deacons were permitted to dispense baptism including also the anointing. Both, therefore, continued there unseparated. In the West, however, the bishops claimed the laying on of hands as their exclusive right, referring in support of their claim to Acts viii. Where then the bishop did not himself dispense the baptism, the laying on of hands as well as the chrismatic anointing was given separately and in addition by him as Confirmation, Confirmatio, Consignatio, which separation, even when the baptism was administered by a bishop, soon became the usual and legal practice. Nevertheless even in the Roman church there was at the baptism an anointing with oil which had canonical sanction and was designated chrism, without prejudice to confirmation as an independent act at a later time. The usual seasons for administering baptism were Easter, especially the Sabbath of Passion week, baptism into the death of Christ, Rom. vi. 3, and Pentecost, and in the East also the Epiphany. The place for the administration of baptism was regarded as immaterial. With infant baptism was introduced the custom of having sponsors, ἀνάδοχοι, sponsores, who as sureties repeated the confession of faith in the name of the unconscious infant receiving the baptism.—Continuation, § 58, 1.

§ 35.4. The Doctrine of Baptism.—The Epistle of Barnabas says: Ἀναβαίνομεν καρποφοροῦντες ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ. Hermas says: Ascendunt vitæ assignati. With Justin the water of baptism is a ὕδωρ τῆς ζωῆς, ἐξ οὗ ἀναγεννήθημεν, According to Irenæus it effects a ἕνωσις πρὸς ἀφθαρσίαν. Tertullian says: Supervenit spiritus de cœlis,—caro spiritualiter mundatur. Cyprian speaks of an unda genitalis, of a nativitas secunda in novum hominem. Firmilian says: Nativitas, quæ est in baptismo, filios Dei generat. Origen calls baptism χαρισμάτων θείων ἀρχὴν καὶ πηγήν.—Of the bloody baptism of martyrdom Tertullian exclaims: Lavacrum non acceptum repræsentat et perditum reddit. Hermes and Clement of Alexandria maintain that there will be in Hades a preaching and a baptism for the sake of pious Gentiles and Jews.

§ 35.5. The Controversy about Heretics’ Baptism.—The church of Asia Minor and Africa denied the validity of baptism administered by heretics; but the Roman church received heretics returning to the fold of the Catholic church, if only they had been baptized in the name of Christ or of the Holy Trinity, without a second baptism, simply laying on the hands as in the case of penitents. Stephen of Rome would tolerate no other than the Roman custom and hastened to break off church fellowship with those of Asia Minor (A.D. 253). Cyprian of Carthage whose ideal of the unity of that church in which alone salvation was to be obtained seemed to be overthrown by the Roman practice, and Firmilian of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, were the most vigorous supporters of the view condemned by Rome. Three Carthaginian Synods, the last and most important in A.D. 256, decided unequivocally in their favour. Dionysius of Alexandria sought to effect a reconciliation by writing a tenderly affectionate address to Stephen. To this end even more effectively wrought the Valerian persecution, which soon afterwards broke out, during which Stephen himself suffered martyrdom (A.D. 257). Thus the controversy reached no conclusion. The Roman practice, however, continued to receive more and more acceptance, and was confirmed by the first Œcumenical Council at Nicæa in A.D. 325, with the exclusion only of the Samosatians (§ 33, 8); likewise also at the Council at Constantinople in A.D. 381, with the exclusion of the Montanists (§ 40, 1), the Eunomians (§ 50, 3) and the Sabellians (§ 33, 7). These exceptions, therefore, referred mostly to the Unitarian heretics, the Montanists being excluded on account of their doctrine of the Paraclete. Augustine’s successful polemic against the Donatists (§ 63, 1), in his treatise in seven books De baptismo first overcame all objections hitherto waged against the validity of baptism administered by heretics derived from the objectivity of the sacrament, and henceforth all that was required was that it should be given in the name of the three-one God.

§ 36. PUBLIC WORSHIP AND ITS VARIOUS PARTS.[99]

There was a tendency from the 2nd century onwards more and more to dissolve the connection of the Lord’s Supper with the evening Agape (§ 17, 7). Trajan’s strict prohibition of secret societies, hetæræ (§ 22, 2) seems to have given the first occasion for the separation of these two and for the temporary suppression of the love-feasts. The Lord’s Supper was now observed during the Sunday forenoon service and the mode of its observance is described even by Justin Martyr. In consideration of the requirements of the Catechumens the service was divided into two parts, a homiletical and a sacramental, and from the latter all unbaptized persons, as well as all under discipline and those possessed of evil spirits, were excluded. Each part of the service was regularly closed by a concluding benediction, and in the West bore the designations respectively of Missa catechumenorum and Missa fidelium, while in the East they were distinguished as λειτουργία τῶν κατηχουμένων and λειτουργία τῶν πιστῶν. In connection with this there grew up a notion that the sacramental action had a mysterious character, Disciplina arcani. Owing to the original connection of the Supper with the Agape it became customary to provide the elements used in the ordinance from the voluntary gifts brought by the members of the church, which were called Oblationes, προσφοραί,—a designation which helped to associate the idea of sacrifice with the observance of the Lord’s Supper.

§ 36.1. The Agape.—That in consequence of the imperial edict against secret societies, at least in Asia Minor, the much suspected and greatly maligned love-feasts (§ 22) were temporarily abandoned, appears from the report of Pliny to the Emperor, according to which the Christians of whom he made inquiries assured him that they had given up the mos coeundi ad capiendum cibum promiscuum. But in Africa they were still in use or had been revived in the time of Tertullian, who in his Apology makes mention very approvingly of them, although at a later period, after he had joined the Montanists, he lashes them in his book De Jejuniis with the most stinging sarcasm. Clement of Alexandria too is aware of flagrant abuses committed in connection with those feasts. They continued longest to be observed in connection with the services in commemoration of the dead and on the festivals of martyrs. The Council of Laodicæa, about the middle of the 4th century, forbade the holding of these in the churches and the Second Trullan Council in A.D. 692 renewed this prohibition. After this we find no further mention of them.

§ 36.2. The Missa Catechumenorum.—The reading of scripture (ἀνάγνωσις, Lectio,—comp. § 36, 7) formed the chief exercise during this part of the service. There was unrestricted liberty as to the choice of the portions to be read. It was the duty of the Readers, Ἀναγνώσται, to perform this part of the worship, but frequently Evangelists on the invitation of the Deacons would read, and the whole congregation showed their reverence by standing up. At the close of the reading an expository and practical address (ὁμιλία, λόγος, Sermo, Tractatus) was given by the bishop or in his absence by a presbyter or deacon, or even by a Catechist, as in the case of Origen, and soon, especially in the Greek church, this assumed the form of an artistic, rhetorical discourse. The reading and exposition of God’s word were followed by the prayers, to which the people gave responses. These were uttered partly by the bishop, partly by the deacons, and were extemporary utterances of the heart, though very soon they assumed a stereotyped form. The congregation responded to each short sentence of the prayer with Κύριε ἐλέησον. In the fully developed order of public worship of the 3rd century the prayers were arranged to correspond to the different parts of the service, for Catechumens, energumens (possessed), and penitents. After all these came the common prayer of the church for all sorts of callings, conditions, and needs in the life of the brethren.

§ 36.3. The Missa Fidelium.—The centre of this part of the service was the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. In the time of Justin Martyr the liturgy connected therewith was very simple. The brotherly kiss followed the common prayer, then the sacramental elements were brought in to the ministrant who consecrated them by the prayer of praise and thanksgiving (εὐχαριστία). The people answered Amen, and thereupon the consecrated elements were distributed to all those present. From that prayer the whole ordinance received the name εὐχαριστία, because its consecrating influence made common bread into the bread of the Supper. Much more elaborate is the liturgy in the 8th Book of the Apostolic Constitutions (§ 43, 4), which may be regarded as a fair sample of the worship of the church toward the end of the 3rd century. At the close of the sermon during the prayers connected with that part of the service began the withdrawal successively of the Catechumens, the energumens and the penitents. Then the Missa fidelium was commenced with the common intercessory prayer of the church. After various collects and responses there followed the brotherly kiss, exhortation against participation in unworthy pleasures, preparation of the sacramental elements, the sign of the cross, the consecration prayer, the words of institution, the elevation of the consecrated elements, all accompanied by suitable prayers, hymns, doxologies and responses. The bishop or presbyter distributed the bread with the words, Σῶμα Χριστοῦ; the deacon passed round the cup with the words, Αἷμα Χριστοῦ, ποτήριον ζωῆς. Finally the congregation kneeling received the blessing of the bishop, and the deacon dismissed them with the words, Ἀπολύεσθε ἐν εἰρήνῃ.—The bread was that commonly used, i.e., leavened bread (κοινὸς ἄρτος); the wine also was, according to the custom of time, mixed with water (κρᾶμα), in which Cyprian already fancied a symbol of the union of Christ and the church. In the African and Eastern churches, founding on John vi. 53, children, of course, those who had already been baptised, were allowed to partake of the communion. At the close of the service the deacons carried the consecrated sacramental elements to the sick and imprisoned. In many places a portion of the consecrated bread was taken home, that the family might use it at morning prayer for the consecration of the new day. No formal act of confession preceded the communion. The need of such an act in consequence of the existing disciplinary and liturgical ordinance had not yet made itself felt.

§ 36.4. The Disciplina Arcani.—The notion that the sacramental part of the divine service, including in this the prayers and hymns connected therewith, the Lord’s prayer, administration of baptism and the baptismal formula, as well as the anointing and the consecration of the priest, was a mystery (μυστικὴ λατρεία, τελετή) which was to be kept secret from all unbaptised persons (ἀμύητοι) and only to be practised in presence of the baptised (συμμύσται), is quite unknown to Justin Martyr and also to Irenæus. Justin accordingly describes in his Apology, expressly intended for the heathen, in full detail and without hesitation, all the parts of the eucharistic service. It was in Tertullian’s time that this notion originated, and it had its roots in the catechumenate and the consequent partition of the service into two parts, from the second of which the unbaptised were excluded. The official Roman Catholic theology, on the other hand, regards the disciplina arcani as an institution existing from the times of the Apostles, and from it accounts for the want of patristic support to certain specifically Roman Catholic dogmas and forms of worship, in order that they may, in spite of the want of such support, maintain that these had a place in primitive Christianity.

§ 36.5. The Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper.—Though the idea was not sharply and clearly defined, there was yet a widespread and profound conviction that the Lord’s Supper was a supremely holy mystery, spiritual food indispensable to eternal life, that the body and blood of the Lord entered into some mystical connection with the bread and wine, and placed the believing partaker of them in true and essential fellowship with Christ. It was in consequence of the adoption of such modes of expression that the pagan calumnies about Thyestian feasts (§ 22) first gained currency. Ignatius calls the Lord’s Supper a φάρμακον ἀθανασίας, the cup a ποτήριον εἰς ἕνωσιν τοῦ αἵματος Χριστοῦ, and professes εὐχαριστίαν σάρκα εἶναι τοῦ σωτῆρος. Justin Martyr says: σάρκα καὶ αἷμα ἐδιδάχθημεν εἶναι. According to Irenæus, it is not communis panis, sed eucharistia ex duabus rebus constans, terrena et cœlesti, and our bodies by means of its use become jam non corruptibilia, spem resurrectionis habentia. Tertullian and Cyprian, too, stoutly maintain this doctrine, but incline sometimes to a more symbolical interpretation of it. The spiritualistic Alexandrians, Clement and Origen, consider that the feeding of the soul with the divine word is the purpose of the Lord’s Supper.[100]—Continuation § 58, 2.

§ 36.6. The Sacrificial Theory.—When once the sacerdotal theory had gained the ascendancy (§ 34, 4) the correlated notion of a sacrifice could not much longer be kept in the background. And it was just in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper that the most specious grounds for such a theory were to be found. First of all the prayer, which formed so important a part of this celebration that the whole service came to be called from it the Eucharist, might be regarded as a spiritual sacrifice. Then again the gifts brought by the congregation for the dispensation of the sacrament were called προσφοραί, Oblationes, names which were already in familiar use in connection with sacrificial worship. And just as the congregation offered their contributions to the Supper, so also the priests offered them anew in the sacramental action, and also to this priestly act was given the name προσφέρειν, ἀναφέρειν. Then again, not only the prayer but the Supper itself was designated a θυσία, Sacrificium, though at first indeed in a non-literal, figurative sense.—Continuation § 58, 3.

§ 36.7. The Use of Scripture.—In consequence of their possessing but few portions of Scripture, the references of the Apostolic Fathers to the New Testament books must necessarily be only occasional. The synoptic gospels are most frequently quoted, though these are referred to only as a whole under the name τὸ εὐαγγέλιον. In Justin Martyr the references become more frequent, yet even here there are no express citation of passages; only once, in the Dialogue, is the Revelation of John named. He mentions as his special source for the life and works of Jesus the Ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν ἀποστόλων. What he borrows from this source is for the most part to be found in our Synoptic Gospels; but we have not in this sufficient ground for identifying the one with the other. On the contrary, we find that the citations of our Lord’s words do not correspond to the text of our gospels, but are sometimes rather in verbal agreement with the Apocryphal writings, and still further, that he adopts Apocryphal accounts of the life of Jesus, e.g., the birth of Christ in a cave, the coming of the Magi from Arabia, the legend that Jesus as a carpenter made ploughs and yokes, etc., borrowing them from the Ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν ἀποστόλων. If one further considers Justin’s account of the Sunday service as consisting of the reading of the Ἀπομνημονεύματα or the writings of the Prophets, and thereafter closed by the expository and hortatory address of the president (προεστώς), he will be led to the conclusion that his “Apostolic Memoirs” must have been a Gospel Harmony for church use, probably on the basis of Matthew’s Gospel drawn from our Synoptic Gospels, with the addition of some apocryphal and traditional elements. The author of the Didache too does not construct his “commands of the Lord communicated by the Apostles” directly from our Synoptic Gospels, but from a εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ κυρίου which presented a text of Matthew enriched by additions from Luke. The Diatessaron of Tatian (§ 30, 10) shows that soon after this the gospel of John, which was not regarded by Justin or the author of the Didache as a source for the evangelical history, although there are not wanting in both manifold references to it, came to be regarded as a work to be read in combination with these. It was only after a New Testament Canon had been in the Old Catholic Age gradually established, and from the vast multitude of books on gospel history, which even Luke had found existing (i. 1) and which had been multiplied to an almost incalculable extent both in the interests of heresy and of church doctrine, our four gospels were universally recognised as alone affording authentic information of the life and doctrines of the Lord, that the eclectic gospels hitherto in use had more and more withdrawn from them the favour of the church. Tatian’s Diatessaron maintained its place longest in the Syrian Church. Theodoret, † A.D. 457, testifies that in his diocese he had found and caused to be put away about two hundred copies. Aphraates (about A.D. 340, § 47, 13) still used it as the text of his homilies. At the time of publication of the Doctrina Addæi (§ 32, 6) it was still used in the church of Edessa, and Ephraim Syrus in A.D. 360 refers to a commentary in the form of scholia on it in an Armenian translation, in which the passages commented on are literally reproduced, Theodoret’s charge against it of cutting out passages referring to the descent of Christ after the flesh from David, especially the genealogies of Matthew and Luke, is confirmed by these portions thus preserved. Otherwise however, it is free from heretical alterations, though not wholly without apocryphal additions. All the four gospels are in brief summary so skilfully wrought into one another that no joining is ever visible. What cannot be incorporated is simply left out, and the whole historical and doctrinal material is distributed over the one working year of the synoptists.

§ 36.8. Formation of a New Testament Canon.—The oldest collection of a New Testament Canon known to us was made by the Gnostic Marcion (§ 27, 11) about A.D. 150. Some twenty years later in the so-called Muratorian Canon, a fragment found by Muratori in the 18th century with a catalogue in corrupt Latin justifying the reception of the New Testament writings received in the Roman church. For later times the chief witnesses are Irenæus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Eusebius. The Muratorian Canon and Eusebius are witnesses for the fact that in the 2nd century, besides the Gospels, the Apostolic Epistles and the Revelation of John, other so-called Apostolic Epistles were read at worship in the churches, for instance, the 1st Ep. of Clement of Rome, the Ep. of Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, in some churches also the apocryphal Apocalypse of Peter and Acts of Paul, in Corinth, an Ep. of the Roman bishop Soter (A.D. 166-174) to that church, and also Acts of the Martyrs. Montanist as well as Gnostic excesses gave occasion for the definite fixing of the New Testament Canon by the Catholic church (§ 40). Since the time of Irenæus, the four Gospels, the Acts, the 13 Epp. of Paul, the Ep. to the Hebrews (which some in the West did not regard as Pauline), 1st Peter, and 1st John, along with the Revelation of John, were universally acknowledged. Eusebius therefore calls these ὁμολογούμενα. There was still some uncertainty as to the Ep. of James, 2nd Peter, 2nd and 3rd John and Jude (ἀντιλεγόμενα). The antilegomena of a second class, which have no claim to canonicity, although in earlier times they were much used in churches just like the canonical scriptures, were called by him νόθα, viz. the Acts of Paul, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Ep. of Barnabas, and the Didache. He would also very willingly have included among these the Revelation of John (§ 33, 9), although he acknowledged that elsewhere that is included in the Homologoumena.—The Old Testament Canon was naturally regarded as already completed. But since the Old Testament had come to the Greek and Latin Church Teachers in the expanded form of the LXX., they had unhesitatingly assumed that its added books were quite as sacred and as fully inspired as those of the Hebrew Canon. Melito of Sardis, however, about A.D. 170, found it desirable to make a journey of research through Palestine in order to determine the limits of the Jewish Canon, and then to draw up a list of the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament essentially corresponding therewith. Origen too informs us that the Jews, according to the number of letters in their alphabet acknowledged only 22 books, which, however, does not lead him to condemn this reception of the additional books of the church. From the end of the 2nd century, the Western church had Latin Translations of the biblical books, the origin of which is to be sought in North Africa, where in consequence of prevailing ignorance of the Greek language the need of such translations was most deeply felt. Even so early as the beginning of the 5th century we find Jerome († 420) complaining of varietas and vitiositas of the Codices latini, and declaring: Tot sunt exemplaria (=forms of the text) paene quot codices. Augustine[101] gives preference to the Itala over all others. The name Itala is now loosely given to all fragments of Latin translations previous to that of Jerome.—The Syriac translation, the Peshito, plain or simple (so-called because it exactly and without paraphrasing renders the words of the Hebrew and Greek originals) belongs to the 3rd century, although first expressly referred to by Ephraim. In it 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John and Jude are not found.

§ 36.9. The Doctrine of Inspiration.—In earlier times it was usual, after the example of Philo, to regard the prophetic inspiration of the sacred writers as purely passive, as ἔκστασις. Athenagoras compares the soul of the prophet while prophesying to a flute; Justin Martyr in his Cohort. ad Græc. to a lyre, struck by the Holy Spirit as the plectrum, etc. The Montanist prophets first brought this theory into disrepute. The Apologist Miltiades of Asia Minor was the first Church Teacher who vindicated over against the Montanists the proposition: προφήτην μὴ δεῖν ἐν ἐκστάσει λαλεῖν. The Alexandrians who even admitted an operation of the Holy Spirit upon the nobler intellects of paganism, greatly modified the previously accepted doctrine of inspiration. Origen, for example, teaches a gradual rising or falling in the measure of inspiration even in the bible, and determines this according to the more or less prominence secured by the human individuality of the writers of scripture.

§ 36.10. Hymnology.—The Carmen Christo quasi Deo dicere secum invicem in the report of Pliny (§ 22, 2), may be classed with the antiphonal responsive hymns of the church. Tertullian bears witness to a rich use of song in family as well as congregational worship. So too does Origen. In the composition of church hymns the heretics seem for a long while to have kept abreast of the Catholics (Bardesanes and Harmonius, § 27, 5), but the latter were thereby stirred up to greater exertions. The Martyr Athenogenes and the Egyptian bishop Nepos are named as authors of church hymns. We have still a hymn εἰς Σωτῆρα by Clement of Alexandria. Socrates ascribes to Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, the introduction of the alternate-song (between different congregational choirs). More credible is Theodoret’s statement that the Antiochean monks Flavian and Diodorus had imported it, about A.D. 260, from the National Syrian into the Greek-Syrian church.—Continuation § 59, 4, 5.

§ 37. FEASTS AND FESTIVAL SEASONS.[102]

Sunday as a day of joy was distinguished by standing at prayer, instead of kneeling as at other times, and also by the prohibition of fasting. Of the other days of the week, Wednesday, the day on which the Jewish Council decided to put Jesus to death and Judas had betrayed him, and Friday, as the day of his death, were consecrated to the memory of Christ’s suffering; hence the Feria quarta et sexta were celebrated as watch days, dies stationum, after the symbolism of the Militia christiana (Eph. vi. 10-17), by public meetings of the congregation. As days of the Passion, penitence and fasting they formed a striking contrast to the Sunday. The chief days of the Christian festival calendar, which afterwards found richer and more complete expression in the cycle of the Christian year, were thus at first associated with the weekly cycle. A long continued and wide spread controversy as to the proper time for celebrating Easter arose during the 2nd century.

§ 37.1. The Festivals of the Christian Year.—The thought of Christ’s suffering and death was so powerful and engrossing that even in the weekly cycle one day had not been sufficient. Still less could one festal day in the yearly cycle satisfy the hearts of believers. Hence a long preparation for the festival was arranged, which was finally fixed at forty days, and was designated the season Quadragesima (τεσσαρακοστή). Its conclusion and acme was the so-called Great Week, beginning with the Sunday of the entrance into Jerusalem, culminating in the day of the crucifixion, Good Friday, and closing with the day of rest in the tomb. This Great Week or Passion Week was regarded as the antitype of the Old Testament Passover feast. The Old Catholic church did not, however, transfer this name to the festival of the resurrection (§ 56, 4). The day of the resurrection was rather regarded as the beginning of a new festival cycle consecrated to the glorification of the redeemer, viz. the season of Quinquagesima (πεντηκοστή), concluding with the festival of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the anniversary of the founding of the Christian church, which has now come to be known par excellence as Pentecost. The fifty intervening days were simply days of joy. There was daily communion, no fasting, only standing and not kneeling at prayer. The fortieth day, the day of the Ascension, had a special pre-eminence as a day of festal celebrations. The festival of Epiphany on 6th January originated in the East to celebrate the baptism of Christ in Jordan, as the manifestation of his Messianic rank. As yet there is nowhere any trace of the Christmas festival.—Continuation, § 56.

§ 37.2. The Paschal Controversies.—During the 2nd century, there were three different practices prevalent in regard to the observance of the Paschal festival. The Ebionite Jewish Christians (§ 28, 1) held the Paschal feast on the 14th Nisan according to the strict literal interpretation of the Old Testament precepts, maintaining also that Christ, who according to the synoptists died on the 15th, observed the Passover with his disciples on the 14th. Then again the church of Asia Minor followed another practice which was traced back to the Apostle John. Those of Asia Minor attached themselves indeed in respect of date to the Jewish festival, but gave it a Christian meaning. They let the passover alone, and pronounced the memorial of Christ’s death to be the principal thing in the festival. According to their view, based upon the fourth Gospel, Christ died upon the 14th Nisan, so that He had not during the last year of His life observed a regular Passover. On the 14th Nisan, therefore, they celebrated their Paschal festival, ending their fast at the moment of Christ’s death, three o’clock in the afternoon, and then, instead of the Jewish Passover, having an Agape with the Lord’s Supper. Those who adopted either of those two forms were at a later period called Quartodecimans or Tessareskaidekatites. Different from both of these was a third practice followed in all the West, as also in Egypt, Palestine, Pontus and Greece, which detached itself still further from the Jewish Passover. This Western usage disregarded the day of the month in order to secure the observance of the great resurrection festival on the first day of the week. The πάσχα σταυρώσιμον, then, if the 14th did not happen to be a Friday, was always celebrated on the first Friday after the 14th, and the Easter festival with the observance of the Lord’s Supper on the immediately following Sunday. The Westerns regarded the day of Christ’s death as properly a day of mourning, and only at the end of the pre-Easter fast on the day of the Resurrection introduced the celebration of the Agape and the Lord’s Supper. These divergent practices first awakened attention on the appearing of Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna at Rome in A.D. 155. The Roman bishop Anicetus referred to the tradition of the Roman Church; Polycarp laid stress upon the fact that he himself had celebrated the Paschal festival after the manner followed in Asia Minor along with the Apostle John. No common agreement was reached at this time; but, in token of their undisturbed church fellowship, Anicetus allowed Polycarp to dispense the communion in his church. Some fifteen years later a party, not distinctly particularised, obtained at Laodicea in Phrygia sanction for the Ebionite practice with strict observance of the time of the Passover, and awakened thereby a lively controversy in the church of Asia Minor, in which opposite sides were taken by the Apologists, Apollinaris and Melito (§ 30, 7). The dispute assumed more serious dimensions about A.D. 196 through the passionate proceedings of the Roman bishop Victor. Roused probably by the agitation of a Quartodeciman named Blastus then in Rome, he urged upon the most distinguished bishops of the East and West the need of holding a Synod to secure the unequivocal vindication of the Roman practice. On this account many Synods were held, which almost invariably gave a favourable verdict. Only those of Asia Minor with Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus at their head, entered a vigorous protest against the pretensions of Rome, and notwithstanding all the Roman threatenings determined to stand by their own well established custom. Victor now went the length of breaking off church fellowship with them, but this extreme procedure met with little favour. Even Irenæus expressed himself to the Gallican bishops as opposed to it.—Continuation § 56, 3.

§ 37.3. The Ecclesiastical Institution of Fasting.—The Didache gives evidence that even at so early a date, the regular fasts were religiously observed on the Dies stationum by expressly forbidding fasting “with hypocrites” (Jews and Jewish Christians, Luke xviii. 12) on Monday and Thursday, instead of the Christian practice of so observing Wednesday and Friday. The usual fast continued as a rule only till three o’clock in the afternoon (Semijejunia, Acts x. 9, 30; iii. 1). In Passion week the Saturday night, which, at other times, just like the Sunday, was excluded from the fasting period, as part of the day during which Christ lay buried, was included in the forty-hours’ fast, representing the period during which Christ lay in the grave. This was afterwards gradually lengthened out into the forty-days’ fast of Lent (Exod. xxxiv. 28; 1 Kings xix. 8; Matt. iv. 2), in which, however, the jejunium proper was limited to the Dies Stationum, and for the rest of the days only the ξηροφαγίαι, first forbidden by the Montanists (§ 40, 4), i.e. all fattening foods, such as flesh, eggs, butter, cheese, milk, etc., were abstained from.—On fasting preparatory to baptism, see § 35, 1. The Didache, c. i. 3, adds to the gospel injunction that we should pray for our persecutors (Matt. v. 44) the further counsel that we should fast for them. The meaning of the writer seems to be that we should strengthen our prayers for persecutors by fasting. Hermas, on the other hand, recommends fasting in order that we may thereby spare something for the poor; and Origen says that he read in quodam libello as ab apostolis dictum: Beatus est, qui etiam jejunat pro eo ut alat pauperem.

§ 38. THE CHURCH BUILDINGS AND THE CATACOMBS.

The earliest certain traces of special buildings for divine worship which had been held previously in private houses of Christians are met with in Tertullian about the end of the 2nd century. In Diocletian’s time Nicomedia became a royal residence and hard by the emperor’s palace a beautiful church proudly reared its head (§ 22, 6), and even in the beginning of the 3rd century Rome had forty churches. We know little about the form and arrangement of these churches. Tertullian and Cyprian speak of an altar or table for the preparation of the Lord’s supper and a desk for the reading, and in the Apostolic Constitutions it is required that the building should be oblong in shape. The wide-spread tradition that in times of sore persecution the worshippers betook themselves to the Catacombs is evidently inconsistent with the limited space which these afforded. On the other hand, the painter whose works, by a decree of a Spanish Council in A.D. 306, were banished from the churches, found here a suitable place for the practice of sacred art.

§ 38.1. The Catacombs.—The Christian burying places were generally called κοιμητήρια, Dormitoria. They were laid out sometimes in the open fields (Areæ), sometimes, where the district was suitable for that, hewn out in the rock (κρύπται, crypts). This latter term was, by the middle of the 4th century, quite interchangeable with the name Catacumbæ, (κατὰ κύμβας=in the caves). The custom of laying the dead in natural or rock-hewn caves was familiar to pagan antiquity, especially in the East. But the recesses used for this purpose were only private or family vaults. Their growth into catacombs or subterranean necropolises for larger companies bound together by their one religion without distinctions of rank (Gal. iii. 28), first arose on Christian soil from a consciousness that their fellowship transcended death and the grave. For the accomplishment of this difficult and costly undertaking, Christian burial societies were formed after the pattern of similar institutions of paganism (§ 17, 3). Specially numerous and extensive necropolises have been found laid out in the immediate neighbourhood of Rome. But also in Malta, in Naples, Syracuse, Palermo, and other cities, this mode of sepulchre found favour. The Roman catacombs, of which in the hilly district round about the eternal city fifty-eight have been counted in fourteen different highways, are almost all laid out in the white porous tufa stone which is there so abundant, and useful neither for building nor for mortar. It is thus apparent that these are neither wrought-out quarries nor gravel pits (Arenariæ), but were set in order from the first as cemeteries. A few Arenariæ may indeed have been used as catacombs, but then the sides with the burial niches consist of regularly built walls. The Roman Catacombs in the tufa stone form labyrinthine, twisting, steep galleries only 3 or 4 feet broad, with rectangular corners caused by countless intersections. Their perpendicular sides varied greatly in height and in them the burial niches, Loculi, were hewn out one above the other, and on the reception of the body were built up or hermetically sealed with a stone slab bearing an inscription and a Christian symbol. The wealthy laid their dead in costly marble sarcophagi or stone coffins ornamented with bas-reliefs. The walls too and the low-arched roofs were adorned with symbols and pictures of scripture scenes. From the principal passages many side paths branched off to so-called burial chambers, Cubicula, which were furnished with shafts opening up to the surface and affording air and light, Luminaria. In many of these chambers, sometimes even in the passages, instead of simple Loculi we meet with the so-called Arcosolium as the more usual form; one or more coffin-shaped grooves hewn out in the rocky wall are covered with an altar-shaped marble plate, and over this plate, Mensa, is a semicircular niche hewn out spreading over it in its whole extent. These chambers are often held in reverence as “catacomb churches,” but they are so small in size that they could only accommodate a very limited number, such as might gather perhaps at the commemoration of a martyr or the members of a single family. And even where two or three such chambers adjoin one another, connected together by doors and having a common lighting shaft, accommodating at furthest about twenty people, they could not be regarded as meeting-places for public congregations properly so called.—Where the deposit of tufa stone was sufficiently large, there were several stories (Piani), as many as four or five connected by stairs, laid out one above the other in galleries and chambers. According to de Rossi’s[103] moderate calculation there have been opened altogether up to this time so many passages in the catacombs that if they were put in a line they would form a street of 120 geographical miles. Their oldest inscriptions or epitaphs date from the first years of the second century. After the destruction of Rome by the hordes of Alaric in A.D. 410, the custom of burying in them almost entirely ceased. Thereafter they were used only as places of pilgrimage and spots where martyr’s relics were worshipped. From this time the most of the so-called Graffiti, i.e. scribblings of visitors on the walls, consisting of pious wishes and prayers, had their origin. The marauding expedition of the Longobard Aistulf into Roman territory in A.D. 756, in which even the catacombs were stripped of their treasures, led Pope Paul I. to transfer the relics of all notable martyrs to their Roman churches and cloisters. Then pilgrimages to the catacombs ceased, their entrances got blocked up, and the few which in later times were still accessible, were only sought out by a few novelty hunting strangers. Thus the whole affair was nigh forgotten until in A.D. 1578 a new and lively interest was awakened by the chance opening up again of one of those closed passages. Ant. Bosio from A.D. 1593 till his death in A.D. 1629, often at the risk of his life, devoted all his time and energies to their exploration. But great as his discoveries were, they have been completely outdone by the researches of the Roman nobleman, Giov. Battista de Rossi, who, working unweariedly at his task since A.D. 1849 till the present time, is recognised as the great master of the subject, although even his investigations are often too much dominated by Roman Catholic prejudices and by undue regard for traditional views.[104]

§ 38.2. The Antiquities of the Catacombs.—The custom widely spread in ancient times and originating in piety or superstition of placing in the tombs the utensils that had been used by the deceased during life was continued, as the contents of many burial niches show among the early Christians. Children’s toys were placed beside them in the grave, and the clothes, jewels, ornaments, amulets, etc., of grown up people. Quite a special interest attaches to the so-called Blood Vases, Phiolæ rubricatæ, which have been found in or near many of these niches, i.e. crystal, rarely earthenware, vessels with Christian symbols figured on a red ground. The Congregation of rites and relics in A.D. 1668, asserted that they were blood-vessels, in which the blood of the martyrs had been preserved and stood alongside of their bones; and the existence of such jars, as well as every pictorial representation of the palm branch (Rev. vii. 9), was supposed to afford an indubitable proof that the niches in question contained the bones of martyrs. But the Reformed theologian Basnage shows that this assumption is quite untenable, and he has explained the red ground from the dregs of the red sacramental wine which may have been placed in the burial niches as a protection against demoniacal intrusion. Even many good Roman Catholic archæologists, Mabillon, Papebroch, Tillemont, Muratori, etc., contest or express doubts as to the decree of the Congregation. At the instigation probably of the Belgian Jesuit Vict. de Buck, Pius IX. in A.D. 1863 confirmed and renewed the old decree, and among others, Xav. Kraus has appeared as its defender. But a great multitude of unquestionable facts contradict the official decree of the church; e.g. the total absence of any support to this view in tradition, the silence of such inscriptions as relate to the martyrs, above all the immense number of these jars, their being found frequently alongside the bones of children of seven years old, the remarkable frequency of them in the times of Constantine and his successors which were free from persecution, the absence of the red dregs in many jars, etc. Since dregs of wine, owing to their having the vegetable property of combinableness could scarcely be discernible down to the present day, it has recently been suggested that the red colour may have been produced by a mineral-chemical process as oxide of iron.

§ 38.3. Pictorial Art and the Catacombs.—Many of the earliest Christians may have inherited a certain dislike of the pictorial arts from Judaism, and may have been confirmed therein by their abhorrence of the frivolous and godless abuse of art in heathenism. But this aversion which in a Tertullian grew from a Montanistic rigorism into a fanatical hatred of art, is never met with as a constituent characteristic of Christianity. Much rather the great abundance of paintings on the walls of the Roman and Neapolitan catacombs, of which many, and these not the meanest, belong to the 2nd century, some indeed perhaps to the last decades of the 1st century, serves to show how general and lively was the artistic sense among the earliest Christians at least in the larger and wealthier communities. Yet from its circumstances the Christian church in its appreciation of art was almost necessarily limited on two sides; for, on the one hand, no paintings were tolerated in the churches, and on the other hand, even in private houses and catacombs they were restricted almost exclusively to symbolico-allegorical or typical representations. The 36th Canon of the Council of Elvira in A.D. 306 is a witness for the first statement when it says: Placuit picturas in ecclesia non esse debere, ne quod colitur et adoratur in parietibus depingatur. The plain words of the Canon forbid any other interpretation than this: From the churches, as places where public worship is regularly held, all pictorial representations must be banished, in order to make certain that in and under them there might not creep in those images, forbidden in the decalogue, of Him who is the object of worship and adoration. The Council thus assumed practically the same standpoint as the Reformed church in the 16th century did in opposition to the practice of the Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches. It cannot, however, be maintained that the Canon of this rigorous Council (§ 45, 2) found general acceptance and enforcement outside of Spain—Proof of the second limitation is as convincingly afforded by what we find in the catacombs. On the positive side, it has its roots in the fondness which prevailed during these times for the mystical and allegorical interpretation of scripture; and on the negative side, in the endeavour, partly in respect for the prohibition of images contained in the decalogue, partly, and perhaps mainly, in the interests of the so-called Disciplina arcani, fostered under pressure of persecution, to represent everything that pertained to the mysteries of the Christian faith as a matter which only Christians have a right fully to understand. From the prominence given to the point last referred to it may be explained how amid the revolution that took place under Constantine the age of Symbolism and Allegory in the history of Christian art also passed away, and henceforth painters applied themselves pre-eminently to realistic historical representations.

§ 38.4. The pictorial and artistic representations of the pre-Constantine age may be divided into the six following groups:—

1. Significant Symbols.—To these belong especially the cross,[105] though, for fear of the reproaches of Jews and heathens (§ 23, 2), not yet in its own proper form but only in a form that indicated what was meant, namely in the form of the Greek Τ, very frequently in later times in the monogram of the name of Christ, i.e. in a variously constructed combination of its first two letters Χ and Ρ, while the Χ, as crux dissimulatæ, has very often on either side the letters α and ω.

2. Allegorical Figures.—In the 4th century a particularly favourite figure was that of the Fish, the name of which, ἰχθύς, formed a highly significant monogrammatic representation of the sentence, Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς Θεοῦ Υἱὸς Σωτήρ, and which pointed strikingly to the new birth from the water of baptism. Then there is the lamb or sheep, as symbol of the soul, which still in this life seeks after spiritual pastures; and the dove as symbol of the pious believing soul passing into eternal rest, often with an olive branch in its mouth (Gen. viii. 11), as symbol of the eternal peace won. Also we have the hart (Ps. xlii. 1), the eagle (Ps. ciii. 5), the chicken, symbol of Christian growth, the peacock, symbol of the resurrection on account of the annual renewal of its beautiful plumage, the dolphin, symbol of hastiness or eagerness in the appropriation of salvation, the horse, symbol of the race unto the goal of eternal life, the hare, as symbol of the Christian working out his salvation with fear and trembling, the ship, with reference to Noah’s ark as a figure of the church, the anchor (Heb. vi. 19), the lyre (Eph. v. 19), the palm branch (Rev. vii. 9), the garland (or crown of life, Rev. ii. 9), the lily (Matt. vi. 28), the balances, symbol of divine righteousness, fishes and bread, symbol of spiritual nourishment with reference to Christ’s miracle of feeding in the wilderness, etc.

3. Parabolic Figures.—These are illustrations borrowed from the parables of the Gospels. To these belong conspicuously the figure of the Good Shepherd, who bears on His shoulder the lost sheep that He had found (Luke xv. 5), the Vine Stock (John xv.), the Sower (Matt. xiii. 3), the Marriage Feast (Matt. xxii.), the Ten Virgins (Matt. xxv.), etc.

4. Historical Pictures of O. T. Types.—Among these we have Adam and Eve, the Rivers of Paradise (as types of the four evangelists), Abel and Cain, Noah in the Ark, the Sacrifice of Isaac, Scenes from Joseph’s History, Moses at the Burning Bush, the Passage of the Red Sea, the Falling of the Manna, the Water out of the Rock, History of Job, Samson with the Gates of Gaza (the gates of Hell), David’s Victory over Goliath, Elijah’s Ascension, Scenes from the History of Jonah and Tobit, Daniel in the Lion’s Den, the Three Children in the Fiery Furnace, etc. Also typical material from heathen mythology had a place assigned them, such as the legends of Hercules, Theseus, and especially of Orpheus who by his music bewitched the raging elements and tamed the wild beasts, descended into the lower world and met his death through the infuriated women of his own race.

5. Figures from the Gospel History.—These, e.g. the Visit of the Wise Men from the East, and the Resurrection of Lazarus, are throughout this period still exceedingly rare. We do not find a single representation of the Passion of our Lord, nor any of the sufferings of Christian martyrs. Pictorial representations of the person of Christ, as a beardless youth with a friendly mild expression, are met with in the catacombs from the first half of the 2nd century, but without any claim to supply the likeness of a portrait, such as might be claimed for the figures of Christ in the temple of the Carpocratians (§ 27, 8) and in the Lararium of the Emperor Alexander Severus (§ 22, 4). Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian, in accordance with the literal interpretation of Isa. liii. 2, 3, thought that Christ had an unattractive face; the post-Constantine fathers, on the contrary, resting upon Ps. xlv. 3 and John i. 14, thought of Him as beautiful and gracious.

6. Liturgical Figures.—These were connected only with the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

§ 39. LIFE, MANNERS, AND DISCIPLINE.[106]

When the chaff had been so relentlessly severed from the wheat by the persecutions of that age, a moral earnestness and a power of denying the world and self must have been developed, sustained by the divine power of the gospel and furthered by a strict and rigorous application of church discipline to the Christian life, such as the world had never seen before. What most excited and deserved wonder in the sphere of heathendom, hitherto accustomed only to the reign of selfishness, was the brotherly love of the Christians, their systematic care of the poor and sick, the widespread hospitality, the sanctity of marriage, the delight in martyrdom, etc. Marriages with Jews, heathens and heretics were disapproved, frequently even the celebration of a second marriage after the death of the first wife was disallowed. Public amusements, dances, and theatres were avoided by Christians as Pompa diaboli. They thought of the Christian life, in accordance with Eph. vi. 10 ff., as Militia Christi. But even in the Post-Apostolic Age we come upon indications of a tendency to turn from the evangelical spirituality, freedom and simplicity of the Apostolic Age toward a pseudo-catholic externalism and legalism in the fundamental views taken of ethical problems, and at the same time and in the same way in the departments of the church constitution (§ 34), worship (§ 36) and exposition of doctrine (§ 30, 2). The teachers of the church do still indeed maintain the necessity of a disposition corresponding to the outward works, but by an over-estimation of these they already prepare the way for the doctrine of merit and the opus operatum, i.e. the meritoriousness of works in themselves. Even the Epistle of Barnabas and the Didache reckon almsgiving as an atonement for sins. Still more conspicuously is this tendency exhibited by Cyprian (De Opere et eleemosynis) and even in the Shepherd of Hermas (§ 30, 4) we find the beginnings of the later distinction, based upon 1 Cor. vii. 25, 26; Matt. xxv. 21, and Luke xviii. 10, between the divine commands, Mandata or Præcepta, which are binding upon all Christians, and the evangelical counsels, Consilia evangelica, the non-performance of which is no sin, but the doing of which secures a claim to merit and more full divine approval. Among the Alexandrian theologians, too, under the influence of the Greek philosophy a very similar idea was developed in the distinction between higher and lower morality, after the former of which the Christian sage (ὁ γνωστικός) is required to shine, while the ordinary Christian may rest satisfied with the latter. On such a basis a special order of Ascetics very early made its appearance in the churches. Those who went the length of renouncing the world and going out into the wilderness were called Anchorets. This order first assumed considerable dimensions in the 4th century (§ 44).

§ 39.1. Christian Morals and Manners.—The Christian spirit pervaded the domestic and civil life and here formed for itself a code of Christian morals. It expressed itself in the family devotions and family communions (§ 36, 3), in putting the sign of the cross upon all callings in life, in the Christian symbols (§ 38, 3) with which dwellings, garments, walls, lamps, cups, glasses, rings, etc. were adorned. As to private worship the Didache requires without fixing the hours that the head of the household shall have prayers three times a day (Dan. vi. 30), meaning probably, as with Origen, morning, noon, and night. Tertullian specifies the 3rd, 6th, and 9th hours as the hours of prayer, and distinctly demands a separate morning and evening prayer.—The concluding of marriage according to the then existing Roman law had to be formally carried through by the expressed agreement of the parties in the presence of witnesses, and this on the part of the church was regarded as valid. The Christian custom required that there should be a previous making of it known, Professio, to the bishop, and a subsequent going to the church of the newly married pair in order that, amid the church’s intercessions and the priestly benediction, a religious sanction might be given to their marriage covenant, by the oblation and common participation of the Lord’s Supper at the close of the public services. Tertullian’s Montanistic rigorism shows itself in regarding marriages where these are omitted, occultæ conjunctiones, as no better than mœchia and fornicatio. The crowning of the two betrothed ones and the veiling of the bride were still disallowed as heathenish practices; but the use of the wedding ring was sanctioned at an early date and had a Christian significance attached to it. The burning of dead bodies prevalent among the heathens reminded them of hell fire; the Christians therefore preferred the Jewish custom of burial and referred in support to 1 Cor. xv. 36. The day of the deaths of their deceased members were celebrated in the Christian families by prayer and oblations in testimony of their fellowship remaining unbroken by death and the grave.—Continuation § 61, 2, 3.

§ 39.2. The Penitential Discipline.—According to the Apostolic ordinance (§ 17, 8) notorious sinners were excluded from the fellowship of the church, Excommunicatio, and only after prolonged trial of their penitence, Exomologesis, were they received back again, Reconciliatio. In the time of Cyprian, about A.D. 250, there was already a well defined order of procedure in this matter of restoring the lapsed which continued in force until the 5th century. Penance, Pœnitentia, must extend through four stages, each of which according to circumstances might require one or more years. During the first stage, the πρόσκλαυσις, Fletio, the penitents, standing at the church doors in mourning dress, made supplication to the clergy and the congregation for restoration; in the second, the ἀκρόασις, Auditio, they were admitted again to the reading of the scriptures and the sermon, but still kept in a separate place; in the third, ὑπόπτωσις, Substratio, they were allowed to kneel at prayer; and finally, in the fourth, σύστασις, Consistentia, they took part again in the whole of the public services, with the exception of the communion which they were only allowed to look at standing. Then they received Absolution and Reconciliation (=pacem dare) in presence of the assembled and acquiescing congregation by the imposition of the hands of the bishop and the whole of the clergy, together with the brotherly kiss and the partaking of the communion. This procedure was directed against open and demonstrable sins of a serious nature against the two tables of the decalogue, against so called deadly sins, Peccata or crimina mortalia, 1 John v. 16. Excommunication was called forth, on the one side, against idolatry, blasphemy, apostasy from the faith and abjuration thereof; on the other, against murder, adultery and fornication, theft and lying, perfidy and false swearing. Whether reconciliation was permissible in the case of any mortal sin at all, and if so, what particular sins might thus be treated, were questions upon which teachers of the church were much divided during the 3rd century. But only the Montanists and Novatians (§§ 40, 41) denied the permissibility utterly and that in opposition to the prevailing practice of the church, which refused reconciliation absolutely only in cases of idolatry and murder, and sometimes also in the case of adultery. Even Cyprian at first held firmly by the principle that all mortal sins committed “against God” must be wholly excluded from the range of penitential discipline, but amid the horrors of the Decian persecution, which left behind it whole crowds of fallen ones, Lapsi (§ 22, 5), he was induced by the passionate entreaties of the church to make the concession that reconciliation should be granted to the Libellatici after a full penitential course, but to the Sacrificati only when in danger of death. All the teachers of the church, however, agree in holding that it can be granted only once in this life, and those who again fall away are cut off absolutely. But excessive strictness in the treatment of the penitents called forth the contrary extreme of undue laxity (§ 41, 2). The Confessors frequently used their right of demanding the restoration of the fallen by means of letters of recommendation, Libelli pacis, to such an extent as to seriously interfere with a wholesome discipline.[107]—Continuation § 61, 1.

§ 39.3. Asceticism.—The Ascetism (Continentia, ἐγκρατεία) of heathenism and Judaism, of Pythagoreanism and Essenism, resting on dualistic and pseudo-spiritualistic views, is confronted in Christianity with the proposition: Πάντα ὑμῶν ἐστιν (1 Cor. iii. 21; vi. 12). Christianity, however, also recognised the ethical value and relative wholesomeness of a moderate asceticism in proportion to individual temperament, needs and circumstances (Matt. ix. 12; 1 Cor. vii. 5-7), without demanding it or regarding it as something meritorious. This evangelical moderation we also find still in the 2nd century, e.g. in Ignatius. But very soon a gradual exaggeration becomes apparent and an ever-advancing over estimation of asceticism as a higher degree of morality with claims to be considered peculiarly meritorious. The negative requirements of asceticism are directed first of all to frequent and rigid fasts and to celibacy or abstinence from marital intercourse; its positive requirements, to the exercise of the spiritual life in prayer and meditation. The most of the Ascetics, too, in accordance with Luke xviii. 24, voluntarily divested themselves of their possessions. The number of them, men and women, increased, and even in the first half of the 2nd century, they formed a distinct order in the church, though they were not yet bound to observe this mode of life by any irrevocable vows. The idea that the clergy were in a special sense called to an ascetic life resulted in their being designated the κλῆρος Θεοῦ. Owing to the interpretation given to 1 Tim. iii. 2, second marriages were in the 2nd century prohibited among the clergy, and in the 3rd century it was regarded as improper for them after ordination to continue marital intercourse. But it was first at the Council of Elvira, in A.D. 306, that this opinion was elevated into a law, though it could not even then be rigorously enforced (§ 45, 2).—The immoral practice of ascetics or clerics having with them virgins devoted to God’s service as Sorores, ἀδελφαί on the ground of 1 Cor. ix. 5, with whom they were united in spiritual love, in order to show their superiority to the temptations of the flesh, seems to have been introduced as early as the 2nd century. In the middle of the 3rd century it was already widespread. Cyprian repeatedly inveighs against it. We learn from him that the so-called Sorores slept with the Ascetics in one bed and surrendered themselves to the tenderest caresses. For proof of the purity of their relations they referred to the examinations of midwives. Among bishops, Paul of Samosata in Antioch (§ 33, 8) seems to have been the first who favoured this evil custom by his own example. The popular wit of the Antiochenes [Antiocheans] invented for the more than doubtful relationship the name of the γυναίκες συνεισάκτοι, Subintroductæ, Agapetæ, Extreneæ. Bishops and Councils sent forth strict decrees against the practice.—The most remarkable among the celebrated ascetics of the age was Hieracas, who lived at Leontopolis in Egypt toward the end of the 3rd and beginning of the 4th century and died there when ninety years old. A pupil of Origen, he was distinguished for great learning, favoured the allegorical interpretation of Scripture, a spiritualistic dogmatics and strict asceticism. Besides this he was a physician, astronomer and writer of hymns, could repeat by heart almost all the Old and New Testaments, wrote commentaries in Greek and Coptic, and gathered round him a numerous society of men and women, who accepted his ascetical principles and heterodox views. Founding upon Matt. xix. 12; 1 Cor. vii. and Heb. xii. 14, he maintained that celibacy was the only perfectly sure way to blessedness and commended this doctrine as the essential advance from the Old Testament to the New Testament morality. He even denied salvation to Christian children dying in infancy because they had not yet fought against sensuality, referring to 2 Tim. ii. 5. Of a sensible paradise he would hear nothing, and just as little of a bodily resurrection; for the one he interprets allegorically and the other spiritually. Epiphanius, to whom we owe any precise information that we have about him, is the first to assign him and his followers a place in the list of heretics.

§ 39.4. Paul of Thebes.—The withdrawal of particular ascetics from ascetical motives into the wilderness, which was a favourite craze for a while, may have been suggested by Old and New Testament examples, e.g. 1 Kings xvii. 3; xix. 4; Luke i. 80; iv. 1; but it was more frequently the result of sore persecution. Of a regular professional institution of anchorets with life-long vows there does not yet appear any authentic trace. According to Jerome’s Vita Pauli monachi a certain Paul of Thebes in Egypt, about A.D. 250, during the Decian persecution, betook himself, when sixteen years old, to the wilderness, and there forgotten by all the world but daily fed by a raven with half a loaf (1 Kings xvii. 4), he lived for ninety-seven years in a cave in a rock, until St. Anthony (§ 44, 1), directed to him by divine revelation and led to him first by a centaur, half man, half horse, then by a fawn, and finally by a she-wolf, came upon him happily just when the raven had brought him as it never did before a whole loaf. He was just in time to be an eye-witness, not indeed of his death, but rather of his subsequent ascension into heaven, accompanied by angels, prophets and apostles, and to arrange for the burial of his mortal remains, for the reception of which two lions, uttering heart-breaking groans, dug a grave with their claws. These lions after earnestly seeking and obtaining a blessing from St. Anthony, returned back to their lair.—Contemporaries of the author, as indeed he himself tells, declared that the whole story was a tissue of lies. Church history, however, until quite recently, has invariably maintained that there must have been some historical foundation, though it might be very slight, for such a superstructure. But seeing that no single writer before Jerome seems to know even the name of Paul of Thebes and also that the Vita Antonii ascribed to Athanasius knows nothing at all of such a wonderful expedition of the saint, Weingarten (§ 44) has denied that there ever existed such a man as this Paul, and has pronounced the story of Jerome to be a monkish Robinson Crusoe, such as the popular taste then favoured, which the author put forth as true history ad majorem monachatus gloriam. We may simply apply to this book itself what Jerome at a later period confessed about his epistles of that same date ad Heliodorum:—sed in illo opere pio ætate tunc lusimus et celentibus adhuc Rhetorum studiis atque doctrinis quædam scholastico flore depinximus.

§ 39.5. Beginning of Veneration of Martyrs.—In very early times a martyr death was prized as a sin-atoning Lavacrum sanguinis, which might even abundantly compensate for the want of water baptism. The day of the martyr’s death which was regarded as the day of his birth into a higher life, γενέθλια, Natalitia martyrum, was celebrated at his grave by prayers, oblations and administration of the Lord’s Supper as a testimony to the continuance of that fellowship with them in the Lord that had been begun here below. Their bones were therefore gathered with the greatest care and solemnly buried; so e.g. Polycarp’s bones at Smyrna (§ 22, 2), as τιμιώτερα λίθων πολυτελῶν καὶ δωκιμώτερα ὑπὲρ χρυσίον, so that at the spot where they were laid the brethren might be able to celebrate his γενέθλιον ἐν ἀγαλλιάσει καὶ χαρᾷ, εἴς τε τῶν προηθληκότων μνήμην καὶ τῶν μελλόντων τε καὶ ἑτοιμασίαν. Of miracles wrought by means of the relics, however, we as yet find no mention. The Graffiti on the walls of the catacombs seem to represent the beginning of the invocation of martyrs. In these the pious visitors seek for themselves and those belonging to them an interest in the martyr’s intercessions. Some of those scribblings may belong to the end of our period; at least the expression “Otia petite pro,” etc. in one of them seem to point to a time when they were still undergoing persecution. The greatest reverence, too, was shown to the Confessors all through their lives, and great influence was assigned them in regard to all church affairs, e.g. in the election of bishops, the restoration of the fallen, etc.—Continuation, § 57.

§ 39.6. Superstition.—Just as in later times every great Christian missionary enterprise has seen religious ideas transferred from the old heathenism into the young Christianity, and, consciously or unconsciously, secretly or openly, acquiesced in or contended against, securing for themselves a footing, so also the Church of the first centuries did not succeed in keeping itself free from such intrusions. A superstition forcing its entrance in this way can either be taken over nude crude in its genuinely pagan form and, in spite of its palpable inconsistency with the Christian faith, may nevertheless assert itself side by side with it, or it may divest itself of that old pagan form, and so unobserved and uncontested gain an entrance with its not altogether extinguished heathenish spirit into new Christian views and institutions and thus all the more dangerously make its way among them. It is especially the magico-theurgical element present in all heathen religions, which even at this early period stole into the Christian life and the services of the church and especially into the sacraments and things pertaining thereto (§ 58), while it assumed new forms in the veneration of martyrs and the worship of relics. One can scarcely indeed accept as a convincing proof of this the statement of the Emperor Hadrian in his correspondence regarding the religious condition of Alexandria as given by the historian Vopiscus: Illic qui Serāpem colunt Christiani sunt, et devoti sunt Serapi qui se Christi episcopos dicunt; nemo illic archisynagogus Judæorum, nemo Samarites, nemo Christianorum presbyter non mathematicus, non haruspex, non aliptes. This statement bears on its face too evidently the character of superficial observation, of vague hearsay and confused massing together of sundry reports. What he says of the worship of Serapis, may have had some support from the conduct of many Christians in the ascetic order, the designating of their presbyters aliptæ may have been suggested by the chrism in baptism and the anointing at the consecration of the clergy, perhaps also in the anointing of the sick (Matt. vi. 13; Jas. v. 14); so too the characterizing of them as mathematici may have arisen from their determining the date of Easter by means of astronomical observations (§ 37, 2; 56, 3), though it could not be specially wonderful if there actually were Christian scholars among the Alexandrian clergy skilled in astronomy, notwithstanding the frequent alliance of this science with astrology. But much more significant is the gross superstition which in many ways shows itself in so highly cultured a Christian as Julius Africanus in his Cestæ (§ 31, 8). In criticising it, however, we should bear in mind that this book was written in the age of Alexander Severus, in which, on the one hand, a wonderful mixture of religion and theurgical superstition had a wonderful fascination for men, while on the Christian side the whirlwind of persecution had not for a long time blown its purifying breeze. The catacombs, too, afford some evidences of a mode of respect for the departed that was borrowed from heathen practices, but these on the whole are wonderfully free from traces of superstition.

§ 40. THE MONTANIST REFORMATION.[108]

Earnest and strict as the moral, religious and ascetical requirements of the church of the 2nd and 3rd centuries generally were in regard to the life and morals of its members, and rigidly as these principles were carried out in its penitential discipline, there yet appeared even at this early date, in consequence of various instances of the relaxation of such strictness, certain eager spirits who clamoured for a restoration or even an intensification of the earlier rules of discipline. Such a movement secured for itself a footing about the middle of the 2nd century in Montanism, a growth of Phrygian soil, which without traversing in any way the doctrine of the church, undertook a thorough reformation of the ecclesiastical constitution on the practical side. Montanism, in opposition to the eclecticism of heretical Gnosticism, showed the attitude of Christianity to heathenism to be exclusive; against the spiritualizing and allegorizing tendencies of the church Gnosticism it opposed the realism and literalism of the doctrines and facts of the scripture revelation; against what seemed the excessive secularization of the church it presented a model of church discipline such as the nearness of the Lord’s coming demanded; against hierarchical tendencies that were always being more and more emphasized it maintained the rights of the laity and the membership of the church; while in order to secure the establishment of all these reforms it proclaimed that a prophetically inspired spiritual church had succeeded to Apostolic Christianity.

§ 40.1. Montanism in Asia Minor.—According to Epiphanius as early as A.D. 156, according to Eusebius in A.D. 172, according to Jerome in A.D. 171, a certain Montanus appeared as a prophet and church reformer at Pepuza in Phrygia. He was formerly a heathen priest and was only shortly before known as a Christian. He had visions, preached while unconscious in ecstasy of the immediate coming again of Christ (Parousia), fulminated against the advancing secularisation of the church, and, as the supposed organ of the Paraclete promised by Christ (John xiv. 16) presented in their most vigorous form the church’s demands in respect of morals and discipline. A couple of excited women Prisca and Maximilla were affected by the same extravagant spirit by which he was animated, fell into a somnambulistic condition and prophesied as he had done. On the death of Maximilla about A.D. 180, Montanus and Prisca having died before this, the supposed prophetic gift among them seems to have been quenched. At least an anonymous writer quoted in Eusebius (according to Jerome it was Rhodon, § 27, 12), in his controversial treatise published thirteen years afterwards, states that the voices of the prophets were then silent. So indeed she herself had declared: Μεθ’ ἐμὲ προφῆτης οὐκέτι ἔσται, ἀλλὰ συντέλεια. The Montanist prophecies occasioned a mighty commotion in the whole church of Asia Minor. Many earnest Christians threw themselves eagerly into the movement. Even among the bishops they found here and there favour or else mild criticism, while others combated them passionately, some going so far as to regard the prophesying women as possessed ones and calling exorcism to their aid. By the end of the year 170 several synods, the first synods regularly convened, had been held against them, the final result of which was their exclusion from the catholic church. Montanus now organized his followers into an independent community. After his death, his most zealous follower, Alcibiades, undertook its direction. It was also not without literary defenders. Themison, Alcibiades’ successor, issued “in imitation of the Apostle” (John?) a Καθολικὴ ἐπιστολή, and the utterances of the prophets were collected and circulated as holy scripture. On the other hand during this same year 170 they were attacked by the eminent apologists Claudius Apollinaris and Miltiades (§ 36, 9) probably also by Melito. Their radical opponents were the so-called Alogi (§ 33, 2). Among their later antagonists, who assumed more and more a passionately embittered tone, the most important according to Eusebius were one Apollinaris, whom Tertullian combats in the VII. Bk. of his work, De ecstasi, and Serapion. At a Synod at Iconium about the middle of the 3rd century at which also Firmilian of Cæsarea (§ 35, 5) was present and voted, the baptism of the Montanists, although their trinitarian orthodoxy could not be questioned, was pronounced to be like heretical baptism null, because administered extra ecclesiam, and a second baptism declared necessary on admission to the Catholic church. And although at the Council of Nicæa in A.D. 325 and of Constantinople in A.D. 381, the validity of heretics’ baptism was admitted if given orderly in the name of the Holy Trinity, the baptism of the Montanists was excluded because it was thought that the Paraclete of Montanism could not be recognised as the Holy Spirit of the church.—Already in the time of Constantine the Great the Montanists were spreading out from Phrygia over all the neighbouring provinces, and were called from the place where they originated Κατάφρυγες and Pepuziani. The Emperor now forbade them holding any public assemblies for worship and ordered that all places for public service should be taken from them and given over to the Catholic church. Far stricter laws than even these were enforced against them by later emperors down to the 5th century, e.g. prohibition of all Montanist writings, deprivation of almost all civil rights, banishment of their clergy to the mines, etc. Thus they could only prolong a miserable existence in secret, and by the beginning of the sixth century every trace of them had disappeared.

§ 40.2. Montanism at Rome.—The movement called forth by Montanism in the East spread by and by also into the West. When the first news reached Gaul of the synodal proceedings in Asia Minor that had rent the church, the Confessors imprisoned at Lyons and Vienne during the persecution of Marcus Aurelius, of whom more than one belonged to a colony that had emigrated from Phrygia to Gaul, were displeased, and, along with their report of the persecution they had endured (§ 32, 8), addressed a letter to those of Asia Minor, not given by Eusebius, but reckoned pious and orthodox, exhorting to peace and the preservation of unity. At the same time (A.D. 177) they sent the Presbyter Irenæus to Rome in order to win from Bishop Eleutherus (A.D. 174-189), who was opposed to Montanism, a mild and pacific sentence. Owing, however, to the arrival of Praxeas, a Confessor of Asia Minor and a bitter opponent of Montanism, a formal condemnation was at last obtained (§ 33, 4). Tertullian relates that the Roman bishop, at the instigation of Praxeas, revoked the letters of peace which had been already prepared in opposition to his predecessors. It is matter of controversy whether by this unnamed bishop Eleutherus is meant, who then was first inclined to a peaceable decision by Irenæus and thereafter by the picture of Montanist extravagances given by Praxeas was led again to form another opinion; or that it was, what seems from the chronological references most probable, his successor Victor (A.D. 189-199), in which case Eleutherus is represented as having hardened himself against Montanism in spite of the entreaties of Irenæus, while Victor was the first who for a season had been brought to think otherwise.—Yet even after their condemnation a small body of Montanists continued to exist in Rome, whose mouthpiece during the time of bishop Zephyrinus (A.D. 199-217) was Proclus, whom the Roman Caius (§ 31, 7) opposed by word and writing.

§ 40.3. Montanism in Proconsular Africa.—When and how Montanism gained a footing in North Africa is unknown, but very probably it spread thither from Rome. The movement issuing therefrom first attracted attention when Tertullian, about A.D. 201 or 202, returned from Rome to Carthage, and with the whole energy of his character decided in its favour, and devoted his rich intellectual gifts to its advocacy. That the Montanist party in Africa at that time still continued in connection with the Catholic church is witnessed to by the Acts of the Martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas (§ 32, 8), composed some time after this, which bear upon them almost all the characteristic marks of Montanism, while a vision communicated there shows that division was already threatened. The bishop and clergy together with the majority of the membership were decided opponents of the new ecstatic-visionary prophecy already under ecclesiastical ban in Asia Minor. They had not yet, however, come to an open breach with it, which was probably brought about in A.D. 206 when quiet had been again restored after the cessation of the persecution begun about A.D. 202 by Septimius Severus. Tertullian had stood at the head of the sundered party as leader of their sectarian services, and defended their prophesyings and rigorism in numerous apologetico-polemical writings with excessive bitterness and passion, applying them with consistent stringency to all the relations of life, especially on the ethical side. From the high esteem in which, notwithstanding his Montanist eccentricities, Tertullian’s writings continued to be held in Africa, e.g. by Cyprian (§ 31, 11), and generally throughout the West, the tendency defended by him was not regarded in the church there as in the East as thoroughly heretical, but only as a separatistic overstraining of views allowed by the church. This mild estimate could all the easier win favour, since to all appearance the extravagant visionary prophesying, which caused most offence, had been in these parts very soon extinguished.—Augustine reports that a small body of “Tertullianists” continued in Carthage down to his time († 430), and had by him been induced to return to the Catholic church; and besides this, he also tells us that Tertullian had subsequently separated himself from the “Cataphrygians,” i.e. from the communion of the Montanists of Asia Minor, whose excesses were only then perhaps made known to him.

§ 40.4. The Fundamental Principle of Montanism.—Montanism arose out of a theory of a divinely educative revelation proceeding by advancing stages, not finding its conclusion in Christ and the Apostles, but in the age of the Paraclete which began with Montanus and in him reached its highest development. The times of the law and the prophets in the Old Covenant is the childhood of the kingdom of God; in the gospel it appears in its youth; and by the Montanist shedding forth of the Spirit it reaches the maturity of manhood. Its absolute perfection will be attained in the millennium introduced by the approaching Parousia and the descent of the heavenly Jerusalem at Pepuza (Rev. xx. 21). The Montanist prophecy did not enrich or expand but only maintained and established against the heretics, the system of Christian doctrine already exclusively revealed in the times of Christ. Montanism regarded as its special task a reformation of Christian life and Church discipline highly necessary in view of the approaching Parousia. The defects that had been borne with during the earlier stages of revelation were to be repaired or removed by the Mandata of the Paraclete. The following are some of the chief of these prescriptions: Second marriage is adultery; Fasting must be practised with greater strictness; On dies stationum (§ 37, 3) nothing should be eaten until evening, and twice a year for a whole week only water and bread (ξηροφαγίαι); The excommunicated must remain their whole lifetime in status pœnitentiæ; Martyrdom should be courted, to withdraw in any way from persecution is apostasy and denial of the faith; Virgins should take part in the worship of God only when veiled; Women generally must put away all finery and ornaments; secular science and art, all worldly enjoyments, even those that seem innocent, are only snares of the devil, etc. An anti-hierarchical tendency early showed itself in Montanism from the circumstance that it arrogated to itself a new and high authority to which the hierarchical organs of the church refused to submit themselves. Yet even Montanism, after repudiating it, for its own self-preservation was obliged to give itself an official congregational organization, which, according to Jerome, had as its head a patriarch resident at Pepuza, and, according to Epiphanius, founding on Gal. iii. 28, gave even women admission into ecclesiastical offices. Its worship was distinguished only by the space given to the prophesyings of its prophets and prophetesses. Epiphanius notes this as a special characteristic of the sect, that often in their assemblies seven white-robed virgins with torches made their appearance prophesying; evidently, as the number seven itself shows, as representatives of the seven spirits of God (Rev. iv. 5, etc.), and not of the ten virgins who wait for the coming of the Lord. According to Philaster they allowed even unbaptized persons to attend all their services and were in the habit of baptizing even the dead, as is elsewhere told also of certain Gnostic sects. Epiphanius too speaks of a Montanist party which celebrated the Lord’s Supper with bread and cheese, Artotyrites, according to Augustine, because the first men had presented offerings of the fruits of the earth and sheep.

§ 40.5. The Attitude of Montanism toward the Church.—The derivation of Montanism from Ebionism, contended for by Schwegler, has nothing in its favour and much against it. To disprove this notion it is enough to refer to the Montanist fundamental idea of a higher stage of revelation above Moses and the prophets as well as above the Messiah and His Apostles. Neither can we agree with Neander in regarding the peculiar character of the Phrygian people, as exhibited in their extravagant and fanatical worship of Cybele, as affording a starting point for the Montanist movement, but at most as a predisposition which rendered the inhabitants of this province peculiarly susceptible in presence of such a movement. The origin of Montanism is rather to be sought purely among the specifically Catholic conditions and conflicts within the church of Asia which at that time was pre-eminently gifted and active. In regard to dogma Montanism occupied precisely the same ground as the Catholic church; even upon the trinitarian controversies of the age it took up no sectarian position but went with the stream of the general development. Not on the dogmatical but purely on the practical side, namely, on that of the Christian life and ecclesiastical constitution, discipline and morals, lay the problems which by the action of the Montanists were brought into conflict. But even upon this side Montanism, with all its eccentricities, did not assume the attitude of an isolated separatistic sect, but rather as a quickening and intensifying of views and principles which from of old had obtained the recognition and sanction of the church,—views which on the wider spread of Christianity had already begun to be in every respect toned down or even obliterated, and just in this way called forth that reaction of enthusiasm which we meet with in Montanism. From the Apostles’ time the expectation of the early return of the Lord had stood in the foreground of Christian faith, hope and yearning, and this expectation continued still to be heartily entertained. Nevertheless the fulfilment had now been so long delayed that men were beginning to put this coming into an indefinitely distant future (2 Pet. iii. 4). Hence it happened that even the leaders of the church, in building up its hierarchical constitution and adjusting it to the social circumstances and conditions of life by which they were surrounded, made their arrangements more and more deliberately in view of a longer continuance of the present state of things, and thus the primitive Christian hope of an early Parousia, though not expressly denied, seemed practically to have been set aside. Hence the Montanist revivalists proclaimed this hope as most certain, giving a guarantee for it by means of a new divine revelation. Similarly too the moral, ascetic and disciplinary rigorism of the Montanist prophecy is to be estimated as a vigorous reaction against the mild practice prevailing in the church with its tendency to make concessions to human weakness, in favour of the strict exercise of church discipline in view of the nearness of the Parousia. Montanism could also justify the reappearance of prophetic gifts among its founders by referring to the historical tradition which from the Apostolic Age (Acts xi. 27 f.; xxi. 9) presented to view a series of famous prophets and prophetesses, endowed with ecstatic visionary powers. The exclusion of Montanism from the Catholic Church could not, therefore, have been occasioned either by its proclaiming an early Parousia or by its rigorism, or finally, even by its prophetic claims, but purely by its doctrine of the Paraclete. Under the pretence of instituting a new and higher stage of revelation, it had really undertaken to correct the moral and religious doctrines of Christ and the Apostles as defective and incomplete, and had thereby proved itself to the representatives of the church to be undoubtedly a pseudo-prophecy. The spiritual pride with which the Montanists proclaimed themselves to be the privileged people of the Holy Spirit, Πνευματικοὶ, Spirituales and characterized the Catholics as, on the contrary, Ψυχικοὶ, Carnales, as also the assumption that chose their own obscure Pepuza for the site of the heavenly Jerusalem, and the manifold extravagances committed by their prophets and prophetesses in their ecstatic trances, must have greatly tended to create an aversion to every form of spiritualistic manifestation. The origin of Montanism, the contesting of it and its final expulsion, constitute indeed a highly significant crisis in the historical development of the church, conditioned not so much by a separatistic sectarian tendency, but rather by the struggle of two tendencies existing within the church, in which the tendency represented by Montanism and honestly endeavouring the salvation of the church, went under, while that which was victorious would have put an end to all enthusiasm. The expulsion of Montanism from the church contributed greatly to freeing the church from the reproach so often advanced against it of being a narrow sect, made its consenting to the terms, demands and conditions of everyday life in the world easier, gave a freer course and more powerful impulse to its development in constitution and worship dependent upon these, as well as in the further building up of its practical and scientific endeavours, and generally advanced greatly its expansion and transformation from a sectarian close association into a universal church opening itself up more and more to embrace all the interests of the culture of the age;—a transformation which indeed in many respects involved a secularizing of the church and imparted to its spiritual functions too much of an official and superficial character.

§ 41. SCHISMATIC DIVISIONS IN THE CHURCH.

Even after the ecclesiastical sentence had gone forth against Montanism, the rigoristic penitential discipline in a form more or less severe still found its representatives within the Catholic church. As compared with the advocates of a milder procedure these were indeed generally in the minority, but this made them all the more zealously contend for their opinions and endeavour to secure for them universal recognition. Out of the contentions occasioned thereby, augmented by the rivalry of presbyter and episcopus, or episcopus and metropolitan, several ecclesiastical divisions originated which, in spite of the pressing need of the time for ecclesiastical unity, were long continued by ambitious churchmen in order to serve their own selfish ends.

§ 41.1. The Schism of Hippolytus at Rome about A.D. 220.—On what seems to have been the oldest attempt to form a sect at Rome over a purely doctrinal question, namely that of the Theodotians, about A.D. 210, see § 33, 3.—Much more serious was the schism of Hippolytus, which broke out ten years later. In A.D. 217, after an eventful and adventurous life, a freedman Callistus was raised to the bishopric of Rome, but not without strong opposition on the part of the rigorists, at whose head stood the celebrated presbyter Hippolytus. They charged the bishop with scoffing at all Christian earnestness, conniving at the loosening of all church discipline toward the fallen and sinners of all kinds, and denounced him especially as a supporter of the Noetian [Noëtian] heresy (§ 33, 5). They took great offence also at his previous life which his opponent Hippolytus (Elench., ix. 11 ff.) thus describes: When the slave of a Christian member of the imperial household, Callistus with the help of his lord established a bank; he failed, took to flight, was brought back, sprang into the sea, was taken out again and sent to the treadmill. At the intercession of Christian friends he was set free, but failing to satisfy his urgent creditors, he despairingly sought a martyr’s death, for this end wantonly disturbed the Jewish worship, and was on that account scourged and banished to the Sardinian mines. At the request of bishop Victor the imperial concubine Marcia (§ 22, 3) obtained the freedom of the exiled Christian confessors among whom Callistus, although his name had been intentionally omitted from the list presented by Victor, was included. After Victor’s death he wormed himself into the favour of his weak successor Zephyrinus, who placed him at the head of his clergy, in consequence of which he was able by intrigues and craft to secure for himself the succession to the bishopric.—An opportunity of reconciliation was first given, it would seem, under Pontianus, the second successor of Callistus, by banishing the two rival chiefs to Sardinia. Both parties then united in making a unanimous choice in A.D. 235.[109]

§ 41.2. The Schism of Felicissimus at Carthage in A.D. 250.—Several presbyters in Carthage were dissatisfied with the choice of Cyprian as bishop in A.D. 248 and sought to assert their independence. At their head stood Novatus. Taking the law into their own hands they chose Felicissimus, the next head of the party, as a deacon. When Cyprian during the Decian persecution withdrew for a time from Carthage, they charged him with dereliction of duty and faint-heartedness. Cyprian, however, soon returned, A.D. 251, and now they used his strictness toward the Lapsi as a means of creating a feeling against him. He expressed himself very decidedly as to the recklessness with which many confessors gave without examination Libelli pacis to the fallen, and called upon these to commit their case to a Synod that should be convened after the persecution. A church visitation completed the schism; the discontented presbyters without more ado received all the fallen and, notwithstanding that Cyprian himself on the return of persecution introduced a milder practice, they severed themselves from him under an opposition bishop Fortunatus. Only by the unwearied exercise of wisdom and firmness did Cyprian succeed in putting down the schism.[110]

§ 41.3. The Schism of the Presbyter Novatian at Rome in A.D. 251.—In this case the rigorist and presbyterial interests coincide. After the martyrdom of bishop Fabian under Decian in A.D. 250, the Roman bishopric remained vacant for more than a year. His successor Cornelius (A.D. 251-253) was an advocate of the milder practice. At the head of his rigorist opponents stood his unsuccessful rival, Novatian, a learned but ambitious presbyter (§ 31, 12). Meanwhile Novatus, excommunicated by Cyprian at Carthage, had also made his way to Rome. Notwithstanding his having previously maintained contrary principles in the matter of church discipline, he attached himself to the party of the purists and urged them into schism. They now chose Novatian as bishop. Both parties sought to obtain the recognition of the most celebrated churches. In doing so Cornelius described his opponent in the most violent and bitter manner as a mere intriguer, against whose reception into the number of presbyters as one who had received clinical baptism (§ 35, 3) and especially as an energoumenon under the care of the exorcists, he had already protested; further as having extorted a sham episcopal consecration from three simple Italian bishops, after he had attached them to himself by pretending to be a peacemaker, then locking them up and making them drunk, etc. Cyprian, as well as Dionysius of Alexandria, expressed himself against Novatian, and attacked the principles of his party, namely, that the church has no right to give assurance of forgiveness to the fallen or such as have broken their baptismal vows by grievous sin (although the possibility of finding forgiveness through the mercy of God was indeed admitted), and that the church as a communion of thoroughly pure members should never endure any impure ones in its bosom, nor receive back any excommunicated ones, even after a full ecclesiastical course of penitence. The Novatianists had therefore called themselves the Καθαροί. The moral earnestness of their fundamental principles secured for them even from bishops of contrary views an indulgent verdict, and Novatianist churches sprang up over almost all the Roman empire. The Œcumenical Council at Nicæa in A.D. 325 maintained an attitude toward them upon the whole friendly, and in the Arian controversy (§ 50) they stood faithfully side by side with their ecclesiastical opponents in the defence of Nicene orthodoxy, and with them suffered persecution from the Arians. Later on, however, the Catholic church without more ado treated them as heretics. Theodosius the Great sympathizing with them because of such unfair treatment, took them under his protection; but Honorius soon again withdrew these privileges from them. Remnants of the party continued nevertheless to exist down to the 6th century.[111]

§ 41.4. The Schism of Meletius in Egypt in A.D. 306.—Meletius, bishop of Lycopolis in the Thebaid, a representative of the rigorist party, during the Diocletian persecution claimed to confer ordinations and otherwise infringed upon the metropolitan rights of Peter, bishop of Alexandria, a supporter of the milder practice who for the time being lived in retirement. All warnings and admonitions were in vain. An Egyptian Synod under the presidency of Peter issued a decree of excommunication and deposition against him. Then arose the schism, A.D. 306, which won the whole of Egypt. The General Synod at Nicæa in A.D. 325 confirmed the Alexandrian bishop in his rights of supremacy (§ 46, 3) and offered to all the Meletian bishops an amnesty and confirmation in the succession on the death of the catholic anti-bishop of their respective dioceses. Many availed themselves of this concession, but others persisted in their schismatical course and finally attached themselves to the Arian party (§ 50, 2).

SECOND SECTION.

The History of the Græco-Roman Church from the 4th-7th centuries. A.D. 323-692.

I. CHURCH AND STATE.

§ 42. THE OVERTHROW OF PAGANISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE.[112]

After the overthrow of Licinius (§ 22, 7) Constantine identified himself unreservedly with Christianity, but accepted baptism only shortly before his death in A.D. 337. He was tolerant toward paganism, though encouraging its abandonment in all possible ways. His sons, however, began to put it down by violence. Julian’s short reign was a historical anomaly which only proved that paganism did not die a violent death, but rather gradually succumbed to a Marasmus senilis. Succeeding emperors reverted to the policy of persecution and extermination.—Neoplatonism, notwithstanding the patronage of Julian and the brilliant reputation of its leading representatives, could not reach the goal arrived at, but from the ethereal heights of philosophical speculation sank ever further and further into the misty region of fantastic superstition (§ 24, 2). The attempts at regeneration made by the Hypsistarians, Euphemites, Cœlicolæ, in which paganism strove after a revival by means of a barren Jewish monotheism or an effete Sabaism, proved miserable failures. The literary conflict between Christianity and paganism had almost completely altered its tone.

§ 42.1. The Romish Legend of the Baptism of Constantine.—That Constantine the Great only accepted baptism shortly before his death in Nicomedia, from Eusebius, bishop of that place, and a well-known leader of the Arian party (§ 50, 1, 2), is put beyond question by the evidence of his contemporary Eusebius of Cæsarea in his Vita Const., of Ambrose, of Jerome in his Chronicle, etc. About the end of the 5th century, however, a tradition, connecting itself with the fact that a Roman baptistery bore the name of Constantine, gained currency in Rome, to the effect that Constantine had been baptised at this baptistery more than twenty years before his death by Pope Sylvester (A.D. 314-335). According to this purely fabulous legend Constantine, who had up to that time been a bitter enemy and persecutor of the Christians, became affected with leprosy, for the cure of which he was recommended to bathe in a tub filled with the blood of an innocent child. Moved by the tears of the mother the emperor rejected this means of cure, and under the direction of a heavenly vision applied to the Pope, who by Christian baptism delivered him from his malady, whereupon all the members of the Roman senate still heathens, and all the people were straightway converted to Christ, etc. This legend is told in the so-called Decretum Gelasii (§ 47, 22), but is first vindicated as historically true in the Liber pontificalis (§ 90, 6), and next in A.D. 729, in Bede’s Chronicle (§ 90, 2). In the notorious Donatio Constantini (§ 87, 4) it is unhesitatingly accepted. Since then, at first with some exceptions but soon without exceptions, all chroniclers of the Middle Ages and likewise since the 9th century the Scriptores hist. Byzant., have adopted it. And although in the 15th century Æneas Sylvius and Nicolaus [Nicolas] of Cusa admitted that the legend was without foundation, yet in the 16th century in Baronius and Bellarmine, and in the 17th in Schelstraate, it found earnest defenders. The learned French Benedictines of the 17th century were the first to render it utterly incredible even in the Roman Catholic church.[113]

§ 42.2. Constantine the Great and his Sons.—Constantine’s profession of Christianity was not wholly the result of political craft, though his use of the name Pontifex Maximus and in this capacity the continued exercise of certain pagan practices, gave some colour to such an opinion. Outbursts of passion, impulsiveness exhibited in deeds of violence and cruelty, as in the order for the execution of his eldest son Crispus in A.D. 326 and his second wife Fausta, are met with even in his later years. Soon after receiving baptism he died without having ever attended a complete divine service. His toleration of paganism must be regarded purely as a piece of statecraft. He only prohibited impure rites and assigned to the Christians but a few of the temples that had actually been in use. Aversion to the paganism still prevalent among the principal families in Rome may partly have led him to transfer his residence to Byzantium, since called Constantinople, in A.D. 330. His three sons divided the Empire among them. Constantius (A.D. 337-361) retained the East, and became, after the death of Constantine II. in A.D. 340 and of Constans in A.D. 350, sole ruler. All the three sought to put down paganism by force. Constantius closed the heathen temples and forbade all sacrifices on pain of death. Multitudes of heathens went over to Christianity, few probably from conviction. Among the nobler pagans there was thus awakened a strong aversion to Christianity. Patriotism and manly spirit came to be identified with the maintenance of the old religion.[114]

§ 42.3. Julian the Apostate (A.D. 361-363).—The sons of Constantine the Great began their reign in A.D. 337 with the murder of their male relatives. The brothers Julian and Gallus, nephews of Constantine, alone were spared; but in A.D. 345 they were banished to a Cappadocian castle where Julian officiated for a while as reader in the village church. Having at last obtained leave to study in Nicomedia, then in Ephesus, and finally in Athens, the chief representatives of paganism fostered in him the conviction that he was specially raised up by the gods to restore again the old religion of his fathers. As early as A.D. 351 in Nicomedia he formally though still secretly returned to paganism, and at Athens in A.D. 355 he took part in the Eleusinian mysteries. Soon thereafter Constantius, harassed by foreign wars, assigned to him the command of the army against the Germans. By affability, personal courage and high military talent, he soon won to himself the enthusiastic attachment of the soldiers. Constantius thought to weaken the evident power of his cousin which seemed to threaten his authority, by recalling the best of the legions, but the legions refused obedience and proclaimed Julian emperor. Then the emperor refused to ratify the election and treated Julian himself as a rebel. The latter advanced at the head of his army by forced marches upon the capital, but ere he reached the city, he received the tidings of the opposing emperor’s death. Acknowledged now as emperor throughout the whole empire without any opposition, Julian proceeded with zeal, enthusiasm and vigour to accomplish his long-cherished wish, the restoring of the glory of the old national religion. He used no violent measures for the subversion and overthrow of Christianity, nor did he punish Christian obstinacy with death, except where it seemed to him the maintenance of his supremacy required it. But he demanded that temples which had been converted into churches should be restored to the heathen worship, those destroyed should be restored at the cost of the church exchequer and the money for the state that had been applied to ecclesiastical purposes had to be repaid. He scornfully referred the clergy thus robbed of their revenues to the blessedness of evangelical poverty. He also fomented as much as possible dissension in the church, favoured all sectaries and heretics, excluded Christians from all the higher, and afterwards from all the lower, civil and military offices, and loaded them on every occasion with reproach and shame, and by these means he actually induced many to apostatise. In order to discredit Christ’s prophecy in Matt. xxiv. 2, he resolved on the restoration of the Jewish temple at Jerusalem, but after having been begun it was destroyed by an earthquake. He excluded all Christian teachers from the public schools, and also forbade them in their own schools from explaining the classical writers who were objected to and contested by them only as godless; so that Christian boys and youths could obtain a higher classical education only in the pagan schools. By petty artifices he endeavoured to get Christian soldiers to take part, if only even seemingly, in the heathen sacrifices. Indeed at a later period in Antioch he was not ashamed to stoop to the mean artifice of Galerian (§ 22, 6) of sprinkling with sacrificial water the necessaries of life exposed in the public market, etc. On the other hand, he strove in every way to elevate and ennoble paganism. From Christianity he borrowed Benevolent Institutions, Church Discipline, Preaching, Public Service of Song, etc.; he gave many distinctions to the heathen priesthood, but required of them a strict discipline. He himself sacrificed and preached as Pontifex Maximus, and led a strictly ascetic, almost a cynically simple life. The ineffectiveness of his attempts and the daring, often even contemptuous, resistance of many Christian zealots embittered him more and more, so that there was now danger of bloody persecution when, after a reign of twenty months, he was killed from a javelin blow in a battle against the Persians in A.D. 363. Shortly before in answer to the scornful question of a heathen, “What is your Carpenter’s Son doing now?” it had been answered, “He is making a coffin for your emperor.” At a later period the story became current that Julian himself, when he received the deadly stroke, exclaimed, Tandem vicisti Galilæe! His military talents and military virtues had shed a glory around the throne of the Cæsars such as it had not known since the days of Marcus Aurelius, and yet his whole life’s struggle was and remained utterly fruitless and vain.[115]

§ 42.4. The Later Emperors.—After Julian’s death, Jovian, and then on his death in A.D. 364, Valentinian I. († 375), were chosen emperors by the army. The latter resigned to his brother Valens the empire of the East (A.D. 364-378). His son and successor Gratian (A.D. 375-383) at the wish of the army adopted his eldest half-brother of four years old, Valentinian II., as colleague in the empire of the West, and upon the death of Valens resigned the government of the West to the Spaniard Theodosius I., or the Great (A.D. 379-395), who, after the assassination of Valentinian II. in A.D. 392, became sole ruler. After his death his sons again divided the empire among them: Honorius († 423) took the West, Arcadius († 408) the East, and now the partitioned empire continued in this condition until the incursions of the barbarians had broken up the whole West Roman division (A.D. 476). Belisarius and Narses, the victorious generals of Justinian I., were the first to succeed, between A.D. 533-553, in conquering again North Africa and all Italy along with its islands. But in Italy the Byzantine empire from A.D. 569 was reduced in size from time to time by the Longobards, and in Africa from A.D. 665 by the Saracens, while even earlier, about A.D. 633, the Saracens had secured to themselves Syria, Palestine, and Egypt.—Julian’s immediate successors tolerated paganism for a time. It was, however, a very temporary respite. No sooner had Theodosius I. quieted in some measure political disorders, than he proceeded in A.D. 382 to accomplish the utter overthrow of paganism. The populace and the monks combined in destroying the temples. The rhetorician Libanius († 395) then addressed his celebrated discourse Περὶ τῶν ἱερῶν to the emperor; but the remaining temples were closed and the people were prohibited from visiting them. In Alexandria, under the powerful bishop Theophilus, there were bloody conflicts, in consequence of which the Christians destroyed the beautiful Serapeion in A.D. 391. In vain did the pagans look for the falling down of the heavens and the destruction of the earth; even the Nile would not once by causing blight and barrenness take vengeance on the impious. In the West, Gratian was the first of the emperors who declined the rank of pontifex maximus; he also deprived the heathen priests of their privileges, removed the foundations of the temple of Fiscus, and commanded that the altar of Victory should be taken away from the hall of the Senate in Rome. In vain did Symmachus, præfectus urbi, entreat for its restoration, if not “numinis” yet “nominis causa.” Valentinian II., urged on by Ambrose, sent back four times unheard the deputation that came about this matter. So soon as Theodosius I. became sole ruler the edicts were made more severe. On his entrance into Rome in A.D. 394 he addressed to the Roman Senate a severe lecture and called them to repentance. His sons, Honorius in the West and Arcadius in the East, followed the example of their father. Under the successor of the latter, Theodosius II. (A.D. 408-450), monks with imperial authority for the suppression of heathenism traversed the provinces, and in A.D. 448, in common with Valentinian III. (A.D. 425-455), the western emperor, he issued an edict which strictly enjoined the burning of all pagan polemical writings against Christianity, especially those of Porphyry “the crack-brained,” wherever they might be found. This period is also marked by deeds of bloody violence. The most horrible of these was the murder of the noble pagan philosopher Hypatia, the learned daughter of Theon the mathematician, at Alexandria in A.D. 415. Officially paganism may be regarded as no longer existent. Branded long even before this as the religion of the peasants (such is the derivation of the word paganism), it was now almost wholly confined to remote rural districts. Its latest and solitary stronghold was the University of Athens raised to the summit of its fame under Proclus (§ 24, 2). Justinian I. (A.D. 527-565) decreed the suppression of this school in A.D. 529. Its teachers fled into Persia, and there laid the first foundations of the later literary period of Islam under the ruling family of the Abassidæ at Bagdad (§ 65, 2). This was the death hour of heathenism in the Roman empire. The Mainottæ in the mountains of the Peloponnesus still maintained their political independence and the heathen religion of their fathers down to the 9th century. In the Italian islands, too, of Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily, there were still many heathens even in the time of Gregory the Great († 604).[116]

§ 42.5. Heathen Polemics and Apologetics.—Julian’s controversial treatise Κατὰ Γαλιλαίων λόγοι, in 3 bks. according to Cyril, in 7 bks. according to Jerome, is known only from the reply of Cyril of Alexandria (§ 47, 6) which follows it section by section, the rest of the answers to it having been entirely lost. Of Cyril’s book only the first ten λόγοι have come down to us in a complete state, and from these we are able almost wholly to restore the first book of Julian’s treatise. Only fragments of the second decade of Cyril’s work are extant, and not even so much of the third, so that of Julian’s third book we may be said to know nothing.[117] Julian represented Christianity as a deteriorated Judaism, but Christolatry and the worship of martyrs as later falsifications of the doctrine of Christ.—The later advocates of heathenism, Libanius and Symmachus, were content with claiming toleration and religious freedom. But when from the 5th century, under the influence of the barbarians, signs of the speedy overthrow of the Roman empire multiplied, the heathen polemics assumed a bolder attitude, declaring that this was the punishment of heaven for the contempt of the old national religion, under which the empire had flourished. Such is the standpoint especially of the historians Eunapius and Zosimus. But history itself refuted them more successfully than the Christian apologists; for even these barbarous peoples passed over in due course to Christianity, and vied with the Roman emperors in their endeavours to extirpate heathenism. In the 5th century, the celebrated Neo-Platonist Proclus wrote “eighteen arguments (ἐπιχειρήματα) against the Christians” in vindication of the Platonic doctrine of the eternity of the world and in refutation of the Christian doctrine of creation. The Christian grammarian John Philoponus (§ 47, 11) answered them in an exhaustive and elaborate treatise, which again was replied to by the philosopher Simplicius, one of the best teachers in the pagan University of Athens.—The dialogue Philopatris, “the Patriot,” included among the works of Lucian of Samosata, but certainly not composed by him, is a feeble imitation of the famous scoffer, in which the writer declares that he can no longer fitly swear at the Olympic gods with their many unsavoury loves and objectionable doings, and with a satirical reference to Acts xvii. 23 recommends for this purpose “the unknown God at Athens,” whom he further scurrilously characterizes as ὑψιμέδων θεὸς, υἵος πατρὸς, πνεῦμα ἐκ πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον ἓν ἐκ τριῶν καὶ ἐξ ἑνὸς τρία (§ 50, 1, 7). Finally he tells of some closely shaven men (§ 45, 1) who were treated as liars, because, having in consequence of a ten days’ fast and singing had a vision foreboding ill to their fatherland, their prophecy was utterly discredited by the arrival of an account of the emperor’s successes in the war against the Persians. The impudence with which the orthodox Christianity and the Nicene orthodox formula are sneered at, as well as the allusions to the spread of monasticism and a victorious war against the Persians, fix the date of the dialogue in the reign of Julian, or rather, since the writer would scarcely have had Julian’s approval in his scoffing at the gods of Olympus, in the time of the Arian Valens (§ 50, 4). But since the overthrow of Egypt and Crete is spoken of in this treatise, Niebuhr has put its date down to the time of the Emperor Nicephoras Phocas (A.D. 963-969), understanding by Persians the Saracens and by Scythians the Bulgarians.

§ 42.6. The religion of the Hypsistarians in Cappadocia was, according to Gregory Nazianzen, whose father had belonged to the sect, a blending of Greek paganism with bald Jewish monotheism, together with the oriental worship of fire and the heavenly bodies, with express opposition to the Christian doctrine of the trinity. Of a similar nature were the vagaries of the Euphemites, “Praise singers,” in Asia, who were also called Messalians, “Petitioners,” or Euchites, and in Africa bore the name of Cœlicolæ.

§ 43. THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE AND THE ECCLESIASTICAL LAW.

As in earlier times the supreme direction of all religious matters belonged to the Roman Emperor as Pontifex Maximus, so now that Christianity had become the state religion he claimed for himself the same position in relation to the church. Even Constantine the Great regarded himself as ἐπίσκοπος τῶν ἔξω τῆς ἐκκλησίας, and all his successors exercised the Jus circa sacra as their unquestioned right. Only the Donatists (§ 63, 1) denied to the state all and any right over the church. There was no clear consciousness of the limits of this jurisdiction, but this at least in theory was firmly maintained, that in all ecclesiastical matters, in worship, discipline and doctrine, the emperors were not of themselves entitled to issue conclusive decisions. For this purpose they called Œcumenical Synods, the decrees of which had legal validity throughout the empire when ratified by the emperor. But the more the Byzantine empire degenerated and became a centre of intrigues, the more hurtful did contact with the court become, and more than once the most glaring heresy for a time prevailed by means of personal passion, unworthy tricks and open violence, until at last orthodoxy again secured the ascendency.—From the ordinances issued by the recognised ecclesiastical and civil authorities upon ecclesiastical rights, duties and conditions, as well as from the pseudo-epigraphic apostolic writings already being secretly introduced in this department, there sprang up during this period a rich and varied literature on canon law.

§ 43.1. The Jus circa sacra gave to the Emperors the right of legally determining all the relations between church and state, but assigned to them also the duty of caring for the preservation or restoration of peace and of unity in the church, guarding orthodoxy with a strong arm, looking after the interests of the church and the clergy, and maintaining the authority of ecclesiastical law. Even Constantine the Great excluded all heretics from the privileges which he accorded to the church, and regarded it as a duty forcibly to prevent their spread. The destruction or closing of their churches, prohibition of public meetings, banishment of their leaders, afterwards seizure of their possessions, were the punishments which the state invariably used for their destruction. The first death sentence on a heretic was issued and executed so early as A.D. 385 by the usurper Maximus (§ 54, 2), but this example was not imitated during this period. Constans II. in A.D. 654 gave the first example of scourging to the effusion of blood and barbarous mutilation upon a persistent opponent of his union system of doctrine (§ 52, 8). The fathers of the 4th century were decidedly opposed to all compulsion in matters of faith (comp. however § 63, 1). The right of determining by imperial edict what was to be believed and taught in the empire was first asserted by the usurper Basilicus in A.D. 476 (§ 52, 5). The later emperors followed this example; most decidedly Justinian I. (§ 52, 6) and the court theologians justified such assumptions from the emperor’s sacerdotal rank, which was the antitype of that of Melchizedec [Melchisedec]. The emperor exercised a direct influence upon the choice of bishops especially in the capital cities; at a later period the emperor quite arbitrarily appointed these and set them aside. The church’s power to afford protection secured for it generally a multitude of outward privileges and advantages. The state undertook the support of the church partly by rich gifts and endowments from state funds, partly by the making over of temples and their revenues to the church, and Constantine conferred upon the church the right of receiving bequests of all kinds. The churches and their officers were expressly exempted from all public burdens. The distinct judicial authority of the bishops recognised of old was formally legitimized by Constantine under the name of Audentia episcopalis. The clergy themselves were exempted from the jurisdiction of civil tribunals and were made subject to an ecclesiastical court. The right of asylum was taken from the heathen temples and conferred upon the Christian churches. With this was connected also the right of episcopal intercession or of interference with regard to decisions already come to by the civil courts which were thus in some measure subject to clerical control.

§ 43.2. The Institution of Œcumenical Synods.—The σύνοδοι οἰκουμενικαί, Concilia universalia s. generalia, owe their origin to Constantine the Great (§ 50, 1). The calling of councils was an unquestioned right of the crown. A prelate chosen by the emperor or the council presided; the presence of the imperial commissioner, who opened the Synod by reading the imperial edict, was a guarantee for the preservation of the rights of the state. The treasury bore the expense of board and travelling. The decisions generally were called ὅροι, Definitiones; if they were resolutions regarding matters of faith, δόγματα; if in the form of a confession, σύμβολα; if they bore upon the constitution, worship and discipline, κανόνες. On doctrinal questions there had to be unanimity; on constitutional questions a majority sufficed. Only the bishops had the right of voting, but they allowed themselves to be influenced by the views of the subordinate clergy. As a sort of substitute for the œcumenical councils which could not be suddenly or easily convened we have the σύνοδοι ἐνδημοῦσα at Constantinople, which were composed of all the bishops who might at the time be present in the district. At Alexandria, too, these endemic Synods were held. The Provincial Synods were convened twice a year under the presidency of the metropolitan; as courts of higher instances we have the Patriarchal or Diocesan Synods (comp. § 46, 1).[118]

§ 43.3. Canonical Ordinances.—As canonical decrees acknowledged throughout the whole of the Catholic national church or at least throughout the more important ecclesiastical districts the following may be named.

1. The Canons of the Œcumenical Councils.

2. The Decrees of several important Particular Synods.

3. The Epistolæ canonicæ of distinguished bishops, especially those of the Sedes apostolicæ, § 34, preeminently of Rome and Alexandria, pertaining to questions which have had a determining influence on church practice, which were at a later time called at Rome Epistt. decretales.

4. The canonical laws of the emperors, νόμοι (Codex Theodosianus in A.D. 440, Codex Justinianæus in A.D. 534, Novellæ Justiniani).

The first systematically arranged collection of the Greek church known to us was made by Johannes Scholasticus, then presbyter at Antioch, afterwards Patriarch at Constantinople († 578). A second collection, also ascribed to him, to which were added the canonical νόμοι of Justinian, received the name of the Nomocanon. In the West all earlier collections were put out of sight by the Codex canonum of the Roman abbot Dionysius the Little (§ 47, 23), to which were also added the extant Decretal Epistles about A.D. 520.

§ 43.4. Pseudepigraphic Church Ordinances.—Even so early as the 2nd and 3rd centuries there sprang up no inconsiderable number of writings upon church law, with directions about ethical, liturgical and constitutional matters for the instruction of the church members as well as the clergy, the moral precepts of which are of importance in church procedure as affording a standard for discipline. The oldest probably of these has lately been made again accessible to us in the Teaching of the XII. Apostles, the Didache (§ 30, 7). It designates its contents, even where these are taken not from the Old Testament or the “Gospel,” but from the so-called church practice, as apostolic, with the honest conviction that by means of oral apostolic tradition it may be traced back to the immediate appointment of the Lord, without, however, pseudepigraphically claiming to have been written by the Apostles. Many treatises of the immediately following period, no longer known to us or known only by fragments, occupied the same standpoint. But even so early as the end of the 3rd century pseudepigraphic apostolic fiction makes its appearance in the so-called Apostolic Didascalia, and some sixty years later, it reached its climax in the eight bks. of the so-called Constitutiones Apostolicæ, Διαταγαὶ τῶν ἀπ. διὰ Κλήμεντος. The first six bks. correspond to the previously named Didascalia expanded and variously altered.[119] It assumes the form of a prolix epistolary discourse of the Apostle, communicated through Clement of Rome, about everything pertaining to the Christian life, the Catholic system of doctrine, liturgical practice and hierarchical constitution which may be necessary and useful for the laity as well as the clergy to know, with the exclusion, however, of everything which belonged to the department of what was then regarded as the Disciplina arcani (§ 36, 4). Of older writings, so far as known, those principally used are the seven Ignatian Epistles (§ 30, 5). It is post-Novatianist (§ 41, 3) and belongs to a time pre-Constantine but free from persecution (§ 22, 6), and may therefore be placed somewhere between A.D. 260 and A.D. 302. It was written probably in Syria.—While the first six bks. of the Apostolic Constitutions may be compared to the Syrian recension as a contemporary rendition of the Didascalia, the seventh book from an examination of the Didache seems a rendition of that little work, in which the assumption of apostolic authorship is made, and from which everything offensive to the forger and his age is cut out, the old text being otherwise literally reproduced, while into it is cleverly smuggled from his own resources whatever would contribute to the support of his own peculiar views as well as the prevailing practice of the church. The Eusebian symbol, which is given in the 41st chap., is an anti-Nicene, anti-Marcellianist, Arianizing formula, fixing the date of the forgery at the period of the Arian controversy, somewhere between A.D. 340 and A.D. 350 (§ 50, 2).—The eighth book is in great part an unmistakeable forgery compiled from older sources belonging to the 3rd century, some of which are still to be found, and forms a handbook for the discharge of clerical, especially episcopal, duties in the conducting of worship and other clerical functions, e.g. ordination, baptism, etc., together with the relative liturgical formularies, drawn up in a thoroughly legal-like style, in which the Apostles one by one give their contribution with the formula Διατάσσομαι. The composition is probably ante-Nicene, but the date of its incorporation with the other seven books is uncertain.—In most, though not in all, MSS. the Canones Apostolorum, sometimes 50, sometimes 85, in number, are appended to the eighth book as its last chapter. Their standpoint is that common to the canons of the early councils from which they are chiefly borrowed. In respect of contents they treat mainly of the moral behaviour and official functions of the clergy. The 85th contains a Scripture canon of the Old and New Testaments, including the two Epp. of the Roman Clement (§ 30, 3), as well as the Apost. Constitutions, but omitting the Apocalypse of John (comp. § 33, 9). The collection of the apostolic canon cannot have been made before the beginning of the 5th century, and most likely in Syria. Dionysius the Little admitted only the first 50 as Canones qui dicuntur Apostolorum, but Johannes Scholasticus quite unhesitatingly ascribes all the 85 to Clement of Rome. The Second Trullan Council in A.D. 692 (§ 63, 2) acknowledged the genuineness of the 85, but rejected the Apostolic Constitutions as a heretical forgery which had found no general acceptance in the West.—While hitherto it has been surmised that the 7th bk. of the Apost. Constit., as an independent and original work, should be assigned to another and a much later author than the first six bks., Harnack, founding upon his study of the Didache, has come to a clear understanding of their mutual relations. He shows that the original documents lying at the basis respectively of the Didache and the Didascalia are fundamentally distinct in respect of composition and character, but the two in the form in which they lie before us in the Apost. Constit. are undoubtedly the work of one and the same interpolator. We further obtain the equally convincing and surprising result that the author of this forgery is also identical with the author of the thirteen Pseudo-Ignatian Epistles (§ 30, 5), and had in the one case and in the other the same object in view. Finally, he characterizes him as a Syrian cleric well versed in Scripture, especially the Old Testament, but also a shrewd worldly politician, opposed to all strict asceticism, who sought by his forgeries to win apostolic sanction and justification not only for the constitutional and liturgical institutions of the church, as well as the milder practice of his age, but also for his own semi-Arian doctrinal views.

§ 43.5. The Apostolic Church Ordinances[120] are, according to Harnack’s careful analysis, a compilation executed in a most scholarly fashion of extracts from four old writings: the Didache, the Ep. of Barnabas, from which the moral precepts are taken, a κατάστασις τοῦ κλήρου from the beginning of the 3rd century, and a κατάστασις τῆς ἐκκλησίας from the end of the 2nd century, with many clumsy alterations and excursuses after the style of the church tradition of its own period, the beginning of the 4th century. Its introduction consists of a formula of greeting modelled upon the Ep. of Barnabas from the twelve Apostles who are designated by name. The list, which begins with the name of John, wants one of the two Jameses and the late chosen Matthias, and the number of twelve is made up by the addition of the name of Nathanael and that of Cephas in addition to that of Peter. Then the Apostles tell that Christ had commanded them to divide among them by lot the Eparchies, Episcopates, Presbyterates, Diaconates, etc., of all lands, and to send forth οἱ λόγοι into the whole οἰκουμένη; then follow these λόγοι, first the moral rules, then the constitutional enactments, both being divided among the several Apostles (Ἰωάννης εἶπεν, Ματθαίος εἶπεν, etc.). The compilation had its origin in Egypt, not, however, at Alexandria, where Athanasius was still unacquainted with it, or at least did not think it worthy of being mentioned among the church manuals (§ 59, 1), while at a later period it was held in the highest esteem by the Copts, Ethiopians, Arabians, etc., and took the first rank among their books on ecclesiastical procedure.

II. MONASTICISM, CLERICALISM AND HIERARCHISM.

§ 44. MONASTICISM.[121]

Disgusted with worldly pursuits and following an impulse of the oriental character in favour of the contemplative life, many ascetics withdrew into deserts and solitudes, there as Anchorets (ἐρεμίται, μοναχοί, μονάζοντες), amid prayer and labour, privation and self-denial, wringing out of the wilderness their scanty support, they strove after holiness of life which they thought they could reach only by forsaking the accursed world. The place where this extravagant extreme of the old ascetism arose was the Thebaid in Upper Egypt (§ 39, 3). The first, and for a long time isolated, examples of such professional abandonment of the world may be traced back to the 3rd century; but they had wider spread first in the post-Constantine Age. The example of St. Anthony was specially influential in leading a number of like-minded men to betake themselves to isolated dwellings, λαῦραι, in his neighbourhood and to place themselves under his spiritual direction. In this we have already the transition from a solitary anchoret life to a communal cœnobite life (κοινὸς βίος), and this reached maturity when Anthony’s disciple Pachomius gathered the scattered residents in his district into one common dwelling, Claustrum, Cœnobium, Monasterium, Mandra=fold, and bound them under a common system of ascetic practice in prayer and labour, especially basket making and carpet weaving. This arrangement, without, however, any tendency to displace the anchoret life properly so-called, won great favour, and this went on for some decades until first of all in the East, then also in the West about A.D. 370, the land was covered over with monasteries. The monastic life under its twofold aspect was now esteemed as βὶος ἀγγελικός (Matt. xxii. 30), φιλοσοφία ὑψηλή, melior vita. Yet even here corruption soon spread. Not merely the feeling of spiritual need, but ambition, vanity, slothfulness and especially the desire to avoid military service and villainage, taxes and imposts, induced men to enter the monasteries. The Emperor Valens therefore issued an order in A.D. 365 that such men should be dragged out by force from their retreats. Spiritual vices too were not wanting—extravagance and fanaticism, spiritual pride, etc. All the more did the most distinguished bishops, e.g. Basil the Great, feel it their duty to take the monasteries under their special supervision and care. Under such direction, besides serving their own special purpose, they became extremely important and beneficial as places of refuge for the oppressed and persecuted, and as benevolent institutions for the sick and the poor. Sometimes also by the introduction of theological studies as seminaries to prepare candidates for the higher ecclesiastical offices. Other prelates, however, preferred to use their monks as a trusty horde for the accomplishment of their own ambitious party ends. The monks were always reckoned among laymen, but were distinguished from the Seculares as Religiosi or Conversi.

§ 44.1. The Biography of St. Anthony.—According to the Vita s. Antonii ascribed to Athanasius, Anthony was sprung from a wealthy Coptic family of the country town of Coma in Upper Egypt, and was born in A.D. 251. At the age of eighteen he lost his parents, and, being powerfully affected by hearing the story of the rich young ruler in the gospel read in church, he gave away all his goods to the poor and withdrew into the desert (A.D. 285). Amid terrible inward struggles, which took the form of daily conflicts with demons, who sprang upon him from the sides of his cave in the shape of all sort of beasts and strange creatures, he spent a long time in a horrible tomb, then twenty years in the crumbling ruins of a castle, and finally he chose as his constant abode a barren mountain, afterwards called Anthony’s Mount, where a well and some date palms afforded him the absolutely indispensable support. His clothing, a sheep’s skin and a hairy cloak, was on his body day and night, nor did he ever wash himself. The fame of his holiness attracted a multitude of like-minded ascetics who settled in his neighbourhood and put themselves under his spiritual direction. But also men of the world of all ranks made pilgrimages to him, seeking and finding comfort. Even Constantine and his sons testified in correspondence with him their veneration, and he answered “like a Christian Diogenes to the Christian Alexander.” Pointing to Christ as the only miracle worker, he healed by his prayers bodily maladies and by his conversations afflictions of the soul. Amid the distress of the persecution of Maximian in A.D. 311 he went to Alexandria, but found not the martyrdom which he courted. Again, in A.D. 351, during the bitter Arian controversy (§ 50), he appeared suddenly in the great capital, this time gazed at by Christians and pagans as a divine wonder, and converting crowds of the heathen. In his last days he resigned the further direction of the society of hermits gathered about him to his disciple Pachomius, himself withdrawing along with two companions into an unknown solitude, where he, bequeathing to the author his sheepskin, died in A.D. 356, in his 105th year, after exacting a promise that no one should know the place of his burial.—Until the appearance of this book, which was very soon translated into Latin by a certain Evagrius, no single writer, neither Lactantius, nor Eusebius, nor even Athanasius in any of his other undoubtedly genuine writings, mentions the name of this patriarchal monk afterwards so highly esteemed, and all later writers draw only from this one source. Weingarten has now not only proved that this Vita s. Ant. is not a biography in the proper sense, but a romance with a purpose which was intended “to represent the ideal of a monkish life dovetailed into the ecclesiastical system and raised notwithstanding all popular and vital elements into a spiritual atmosphere,” but has also disproved the Athanasian authorship of the book, without, however, seeking to deny the historical existence of St. Anthony and his importance in the establishment of monasticism, as this is already vouched for by the fact that even in the 4th century in the days of Rufinus pilgrimages were made to Mons Antonii.—The most important witness for the Athanasian authorship is Gregory Nazianzen, who begins his panegyric on Athanasius delivered in Constantinople only a few years after that father’s death, which occurred in A.D. 373, with the wish that he could describe brilliantly the life of the highly revered man, as he himself had portrayed the ideal of monasticism in the person of St. Anthony. But, on the other hand, Jerome in his Vita Pauli and Rufinus in his Hist. eremit. seem not yet to have known the author of the book, and the former, first in his De scriptoribus ecclst., written twenty years later, knows that Athanasius was the author. Internal reasons, too, seem with no small weight to tell against the authenticity of the book, the biographical contents of which are largely intermixed with fabulous and legendary elements.

§ 44.2. The Origin of Christian Monasticism.—From the fact that not only Lactantius, but also Eusebius, whose history reaches down to A.D. 324, have nothing to say of a monasticism already developed or then first in process of development, it may perhaps be concluded that although in a general way such an institution was already in existence, it had not yet become known beyond the bounds of the Thebaid where it originated. But from the fact that Eusebius, who died in A.D. 340, in his Vita Constantini reaching down to A.D. 337, never makes any mention of monasticism, we cannot with like probability infer a continuance of such ignorance down to the above-mentioned year, but must attribute it to the limited range of the book in question. In his commentary on Ps. lxviii. 7 and lxxxiv. 4 he distinctly speaks of a Christian monasticism. The fugitive Athanasius, too, so early as A.D. 356 betakes himself to the monks of the Thebaid, and stays for a year with them (§ 50, 2, 4), which presupposes a certain measure of organization and celebrity on the part of the community of that region. In his Hist. Arianorum ad monachos, written about A.D. 360, he declares that already monasticism had spread through all the τόποι or districts of Egypt. Of a monasticism outside of Egypt, however, even this writing still knows nothing. We shall not, therefore, greatly err if we assume that the latter years of Constantine’s reign are to be taken as the period of the essential origin of Egyptian monasticism; though from this it is not to be concluded that the first isolated beginnings of it, which had not yet won any special recognition, are not to be assigned to a very much earlier period. Even the Old and New Testaments, in the persons of Elijah, John the Baptist, and our Lord Himself, tell of temporary withdrawals, from religious and ascetical motives, into the wilderness. But even the life-long professional anchoretism and cœnobitism had their precursors in the Indian gymnosophists, in the East-Asiatic Buddhism and the Egyptian Serapis worship, and to a certain extent also in the Essenism of Palestine (§ 8, 4). From the place of its origin and the character of its development, however, Christian monasticism can have been influenced only by the Egyptian Serapis worship, and that in a very general sort of way. That this actually was the case, Weingarten especially has sought to prove from various analogies based upon the learned researches of French Academicians.

§ 44.3. Oriental Monasticism.—For centuries Egypt continued the central seat and training school of Christian monasticism both for the East and for the West. The most celebrated of all the Egyptian hermit colonies was that founded by Pachomius, formerly perhaps a monk of Serapis, († 348), at Tabennæ, an island of the Nile. To the mother monastery were soon attached numerous daughter monasteries. Each of these institutions was under the direction of a president called the abbot, Abbas, i.e. “father,” or Archimandrite; while all of them together were under the superior of the parent monastery. Similar unions were established by Ammonius among the Nitrian mountains, and by Macarius the Elder (§ 47, 7) in the Scetic desert. Hilarion, a disciple of St. Anthony († 371), is celebrated by Jerome as the founder of Palestinian monasticism. The Vita Hilarionis of the latter, richly adorned with records of adventurous travels and wonderful events, most extravagant wonders and demoniacal apparitions, like the life of Paul of Thebes (§ 39, 4), has been recently shown to be a romance built upon certain genuine reminiscences. Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen with youthful enthusiasm sought to introduce monasticism into their native Asia Minor, while Eustathius, Bishop of Sebaste († 380), carried it still further east. But though among the Syrian discourses of Aphraates (§ 47, 13) there is found one on monasticism, which thus would seem to have been introduced into Mesopotamia by A.D. 340, this is in contradiction to all other witnesses and awakens a suspicion of the ungenuineness of the discourse, which is further confirmed by its being wanting in the Armenian translation, as well as in the enumeration of Gennadius.—The zeal especially of Basil was successful in ennobling monasticism and making it fruitful. The monastic rules drawn up by him superseded all others in the East, and are to this day alone recognised in the orthodox Greek Church. According to these every monastery had one or more clerics for conducting worship and administering the sacrament. Basil also advanced the development and influence of monasticism by setting down the monasteries in the neighbourhood of the cities. In the 5th century two of the noblest, most sensible and talented representatives of ancient monasticism did much for its elevation and ennobling; namely, Isidore, who died about A.D. 450, abbot and priest of a cloister at Pelusium in Egypt, and his contemporary Nilus, who lived among the monks of Sinai. The not inconsiderable remnants of their numerous letters still extant testify to their far-reaching influence, as well as to the noble and liberal spirit which they manifested (§ 47, 6, 10).[122] A peculiar kind of cœnobite life is found amongst the Acoimetæ, for whom the Roman Studius founded about A.D. 46O the afterwards very celebrated monastery Studion at Constantinople, in which as many as a thousand monks are said to have lived together at one time. They took their name from the divine service uninterruptedly continued in their cloister night and day. From the 5th century the legislative Synods undertook the care of the monasteries. The Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451 put them under the jurisdiction of the bishop. Returning to the world was at first freely permitted, but was always regarded as discreditable and demanding submission to penance. From the 6th century, however, monastic vows were regarded as of life-long obligation, and therefore a regular canonical age was fixed and a long novitiate prescribed as a time of testing and consideration. About this time, too, besides the propria professio, the paterna devotio was also regarded as binding in accordance with the example of 1 Sam. i. 11.

§ 44.4. Western Monasticism.—The West did not at first take kindly to the monastic idea, and only the combined exhortations of the most respected bishops and teachers of the Church, with Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine at their head, secured for it acceptance there. The idea that already the universally revered Athanasius who from A.D. 341 resided a long time in Rome (§ 50, 2), had brought hither the knowledge of Egyptian monasticism and first awakened on behalf of it the sympathies of the Westerns, is devoid of any sure foundation. Owing, however, to the free intercourse which even on the side of the Church existed between East and West, it is on the other hand scarcely conceivable that the first knowledge of Eastern monasticism should have reached Italy through Jerome on his return in A.D. 373 from his Eastern travels. But it is certain that Jerome from that time most zealously endeavoured to obtain recruits for it in the West, applying himself specially to conspicuous pious ladies of Rome and earning for this scant thanks from their families. The people’s aversion, too, against monasticism was so great that even in A.D. 384, when a young female ascetic called Blasilla, the daughter of St. Paula, died in Rome as some supposed from excessive fasting, an uproar was raised in which the indignant populace, as Jerome himself relates, cried out, Quousque genus detestabile monachorum non urbe pellitur? Non lapidibus obruitur? non præcipitatur in fluctus? But twenty years later Jerome could say with exultation, Crebra virginum monasteria, monachorum, innumerabilis multitudo, ut ... quod prius ignominiæ fuerat, esset postea gloriæ. Popular opposition to the monks was longest and most virulently shown in North Africa. Even so late as about A.D. 450, Salvianus reports the expressions of such hate: Ridebant, ... maledicebant ... insectabantur ... detestabantur ... omnia in monacho pœne fecerunt quæ in Salvatorem nostrum Judæorum impietas, etc. Nevertheless monasticism continued to spread and therewith also the institution grew in popular esteem in the West. Martin of Tours (§ 47, 14) established it in Northern Gaul in A.D. 370; and in Southern Gaul, Honoratus [Honorius] about A.D. 400 founded the celebrated monastery of Serinum, on the uninhabited island of Lerina, and John Cassianus (§ 47, 21), the still more celebrated one at Massilia, now Marseilles. The inroads of the invaders well nigh extinguished Western monachism. It was Benedict of Nursia who first, in A.D. 529, gave to it unity, order, and a settled constitution, and made it for many centuries the pioneer of agricultural improvement and literary culture throughout the Western empire that had been hurled into confusion by the wars of the barbarians (§ 85).

§ 44.5. Institution of Nunneries.—Virgins devoted to God, who repudiated marriage, are spoken of as early as the 2nd century. The limitations of their sex forbade them entering on the life of anchorets, but all the more heartily did they adopt the idea of the cloister life. St. Anthony himself is said to have laid its first foundations when he was hastening away into solitude, by establishing at Coma for the sake of his sister whom he was leaving behind, an association of virgins consecrated unto God. Pachomius founded the first female cloister with definite rules, the superior of which was his own sister. From that time there sprang up a host of women’s cœnobite unions. The lady superior was called Ammas, “mother;” the members, μοναχαί, sanctimoniales, nonnæ, which was a Coptic word meaning chaste. The patroness of female monachism in the West was St. Paula of Rome, who was the scholar and friend of Jerome. Accompanied by her daughter Eustochium, she followed him to Palestine, and founded three nunneries at Bethlehem.

§ 44.6. Monastic Asceticism.—Although the founders of the Eastern monastic rules subjected themselves to the strictest asceticism and performed them to a remarkable extent, especially in fasting and enduring privations, yet the degree of asceticism which they enjoined upon their monks in fasting, watching, prayer and labour, was in general moderate and sensible. Valorous acts of self mortification, so very congenial to the oriental spirit, are thus met with in the proper monastic life seldomer than among ascetics living after their own fancy in deserts and solitudes. This accounts for the rare appearance of the Stylites or pillar saints, by whom expression was given in an outward way to the idea of elevation above the earthly and of struggle toward heaven. The most celebrated of these was Simeon Stylites, who lived in the neighbourhood of Antioch for thirty years on a pillar seventy feet high, and preached repentance to the people who flocked to him from every side. Thousands of Saracens who roamed through those regions sought baptism, overcome, according to the legend, by the power of his discourse. He died A.D. 459. After him the most celebrated pillar saints were one Daniel who died at Constantinople in A.D. 489, and a younger Simeon who died at Antioch in A.D. 596.

§ 44.7. Anti-Ecclesiastical and Heretical Monasticism.—Even after the regulating of monachism by Pachomius and Basil, there were still isolated hermit societies which would be bound by no rules. Such were the Sarabaites in Egypt and the Remoboth in Syria. Crowds of monks, too, under no rule swarmed about, called Βοσκοί, Pabulatores or Grazers, because they supported themselves only on herbs and roots. In Italy and Africa from the 5th century we hear of so-called Gyrovagi, who under the pretence of monachism led a useless vagabond life. Monasticism assumed a decidedly heretical and schismatical character among the Euchites and Eustathianists in the second half of the 4th century. The Euchites, called also from their mystic dances Messalians or Chorentes, not to be confounded with the pagan Euchites (§ 42, 6), thought that they had reached the ideal of perfection, and were therefore raised above observance of the law. Under pretext of engaging in constant prayer and being favoured with divine visions, they went about begging, because work was not seemly for perfect saints. Every man they taught, by reason of his descent from Adam, brings with him into the world an evil demon who can be overcome only by prayer, and thus evil can be torn out by the roots. Then man is in need neither of the law, nor of holy scripture, nor of the sacraments, and may be unconditionally left to himself, and may even do that which to a legal man would be sinful. The mystic union of God and man they represented by lascivious acts of sensual love. They understood the gospel history only as an allegory and considered fire the creative light of the universe. By craft and espionage Bishop Flavian of Antioch, in A.D. 381, came to know their secret principles and proceedings. But notwithstanding the persecution now directed against them, they continued in existence till the 6th century. The Eustathianists took their name from Eustathius, Bishop of Sebaste, the founder of monasticism in the eastern provinces of the empire. Their fanatical contempt of marriage went so far that they regarded fellowship with the married impure and held divine service by themselves alone. They repudiated the Church fasts and instead ordained fasts on Sundays and festival days, and wholly abstained from eating flesh. The women dressed in men’s clothes. From the rich they demanded the surrender of all their goods. Servants forsook their masters, wives their husbands, in order to attach themselves to the associations of these saints. But the resolute interference of the Synod of Gangra in Paphlagonia, between A.D. 360 and A.D. 370, checked their further spread.—More closely related to the old ascetic order than to the newly organized monasticism was a sect which, according to Augustine, had gained special acceptance among the country people round about Hippo. In accordance with the example of Abel, who in the Old Testament history is without children, its members, the so-called Abelites, indeed married, but restrained themselves from marital intercourse, in order that they might not by begetting children contribute to the spread of original sin, and maintained their existence by the adoption of strange children, one boy and one girl being received into each family.

§ 45. THE CLERGY.

The distinction between clergy and laity was ever becoming more and more clearly marked and in the higher church offices there grew up a spiritual aristocracy alongside of the secular aristocracy. The priesthood arrogated a position high above the laity just as the soul is higher than the body. There was consequently such a thronging into the clerical ranks that a restriction had to be put upon it by the civil laws. The choice of the clergy was made by the bishops with the formal consent of the members of the church. In the East the election of bishops lay ordinarily with the episcopal board of the province concerned though under the presidency of the metropolitan, whose duty it was to ordain the individual so elected. The episcopal chair of the imperial capital, however, was generally under the patronage of the court. In the West on the other hand the old practice was continued, according to which bishops, clergy and members of the church together made the election. At Rome, however, the emperor maintained the right of confirming the appointment of the new bishop. The exchange of one bishopric for another was forbidden by the Nicene Council as spiritual adultery (Eph. v. 33 ff.), but was nevertheless frequently practised. The monarchical rank of the bishop among the clergy was undisputed. The Chorepiscopi (§ 34, 3) had their episcopal privileges and authority always more and more restricted, were made subordinate to the city bishops, and finally, about A.D. 360, were quite set aside. To the Presbyters, on the other hand, in consequence of the success of the anti-episcopal reaction, especially among the daughter and country churches, complete independence was granted in regard to the ministry of the word and dispensation of sacraments, with the exception of the ordination of the clergy, and in the West also the confirmation of the baptism, which the bishop alone was allowed to perform.

§ 45.1. Training of the Clergy.—The few theological seminaries of Alexandria, Cæsarea, Antioch, Edessa and Nisibis could not satisfy the need of clerical training, and even these for the most part disappeared amid the political and ecclesiastical upheavals of the 5th and 6th centuries. The West was entirely without such institutions. So long as pagan schools of learning flourished at Athens, Alexandria, Nicomedia, etc., many Christian youths sought their scientific preparation for the service of the church in them, and added to this on the Christian side by asceticism and theological study among the anchorets or monks. Others despised classical culture and were satisfied with what the monasteries could give. Others again began their clerical career even in boyhood as readers or episcopal secretaries, and grew up under the oversight and direction of the bishop or experienced clergymen. Augustine organized his clergy into a monastic association, Monasterium Clericorum, and gave it the character of a clerical seminary. This useful institution found much favour and was introduced into Sicily and Sardinia by the bishops driven out by the Vandals. The Regula Augustini, so often referred to the Latin Middle Ages, is of later and uncertain origin, but is based upon two discourses of Augustine, “De Moribus Clericorum” and an Epistle to the Nuns at Hippo.—The age of thirty was fixed upon as the canonical age for entering the order of presbyter or priest; twenty-five for that of deacon. Neophytes, those who had been baptized on a sickbed (Clinici), penitents and energoumeni, Bigenie, the mutilated, eunuchs, slaves, actors, comedians, dancers, soldiers, etc., were excluded from the clerical office. The African church even in the 4th century prescribed a strict examination of candidates as to their attainments and orthodoxy. Justinian at least insisted upon a guarantee of orthodoxy by means of episcopal examination.—Ordination[123] made its appearance as an appendage to the baptismal anointing as a sacramental ordinance. The one was consecration to the priesthood in the special sense: the other in the general sense; both bore a character indelibilis. Their efficacy was generally regarded as of a magical kind. The imparting of ordination was exclusively an episcopal privilege; but presbyters could assist at the consecration of those of their own order. The proposition: Ne quis vage ordinatur, was of universal application; the missionary office was the only exception. The anniversaries of episcopal ordinations, Natales episcoporum, were frequently observed as festivals. Legally no one could be ordained to a higher ecclesiastical office, who had not passed through all the lower offices from that of subdeacon. In earlier times ordination consisted only in imposition of hands; but subsequently, after the pattern of baptism there was added an anointing with Chrism, i.e. oil with balsam. The Lord’s Supper was partaken of before ordination, the candidate having previously observed a fast.—From the 5th century it was made imperative that the party ordained should adopt the Tonsure.[124] It had been introduced first in connection with the penitents, then as a symbol of humility it found favour among the monks, and from these it passed over to the clergy. Originally the whole head was shaved bare. At a later period the Greek tonsure, Tonsura Pauli, which merely shaved the forehead, was distinguished from the Romish, Tonsura Petri, which left a circle of hair round about the crown of the head, as a memorial of Christ’s crown of thorns or as the symbol of the royal priesthood, Corona sacerdotalis. The shaving of the beard, as an effeminate foppish custom, seemed to the ancient church to detract from the sternness and dignity of the clerical rank. In all Eastern churches the full beard was retained, and the wearing of it by-and-by made obligatory, as it is to this day. In the West, however, perhaps to mark a contrast to the bearded clergy of the Arian Germans, shaving became general among the Catholic clergy, and by papal and synodal ordinances became almost universally prevalent. The adoption of the custom was also perhaps furthered by a desire to give symbolic expression by the removal of the beard to the renunciation of the claims of the male sex on the part of a celibate clergy.—A solemn Investiture with the insignia of office (§ 59, 7) was gradually introduced, and was that which marked distinctions between the consecrations to the various ranks of clerical offices.

§ 45.2. The Injunction of Celibacy.—In accordance with a hint given by the Spanish Provincial Synod of Elvira in A.D. 306 in its 32nd canon, the Œcumenical Council of Nicæa in A.D. 325 was inclined to make the obligation of celibacy at least for the Ordines Majores a binding law over the whole church. But on the other hand the Egyptian bishop Paphnutius, a confessor and from his youth an ascetic, stoutly maintained that the fellowship of married persons too is chastity. His powerful voice decided the matter. The usual practice, however, was that bishops, presbyters and deacons should not contract a second marriage (1 Tim. iii. 2), after ordination should contract no marriage at all, and if previously married, should continue to live with their wives or not as they themselves should find most fit. The Easterns maintained this free standpoint and at the Synod of Gangra in A.D. 360 contended against the Eustathianists (§ 44, 7) for the holiness of marriage and the legitimacy of married priests; and in the 5th Apost. Canon there was an express injunction: Episcopus vel presbyter, vel diaconus uxorem suam non rejiciat religionis prætexti; sin autem rejecerit segregetur, et si perseveret deponatur. Examples of married bishops are not rare in the 4th and 5th centuries; e.g. the father of Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa, Synesius of Ptolemais, etc. Justinian I. forbade the election of a married man as bishop. The second Trullan Council in A.D. 692 (§ 63, 2) confirmed this decree, interdicted second marriages to all the clergy, but, with an express protest against the unnatural hardness of the Roman church, allowed to presbyters a single marriage with all its privileges which, however, must have been entered upon before consecration, and during the period of service at the altar all marital intercourse had to be discontinued. In Rome, however, the Spanish principles were strictly maintained. A decretal of the Roman bishop, Siricius, in A.D. 385, with semi-Manichæan abuse of marriage, insisted on the celibacy of all bishops, presbyters and deacons, and Leo the Great included even subdeacons under this obligation. All the more distinguished Latin church teachers contended zealously for the universal application of the injunction of clerical celibacy. Yet there were numerous instances of the contravention of the order in Italy, in Gaul, and in Spain itself, and conformity could not be secured even by the most emphatic re-issue of the injunction by successive Synods. In the British and Iro-Scottish church the right of the clergy and even of bishops to marry was insisted upon (§ 77, 3).[125]

§ 45.3. Later Ecclesiastical Offices.—In addition to the older church offices we now meet with attendants on the sick or Parabolani, from παραβάλλεσθαι τὴν ζωήν, and grave-diggers, κοπιαταί, Fossarii, whose number in the capital cities rose to an almost incredible extent. They formed a bodyguard ever ready to gratify episcopal love of pomp. Theodosius II. in A.D. 418 restricted the number of the Parabolani of Alexandria to six hundred and the number of the Copiati of Constantinople to nine hundred and fifty. For the administration of Church property there were οἰκόνομοι; for the administration of the laws of the church there were advocates, ἔνδικοι, σύνδικοι, Defensores; for drawing up legal documents in regard to church affairs there were Notarii, ταχύγραφοι, besides, Keepers of Archives, χαρτοφύλακες, Librarians, Thesaurarii, σκευοφύλακες, etc. None of these as such had clerical consecration. But also within the ranks of the Ordines Majores new offices sprang up. In the 4th century we meet with an Archdeacon at the head of the deacons. He was the right hand of the bishop, his representative and plenipotentiary in the administration and government of the diocese, frequently also his successor in office. The college of presbyters, too, had as its head the Arch-Presbyter who represented and supported the bishop in all acts of public worship. A city presbyter was entrusted with the supervision of the country churches as Visitor. The African Seniores plebis were mere lay elders without clerical ordination. The office of Deaconess more or less lost its significance and gradually fell into disuse.—Justinian I. restricted the number of ecclesiastical officers in the four great churches of Constantinople to 525; namely, in addition to the bishop, 60 presbyters, 100 deacons, 40 deaconesses, 90 subdeacons, 110 readers, 24 singers, and 100 doorkeepers.

§ 45.4. Church Property.—The possessions of the church regularly increased by presents and bequests was regarded down to the 5th century generally as the property of the poor, Patrimonium pauperum, while the cost of maintaining public worship and supplying the clergy with the means of livelihood were defrayed by the voluntary contributions, Oblationes, of the church members. But the growing demands of the clergy, especially of the bishops, for an income corresponding to their official rank and the increasing magnificence of the service, led, first of all in Rome, to the apportioning of the whole sum into four parts; for the bishops, for the subordinate clergy, for the expenses of public worship (buildings, vestments, etc.), and for the needs of the poor. With the introduction of the Old Testament idea of priesthood the thought gradually gained ground that the laity were under obligation, at first regarded simply as a moral obligation, to surrender a tenth of all their possessions to the church, and at a very early date this, in the form of freewill offerings, was often realised. But the Council at Macon in A.D. 585, demanded these tithes as a right of the church resting on divine institution, without, however, being thereby able to effect what first was secured by the Carolingian legislation (§ 86, 1). The demand that all property which a cleric earned in the service of the church, should revert to the church after his death, was given effect to in a Council at Carthage in A.D. 397.

§ 46A. THE PATRIARCHAL CONSTITUTION AND THE PRIMACY.[126]

A hierarchical distinction of ranks among the bishops had already made its appearance even in the previous period by the elevation of the metropolitan see and the yet more marked precedency given to the so-called Sedes apostolicæ (§ 34). This tendency got powerful support from the political divisions of the empire made by Constantine the Great; for now the bishops of capital cities demanded an extension of their spiritual superiority corresponding to that given in secular authority to the imperial governors. The guarding of earlier privileges along with respectful consideration of more recent claims prevented the securing of a perfect correspondence between the political and hierarchical distribution of ranks. The result of giving consideration to both was the development of the Patriarchal Constitution, in which the bishops of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople and Jerusalem were recognised as heads of the church universal of equal rank with jurisdiction over the patriarchates assigned them. The first place in this clerical Pentarchy was claimed by the Roman see, which ever more and more decidedly strove for the primacy of the whole church.

§ 46.1. The Patriarchal Constitution.—Constantine the Great divided the whole empire into four prefectures which were subdivided into dioceses, and these again into provinces. Many bishops then of the capitals of these dioceses, especially in the East, under the title of Exarchs, assumed a rank superior to that of the metropolitans, just as these had before arrogated a rank superior to that of provincial bishops. The first œcumenical Council at Nicæa in A.D. 325 (§ 50, 1) affirmed on behalf of the bishops of the three most prominent Sedes apostolicæ, Rome, Alexandria and Antioch, that their supremacy had been already established by old custom. The so-called second œcumenical Council at Constantinople in A.D. 381 (§ 50, 4) exempted the bishop of Constantinople, διὰ τὸ εἶναι αὐτὴν νέαν Ῥώμην (since A.D. 330), from the jurisdiction of the metropolitan of Heraclea, and gave him the first rank after the bishop of Rome. To these distinguished prelates there was given the title of honour, Patriarch, which formerly had been given to all bishops; but the Roman bishops, declining to take common rank with the others, refused the title, and assumed instead the exclusive use of the title Papa, Πάπας, which had also been previously applied to all of episcopal rank. The fourth œcumenical Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451, in the 28th canon, ranked the patriarch of the Eastern capital along with the bishop of Rome, granted him the right of hearing complaints against the metropolitans of all dioceses that they might be decided at an endemic Synod (§ 43, 2), and as an equivalent to the vast dominions of his Roman colleague, gave him as an endowment in addition to his own patriarchal district, the three complete dioceses of Thrace, Pontus and Asia. The Exarchs of Heraclea in Thrace, of Neo-Cæsarea in Pontus, and of Ephesus in Asia, thus placed under him, bearing the title of Archbishops, ἀρχιεπίσκοποι, formed a hierarchical middle rank between him and the metropolitans of these dioceses, without, however, any strict definition of their status being given, so that their preferential rank remained uncertain and gradually fell back again into that of ordinary metropolitans. But even at Nicæa in A.D. 325 the bishopric of Jerusalem had been declared worthy of very special honour, without, however, its subordination under the Metropolitan of Cæsarea being disputed. Founding on this, Juvenal of Jerusalem in the 3rd œcumenical Council of Ephesus in A.D. 431 claimed the rank and privileges of a patriarch, but on the motion of Cyril of Alexandria was refused. He then applied to the Emperor Theodosius II. who by an edict named him patriarch, and assigned to him all Palestine and Arabia. Maximus, however, patriarch of Antioch, who was thereby deprived of part of his diocese, persisted in protesting until at Chalcedon in A.D. 451 at least Phœnicia and Arabia were restored to him.—Within his own official district each of these five prelates exercised supreme spiritual authority, and at the head of his patriarchal Synod decided all the affairs of the churches within the bounds. Still many metropolitans, especially those of Salamis in Cyprus, of Milan, Aquileia and Ravenna maintained a position, as Αὐτοκέφαλοι, independent of any superiority of patriarchate or exarchate. Alongside of the patriarchs in the East there were σύγκελλοι as councillors and assistants, and at the imperial court they were represented by permanent legates who were called Apocrisiarians. From the 6th century the Popes of Rome began by sending them the pallium to confer confirmation of rank upon the newly-elected metropolitans of the West, who were called in these parts Archiepiscopi, Archbishops. The patriarchs meeting as a court represented the unity of the church universal. Without their consent no œcumenical Council could be held, nor could any decision be binding on the whole church.—But first Jerusalem in A.D. 637, then Antioch in A.D. 638, and next Alexandria in A.D. 640, fell under the dominion of the Saracens.

§ 46.2. The Rivalry between Rome and Byzantium.—From the time of the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451 the patriarch of Constantinople continued to claim equality in rank and authority with the bishop of Rome. But the principle upon which in either case the claims to the primacy were based were already being interpreted strongly in favour of Rome. In the East the spiritual rank of the bishoprics was determined in accordance with the political rank of the cities concerned. Constantinople was the residence of the ruler of the οἰκουμένη, consequently its bishop was œcumenical bishop. But in the eyes of the world Old Rome still ranked higher than the New Rome. All the proud memories of history clustered round the capital of the West. From Byzantium, on the other hand, dated the visible decline, the threatened overthrow of the empire. Moreover the West refused even to admit the principle itself. Not the will of the emperor, not the fortunes of the empire, ever becoming more and more deplorable, should determine the spiritual rank of the bishops, but the history of the church and the will of its Divine Founder and Head. Measured by this standard the see of Constantinople stood not only lower than those of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, but even below many other sees which though they scarcely had metropolitan rank, could yet boast of apostolic origin. Then, Rome unquestionably stood at the head of the church, for here had lived, confessed and suffered the two chief apostles, here too were their tombs and their bones; yea, still further, on the Roman chair had Peter sat as its first bishop (§ 16, 1), whom the Lord Himself had called to the primacy of the Apostles (§ 34, 8), and the Roman bishops were his successors and heirs of his privileges. The patriarch of Constantinople had nothing to depend upon but his nearness to the court. He was backed up and supported by the court, was only too often a tool in the hands of political parties and a defender of heresies which had the imperial favour. The case for the Roman bishop was incomparably superior. His being a member of the West-Roman empire, A.D. 395-476, with emperors for the most part weak and oppressed on all sides by the convulsions caused by the invasions of the barbarians, secured to him an incomparably greater freedom and independence of action, which was little, if at all, restricted by the Rugian and Ostrogoth invaders of Italy, A D. 476-536. And even in A.D. 536, when the Byzantine empire again obtained a footing in Italy, and held out with difficulty against the onslaught of the Longobards from A.D. 569 to A.D. 752 within ever narrowing limits, the court could only seldom exercise an influence upon his proceedings or punish him for his refusal to yield by removal, imprisonment or exile. And while the East was rent by a variety of ecclesiastical controversies, in which sometimes the one, sometimes the other party prevailed, the West under the direction of Rome almost constantly presented the picture of undisturbed unity. The controversialists sought the mediating judgment of Rome, the oppressed sought its intercession and protection, and because the Roman bishops almost invariably lent the weight of their intellectual and moral influence to the cause of truth and right, the party in whose favour decision was given, almost certainly at last prevailed. Thus Rome advanced from day to day in the eyes of the Christian world, and soon demanded as a constant right what personal confidence or pressure of circumstances had won for it in particular cases. And in the course of time Rome has never let a favourable opportunity slip, never failed to hold what once was gained or even claimed with any possibility of success. A strong feeling in favour of strict hierarchical pretensions united all parties and found its rallying point in the chair of St. Peter; even incapable and characterless popes were upborne and carried through by means of this idea. Thus Rome advanced with firm step and steady aim, and in spite of all opposition and resistance continually approached nearer and nearer to the end in view. The East could at last hold on and save its ecclesiastical independence only by a complete and incurable division (§ 67).

§ 46B. HISTORY OF THE ROMAN CHAIR AND ITS CLAIMS TO THE PRIMACY.[127]

The history of the Roman bishopric during the first three centuries is almost wholly enveloped in a cloud of legend which is only occasionally broken by a gleam of historical light (see § 33, 3, 4, 5, 7; § 35, 5; § 37, 2; § 40, 2; § 41, 1, 3). Only after the martyr church became in the 4th century the powerful state church does it really enter into the field of regular and continuous history. And now also first begins that striving after primacy, present from the earliest times among its bishops and inherited from the political supremacy of “eternal Rome,” to be prosecuted with success in political and ecclesiastical quarters. Its history, for which biographies of the popes down to the end of the 9th century in the so-called Liber pontificalis (§ 90, 6) are most instructive sources, certainly always in need of critical sifting in a high degree, permits therefore and demands for our purposes at this point earnest and close consideration.

§ 46.3. From Melchiades to Julius I., A.D. 310 to A.D. 352.—At the time when Constantine’s conversion so completely changed the aspect of things Melchiades occupied the bishopric of Rome, A.D. 310 to A.D. 314. Even in A.D. 313 Constantine conferred on him as the chief bishop of the West the presidency of a clerical commission for inquiry into the Donatist schism (§ 63, 1). Under Sylvester I., A.D. 314 to A.D. 335, the Arian controversy broke out (§ 50), in which, however, he laid no claim to be an authority on either side. That by his legates, Vitus and Vincentius [Vincent], he presided at the first œcumenical Synod at Nicæa in A.D. 325 is a purely Romish fabrication; no contemporary and none of the older historians know anything of it. On account of the rise in Egypt of the Meletian schism (§ 41, 4) the 6th canon of the Council prescribes that the bishop of Alexandria “in accordance with the old customs shall have jurisdiction over Egypt, in Libya and in Pentapolis, since it is also according to old custom for the bishop of Rome to have such jurisdiction, as also the churches in Antioch and in the other provinces.” The Council, therefore, as Rufinus also and the oldest Latin collection of canons, the so-called Prisca, understand this canon, maintains that the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Roman chair extended not over all the West but only over the ten suburbicarian provinces belonging to the diocese of Rome according to Constantine’s division, i.e. over Middle and Southern Italy, with the islands of Sardinia, Corsica and Sicily. The bishop of Rome, however, was and continued by the wider development of the patriarchal constitution the sole patriarch in all the West. What more natural than that he should regard himself as the one patriarch over all the West? But, even as the only sedes apostolica of the West, Rome had already for a long time obtained a rank far beyond the limits of the Nicene canon. In doubtful cases application was made from all quarters of the West to Rome for instruction as to the genuine apostolic tradition, and the epistolary replies to such questions assumed even in the 4th century the tone of authoritative statements of the truth, epistolæ decretales. But down to A.D. 344 it was never attempted to claim the authority of Rome over the East in giving validity to any matter. In this year, however, the pressure of circumstances obliged the Council of Sardica (§ 50, 2), after most of the Eastern bishops had already withdrawn, to agree to hand over to the bishop of Rome, Julius I., A.D. 337-352, as a steadfast and consistent confessor of the orthodox faith in this age of ecclesiastical wavering, the right of receiving appeals from condemned bishops throughout the empire, and if he found them well supported, of appointing a new investigation by the bishops of the neighbouring province. But this decree affected only the person of Julius and was only the momentary makeshift of a hard-pressed minority. It therefore attracted no attention and was soon forgotten,—only Rome forgot it not.

§ 46.4. From Liberius to Anastasius, A.D. 352 to A.D. 402.—Julius’ successor Liberius,[128] A.D. 352 to A.D. 366, maintained with equal steadfastness as his predecessor the confession of the orthodox Nicene faith, and was therefore banished by the Emperor Constantius in A.D. 355, who appointed as his successor the accommodating deacon Felix. But the members of the church would have nothing to do with the contemptible intruder, who moreover on the very day of the deportation of Liberius had solemnly sworn with the whole clergy of Rome to remain faithful to the exiled bishop. He succeeded indeed in drawing over to himself a considerable number of the clergy. The people, however, continued unfalteringly true to their banished bishop, and even after he had in A.D. 358 by signing a heretical creed (§ 50, 3) obtained permission to return, they received him again with unfeigned joy. It was the emperor’s wish that Liberius and Felix should jointly preside over the Roman church. But Felix was driven away by the people and could not again secure a footing among them. Liberius, who henceforth held his position in Rome as a Nicæan, amnestied those of the clergy who had fallen away. But the schism occasioned thereby in the church of Rome broke out with great violence after his death. A rigorist minority repudiated Damasus I., A.D. 366 to A.D. 384, who had been chosen as his successor by the majority, because he too at an earlier date had belonged to the oath-breaking party of Felix. This minority elected Ursinus as anti-bishop. Over this there were contentions that led to bloodshed. The party of Damasus attacked the church of Ursinus and one hundred and thirty-seven corpses were carried out. Valentinian III. now exiled Ursinus, and Gratian in A.D. 378 by an edict conferred upon Damasus the right of giving decision without appeal as party and judge in one person against all bishops and clergy involved in the schism. In consequence of this victory of Damasus as partisan of Felix there was now formed in Rome a tradition which has passed over into the lists of the popes and the martyrologies, in which Liberius figures as the adherent of a heretical emperor and a bloody persecutor of the true Nicene faith and Felix II. as the legitimate pope. He is also confounded with the martyr Felix who suffered under Maximian and was celebrated in song by Paulinus Nolanus, and is thus represented as a holy martyr.[129] To the pontificate of Siricius, A.D. 384 to A.D. 398, the western church is indebted for the oldest extant papal decretals dating from A.D. 385 which contain a reply to various questions of the Spanish bishop couched quite in the hierarchical form and insisting in strong terms upon the binding obligation of clerical celibacy. Subsequently the same pope, burdened with “the care of all the churches,” feels himself obliged to issue an encyclical to all the churches of the West, denouncing the frequent neglect of existing ecclesiastical laws. In the Origenist controversy between Jerome and Rufinus (§ 51, 2) he favoured the latter;—whereas his successor, Anastasius, A.D. 398 to A.D. 402, took the side of Jerome.

§ 46.5. From Innocent I. to Zosimus, A.D. 402 to A.D. 418.—In consequence of the partition of the empire into an eastern and a western division in A.D. 364 (comp. § 42, 4), the claims of the Roman chair to ecclesiastical supremacy over the whole of the West were not only confirmed but also very considerably extended. For by this partition the western half of the empire included not only those countries which had previously been reckoned western, namely, Africa, Spain, Britain, Gaul and Italy, but also the prefecture of Illyricum (Greece, Thessaly, Macedonia, Dalmatia, Pannonia, Mœsia, Dacia) with its capital Thessalonica, and thus events played into the hands of those who pressed the patriarchal claims of Rome. Even when in A.D. 379 Eastern Illyria (Macedonia, Mœsia and Dacia) was attached to the Eastern empire, the Roman bishops continued still to regard it as belonging to their patriarchal domain. These claims were advanced with special emphasis and with corresponding success by Innocent I., A.D. 402 to A.D. 417. When in A.D. 402 he intimated to the archbishop of Thessalonica his elevation to the chair, he at the same time transferred to him as his representative the oversight of all the Illyrian provinces, and to his successor, in A.D. 412, he sent a formal document of installation as Roman vicar. Not only did he apply to the Roman chair that canon of the Council of Sardica which had referred only to the person of Julius, but in a decretal to a Gallic bishop he extended also the clearly circumscribed right of appeal on the part of condemned bishops into an obligation to submit all “causæ majores” to the decision of the apostolic see. From Africa a Carthaginian Synod in A.D. 404 sent messengers to Rome in order to secure its intercession with the emperor to put down the Donatists. From the East Theophilus of Alexandria and Chrysostom of Constantinople solicited the weighty influence of Rome in the Origenist controversy (§ 51, 3); and Alexander of Antioch (§ 50, 8) expresses the proud satisfaction he had, as only Western bishops had done before, in asking the Roman bishop’s advice on various constitutional and disciplinary matters. During the Pelagian controversy (§ 53, 4) the Palestinian Synod at Diospolis in A.D. 415 interceded with the Pope in favour of Pelagius accused of heresy in Africa; on the other hand the African Synods of Mileve and Carthage in A.D. 416 besieged him with the demand to give the sanction of his authority to their condemnation of the heretic. He took the side of the Anti-Pelagians, and Augustine could shower upon the heretics the pregnant words: Roma locuta ... causa finita.—The higher the authority of the Roman chair rose under Innocent, all the more painful to Rome must the humiliation have been, which his successor Zosimus, A.D. 417-418, called down upon it, when he, in opposition to his predecessor, took the part of Pelagius and his companion Cœlestius, and addressed bitter reproaches to the Africans for their treatment of him, but afterwards in consequence of their vigorous remonstrances and the interference of the emperor Honorius was obliged to withdraw his previous judgment and formally to condemn his quondam protegé. And when a deposed presbyter of Africa, Apiarius, sought refuge in Rome, the Council of Carthage in A.D. 418, in which Augustine also took part, made this an excuse for forbidding under threat of excommunication any appeal ad transmarina judicia. Zosimus indeed appealed to the canon of the Sardican Synod, which he quoted as Nicene; but the Africans, to whom that canon was quite unknown, only said that on this matter they must make inquiries among the Eastern churches.[130]

§ 46.6. From Boniface I. to Sixtus III., A.D. 419 to A.D. 440.—After the death of Zosimus, 26th Dec., 418, a minority of the clergy and the people, by the hasty election and ordination of the deacon Eulalius, anticipated the action of the majority who chose the presbyter Boniface. The recommendation of the city prefect Symmachus secured for the former the recognition of the Emperor Honorius; but the determined remonstrance of the majority moved him to convene a Synod at Ravenna in A.D. 419 for a final settlement of the dispute. When the bishops there assembled could not agree, he called a new Synod to meet at Spoleto at the approaching Easter festival, and ordered, so as to make an end of disturbances and tumults in the city, that both rivals should quit Rome until a decision had been reached. Eulalius, however, did not regard the injunction but pushed his way by force of arms into the city. The Emperor now banished him from Rome on pain of death, and at Spoleto the bishops decided in consequence of the moderation he had shown, to recognise Boniface I., A.D. 419 to A.D. 422, as bishop of Rome. His successor was Cœlestine I., A.D. 422 to A.D. 432. Apiarius, who meanwhile, because he professed repentance and besought forgiveness, had been restored, began anew to offend, was again deposed, and again obtained protection and encouragement at Rome. But an African Synod at Carthage energetically protested against Cœlestine’s interference, charging him with having often referred to a Nicene canon warranting the right of appeal to Rome which the most diligent inquiries among the churches of Constantinople, Alexandria and Antioch, had failed to discover. On the outbreak of the Nestorian controversy (§ 52, 3) two opponents again sued for the favour of the Roman league; first of all, Nestorius of Constantinople, because he professed to have given particular information about the Pelagian-minded bishops driven from Italy who sought refuge in Constantinople (§ 53, 4) and had immediately made a communication about the error of confounding the two natures of Christ which had recently sprung up in the East. The brotherly tone of this writing, free from any idea of subordination, found no response at Rome. The letters of Cyril of Alexandria proved more acceptable, filled as they were with cringing flatteries of the Roman chair and venomous invectives against the Constantinopolitan see and its occupier. Cœlestine unreservedly took the side of Cyril, commanded Nestorius under threat of deposition and excommunication within ten days to present to a Roman Synod, A.D. 420, a written retractation, and remitted to Cyril the carrying out of this judgment. To his legates at the Council of Ephesus, A.D. 431, he gave the instructions: Auctoritatem sedis apostolicæ custodire debere mandamus.... Ad disceptationem si fuerit ventum, vos de eorum sententiis judicare debetis, non subire certamen. The Council decided precisely according to Cœlestine’s wish. The proud Alexandrian patriarch had recognised Rome as the highest court of appeal; a Western educated at Rome, named Maximian, thoroughly submissive to Cœlestine, was, with the pope’s hearty approval, raised to the patriarchal see of Constantinople as successor of the deposed Nestorius; only John of Antioch opposed the decision. Cœlestine’s successor Sixtus III., A.D. 432 to A.D. 440, could already boast in A.D. 433 that he had put himself superior to the decrees of the Council, and in commemoration of the victory dedicated a beautiful church newly built to the mother of God, now called S. Maria Maggiore.[131]

§ 46.7. From Leo the Great to Simplicius, A.D. 440 to A.D. 483.—Leo I., A.D. 440 to A.D. 461 (comp. § 47, 22), unquestionably up to that date the greatest of all the occupants of the Roman chair, was also the most powerful, the worthiest and most successful vindicator of its authority in the East as well as in the West; indeed he may be regarded as properly the founder of the Roman papacy as a universal episcopate with the full sanction of the civil power. Even the Western Fathers of the 4th and 5th centuries, such as Hilary, Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine, as also Innocent I., had still interpreted the πέτρα of Matt. xvi. 18 partly of the confession of Peter, partly of the Person of Christ. First in the time of Cœlestine an attempt was made to refer it to the person of Peter. The legates of Cœlestine at the Council of Ephesus in A.D. 431 had said: ὅστις, ἕως τοῦ νῦν καὶ ἀεὶ ἐν τοῖς αὐτοῦ διαδόχοις καὶ ζῇ καὶ δικάζει. Thus they claimed universal primacy as of immediately Divine authority. Leo I. adopted this view with all his soul. In the most determined and persistent way he carried it out in the West; then next in proconsular Africa which had so energetically protested in the times of Innocent and Cœlestine against Romish pretensions. When news came to him of various improprieties spreading there, he sent a legate to investigate, and in consequence of his report addressed severe censures which were submitted to without opposition. The right of African clerics to appeal to Rome was also henceforth unchallenged. In Gaul, however, Leo had still to maintain a hard struggle with Hilary, archbishop of Arles, who, arrogating to himself the right of a primacy of Gaul, had deposed Celedonius, bishop of Besontio, Besançon. But Leo took up his case and had him vindicated and restored by a Roman Synod. Hilary, who came himself to Rome, defied the Pope, escaped threatened imprisonment by secret flight, and was then deprived of his metropolitan rights. At the same time, in A.D. 445, Leo obtained from the young Emperor of the West, Valentinian III., a civil enactment which made every sort of resistance to the divinely established universal primacy of the Roman see an act of high treason.—In the East, too, Leo gained a higher position than had ever before been accorded to Rome on account of his moderation in the Eutychian controversy (§ 52, 4). Once again was Rome called in to mediate between the two conflicting parties. At the Robber-Synod of Ephesus in A.D. 449, under the presidency of the tyrannical Dioscurus of Alexandria, the legates of Leo were not, indeed, allowed to speak. But at the next œcumenical Council at Chalcedon in A.D. 451 his doctrine won a brilliant victory; even here, however, much objection was raised to his hierarchical pretensions. He demanded from the first the presidency for his legates, which, however, was assigned not to them, but to the imperial commissioners. The demand, too, for the expulsion of Dioscurus from the Synod, because he dared Synodum facere sine auctoritate sedis apostolicæ, quod mumquam licuit, numquem factum est, did not, at first at least, receive the answer required. When, notwithstanding the opposition of the legates the question of the relative ranks of the patriarchs was dealt with, they withdrew from the session and subsequently protested against the 28th canon agreed upon at that session with a reference to the 6th Nicene canon which in the Roman translation, i.e. forgery, began with the words: Ecclesia Romana semper habuit primatum. But the Council sent the Acts with a dutiful report to Rome for confirmation, whereupon Leo strictly repudiated the 28th canon, threatening the church of Constantinople with excommunication, and so finally gained his point. The emperor annulled it in A.D. 454, and Anatolius, patriarch of Constantinople, was obliged to write a humble letter to Leo acquiescing in its erasure; but this did not prevent his successor from always maintaining its validity (§ 63, 2).—When the wild hordes of Attila, king of the Huns, spread terror and consternation by their approach, Leo’s priestly form appeared before him as a messenger of God, and saved Rome and Italy from destruction. Less successful was his priestly intercession with the Arian Vandal chief Genseric, whose army in A.D. 455 plundered, burnt and murdered throughout Rome for fourteen days; but all the more strikingly after his withdrawal did the pope’s ability display itself in restoring comfort and order amid scenes of unutterable destitution and confusion.

§ 46.8. From Felix III. to Boniface II., A.D. 483 to A.D. 532.—Under Leo’s second successor, the Rugian or Scyrrian Odoacer put an end to the West-Roman empire in A.D. 476 (§ 76, 6). As to the enactments of the Roman state, although himself an Arian, after seventeen years of a wise rule he left untouched the orthodox Roman church, and the Roman bishops could under him, as under his successor, the Ostrogoth Theodoric, also an Arian, from A.D. 493 to A.D. 526, more freely exercise their ecclesiastical functions than under the previous government, all the more as neither of these rulers resided in Rome but in Ravenna. Pope Felix III., A.D. 483 to A.D. 492, in opposition to the Byzantine ecclesiastical policy, which by means of the imperial authority had for quite a hundred years retarded the development of the orthodox doctrine (§ 52, 5), began a schism lasting for thirty-five years between East and West, from A.D. 484 to A.D. 519, which no suspicion of disloyal combination with the Western rulers can account for. On the appointment of Felix III. Odoacer assumed the right of confirming all elections of Popes, just as previously the West Roman emperors had claimed, and Rome submitted without resistance. The Gothic kings, too, maintained this right.—Gelasius I., A.D. 492 to A.D. 496 (comp. § 47, 22), ventured before the Emperor Anastasius I., in A.D. 493, to indicate the relation of Sacerdotium and Imperium according to the Roman conception, which already exhibits in its infant stage of development the mediæval theory of the two swords (§ 110, 1) and the favourite analogy of the sun and the moon (§ 96, 9). His peaceable successor Anastasius II., A.D. 496 to A.D. 498, entered into negotiations for peace with the Byzantine court; but a number of Roman fanatics wished on this account to have him cast out of the communion of the church, and saw in his early death a judgment of heaven upon his conduct. He has ever since been regarded as a heretic, and as such even Dante consigns him to a place in hell. After his death there was a disputed election between Symmachus, A.D. 498 to A.D. 514, and Laurentius. The schism soon degenerated into the wildest civil war, in which blood was shed in the churches and in the streets. Theodoric decided for Symmachus as the choice of the majority and the first ordained, but his opponents then charged him before the king as guilty of the gravest crimes. To investigate the charges brought against the bishop the king now convened at Rome a Synod of all the Italian bishops, Synodus palmaris of A.D. 502, so called from the porch of St. Peter’s Church adorned with palms, where it first met. As Symmachus on his way to it was met by a wild mob of his opponents and only narrowly escaped with his life, Theodoric insisted no longer on a regular proof of the charges against him. The bishops without any investigation freely proclaimed him their pope, and the deacon Eunodius of Pavia, known also as a hymn writer, commissioned by them to make an apology for their procedure, laid down the proposition that the pope who himself is judge over all, cannot be judged of any man. Bloody street fights between the two parties, however, still continued by day and night. Symmachus’ successor Hormisdas, A.D. 514 to A.D. 523, had the satisfaction of seeing the Byzantine court, in order to prepare the way for the winning back of Italy, seeking for reconciliation with the Western church, and in A.D. 519 submitting to the humbling conditions of restoration to church fellowship offered by the pope. A sharp edict of the West Roman emperor Justin II. against the Arians of his empire caused Theodoric to send an embassy in their favour to Constantinople, at the head of which stood John I., A.D. 523 to A.D. 526, with a threat of reprisals. The pope, however, seems rather to have utilized his journey for intrigues against the Italian government of the Goths, for after his return Theodoric caused him to be cast into prison, in which he died. He was succeeded by Felix IV. A.D. 526 to A.D. 530, after whose death the election was again disputed by two rivals. This schism, however, was only of short duration, since Dioscurus, the choice of the majority, died during the next month. His rival Boniface II., A.D. 530 to A.D. 532, a Goth by birth and favoured by the Ostrogoth government, applied himself with extreme severity to put down the opposing party.

§ 46.9. From John II. to Pelagius II., A.D. 532 to A.D. 590.—Meanwhile Justinian I. had been raised to the Byzantine throne, and his long reign from A.D. 527 to A.D. 565, was in many ways a momentous one for the fortunes of the Roman bishopric. The reconquest of Italy, from A.D. 536 to A.D. 553, by his generals Belisarius and Narses, and the subsequent founding of the Exarchate at Ravenna in A.D. 567, at the head of which a representative of the emperor, a so-called Roman patrician stood, freed the pope indeed from the control of the Arian Ostrogoths which since the restoration of ecclesiastical fellowship with the East had become oppressive, but it brought them into a new and much more serious dependence. For Justinian and his successors demanded from the Roman bishops as well as from the patriarchs of Constantinople unconditional obedience.—Agapetus I., A.D. 535 to A.D. 536, sent as peacemaker by the Goths to Constantinople, escaped the fate of John I. perhaps just because he suddenly died there. Under his successor Silverius, A.D. 536 to A.D. 537, Belisarius, in December, A.D. 536, made his entry into Rome, and in the March following he deposed the pope and sentenced him to banishment. This he did at the instigation of the Empress Theodora whose machinations in favour of Monophysitism had been already felt by Agapetus. Theodora had already designated the wretched Vigilius, A.D. 537 to A.D. 555, as his successor. He had purchased her favour by the promise of two hundred pounds of gold and acquiescence in the condemnation of the so-called three chapters (§ 52, 6) so eagerly desired by her. Owing to his cowardliness and want of character Africa, North Italy and Illyria shook off their allegiance to the Roman see and maintained their independence for more than half a century. Terrified by this disaster he partly retracted his earlier agreement with the empress, and Justinian sent him into exile. He submitted unconditionally and was forgiven, but died before reaching Rome. Pelagius I., A.D. 555 to A.D. 560, also a creature of Theodora, subscribed the agreement and so confirmed the Western schism which Gregory the Great first succeeded in overcoming.—The fantastic attempt of Justinian to raise his obscure birthplace Tauresium, the modern Bulgarian Achrida, to the rank of a metropolis as Justinianopolis or Prima Justiniana, and its bishop to the rank of patriarch with Eastern Illyria as his patriarchate, proved, notwithstanding the consent of Vigilius, a still-born child.

§ 46.10. From Gregory I. to Boniface V., A.D. 590 to A.D. 625.—After the papal chair had been held by three insignificant popes in succession Gregory the Great, A.D. 590 to A.D. 604 (comp. § 47, 22), was raised to the Apostolic see, the greatest, most capable, noblest, most pious and most superstitious in the whole long series of popes. He took the helm of the church at a time when Italy was reduced to the most terrible destitution by the savage and ruthless devastations of the Arian Longobards lasting over twenty years (§ 76, 8), and neither the emperor nor his exarch at Ravenna had the means of affording help. Gregory could not allow Italy and the church to perish utterly under these desperate circumstances, and so was compelled to assume the functions of civil authority. When the Longobards in A.D. 593 oppressed Rome to the uttermost there remained nothing for him but to purchase their withdrawal with the treasures of the church, and the peace finally concluded with them in A.D. 599 was his and not the exarch’s work. The exceedingly rich possessions of lands and goods, the so-called Patrimonium Petri, extending throughout all Italy and the islands, brought him the authority of a powerful secular prince far beyond the bounds of the Roman duchy, in comparison with which the rank of the exarch himself was insignificant. The Longobards too treated with him as an independent political power. Gregory, therefore, may rightly be regarded as the first founder of the temporal power of the Papacy on Italian soil. But all this as we can easily understand provoked no small dislike of the pope at Constantinople. The pope, on the other hand, was angry with the Emperor Maurice because he gave no consideration to his demand that the patriarch, Johannes Jejunator, should be prohibited from assuming the title Ἐπίσκοπος οἰκουμενικός. Gregory’s own position in regard to the primacy appears from his Epistles. He writes to the bishop of Syracuse: Si qua culpa in episcopis invenitur, nescio, quis Sedi apostolicæ subjectus non sit; cum vero culpa non existit, omnes secundum rationem humilitatis æquales sunt. And with this reservation it was certainly meant when he, in a letter to the patriarch of Alexandria, who had addressed him as “Universalis Papa,” most distinctly refused this title and readily conceded to the Alexandrian as well as to the Antiochean see, as of Petrine origin (the Antiochean directly, § 16, 1; the Alexandrian indirectly through Mark, § 16, 4), equal rank and dignity with that of Rome; and when he denounced as an anti-Christ every bishop who would raise himself above his fellow bishops. Thus he compared Johannes Jejunator to Lucifer who wished to exalt himself above all the angels. Gregory, on the other hand, in proud humility styled himself, as all subsequent popes have done, Servus servorum Dei. When he extolled the Frankish Jezebel Brunhilda [Brunehilda] (§ 77, 7), who had besought him to send her relics and at another time a pallium for a bishop, as an exemplary pious Christian woman and a wise ruler, he may, owing to the defective communication between Rome and Gaul, have had no authentic information about her doings and disposition. The memory of the otherwise noble-minded pope is more seriously affected by his conduct in reference to the emperor Phocas, A.D. 602 to A.D. 610, the murderer of the noble and just emperor Maurice, whom he congratulates upon his elevation to the throne, and makes all the angelic choirs of heaven and all tongues on earth break forth in jubilees and hymns of thanksgiving; but even here again, when he thus wrote, the news of his iniquities,—not only the slaughter of the emperor, but also of his queen, his five sons and three daughters, etc., by which this demon in human form cut his way to the throne,—may not have been known to him in their full extent.—Phocas, however, showed himself duly thankful, for at the request of pope Boniface III., A.D. 606 to A.D. 607, he refused to allow the patriarch of Constantinople to assume the title of Universal bishop, while at the same time he formally acknowledged the chair of Peter at Rome as Caput omnium ecclesiarum. To the next pope Boniface IV., A.D. 608 to A.D. 615, he presented the beautiful Pantheon at Rome, which from being a temple dedicated to Cybele, the mother of the gods, and to all the gods, he turned into a church of the mother of God and of all the martyrs.[132]

§ 46.11. From Honorius I. to Gregory III., A.D. 625 to A.D. 741.—For almost fifty years, from A.D. 633 under Honorius I., A.D. 625 to A.D. 638, the third successor of Boniface IV., the Monothelite controversy (§ 52, 8) continued its disastrous course. Honorius, a pious and peace-loving man, had seen nothing objectionable in this attempt of the Emperor Heraclius (A.D. 611 to A.D. 641) to win the numerous Monophysites back to the unity of the church by the concession of one will in the two natures of Christ, and was prepared to co-operate in the work. But the conviction grew more and more strong that the doctrine proposed in the interests of peace was itself heretical. All subsequent bishops of Rome therefore unanimously condemned as an accursed heresy (§ 52, 9), what their predecessor Honorius had agreed to and confessed. This explains how the exarch of Ravenna delayed for more than a year the confirmation of the election of the next pope, Severinus, A.D. 638 to A.D. 640, and granted it only in A.D. 640 as amends for his wholesale plundering of the treasury of the Roman church to supply his own financial deficiencies. In the time of Martin I., A.D. 649 to A.D. 653, the Emperor Constans II., A.D. 642 to A.D. 668, sought to make an end of the bitter controversy by the strict prohibition of any statement as to one will or two wills. The determined pope had to suffer for his opposition by severe imprisonment and still more trying banishment, in which he suffered from hunger and other miseries (A.D. 655). The new emperor Constantinus Pogonnatus, A.D. 668 to A.D. 685, finally recognised the indispensable necessity of securing reconciliation with the West. In A.D. 680, he convened an œcumenical Council at Constantinople at which the legates of the pope Agatho, A.D. 678 to A.D. 682, the fifth successor of Martin I., once more prescribed to the Greeks what should henceforth be regarded throughout the whole empire as the orthodox faith. The Council sent its Acts to Rome with the request that they might be confirmed, which Agatho’s successor, Leo II., A.D. 682 to A.D. 683, did, notwithstanding the condemnation therein very pointedly expressed of the heretical pope Honorius, which indeed he explicitly approved.—Once again in A.D. 686, the Roman church was threatened with a schism by a double election to the papal chair. This, however, was averted by the opposing electors, lay and clerical, agreeing to set aside both candidates and uniting together in the election of the Thracian Conon, A.D. 686 to A.D. 687. Precisely the same thing happened with a similar result on the death of Conon. The new candidate whom both parties agreed upon this time was Sergius I., A.D. 687 to A.D. 701, but he was obliged to purchase the exarch’s confirmation by a present of a hundred pounds of gold. His rejection of the conclusions of the second Trullan Council at Constantinople in A.D. 692 (§ 63, 2), which in various points disregarded the pretensions of Rome, brought him into conflict with the emperor Justinian II., A.D. 685 to A.D. 711. The result of this contest was to show that the power and authority of the pope in Italy were at this time greater than those of the emperor. When the emperor sent a high official to Rome with the order to bring the pope prisoner to Constantinople, almost the whole population of the exarchate gathered out in the pope’s defence. The Byzantine ambassador sought and obtained protection from the pope, under whose bed he crept, and was then allowed to quit Rome in safety, followed by the scorn and abuse of the people. Soon thereafter, in A.D. 695, Justinian was overthrown, and with slit ears and nose sent into exile. In A.D. 705, having been restored by the Bulgarian king, he immediately took fearful revenge upon the rebel inhabitants of Ravenna. Pope Constantine I., A.D. 708 to A.D. 715, intimidated by what he had seen, did not dare to refuse the imperial mandate which summoned him to Byzantium for the arrangement of ecclesiastical differences. With fear and trembling he embarked. But he succeeded in coming to an understanding with the emperor, who received and dismissed him with every token of respect. Under his successor, Gregory II., A.D. 715 to A.D. 731, the Byzantine iconoclast controversy (§ 66, 1) gave occasion to an almost complete rupture between the papacy and the Byzantine empire; and under Gregory III., A.D. 731 to A.D. 741, the papacy definitely withdrew from the Byzantine and put itself under the Frankish government. Down to the latest age of the exarchate of Ravenna the confirmation of papal elections by the emperor or his representative, the exarch, was always maintained, and only after it had been given was consecration allowed. This is proved both from the biographies of the papal books and from the relative formulæ of petition in the Liber diurnus Rom. Pontificum, a collection of formulæ for the performance of the most important acts in the service of the Romish Church made between A.D. 685 and A.D. 751. The election itself was in the hands of the three orders of the city (clerus, exercitus and populus).—Continuation § 82.

III. THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE AND LITERATURE.

§ 47. THE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOLS AND THEIR MOST CELEBRATED REPRESENTATIVES.

The Ancient Church reached its highest glory during the 4th and 5th centuries. The number of theological schools properly so-called (§ 45, 1) was indeed small, and so the most celebrated theologians were self-taught in theology. But all the greater must the intellectual resources of this age have been and all the more powerful the general striving after culture, when the outward means, helps and opportunities for obtaining scientific training were so few. The middle of the 5th century, marked by the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451, may be regarded as the turning point where the greatest height in theological science and in other ecclesiastical developments was reached, and from this point we may date the beginnings of decline. After this the spirit of independent research gradually disappeared from the Eastern as well as from the Western Church. Political oppression, hierarchical exclusiveness, narrowing monasticism and encroaching barbarism choked all free scientific effort, and the industry of compilers took the place of fresh youthful intellectual production. The authority of the older church teachers stood so high and was regarded as binding in so eminent a degree that at the Councils argument was carried on almost solely by means of quotations from the writings of those fathers who had been recognised as orthodox.

§ 47.1. The Theological Schools and Tendencies:—

1. In the 4th and 5th centuries.—Since the time of the two Dionysiuses (§ 33, 7) the Alexandrian theology had been divided into two different directions which we may distinguish as the old and the new Alexandrian. The Old Alexandrian School held by the subordinationist view of Origen and strove to keep open to scientific research as wide a field as possible. Its representatives showed deep reverence for Origen but avoided his more eccentric speculations. Its latest offshoot was the Semiarianism with which it came to an end in the middle of the 4th century. This same free scientific tendency in theology was yet more decidedly shown in the Antiochean School. Although at first animated by the spirit which Origen had introduced into theology, its further development was a thoroughly independent one, departing from its original in many particulars. To the allegorical method of interpretation of the Origenist school it opposed the natural grammatico-historical interpretation, to its mystical speculation, clear positive thinking. Inquiry into the simple literal sense of holy scripture and the founding of a purely biblical theology were its tasks. Averse to all mysteries, it strove after a positive, rational conception of Christianity and after a construction of dogma by means of clear logical thought. Hence its dogmatic aim was pre-eminently the careful distinguishing of the divine and human in Christ and in Christianity, forming a conception of each by itself and securing especially in both due recognition of the human. The theology of the national East-Syrian Church, far more than that of the Antiochean or Græco-Syrian, was essentially bound down by tradition. It had its seminaries in the theological schools of Nisibis and Edessa. The oriental spirit was here displayed in an unrestricted manner; also a tendency to theosophy, mysticism and asceticism, a special productiveness in developing forms of worship and constitution, and withal doctrinal stability. In their exegesis the members of this school co-operated with the Antiocheans, though not so decidedly, in opposing the arbitrary allegorizing of the Origenist school, but their exegetical activity was not, as with the Antiocheans, scientific and critical but rather practical and homiletical. The New Alexandrian School was the prevailing one for the 4th century so far as Alexandrian culture was concerned. Its older representatives, at least, continued devotedly attached to Origen and favourable to the speculative treatment of Christian doctrine introduced by him. But they avoided his unscriptural extravagances and carried out consistently the ecclesiastical elements of his doctrine. By a firm acceptance of the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son they overcame the subordinationism of their master, and in this broke away from the old Alexandrian school and came into closer relations to the theology of the Western church. To the Antiochean school, however, they were directly opposed in respect of the delight they took in the mysteries of Christianity, and their disinclination to allow the reason to rule in theology. The union of the divine and human in Christ and in Christianity seemed to them a sublime, incomprehensible mystery, any attempt to resolve it being regarded as alike useless and profane. But in this way the human element became more and more lost to view and became absorbed in the divine. They energetically affirmed the inseparable union of the two, but thereby lost the consciousness of their distinctness and fell into the contrary error of Antiochean onesidedness. With Cyril of Alexandria the New Alexandrian school properly began to assume the form of a sect and to show symptoms of decay, although he himself retained the reputation of an orthodox teacher. The Western Theology of this period, as well as its North-African precursor (§ 31, 10, 11), energetically insisted upon the application of Christianity to the life, the development of the doctrines affecting this matter and the maintenance of the church system of doctrine as a strong protection against all wilfulness in doctrine. In it therefore the traditional theology finds its chief home. Still the points of contact with the East were so many and so vital that however much inclined to stability the West might be, it could not altogether remain unmoved and without enrichment from the theological movements of the age. Thus we distinguish in the West four different but variously inter-connected tendencies. First of all there is the genuinely Western, which is separated on the one hand in Tertullian and Cyprian, but on the other hand is variously influenced by the talented teachers of the New Alexandrian School, which continued to mould and dominate the cultured theology of the West. Its chief representatives are Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose, and above all, Augustine, who completely freed the Latin theology from its hitherto prevailing dependence on the Greek, placing it now upon its own feet. The representatives of this tendency were at first in complete accord with the members of the New Alexandrian school in their opposition to the semi-Arian Origenists and the Nestorianizing Antiocheans, but then as that school itself drifted into the position of a heretical sect, they also decidedly contended for the other side of the truth which the Antiochean school maintained. A second group of Western theologians were inspired by the writings of Origen, without, however, abandoning the characteristics of the Western spirit. To this class belongs Jerome, who afterwards repudiated his master and joined the previously named school, and Rufinus. The third group of Pelagians represent the practical but cool rationalistic tendency of the West. The fourth is that of the semi-Pelagians who in the Western theology intermingle synergistic elements of an Antiochean complexion.

2. Of the 6th and 7th Centuries.—The brilliant period of theological literature had now closed. There still were scholars who wrought laboriously upon the original contributions of the fathers, and reproduced the thoughts of their predecessors in a new shape suited to the needs of the time, but spirit and life, creative power and original productivity had well nigh disappeared. After the monophysite Johannes Philoponus of Alexandria had commented on the works of Aristotle and applied their categories to theology, the Platonic philosophy, hitherto on account of its ideal contents the favourite of all philosophizing church fathers, was more and more set aside by the philosophy of the Stagirite so richly developed on the formal side. The theology of the Greeks even at so early a date assumed to some extent the character of Scholasticism. Alongside of it, however, we have a theosophic mysticism which reverting from the tendency that had lately come into vogue to Neoplatonic ideas, drew its chief inspiration from the Pseudo-Dionysian writings. In the West, in addition to the general causes of decay, we have also the sufferings of the times amid the tumult of the migration of the nations. In Italy Boëthius and Cassiodorus won for themselves imperishable renown as the fosterers of classical and patristic studies in an age when these were in danger of being utterly forgotten. The series of Latin church fathers in the strict sense ends with Gregory the Great; that of Greek church fathers with Johannes Damascenus.

1. THE MOST IMPORTANT TEACHERS OF THE EASTERN CHURCH.

§ 47.2. The Most Celebrated Representative of the Old Alexandrian School is the father of Church History Eusebius Pamphili, i.e., the friend of Pamphilus (§ 31, 6), bishop of Cæsarea from A.D. 314 to A.D. 340. The favour of the emperor Constantine laid the imperial archives open to him for his historical studies. By his unwearied diligence as an investigator and collector he far excels all the church teachers of his age in comprehensive learning, to which we owe a great multitude of precious extracts from long lost writings of pagan and Christian antiquity. His style is jejune, dry and clumsy, sometimes bombastic. His Historical Writings supported on all sides by diligent research, want system and regularity, and suffer from disproportionate treatment and distribution of the material. To his Ἐκκλησιαστικὴ ἱστορία in 10 bks., reaching down to A.D. 324, he adds a highly-coloured biography of Constantine in 4 bks., which is in some respects a continuation of his history; and to it, again, he adds a fawning panegyric on the emperor.—At a later date he wrote an account of the Martyrs of Palestine during the Diocletian persecution which was afterwards added as an appendix to the 8th bk. of the History. A collection of old martyrologies, three bks. on the life of Pamphilus, and a treatise on the origin, celebration and history of the Easter festival, have all been lost. Of great value, especially for the synchronizing of biblical and profane history, was his diligently compiled Chronicle, Παντοδαπὴ ἱστορία, similar to that of Julius Africanus (§ 31, 3), an abstract of universal history reaching down to A.D. 352, to which chronological and synchronistic tables were added as a second part. The Greek original has been lost, but Jerome translated it into Latin, with arbitrary alterations, and carried it down to A.D. 378.—The Apologetical Writings take the second place in importance. Still extant are the two closely-connected works: Præparatio Evangelica, Εὐαγγελικὴ προπαρασκευή, in 15 bks., and the Demonstratio Evangelica, Εὐαγγελικὴ ἀπόδειξις, in 8 out of an original of 20 bks. The former proves the absurdity of heathenism; the latter, the truth and excellence of Christianity. A condensed reproduction of the contents and text of the Θεοφανεία in 5 bks. is found only in a Syriac translation. The Ἐκλογαὶ προφητικαί in 4 bks., of which only a portion is extant, expounds the Old Testament in an allegorizing fashion for apologetic purposes; and the treatise against Hierocles (§ 23, 3) contests his comparison of Christ with Apollonius of Tyana. A treatise in 30 bks. against Porphyry, and some other apologetical works are lost.—His Dogmatic Writings are of far less value. These treatises—Κατὰ Μαρκέλλου, in 2 bks., the one already named against Hierocles, and Περὶ τῆς ἐκκλησιαστικῆς θεολογίας, also against Marcellus (§ 50, 2)—are given as an Appendix in the editions of the Demonstratio Evangelica. On his share in Pamphilus’ Apology for Origen, see § 31, 6; and on his Ep. to the Princess Constantia, see § 57, 4. The weakness of his dogmatic productions was caused by his vacillating and mediating position in the Arian controversy, where he was the mouthpiece of the moderate semi-Arians (§ 50, 1, 3), and this again was due to his want of speculative capacity and dogmatic culture.—Of his Exegetical Writings the Commentaries on Isaiah and the Psalms are the most complete, but of the others we have only fragments. We have, however, his Τοπικά in the Latin translation of Jerome: De Situ et Nominibus Locorum Hebraeorum.[133]

§ 47.3. Church Fathers of the New Alexandrian School.—

1. The most conspicuous figure in the church history of the 4th century is Athanasius, styled by an admiring posterity Pater orthodoxiæ. He was indeed every inch of him a church father, and the history of his life is the history of the church of his times. His life was full of heroic conflict. Unswervingly faithful, he was powerful and wise in building up the church; great in defeat, great in victory. His was a life in which insight, will and action, earnestness, force and gentleness, science and faith, blended in most perfect harmony. In A.D. 319 he was a deacon in Alexandria. His bishop Alexander soon discovered the eminent gifts of the young man and took him with him to the Council of Nicæa in A.D. 325, where he began the battle of his life. Soon thereafter, in A.D. 328, Alexander died and Athanasius became his successor. He was bishop for forty-five years, but was five times driven into exile. He spent about twenty years in banishment, mostly in the West, and died in A.D. 373. His writings are for the most part devoted to controversy against the Arians (§ 50, 6); but he also contested Apollinarianism (§ 52, 1), and vindicated Christianity against the attacks of the heathens in the pre-Arian treatise in two bks. Contra Gentes, Κατὰ Ἑλλήνων, the first bk. of which argues against heathenism, while the second expounds the necessity of the incarnation of God in Christ. For a knowledge of his life and pastoral activity the Librî paschales, Festal letters (§ 56, 3), are of great value.[134] Of less importance are his exegetical, allegorical writings on the Psalms. His dogmatic, apologetical and polemical works are all characterized by sharp dialectic and profound speculation, and afford a great abundance of brilliant thoughts, skilful arguments and discussions on fundamental points in a style as clear as it is eloquent; but we often miss systematic arrangement of the material, and they suffer from frequent repetition of the same fundamental thoughts, defects which, from the circumstances of their composition, amid the hot combats of his much agitated life, may very easily be understood and excused.[135]

§ 47.4. (The Three Great Cappadocians.)—

1. Basil the Great, bishop of his native city of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, is in very deed a “kingly” figure in church history. His mother Emmelia and his grandmother Macrina early instilled pious feelings into his youthful breast. Studying at Athens, a friendship founded on love to the church and science soon sprang up between him and his likeminded countryman Gregory Nazianzen, and somewhat later his own brother Gregory of Nyssa became an equally attached member of the fraternity. After he had visited the most celebrated ascetics in Syria, Palestine and Egypt, he continued long to live in solitude as an ascetic, distributed his property among the poor, and became presbyter in A.D. 364, bishop in A.D. 370. He died in A.D. 379. The whole rich life of the man breathed of the faith that overcometh the world, of self-denying love and noble purpose. He gave the whole powers of his mind to the holding together of the Catholic church in the East during the violent persecution of the Arian Valens. The most beautiful testimony to his noble character was the magnificent Basil institute, a hospital in Cæsarea, to which he, while himself living in the humblest manner, devoted all his rich revenues. His writings, too, entitle Basil to a place among the most distinguished church fathers. They afford evidence of rich classical culture as well as of profound knowledge of Scripture and of human nature, and are vigorous in expression, beautiful and pictorial in style. In exegesis he follows the allegorical method. Among his dogmatic writings the following are the most important: Ll. 5 Adv. Eunomium (§ 50, 3) and De Spiritu s. ad Amphilochium against the Pneumatomachians (§ 50, 5). The other writings bearing his name comprise 365 Epistles, moral and ascetic tractates, Homilies on the Hexæmeron and 13 Psalms, and Discourses (among them, Πρὸς τοὺς νέους, ὁπως ἂν ἐξ ἑλληνικῶν ὠφελοῖντο λόγων), a larger and a short Monastic rule, and a Liturgy.[136]

2. Gregory Nazianzen was born in the Cappadocian village Arianz. His father Gregory, in his earlier days a Hypsistarian (§ 42, 6), but converted by his pious wife Nonna, became bishop of Nazianzum [Nazianzen]. The son, after completing his studies in Cæsarea, Alexandria and Athens, spent some years with Basil in his cloister in Pontus, but, when his father allowed himself to be prevailed upon to sign an Arianizing confession, he hasted to Nazianzum [Nazianzen], induced him to retract, and was there and then suddenly and against his will ordained by him a presbyter in A.D. 361. From that time, always vacillating between the desire for a quiet contemplative ascetic life and the impulse toward ecclesiastical official activity, easily attracted and repelled, not without ambition, and so sometimes irritable and out of humour, he led a very changeful life, which prevented him succeeding in one definite calling. Basil transferred to him the little bishopric of Sasima; but Gregory fled thence into the wilderness to escape the ill-feelings stirred up against him. He was also for a long time assistant to his father in the bishopric of Nazianzum [Nazianzen]. He withdrew, however, in A.D. 375, when the congregation in spite of his refusal appointed him successor to his father. Then the small, forsaken company of Nicene believers in Constantinople called him to be their pastor. He accepted the call in A.D. 379, and delivered here in a private chapel, which he designated by the significant name of Anastasia, his celebrated five discourses on the divinity of the Logos, which won for him the honourable title of ὁ θεόλογος. He was called thence by Theodosius the Great in A.D. 380 to be patriarch of the capital, and had assigned to him the presidency of the Synod of Constantinople in A.D. 381. But the malice of his enemies forced him to resign. He returned now to Nazianzum [Nazianzen], administered for several years the bishopric there, and died in A.D. 390 in rural retirement, without having fully realised the motto of his life: Πράξις ἐπίβασις θεωρίας. His writings consist of 45 Discourses, 242 Epistles, and several poems (§ 48, 5). After the 5 λόγοι θεολογικοί and the Λόγος περὶ φυγῆς (a justification of his flight from Nazianzum [Nazianzen] by a representation of the eminence and responsibility of the priesthood), the most celebrated are two philippics, Λόγοι στηλιτευτικοί (στηλίτευσις=the mark branded on one at the public pillory), Invectivæ in Julianum Imperatorem, occasioned by Julian’s attempt to deprive the Christians of the means of classical culture.[137]

3. Gregory of Nyssa was the younger brother of Basil. In philosophical gifts and scientific culture he excelled his two elder friends. His theological views too were rooted more deeply than theirs in those of Origen. But in zeal in controverting Arianism he was not a whit behind them, and his reputation among contemporaries and posterity is scarcely less than theirs. Basil ordained him bishop of Nyssa in A.D. 371, and thus, not without resistance, took him away from the office of a teacher of eloquence. The Arians, however, drove him from his bishopric, to which he was restored only after the death of the Emperor Valens. He died in A.D. 394. He took his share in the theological controversies of his times and wrote against Eunomius and Apollinaris. His dogmatic treatises are full of profound and brilliant thoughts, and especially the Λόγος κατηχητικὸς ὁ μέγας, an instruction how to win over Jews and Gentiles to the truth of Christianity; Περὶ ψυχῆς καὶ ἀναστάσεως, conversations between him and his sister Macrina after the death of their brother Basil, one of his most brilliant works; Κατὰ εἱμαρμένης, against the fatalistic theory of the world of paganism; Πρὸς Ἕλληνας ἐκ τῶν κοινῶν ἐννοίων, for the establishment of the doctrine of the Trinity on principles of reason. In his numerous exegetical writings he follows the allegorical method in the brilliant style of Origen. We also have from him some ascetical tracts, several sermons and 26 Epistles.

§ 47.5.

1. Apollinaris, called the Younger, to distinguish him from his father of the same name, was a contemporary of Athanasius, and bishop of Laodicea. He died in A.D. 390. A fine classical scholar and endowed with rich poetic gifts, he distinguished himself as a defender of Christianity against the attacks of the heathen philosopher Porphyry (§ 23, 3) and also as a brilliant controversialist against the Arians; but he too went astray when alongside of the trinitarian question he introduced those Christological speculations that are now known by his name (§ 52, 1). That we have others of his writings besides the quotations found in the treatises of his opponents, is owing to the circumstance that several of them were put into circulation by his adherents under good orthodox names in order to get impressed upon the views developed therein the stamp of orthodoxy. The chief of these is Ἡ κατὰ μέρος (i.e. developed bit by bit) πίστις, which has come down to us under the name of Gregory Thaumaturgus (§ 31, 6). Theodoret quotes passages from it and assigns them to Apollinaris, and its contents too are in harmony with this view. So too with the tract Περὶ τῆς σαρκώσεως τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγου, De Incarnatione Verbi, ascribed to Athanasius, which a scholar of Apollinaris, named Polemon, with undoubted accuracy ascribed to his teacher. That Cyril of Alexandria ascribes this last-named tract to Athanasius may be taken as proof of the readiness of the Monophysites and their precursor Cyril to pass off the false as genuine (§ 52, 2). To Apollinaris belong also an Epistle to Dionysius attributed to Julius, bishop of Rome (§ 50, 2) and a tract, attributed to the same, Περὶ τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ ἑνότητος τοῦ σώματος πρὸς τὴν θεότητα, which were also assigned to Apollinaris by his own scholars. Finally, the Pseudo-Justin Ἔκθεσις τῆς πίστεως ἤτοι περὶ τριάδος seems to be a reproduction of a treatise of Apollinaris’ Περὶ τριάδος, supposed to be lost, enlarged with clumsy additions and palmed off in this form under the venerated name of Justin Martyr.

2. Didymus the Blind lost his sight when four years of age, but succeeded in making wonderful attainments in learning. He was for fifty years Catechist in Alexandria, and as such the last brilliant star in the catechetical school. He died in A.D. 395. An enthusiastic admirer of Origen, he also shared many of his eccentric views, e.g. Apocatastasis, pre-existence of the soul, etc. But also in consequence of the theological controversies of the times he gave to his theology a decidedly ecclesiastical turn. His writings were numerous; but only a few have been preserved. His book De Spiritu S. is still extant in a Latin translation of Jerome; his controversial tract against the Manichæans is known only from fragments. His chief work De S. Trinitate, Περὶ τριάδος, in 3 bks., in which he showed himself a vigorous defender of the Nicene Creed, was brought to light in the 18th century. A commentary on the Περὶ ἀρχῶν of Origen now lost, was condemned at the second Council of Nicæa in A.D. 787.

§ 47.6.

1. Macarius Magnes, bishop of Magnesia in Asia Minor about A.D. 403, under the title Μονογενὴς ἢ Ἀποκριτικός, etc., wrote an apology for Christianity in 5 bks., only recovered in A.D. 1867, which takes the form of an account of a disputation with a heathen philosopher. Doctrinally it has a strong resemblance to the works of Gregory of Nyssa. The material assigned to the opponent is probably taken from the controversial tract of Porphyry (§ 23, 3).

2. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, was the nephew, protegé and, from A.D. 412, also the successor of Theophilus (§ 51, 3). The zealous and violent temper of the uncle was not without an injurious influence upon the character of the nephew. At the Synodus ad Quercum in A.D. 403, he voted for the condemnation of Chrysostom, but subsequently, on further consideration, he again of his own accord entered upon the diptyche (§ 59, 6) of the Alexandrian church the name of the disgracefully persecuted man. In order to revenge himself upon the Jews by whom in a popular tumult Christian blood had been shed, he came down upon them at the head of a mob, drove them out of the city and destroyed their houses. He also bears no small share of the odium of the horrible murder of the noble Hypatia (§ 42, 4). He shows himself equally passionate and malevolent in the contest with the Nestorians and the Antiocheans (§ 52, 3), and to this controversy many of his treatises, as well as 87 epistles, are almost entirely devoted. The most important of his writings is Πρὸς τὰ τοῦ ἐν ἀθέοις Ἰουλιανοῦ (§ 42, 5). He systematically developed in almost scholastic fashion the dogma of the Trinity in his Thesaurus de S. Consubstantiali Trinitate; and in a briefer and more popular form, in two short tracts. As a preacher he was held in so high esteem, that, as Gennadius relates, Greek bishops learnt his homilies by heart and gave them to their congregations instead of compositions of their own. His 30 Λόγοι ἑορταστικοί, Homiliæ paschales, delivered at the Easter festivals observed in Alexandria (§ 56, 3), in unctuous language expatiate upon the burning questions of the day, mostly polemical against Jews, heathens, Arians and Nestorians. His commentaries on the books of the Old and New Testaments illustrate the extreme arbitrariness of the typical-allegorical method.[138] The treatise Περὶ τῆς ἐν πνεύματι καὶ ἀληθείᾳ προσκυνήσεως gives a typical exposition of the ceremonial law of Moses, and his Γλαφυρά contain “ornate and elegant,” i.e. typical-allegorical, expositions of selected passages from the Pentateuch.

3. Isidore of Pelusium, priest and abbot of a monastery at Pelusium in Egypt, who died about A.D. 450, was one of the noblest, most gifted and liberal representatives of monasticism of his own and of all times. A warm supporter of the new Alexandrian system of doctrine but also conciliatory and moderate in his treatment of the persons of opponents, while firm and decided in regard to the subject in debate, he most urgently entreats Cyril to moderation. His writings Contra Gentiles and Contra Fatum are lost; but his still extant 2,012 Epistles in 5 bks. afford a striking evidence of the richness of his intellect and of his culture, as well as of the great esteem in which he was held and of his far-reaching influence. His exegesis, too, which always inclines to a simple literal sense, is of far greater importance than that of the other Alexandrians.

§ 47.7. (Mystics and Philosophers.)

1. Macarius the Great or the Elder, monk and priest in the Scetic desert, was exiled by the Arian Emperor Valens on account of his zeal for Nicene orthodoxy. He died in A.D. 391. From his writings, consisting of 50 Homilies, a number of Apophthegms, some epistles and prayers, there is breathed forth a deep warm mysticism with various approaches to Augustine’s soteriological views, while other passages seem to convey quite a Pelagian type of doctrine.

2. Marcus Eremita, a like-minded younger contemporary of the preceding, lived about A.D. 400 as an inhabitant of the Scetic desert. We possess of his writings only nine tracts of an ascetic mystical kind, the second of which, bearing the title Περὶ τῶν οἰομένων ἐξ ἔργων δικαιοῦσθαι, has secured for them a place in the Roman Index with the note “Caute legenda.” However even in his mysticism contradictory views, Augustinian and Pelagian, in regard to human freedom and divine grace, on predestination and sanctification, etc., find a place alongside one another, and have prominence given them according to the writer’s humour and the requirement of his meditation or exhortation.

3. Synesius of Cyrene,[139] subsequently bishop of Ptolemais in Egypt, was a disciple of the celebrated Hypatia (§ 42, 4) and an enthusiastic admirer of Plato. He died about A.D. 420. A happy husband and father, in comfortable circumstances and devoted to the study of philosophy, he could not for a long time be prevailed upon to accept a bishopric. He openly confessed his Origenistic heterodoxy in reference to the resurrection doctrine, the eternity of the world, as well as the pre-existence of the soul. He also publicly declared that as bishop he would continue the marriage relation with his wife, and no one took offence thereat. In the episcopal office he distinguished himself by noble zeal and courage which knew no fear of man. His 10 Hymns contain echoes of Valentinian views (§ 27, 4), and his philosophical tracts are only to a small extent dominated by Christian ideas. His 155 Epistles are more valuable as illustrating on every hand his noble character.

4. Nemesius, Bishop of Emesa in Phœnicia, lived in the first half of the 5th century. He left behind a brilliant treatise on religious philosophy, Περὶ φύσεως ἀνθρώπου. The traditional doctrine of the Eastern church is unswervingly set forth by him; still he too finds therein a place for the eternity of the world, the pre-existence of the soul, a migration of souls (excluding, however, the brute creation), the unconditional freedom of the will, etc.

5. Æneas of Gaza, a disciple of the Neo-Platonist Hierocles and a rhetorician in Alexandria, about A.D. 437 wrote a dialogue directed against the Origenistic doctrines of the eternity of the world and the pre-existence of the soul; as also against the Neo-Platonic denial of the resurrection of the body. It bore the title: Θεόφραστος.

§ 47.8. The Antiocheans.

1. Eusebius of Emesa was born at Edessa and studied in Cæsarea and Antioch. A quiet, peaceful scholar, and one who detested all theological wrangling, he declined the call to the Alexandrian bishopric in place of the deposed Athanasius in A.D. 341, but accepted the obscure bishopric of Emesa. He was not, however, to be left here. When, on account of his mathematical and astronomical attainments, the people there suspected him of sorcery, he quitted Emesa and from that date till his death in A.D. 360 taught in Antioch. Of his numerous exegetical, dogmatical and polemical writings only a few fragments are extant.

2. Diodorus of Tarsus, a scholar of the preceding, monk and presbyter at Antioch, was afterwards bishop of Tarsus in Cilicia, and died in A.D. 394. Only a few fragments of his numerous writings survive. As an exegete he concerned himself with the plain grammatico-historical sense and contested the Alexandrian mode of interpretation in the treatise: Τίς διαφορὰ θεωρίας καὶ ἀλληγορίας. By θεωρία he understands insight into the relations transcending the bare literal sense but yet essentially present in it as the ideal. By his polemic against Apollinaris (§ 52, 1), he imprinted upon the Antiochean school its specific dogmatic character (§ 52, 2), in consequence of which he was at a later period regarded as the original founder of the Nestorian party.

3. His scholar again was John of Antioch, whose proper name afterwards almost disappeared before the honourable title of Chrysostom. Educated by his early widowed mother Arethusa with the greatest care, he attended the rhetoric school of Libanius and started with great success as an advocate in Antioch. But after receiving baptism he abandoned his practice and became a monk. He was made deacon in A.D. 380 and presbyter in A.D. 386 in his native city. His brilliant eloquence raised him at last in A.D. 398 to the patriarchal chair at Constantinople (§ 51, 3). He died in exile in A.D. 407. Next to Athanasius and the three Cappadocians he is one of the most talented of the Eastern fathers, the only one of the Antiochean school whose orthodoxy has never been questioned. In his exegesis he follows the fundamental principles of the Antiochean school. He wrote commentaries on Isaiah (down to chap. viii. 10) and on Galatians. Besides these his 650 Expository Homilies on all the Biblical books and particular sections cover almost the whole of the Old and New Testaments. Among his other dogmatical, polemical and hortatory church addresses the most celebrated are the 21 De Statuis ad populum Antiochen, delivered in A.D. 387. (The people of Antioch, roused on account of the exorbitant tax demanded of them, had broken down the statues of Theodosius I.) The Demonstratio c. Julianum et Gentiles quod Christus sit Deus and the Liber in S. Babylam c. Judæos et Gentiles are apologetical treatises. Of his ethico-ascetic writings, in which he eagerly commends virginity and asceticism, by far the most celebrated is Περὶ ἱερωσύνης, De Sacerdotis, in 4 bks., in the form of a dialogue with his Cappadocian friend Basil (the Great) who in A.D. 370 had felt compelled to accept the bishopric of Cæsarea after Chrysostom had escaped this honour by flight.[140]

§ 47.9.

1. Theodore, bishop of Mopsuestia in Cilicia, was the son of respectable parents in Antioch, the friend and fellow-student of Chrysostom, first under Libanius, then under Diodorus. He died in A.D. 429. It was he who gave full development and consistent expression to the essential dogmatic and hermeneutical principles of the Antiochean theology. For this reason he was far more suspected of heresy by his Alexandrian opponents than even his teacher Diodorus, and they finally obtained their desire by the formal condemnation of his person and writings at the fifth œcumenical Synod in A.D. 553 (§ 52, 6). Leontius Byzantinus formulated his exegetical offence by saying that in his exposition he treated the Holy Scriptures precisely as ordinary human writings, especially that he interpreted the Song of Songs as a love poem, libidinose pro sua et mente et lingua meretricia, explained the Psalms after the manner of the Jews till he emptied them dry of all Messianic contents, Judaice ad Zorobabelem et Ezechiam retulit, denied the genuineness of the titles of the Psalms, rejected the canonical authority of Job, the Chronicles and Ezra as well as James and other Catholic Epistles, etc. In every respect Theodore was one of the ablest exegetes of the ancient church and the Syrian church has rightly celebrated him as the “Interpres” par excellence. He set forth his hermeneutical principles in the treatise: De Allegoria et Historia. Of his exegetical writings we have still his Comm. on the Minor Prophets, on Romans, fragments of those on other parts of the New Testament. Latin translations of his Comm. on the Minor Epp. of Paul, with the corresponding Greek fragments, are edited by Swete, 2 vols., Cambr., 1880, 1882. An introduction to Biblical Theology collected from Theodore’s writings and reproduced in a Latin form by Junilius Africanus (§ 48, 1) is still extant. His dogmatic, polemical and apologetical works on the Incarnation and Original Sin (§ 53, 4), against Eunomius (§ 50, 3), Apollinaris (§ 52, 1) and the Emperor Julian (§ 42, 5), are now known only from a few fragmentary quotations.

2. Polychronius, bishop of Apamea, was Theodore’s brother and quite his equal in exegetical acuteness and productivity, while he excelled him in his knowledge of the Hebrew and Syriac. Tolerably complete scholia by him on Ezekiel, Daniel and Job have been preserved in the Greek Catenæ (§ 48, 1). In regard to Daniel he maintains firmly its historical character and understands chap. vii. of Antiochus Epiphanes.

3. Theodoret, bishop of Cyrus in Syria, was Theodore’s ablest disciple, the most versatile scholar and most productive writer of his age, an original investigator and a diligent pastor, an upright and noble character and a man who kept the just mean amid the extreme tendencies of his times,—yet even he could not escape the suspicion of heresy (§ 52, 3, 4, 6). He died in A.D. 457. As an exegete he followed the course of grammatico-historical exposition marked out by his Antiochean predecessors, but avoided the rationalistic tendencies of his teacher. He commented on most of the historical books of the Old Testament, on the Prophets, the Song, which he understood allegorically of the church as the bride of Christ, and on the Pauline Epistles. Among his historical works the first place belongs to his continuation of the history of Eusebius (§ 5, 1). His Φιλόθεος ἱστορία, Hist. religiosa, gives a glowing description of the lives of 33 celebrated ascetics of both sexes. Of higher value is the Αἱρετικῆς κακομυθίας ἐπιτομή, Hæreticarum fabularum compendium. His Ἑλληνικῶν θεραπευτικὴ παθημάτων, De Curandis Græcorum Affectionibus, is an apologetical treatise. His seven Dialogues De s. Trinitate are polemics against the Macedonians and Apollinarians. The Reprehensio xii. Anathematismorum is directed against Cyril of Alexandria; and the Ἐρανιστὴς ἤτοι Πολύμορφος against monophysitism as a heresy compounded of many heresies (§ 52, 4). Besides these we have from him 179 Epistles.[141]

§ 47.10. Other Teachers of the Greek Church during the 4th and 5th Centuries.

1. Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, from A.D. 351 to A.D. 386, in the Arian controversy took the side of the conciliatory semi-Arians and thus came into collision with his imperious and decidedly Arian metropolitan Acacius of Cæsarea. During a famine he sold the church furniture for distribution among the needy, and was for this deposed by Acacius. Under Julian he ventured to return, but under Valens he was again driven out and found himself exposed to the persecution of the Arians, which was all the more violent because in the meantime he had assumed a more decided attitude toward Nicene orthodoxy. At the death of Valens in A.D. 378 he returned and became reconciled to the victorious maintainers of the Homoousion by fully accepting the doctrine at the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381 (§ 50, 4). We still have his 23 Catechetical Lectures delivered in A.D. 348 by him as presbyter to the baptized at Jerusalem. The first 18 are entitled: Πρὸς τοὺς φωτιζομένους, Ad Competentes (§ 35, 1); the last five: Πρὸς τοὺς νεοφωτίστους, Catecheses Mystagogicæ, on Baptism, Anointing and the Lord’s Supper. In their present form they afford but faint evidence of their author having surmounted the semi-Arian standpoint.[142]

2. Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis or Constantia in Cyprus, was born of Jewish parents in the Palestinian village Besanduce and was baptized in his sixteenth year. His pious and noble, but narrow and one-sided character was formed by his education under the monks. He completed his ascetic training by several years residence among the monks of the Scetic desert, then founded a monastery in his native place over which he presided for thirty years until in A.D. 367 he was raised to the metropolitan’s chair at Salamis, where he died in A.D. 403. In the discharge of his episcopal duties he was a miracle of faithfulness and zeal, specially active and self-denying in his care of the poor. But in the forefront of all his thinking and acting there ever stood his glowing zeal for ecclesiastical orthodoxy. The very soul of honour, truth-loving and courageous, but credulous, positive, with little knowledge of the world and human nature, and hence not capable of penetrating to the bottom of complicated affairs, he was all his days misused as a tool of the intriguing Alexandrian Theophilus in the Origenistic controversies (§ 51, 3). He was all the more easily won to this from the fact that he had brought with him from the Scetic desert the conviction that Origen was the prime mover in the Arian and all other heresies. In spite of all defects in form and contents his writings have proved most serviceable for the history of the churches and heresies of the first four centuries. The diligence and honourable intention of his research in some measure compensate for the bad taste and illogical character of his exposition and for his narrow, one-sided and uncritical views. His Πανάριον ἤτοι κιβώτιον κατὰ αἱρέσεων lxxx. is a full and learned though confused and uncritical work, in which the idea of heresy is so loosely defined that even the Samaritans, Pharisees, Essenes, etc., find a place in it. He himself composed an abridgment of it under the title: Ἀνακεφαλαίωσις. His Ἀγκυρωτός is an exposition of the Catholic faith, which during the tumults of the Arian controversy should serve as an anchor of salvation to the Christians. The book Περὶ μέτρων καὶ στάθμων, De mensuris et ponderibus, answers to this title only in the last chapter, the 24th; the preceding chapters treat of the Canon and translations of the Old Testament. There are two old codices in the British Museum which have in addition, in a Syriac translation, 37 chapters on biblical weights and measures and 19 on the biblical science of the heaven and the earth. The tract Περὶ τῶν δώδεκα λίθων (on the high-priest’s breastplate) is of little consequence.

3. Palladius, born in Galatia, retired at an early age into the Nitrian desert, but lived afterwards in Palestine, where he was accused of favouring the heresy of Origen (§ 51, 2). Chrysostom consecrated him bishop of Hellenopolis in Bithynia. Latterly he administered a small bishopric in Galatia, where he died before A.D. 431. His chief writing is the Πρὸς Λαῦσον ἱστορία, Hist. Lausiaca, a historical romance on the hermit and monkish life of his times which is dedicated to an eminent statesman called Lausus.

4. Nilus, sprung from a prominent family in Constantinople, retired with his son Theodulus to the recluses of Mount Sinai. By a murderous onslaught of the Saracens his beloved son was snatched away from him, but an Arabian bishop bought him and ordained both father and son as priests. He died about A.D. 450. In his ascetical writings and specially in the 4 books of his Epistles, about 1,000 in number, he shows himself to be of like mind and character to his companion Isidore, but with a deeper knowledge and more sober conception of Holy Scripture. He himself describes the capture of his son in Narrationes de cæde monachorum et captivitate Theoduli.

§ 47.11. Greek Church Fathers of the 6th and 7th Centuries.

1. Johannes Philoponus was in the first half of the 6th century teacher of grammar at Alexandria, and belonged to the sect of tritheistic monophysites in that place (§ 52, 7). Although trained in the Neo-Platonic school, he subsequently applied himself enthusiastically to the Aristotelian philosophy, composed many commentaries on Aristotle’s writings, and was the first to apply the Aristotelian categories to Christian theology. Notwithstanding many heretical tendencies in his theology, among which is his statement in a lost work, Περὶ ἀναστάσεως, that for the saved at the last day entirely new bodies and an entirely new world will be created, his philosophical writings powerfully impelled the mediæval Greek Church to the study of philosophy. His chief doctrinal treatise Διαιτητὴς ἢ περὶ ἑνώσεως is known only from quotations in Leontius Byzantinus and Johannes Damascenus. Of his other writings the most important was the controversial treatise Contra Procli pro æternitate mundi argumenta in 18 bks. The 7 bks. Περὶ κοσμοποίας treat of the six days’ work of creation with great display of philosophical acuteness and acquaintance with natural history.

2. Dionysius the Areopagite. Under this name (Acts xvii. 34) an unknown writer, only a little earlier than the previously named, published writings of a decidedly mystico-theosophical kind. The first mention of them is at a conference of the monophysite Severians (§ 52, 7) with the Catholics at Constantinople in A.D. 533, where the former referred to them, while the other side denied their authenticity. Subsequently, however, they were universally received as genuine, not only in the East but also in the West. They comprise four tracts: 1. Περὶ τῆς ἱεραρχίας οὐρανίου; 2. Περὶ τῆς ἱεραρχίας ἐκκλησιαστικῆς; 3. Περὶ τῶν θείων ὀνομάτων; 4. Περὶ τῆς μυστικῆς θεολογίας; and also 12 Epp. to Apostolic men. Their author was a Monophysite-Christian Neo-Platonist, who transferred the secret arts of the Dionysian mysteries to Christian worship, monasticism, hierarchy and church doctrines. He distinguished a θεολογία καταφατική, which consisted in symbolic representations, from a θεολογία ἀποφατική, which surmounted the symbolical shell and rose to the perception of the pure idea by means of ecstasy. Side by side with the revealed doctrine of Holy Scripture he sets a secret doctrine, the knowledge of which is reached only by initiation. The primal mystagogue, who like the sun enlightens all spirits, is the divine hierarch Christ, and the primitive type of all earthly order in the heavenly hierarchy as represented in the courses of angels and glorified spirits. There is constant intercourse between the earthly and heavenly hierarchies by means of Christ the highest hierarch incarnate. The purpose of this intercourse is the drawing out of the θείωσις of man by means of priestly consecration and the mysteries (i.e. the Sacraments of which he reckons six, § 58). The θείωσις has its foundation in baptism as consecration to the divine birth, τελετὴ θεογενεσίας, and its completion in consecration of the dead, the anointing of the body. The historical Christ with His redeeming life, sufferings and death is at no time the subject of the Areopagite mysticism. It is always concerned with the heavenly Christ, not about the reconciliation but only about the mystical living fellowship of God and man, about the immediate vision and enjoyment of God’s glory. The monophysite standpoint of the author betrays itself in his tendency to think of the human nature of Christ as absorbed by the divine. His Christian Neo-Platonism appears in his fantastic speculations about the nature of God, the orders of angels and spirits, etc.; while his antagonism to the pagan Neo-Platonism is seen in his regarding the θείωσις not as a natural power proper to and dwelling in man, but as a supernatural power made possible by the ἐνσάρκωσις of Christ, but still more expressly by his emphatic assertion over against the Neo-Platonic depreciation of the body, of the resurrection of the flesh as the completion of the θείωσις. Hence also the importance which he attaches to the sacrament of the consecration of the dead.[143]

§ 47.12.

1. Leontius Byzantinus, at first an advocate at Constantinople, subsequently a monk at Jerusalem, wrote about the end of the 6th century controversial tracts against Nestorians, Monophysites and Apollinarians, and in his Scholia s. Liber de sectis presented a historico-polemical summary of all heresies up to that time.

2. Maximus Confessor, the scion of a well-known family of Constantinople, was for a long time private secretary to the Emperor Heraclius, but retired about A.D. 630 from love of a contemplative life into a monastery at Chrysopolis near Constantinople, where he was soon raised to the rank of abbot. The further details of his story are given in § 52, 8. He died in A.D. 662. In decision of character, fidelity to his convictions and courage as a confessor during the Monothelete controversy, he stands out among his characterless countrymen and contemporaries as a rock in the ocean. In scientific endowments and comprehensive learning, in depth and wealth of thought there is none like him, although even in him the weakness of the age, especially slavish submission to authority, is quite apparent. His scientific theology is built up mainly upon the three great Cappadocians, among whom the speculative Nyssa has most influence over him. His dialectic acuteness and subtlety he derived from the study of Aristotle, while his imaginative nature and the intensity of his emotional life which predestined him to be a mystic, found abundant nourishment and satisfaction in the writings of Dionysius. He was saved, however, by the manysidedness of his mind and the soundness of his whole life’s tendencies, from many eccentricities of the Areopagite mysticism, so that in his humility he thought that his soul was not pure enough to be able fully to penetrate and comprehend these mysteries. His numerous writings, of which more than fifty are extant, were in great part occasioned by the struggle against Monophysitism and Monotheletism. His mystico-ascetic writings are also important, such as his Μυσταγωγία, treatises on the symbolico-mystic meaning of the acts of church worship, his epistles and several beautiful hymns. He also wrote scholia and commentaries on the works of the Areopagite. He is weakest in exegesis, where the most wilful allegorizing prevails.

3. Johannes Climacus, abbot of the monastery at Sinai, died at an extremely old age in A.D. 606. Under the title Κλίμαξ τοῦ παραδείσου, Heavenly Guide, he composed a directory toward perfection in the Christian life in thirty steps, which became a favourite reading book of pious monks.

4. Johannes Moschus was a monk in a cloister at Jerusalem. Accompanying his friend Sophronius, afterwards patriarch of Jerusalem (§ 52, 8), he travelled through Egypt and the East, visiting all the pious monks and clerics. At last he reached Rome, where he wrote an account in his Λειμονάριον ἤτοι νέος παραδείσος, Pratum Spirituale, of the edifying discourses which he had had with famous monks during his travels, and soon thereafter, in A.D. 619, he died.

5. Anastasius Sinaita, called the new Moses, because like Moses he is said to have seen God, was priest and dweller on Mount Sinai at the end of the 7th century. His chief work Ὁδηγός, Viæ duæ, is directed against the Acephalians (§ 52, 5) and his Contemplationes preserved only in a Latin translation give an allegorico-mystical exposition of the Hexæmeron.

§ 47.13. Syrian Church Fathers.[144]

1. Jacob of Nisibis, as bishop of his native city and founder of the theological school there, performed most important services to the national Syrian Church. At the Council of Nicæa in A.D. 325 he distinguished himself by vindicating the homoüsion and also subsequently we find him sometimes in the front rank of the champions of Nicene orthodoxy. Of his writings none are known to us. He died in A.D. 338.

2. Aphraates was celebrated in his time as a Persian sage. As bishop of St. Matthew near Mosul he adopted the Christian name of Mar Jacob, and dedicated his 23 Homilies, which are rather instructions or treatises, to a certain Gregory. He wrote them between A.D. 336 and A.D. 345. The Sermones ascribed even by Gennadius at the end of the 5th century to Nisibis were composed by Aphraates. Although he lived when the Arian controversy was at its height, there is no reference to it in his treatises, which may be explained by his geographical isolation. The polemic against the Jews to which seven tracts are devoted ex professo, was one which specially interested him.

3. Ephraim the Syrian,[145] called, on account of his importance in the Syrian Church, Propheta Syrorum, was born at Nisibis and was called by the bishop Jacob to be teacher of the school founded there by him. When the Persians under Sapor in A.D. 350 plundered the city and destroyed the school, Ephraim retired to Edessa, founded a school there, administered the office of deacon, and died at a great age in A.D. 378. As an exegete he indulged to his heart’s content in typology, but in other respects mostly followed the grammatico-historical method with a constant endeavour after what was edifying. Many of his writings have been lost. Those remaining partly in the Syriac original, partly in Greek and Latin translations, have been collected by the brothers Assemani. They comprise Commentaries on almost the whole Bible, Homilies and Discourses in metrical form on a variety of themes, of these 56 are against heretics (Gnostics, Manichæans, Eunomians, Audians, etc.), and Hymns properly so called, especially funeral Odes.

4. Ibas, bishop of Edessa, at first teacher in the high school there, translated the writings of Diodorus and Theodore into Syriac, and thus brought down upon himself the charge of being a Nestorian. Having been repeatedly drawn into discussion, and being naturally outspoken, he was excommunicated and deposed at the Robber Synod of Ephesus in A.D. 449, but his orthodoxy was acknowledged by the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451, after he had pronounced anathema upon Nestorius. He died in A.D. 457. An epistle, in which he gives an account of these proceedings to Bishop Meris of Hardashir in Persia, led to a renewal of his condemnation before the fifth œcumenical Council at Constantinople in A.D. 553 (§ 52, 4, 6).

5. Jacob, bishop of Edessa, a monophysite, is the most important and manysided among the later Syrians, distinguished as theologian, historian, grammarian and translator of the Greek fathers. He died in A.D. 708. Of his works still extant in MS.—scholia on the Bible, liturgical works and treatises on church law, revision of the Syrian Old Testament according to the LXX., continuation of the Eusebian Chronicle, etc.—only a few have been printed.

2. THE MOST IMPORTANT TEACHERS OF THE WESTERN CHURCH.

§ 47.14.

1. During the Period of the Arian Controversy.

1. Jul. Firmicus Maternus. Under this name we have a treatise De errore profanarum religionum, addressed to the sons of Constantine the Great, in which the writer combats heathenism upon the Euhemerist theory (which traces the worship of the heathen gods from the deifying of famous ancestors), but besides reclaims many myths as corruptions of the biblical history, and shows that the violent overthrow of all idolatry is the sacred duty of a Christian ruler from God’s command to Joshua to destroy utterly the Canaanites.

2. Lucifer of Calăris [Calaris] in Sardinia, was a violent, determined, and stubborn zealot for the Nicene doctrine, whose excessive severity against the penitent Arians and semi-Arians drove him into schism (§ 50, 8). He died in A.D. 371. In his tract, Ad Constantium Augustum pro S. Athansio, lb. ii., written in A.D. 360, he upbraids the emperor with his faults so bitterly as to describe him as a reckless apostate, antichrist, and Satan. He boldly acknowledged the authorship and, in prospect of a death sentence, wrote in A.D. 361 his consolatory treatise, Moriendum esse pro filio Dei. The early death of the emperor, however, permitted his return from exile (§ 50, 2, 4), where he had written De regibus apostaticis and De non conveniendo cum hæreticis.

3. Marius Victorinus from Africa, often confounded with the martyr of the same name (§ 31, 12), was converted to Christianity when advanced in life, about A.D. 360, while occupying a distinguished position as a heathen rhetorician in Rome. He gave proof of his zeal as a neophyte by the composition of controversial treatises against the Manichæans, Ad Justinum Manichæum, and against the Arians, Lb. iv. adv. Arium, De generatione divina ad Candidum, De ὁμοουσίῳ recipiendo. In his treatise, De verbis scripturæ, Gen. i. 5, he shows that the creative days began not with the evening, but with the morning. He composed three hymns de Trinitate, and an epic poem on the seven brothers, the Maccabees.

4. Hilary of Poitiers—Hilarius Pictavienses—styled the Athanasius of the West, and made doctor ecclesiæ by Pius IX. in A.D. 1851, was sprung from a noble pagan family of Poitiers (Pictavium). With wife and daughter he embraced Christianity, and was soon thereafter, about A.D. 350, made bishop of his native city. In A.D. 356, however, as a zealous opponent of Arianism, he was banished to Phrygia, from which he returned in A.D. 360. Two years later he travelled to Milan, in order if possible to win from his error the bishop of that place, Auxentius, a zealous Arian. That bishop, however, obtained an imperial edict which obliged him instantly to withdraw. He died in A.D. 366. The study of Origen seems to have had a decided influence upon his theological development. His strength lay in the speculative treatment of the groundworks of doctrine. At the same time he is the first exegete proper among the Western fathers writing the Latin language. He follows exactly the allegorical method of the Alexandrians. His works embrace commentaries on the Psalms and the Gospel of Matthew, several polemical lectures (§ 50, 6), and his speculative dogmatic masterpiece de Trinitate in xii. books.

5. Zeno, bishop of Verona, who died about A.D. 380, left behind ninety-three Sermones which, in beautiful language and spirited style, treat of various subjects connected with faith and morals, combat paganism and Arianism, and eagerly recommend virginity and monasticism.

6. Philaster, bishop of Brescia, contemporary of Zeno, in his book De hæresibus, described in harsh and obscure language, in an uncritical fashion and with an extremely loose application of the word heresy, 28 pre-Christian and 128 post-Christian systems of error.

7. Martin of Tours,[146] son of a soldier, had before baptism, but after his heart had been filled with the love of Christ, entered the Roman cavalry. Once, legend relates, he parted his military cloak into two pieces in order to shield a naked beggar from the cold, and on the following night the Lord Jesus appeared to him clothed in this very cloak. In his eighteenth year he was baptized, and for some years thereafter attached himself to Hilary of Poitiers, and then went to his parents in Pannonia. He did not succeed in converting his father, but he was successful with his mother and many of the people. Scourged and driven away by the Arian party which there prevailed, he turned to Milan where, however, he got just as little welcome from the Arian bishop Auxentius. He then lived some years on the island of Gallinaria, near Genoa. When Hilary returned from banishment to Pictavium, he followed him there, and founded in the neighbourhood a monastery, the earliest in Gaul. He was guilefully decoyed to Tours, and forced to mount the episcopal chair there in A.D. 375. He converted whole crowds of heathen peasants, and, according to the legend given by Sulpicius Severus and Gregory of Tours (§ 90, 2), wrought miracle after miracle. But he was himself with his holy zeal, his activity in doing good, his undoubted power over men’s hearts, and a countenance before which even the emperor quailed (§ 54, 2), the greatest and the most credible miracle. He died about A.D. 400 in the monastery of Marmontiers [Marmoutiers], which he had founded out from Tours. His tomb was one of the most frequented places of pilgrimage. He was wholly without scholarly culture, but the force of intellect with which he was endowed lent him a commanding eloquence. The Confessio de s. Trinitate attributed to him is not genuine.

§ 47.15.

1. Ambrose, bishop of Milan, sprung from a prominent Roman family, was governor of the province of Milan. After the death of the Arian Auxentius in A.D. 374 violent quarrels broke out over the choice of a successor. Then a child is said to have cried from the midst of the crowd “Ambrose is bishop,” and all the people, Arians as well as Catholics, agreed. All objection was vain. Up to this time only a catechumen, he received baptism, distributed his property among the poor, and eight days after mounted the episcopal chair. His new office he administered with truly apostolic zeal, a father of the poor, a protector of all oppressed, an unweariedly active pastor, a powerful opponent of heresy and heathenism. His eloquence, which had won him a high reputation in the forum, was yet more conspicuous in the service of the church. To ransom the prisoners he spared not even the furniture of the church. To a peculiarly winning friendliness and gentleness he added great strength of character, which prevented him being checked in his course by any respect of persons, or by any threatening and danger. He so decidedly opposed the intrigues of the Arian Empress Justina, during the minority of her son Valentinian II., that she, powerless to execute her wrath, was obliged to desist from her endeavours (§ 50, 4). With Theodosius the Great he stood in the highest esteem. When the passionate emperor had ordered a fearful massacre without distinction of rank, age and sex, without enquiry as to guilt or innocence, of the inhabitants of Thessalonica on account of a tumult in which a general and several officers had been murdered, Ambrose wrote him a letter with an earnest call to repentance, and threatened him with exclusion from the communion of the church and its services. The emperor, already repenting of his hastiness, took patiently the rebuke administered, but did nothing to atone for his crime. Some time after he went as usual to church, but Ambrose met him at the entrance of the house of God and refused him admission. For eight months the emperor refrained from communion; then he applied for absolution, which was granted him, after he had publicly done penance before the congregation and promised never in future to carry out a death sentence within thirty days of its being pronounced. Theodosius afterwards declared that Ambrose was the only one truly deserving the name of a bishop. Ambrose was also a zealous promoter of monasticism in the West. In his sermons he so powerfully recommended virginity that many families forbade their daughters attending them. He deserves special credit for his contributions to the liturgical services (Officium Ambrosianum, Cantus Ambr., Hymn Composition, § 59, 4-6). On all dogmatic questions he strongly favoured the realism of the North African school, while in exegesis he did not surmount the allegorical method of the Alexandrians. To the department of morals and ascetics belong the 3 bks. De Officiis Ministrorum, a Christian construction of Cicero’s celebrated work and the most important of all Ambrose’s writings; also several treatises in recommendation of virginity. The book De Mysteriis explains baptism and the Lord’s Supper to the neophytes. The 5 bks. De fide, the 3 bks. De Spiritu S. and the tract De incarnatîonis sacramento, treat of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith in opposition to Arians, Sabellians, Apollinarians, etc. These are somewhat dependent upon the Greeks, especially Athanasius, Didymus and Basil. His expositions of Old Testament histories (Hexaëmeron, De Paradiso, De Cain et Abel, De Noë et arca, De Abraham, De Jacob et anima, etc.) are allegorical and typical in the highest degree. More important are his Sermones and 92 Epistles. But all his writings are distinguished by their noble, powerful and popular eloquence.

2. Ambrosiaster is the name given to an unknown writer whose allegorizing Commentary on Paul’s Epistles was long attributed to Ambrose. This work, highly popular on account of its pregnant brevity, was perhaps the joint work of several writers. In its earliest portions it belongs to the age of Damasus, bishop of Rome, who died in A.D. 384, who is named as a contemporary. Augustine names a Hilary, not otherwise known, as author of a passage quoted from it.

3. Pacianus,[147] bishop of Barcelona, who died about A.D. 390, wrote in a clear style and correct Latinity three Epistles against the Novatians, from the first of which, De Catholico nomine, is borrowed the beautiful saying: Christianus mihi nomen est, Catholicus cognomen. He also wrote a Liber exhortatorius ad pœnitentiam and a Sermo de baptismo.

§ 47.16. During the Period of Origenistic Controversy.

1. Jerome[148]—Sophronius Eusebius Hieronymus—of Stridon in Dalmatia, received his classical training under the grammarian Donatus at Rome. In A.D. 360 he was baptized by bishop Liberius, but afterwards fell into sensual excesses which he atoned for by penitential pilgrimages to the catacombs. During a journey through Gaul and the provinces of the Rhine and Moselle he seems to have formed the fixed resolve to devote himself to theology and an ascetic life. Then for more than a year he stayed at Aquileia, A.D. 372, where he formed an intimate friendship with Rufinus. He next undertakes a journey to the East. At Antioch in a vision, during a violent fever, placed before the throne of the judge of all, having answered the question Who art thou? by the confession that he was a Christian, he heard the words distinctly uttered: Thou liest! thou art a Ciceronian and no Christian! He then sentenced himself to severe castigation and promised with an oath to give up the reading of the heathen classics which he had so much enjoyed. He afterwards indeed excused himself from the fulfilment of this twofold obligation; but this had sealed his devotion to an ascetic life, and the desert of Chalcis, the Syrian Thebaid, became for him during many years the school of ascetic discipline. Worn out with privations, penances and sensual temptations he returned in A.D. 379 to Antioch, where he was ordained presbyter but without any official district being assigned. Urged by Gregory of Nazianzum [Nazianzen], he next spent several years in Constantinople. From A.D. 382 to A.D. 385 he again lived in Rome, where bishop Damasus honoured him with his implicit confidence. This aroused against him the envy and enmity of many among the Roman clergy, while at the same time his zeal for the spread of monasticism and virginity, as well as his ascetic influence with women, drew upon him the hatred of many prominent families (§ 44, 4). On the death of his episcopal patron in A.D. 384 his position in Rome thus became untenable. He now returned to the East, visited all the holy places in Palestine, and also made an excursion to Alexandria where he stayed for four weeks in the school of the blind Didymus. He then settled down at Bethlehem, founded there with the means of his Roman lady friends an establishment for monks, over which he presided till his death in A.D. 420; and an establishment for nuns over which St. Paula presided, who with her daughter Eustochium had accompanied him from Rome. As to his share in the Origenistic controversies into which he allowed himself to be drawn, see § 51, 2. His character was not without defects: vanity, ambition, jealousy, passionateness, impatience and intense bitterness in debate, are only all too apparent in his life. But where these, as well as his scrupulous anxiety for the maintaining of a reputation for unwavering orthodoxy and by zeal for monasticism and asceticism, did not stand in the way, we often find in him an unexpected clearness and liberality of view. Comp. § 17, 6; 57, 6; 59, 1; 61, 1. To the instructions of the Jew Bar Hanina he was indebted for his knowledge of Hebrew and Chaldee. The greatest and most enduring service was rendered to the study of holy scripture by his pioneer labours in this direction. He is at his weakest in his dogmatic works, which mostly are disfigured by immoderately passionate polemic. In exegesis he represents the grammatico-historical method, but nevertheless frequently falls back again into allegorico-mystical explanations. His style is pure, flowing and elegant, but in polemic often reckless and coarse even to vulgarity. In the department of exegesis the first place belongs to his translation of the bible (§ 59, 1). We have also a number of Commentaries—on Genesis, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Minor Prophets, Matthew, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Philemon. His Onomasticon s. de situ et nominibus locorum Hebr. is a Latin reproduction of the Τοπικά of Eusebius. In the department of dogmatics we have polemics against Lucifer of Calaris (§ 50, 3), against Helvidius, Jovinian and Vigilantius (§ 63, 2), against John of Jerusalem (§ 51, 2) and in several treatises against Rufinus, and finally against the Pelagians (§ 53, 4). In the department of history we have his Latin adaptation and continuation of the second part of the Eusebian Chronicle, his Catalogus Scriptorum ecclest. s. de viris illustr., which tells in anecdotal form about the lives and writings of biblical and ecclesiastical writers, 135 in number, from Peter down to himself, with the avowed purpose of proving the falseness of the reproach that only ignorant and uncultured men had embraced Christianity. It was afterwards continued by the Gaul Gennadius of Marseilles down to the end of the fifth century. Finally, the romancing legendary sketches of the lives of the famous monks Paul of Thebes (§ 39, 4), Hilarion (§ 44, 3) and Malchus, were added. His 150 Epistles are extremely important for the church history of his times. Of his translations of the Greek fathers only those of Didymus, De Spiritu S. and that of 70 Homilies of Origen, are now extant.

§ 47.17.

1. Tyrannius Rufinus of Aquileia after receiving baptism lived for a long time in monastic retirement. His enthusiasm for monasticism and asceticism led him in A.D. 373 to Egypt. At Alexandria he spent several years in intercourse with Didymus. He contracted there that enthusiastic admiration of Origen which made his after life so full of debate and strife. He next went in A.D. 379 to Jerusalem, where bishop John ordained him presbyter. Here he found Jerome, with whom he had become acquainted at Aquileia, and the two friends were brought more closely together from their mutual love for Origen, although afterwards this was to prove the occasion of the most bitter enmity (§ 51, 2). About A.D. 397 he returned to Italy. He died in A.D. 410. His literary activity was mainly directed to the transplanting of the writings of Greek fathers to Latin soil. To his zeal in this direction we owe the preservation of Origen’s most important work Περὶ ἀρχῶν, De principiis, and of no fewer than 124 Homilies. The former, indeed, has been in many places altered in an arbitrary manner. He also translated several Homilies of Basil and Gregory Nazianzen, Pamphilus’ Apology for Origen, the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions (§ 28, 3), etc. There are extant of his own works: the Continuation of his Latin reproduction of the Church History of Eusebius, down to A.D. 388, the romancing Historia eremitica s. Vitæ Patrum, biographies of 33 saints of the Nitrian desert (§ 51, 1), an Apologia pro fide sua, the Invectivæ Hieron. in 2 bks. the treatise De benedictionibus Patriarcharum, an exposition of Genesis xlix. in the spirit and style of Origen, and an Expositio symboli apost.

2. Sulpicius Severus[149] from Aquitania in Gaul, had gained great reputation by his eloquence as an advocate, when the death of his young wife disgusted him with the world, and led him to withdraw into a monastery. He died about A.D. 410. In his Chronica or Historia sacra (§ 5, 1), a summary of biblical and ecclesiastical history, he imitates not unsuccessfully the eloquence of Sallust, so that he has been called “the Christian Sallust.” His Vita of Martin of Tours is a panegyric overflowing with reports of miracles. The three dialogues on the virtues of Eastern Monks and on the merits of St. Martin, may be regarded as a supplement to the Vita.

3. Petrus [Peter] Chrysologus is the name by which Peter, bishop of Ravenna, is best known. He also received the title Chrysostomus Latinorum. He died in A.D. 450. Among the 176 Sermones ascribed to him, the discourses expository of the baptismal formula are deserving of special mention. Of his Epistles, one in Latin and Greek addressed to Eutyches (§ 52, 4) is still preserved, in which the writer warns Eutyches against doctrinal errors.

§ 47.18. The Hero of the Soteriological Controversy.—Augustine—Aurelius Augustinus—was born in A.D. 354 at Tagaste in Numidia. From his pious mother Monica he early received Christian religious impressions which, however, were again in great measure effaced by his pagan father the Decurio Patricius. While he studied in Carthage, he gave way to sensuality and worldly pleasure. Cicero’s Hortensius first awakened again in him a longing after higher things. From about A.D. 374 he sought satisfaction in the tenets of the Manichæan sect, strongly represented in Africa, and for ten years he continued a catechumen of that order. But here, too, at last finding himself cruelly deceived in his struggle after the knowledge of the truth, he would have sunk into the most utter scepticism, had not the study of the Platonic philosophy still for awhile held him back. In A.D. 383 he left Africa and went to Rome, and in the following year he took up his residence in Milan as a teacher of eloquence. An African bishop, once himself a Manichæan, had comforted his anxious mother, who followed him hither, by assuring her that the son of so many sighs and prayers could not be finally lost. At Milan too the sermons of Ambrose made an impression on Augustine’s heart. He now began diligently to search the scriptures. At last the hour arrived of his complete renewal of heart and life. After an earnest conversation with his friend Alypius, he hastened into the solitude of the garden. While agonizing in prayer he heard the words thrice repeated: Tolle, lege! He took up the scriptures, and his eye fell upon the passage Rom. xiii. 13, 14. This utterance of stern Christian morality seemed as if written for himself alone, and from this moment he received into his wounded spirit a peace such as he had never known before. In order to prepare for baptism he withdrew with his mother and some friends to the country house of one of them, where scientific studies, pious exercises and conversations on the highest problems of life occupied his time. Out of these conversations sprang his philosophical writings. At Easter A.D. 387 Ambrose baptized him, and at the same time his illegitimate son Adeodatus, who not long afterwards died. His return journey to Africa was delayed by the death of his mother at Ostia, and at last, after almost a year’s residence in Rome, he reached his old home again. In Rome he applied himself to combat the errors of Manichæism, arguing with many of his old companions whom he met there. After his return to Africa in A.D. 388, he spent some years on his small patrimonial estate at Tagaste engaged in scientific work. During a casual visit to Hippo in A.D. 391 he was, in spite of all resistance, ordained presbyter, and in A.D. 395 colleague of the aged and feeble bishop Valerius, whose successor he became in the following year. Now began the brilliant period of his career, in which he stands forth as a pillar of the church and the centre of all theological and ecclesiastical life throughout the whole Western world. In A.D. 400 began his battle against the Donatists (§ 63, 1). And scarcely had he brought this to a successful end in a religious discussion at Carthage in A.D. 411, when he was drawn into a far more important Soteriological controversy by Pelagius and his followers (§ 53), which he continued till the close of his life. His death occurred in A.D. 430 during the siege of Carthage by the Vandals. He has written his own life in his Confessiones (Engl. translat., Oxf., 1838; Edin., 1876). In the form of an address to God he here unfolds before the Omniscient One his whole past life with all its errors and gracious providences in the language of prayer full of the holiest earnestness and most profound humility, a lively commentary on the opening words: Magnus es, Domine, et laudabilis valde.... Fecisti nos ad te, et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te. The biography of his disciple Possidius may serve as a supplement to the Confessions.—Augustine was the greatest, most powerful, and most influential of all the fathers. In consequence of his thoroughly Western characteristics he was indeed less perfectly understood and appreciated in the East; but all the greater was his reputation in the West, where the whole development of church and doctrine seemed always to move about him as its centre. The main field of his literary activity in consequence of his own peculiar mental qualities, his philosophical culture, speculative faculty, and dialectic skill, as well as the ecclesiastical conflicts of his time, to which his most important works are devoted, was Systematic Theology, Dogmatics and Ethics, Polemics and Apologetics. He is weakest as an exegete; for he had little interest in philological and grammatico-historical research into the simple literal sense of scripture. He was unacquainted with the original language of the Old Testament, and even the New Testament he treats only in a popular way according to the Latin translations. Neither does he deal much with the exegetical foundations of dogmatics, which he rather develops from the Christian consciousness by means of speculation and dialectic, and from the proof of its meeting the needs of humanity. Over against philosophy he insisted upon the independence and necessity of faith as the presupposition and basis of all religious knowledge. Rationabiliter dictum est per prophetam: Nisi credideretis non intelligetis. Credamus ut id quod credimus intelligere valeamus.

§ 47.19. Augustine’s Works.

1. Philosophical Treatises belonging to the period preceding his ordination. The 3 bks. Contra Academicos combat their main position that men cannot attain to any certain knowledge; the treatise De Vita beata shows that true happiness consists in the knowledge of God; the 2 bks. De Ordine treat of the relation of good and evil in the divine order of the world; the 2 bks. Soliloquia are monologues on the means and conditions of the knowledge of supernatural truths, and contain beside the main question an Appendix De immortalitate animæ, etc.

2. Dogmatic Treatises. The most important are: De Trinitate in 15 bks. (Engl. transl., Edin., 1874), a speculative dogmatic construction of the dogma, of great importance for its historical development; De doctrina christiana in 4 bks. (Engl. transl., Edin., 1875), of which the first three bks. form a guide to the exposition of scripture after the analogy of faith, while the 4th book shows how the truth thus discovered is to be used (Hermeneutics and Homiletics); finally, the two bks. Retractationes, written in his last years, in which he passes an unfavourable judgment on his earlier writings, and withdraws or modifies much in them. Among his Moral-ascetic writings the bk. De bono conjugali is of special interest, called forth by Jovinian’s utterances on non-meritoriousness of the unmarried state (§ 62, 2); he admits the high value of Christian marriage, but yet sees in celibacy genuinely chosen as a means to holiness a higher step in the Christian life. Also the bk. De adulterinis conjugis against second marriages, and two treatises De Mendacium and Contra Mendacium ad Consentium, which in opposition to the contrary doctrine of the Priscillianists (§ 54, 2), unconditionally repudiates the admissibility of equivocation.

3. Controversial Treatises. Of 11 treatises against the Manichæans (§ 54, 1) the most important is that C. Faustum in 33 bks. (Engl. transl., Edin., 1875), interesting as reproducing in quotations the greater part of the last work of this great champion of the Manichæans. Then came the discussion with the Donatists (§ 63, 1), which he engaged in with great vigour. We have ten treatises directed against them (Engl. transl., Edin., 1873). Of far greater importance was the conflict which soon after broke out against the Pelagians and then against the semi-Pelagians (§ 53, 4, 5), in which he wrote fourteen treatises (Engl. transl., 3 vols., Edin., 1873-1876). Also the Arians, Priscillianists, Origenists and Marcionites were combated by him in special treatises, and in the bk. De hæresibus he gave a summary account of the various heresies that had come under his notice.

4. Among his Apologetical Treatises against pagans and Jews, by far the ablest and most important is the work De Civitate Dei, in 22 bks., a truly magnificent conception (Engl. transl., 2 vols., Edin., 1873), the most substantial of all apologetical works of Christian antiquity, called forth by the reproach of the heathens that the repeated successes of the barbarians resulted from the weakening and deteriorating influence of Christianity upon the empire. The author repels this reproach in the first four bks. by showing how the Roman empire had previously in itself the seeds of decay in its godless selfishness, and thence advancing immorality; Ilium was and continued pagan, but its gods could not save it from destruction. Ilium’s Epigone, haughty Rome, meets the same fate. It owed its power only to God’s will and His government of the world, and to His using it as a scourge for the nations. The next five books show the corruption of the heathen religions and the inadequacy of heathen philosophy. Then the last 12 bks. point out the contrast between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world in respect of their diverse foundations, their entirely different motive powers, their historical development and their ultimate disposal in the last judgment.

5. The most important and complete of his Exegetical Works are the 12 bks. De Genesi ad litteram, a gigantic commentary on the three first chapters of Genesis, which in spite of its title very often leaves the firm ground of the literal sense to revel in the airy regions of spiritualistic and mystical expatiation. Of his Sermones, 400 are recognised as genuine (Engl. transl., Hom. on N.T., 2 vols., Oxf., 1844 f.; Hom. on John and 1st John, 2 vols., Oxf., 1848; Comm. on Psalms, 6 vols., Oxf., 1847 f.; Harmony of Evangelists, and Serm. on Mt., Edin., 1874; Commentary on John, 2 vols., Edin., 1875). His correspondence still preserved comprises 270 Epistles (Engl. transl., 2 vols., Edin., 1874, 1876).

§ 47.20. Augustine’s Disciples and Friends.

1. Paulinus, deacon of Milan, who wrote, at Augustine’s request, the life of Ambrose, awakened in A.D. 411 the Pelagian controversy by the charges which he made, and took part in it himself by writing in A.D. 417 the Libellus c. Cœlestium ad Zosimum Papam.

2. Paulus [Paul] Orosius, a Spanish presbyter, who visited Augustine in Africa in A.D. 415 to urge him to combat Priscillianism, took part with him there in his conflict with the Pelagians. He has left behind a Commonitorium de errore Priscillianistarum et Origenistarum ad Augustinum; an Apologeticus de arbitrii libertate c. Pelagium and Hist. adv. Paganos in 7 bks. The last named work was written at Augustine’s urgent entreaty, and pursues in a purely historical manner the same end which Augustine in his City of God sought to reach in a dogmatico-apologetic way.

3. Marius Mercator was a learned and acute layman, belonging to the West, but latterly resident in Constantinople. He made every effort to secure the condemnation of Pelagianism even in the East, and so wrote not only against its Western leaders but also against its Antiochean supporters, Nestorius and Theodore of Mopsuestia (§ 53, 4).

4. Prosper Aquitanicus, also a layman and an enthusiastic follower of Augustine, not only wrote several treatises against the semi-Pelagians of his native Gaul (§ 53, 5), but also poured out the vials of his wrath upon them in poetic effusions (§ 48, 6). He died about A.D. 460.

5. Cæsarius, bishop of Arelate, now Arles in Gaul, originally a monk in the monastery of Larinum, was one of the most celebrated, most influential, and in church work most serviceable of the men of his times. It is also mainly due to him that in A.D. 529 moderate Augustinianism gained the victory over semi-Pelagianism. He died in A.D. 543. His treatise De gratia et libero arbitrio is no longer extant, but two rules for monks and nuns composed by him, Ad monachos, Ad virgines, as well as a considerable number of Sermones, the best of their time, are still preserved.

6. Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspe in Africa, on account of his zeal for the Catholic doctrine, was banished by the Arian Vandal king Thrasimund, but returned after the king’s death in A.D. 523. He was one of the stoutest champions of Augustinianism. His writings against Arians and semi-Pelagians have been often printed. He died in A.D. 555. His scholar and biographer was Fulgentius Ferrandus, deacon at Carthage about A.D. 547. Alongside of and after him we meet with bishop Facundus of Hermiane, and the archdeacon Liberatus of Carthage, who with characteristic African energy defend the Tria Capitula (§ 52, 6) basely surrendered by the Roman bishop Vigilius.

§ 47.21. Pelagians and semi-Pelagians.

1. Pelagius, a British monk, the originator of the heresy named after him (§ 53, 3, 4), left behind a considerable number of writings, of which, however, for the most part we have now only fragments in the works of his opponents. References in Augustine, Marius Mercator, and others show that to him belong the Lb. xiv. Expositionum in Epistt. Pauli, which have been ascribed to Jerome and included among his works, scholia-like explanations with good sound grammatico-historical exegesis. The wish to make this useable and safe for the Catholic church led at an early date to various omissions and alterations in it. Afterwards its heretical origin was forgotten which notwithstanding the purifying referred to is still quite discernible. Two epistles addressed to Roman ladies recommending virginity have also got a place among the works of Jerome.—Julianus, bishop of Eclanum in Italy, is the only one among the followers of Pelagius who can be regarded as of scientific importance. He was an acute but frivolous and vulgar opponent of Augustine, whom he honoured with the epithets amentissimus et bardissimus (comp. § 53, 4).

2. At the head of the semi-Pelagians or Massilians stands:

1. Johannes Cassianus. Gennadius designates him as natione Scythus; but he received his early education in a monastery at Bethlehem. He then undertook a journey in company with the abbot to visit the Egyptian monks, stayed next for a long time with Chrysostom at Constantinople, and after his banishment resided some years in Rome, and finally in A.D. 415 settled down at Massilia (Marseilles), where he established a monastery and a nunnery, and organised both after the Eastern model. He died about A.D. 432. His writings were held in high esteem throughout the Middle Ages. In the De institutis Cœnobiorum he describes the manner of life of the Palestinian and Egyptian monks, and then treats of the eight vices to which the monks were specially exposed. The 24 Collationes Patrum report the conversations which he had with the Eastern monks and hermits about the ways and means of attaining Christian perfection. The 13th Collatio is, without naming him, directed against Augustine’s doctrine, and develops semi-Pelagian Synergism (§ 53, 5). Both writings, however are certainly calculated to serve the development of his own monkish ideal as well as his own dogmatic and ethical views, rather then to afford a historically faithful representation of the life and thinking of oriental monasticism of that time. The 7 bks. De incarnatione Christi combat not only Nestorianism but also Pelagianism as in its consequences derogatory to the divinity of Christ.

2. Vincentius [Vincent] Lerinensis, monk in the Gallic monastery of Lerinum, was Cassianus’ most distinguished disciple. He died about A.D. 450. On his often printed Commonitorium pro cath. fidei antiquit. et universit., comp. § 53, 5.

3. Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, left behind him several ascetical works (De laude eremi; De contemtu mundi), Homilies, and a Liber formularum spiritualis intelligentiæ as guide to the mystico-allegorical interpretation of Scripture. He died about A.D. 450.

4. Salvianus, presbyter at Marseilles, was in his earlier days married to a heathen woman whom he converted, and with her took the vow of continency. He died about A.D. 485. He wrote Adv. avaritiam Lb. iv., in which the support of the poor and surrender of property to the church for pious uses are recommended as means of furthering the salvation of one’s own soul. In consequence of the oppression of the times during the convulsions of the migration of the peoples and the reproach of the heathen again loudly raised that the weakness of the Roman empire was occasioned by the introduction of Christianity, he wrote De providentia s. de gubernatione Dei et de justo præsentique judicio, Lb. viii., which in rhetorical and flowery language depicted the dreadful moral condition of the Roman world of that day.

5. Faustus of Rhegium, now Riez in Provence, in his earlier years an advocate, then monk and abbot of the cloister of Lerinum, and finally bishop of Rhegium, was the head of the Gallic semi-Pelagians of his times. In his writings he stated this doctrine in a moderate form. He died in A.D. 493.

6. Arnobius the Younger, the contemporary and fellow-countryman of Faustus, wrote a very important work entitled Prædestinatus, which in a very thorough and elaborate manner contests the doctrines of Augustine. Comp. § 53, 5.

§ 47.22. The Most Important Church Teachers among the Roman Popes.

1. Leo the Great occupied the papal chair from A.D. 440 to A.D. 461. While but a deacon he was the most distinguished personage in Rome. On assuming the bishopric he gave the whole powers of his mind to the administration of his office in all directions. By the energy and consistency with which he carried out the idea of the Roman primacy, he became the virtual founder of the spiritual sovereignty of Rome. With a strong arm he guided the helm of the church, reformed and organized on every side, settled order and discipline, defended orthodoxy, contended against heretics (Manichæans, Priscillianists, Pelagians, Eutychians), and appeased the barbarians (Attila). Of his writings we have 96 Sermones and 173 Epistles, which last are of the utmost importance for the church history of his times. He is also supposed to be the author of a talented work De vocatione Gentium (§ 53, 5).

2. Gelasius I., A.D. 492 to A.D. 496, left behind him a treatise Adv. hæresin Pelagianem, another De duabus in Christo naturis, and a work against the observance of the Lupercalia which some prominent Romans wished to have continued. He also wrote 18 Decretals. The celebrated Decretum de libris recipiendis et non recipiendis, in a sense the oldest Index prohibitorum, is ascribed to him. The first section, wanting in the best MSS., contains a biblical canon corresponding to that of the Synod of Hippo, A.D. 393 (§ 59, 1); the second section treats of the pre-eminence of the Church of Rome granted by our Lord Himself in the person of Peter; the third enumerates the œcumenical Councils; and the fourth, the writings of the fathers received by the Roman Church; the Chronicle and Church History of Eusebius are found fault with (quod tepuerit) but not rejected; in respect to the writings of Origen and Rufinus the opinion of Jerome is approved. The fifth section gives a list of books not to be received—the New Testament Apocrypha, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Arnobius, Cassianus, Faustus of Rhegium, etc.

3. Gregory the Great, A.D. 590 to A.D. 604, born in Rome about A.D. 540, sprung from a distinguished old Roman family, held about A.D. 574 the office of city prefect, after his father’s death founded on his inherited estates, six monasteries, and himself withdrew into a seventh, which he built in Rome. Ordained deacon against his will in A.D. 579, he was entrusted with the important and difficult office of a papal apocrisiarius in Constantinople, and was constrained in A.D. 590, after a long persisted-in refusal, to mount the papal chair, which obliged him to abandon the long-cherished plan of his life, the preaching of the gospel to the Anglo-Saxons (§ 77, 4). Gregory united a rare power and energy of will with real mildness and gentleness of character, deep humility and genuine piety with the full consciousness of his position as a successor of Peter, insight, circumspection, yea even an unexpected measure of liberal-mindedness (comp. e.g. § 57, 4; 75, 3) with all monkish narrowness and stiff adherence to the traditional forms, doctrines and views of the Roman Church. He himself lived in extremest poverty and simplicity according to the strictest monastic asceticism, and applied all that he possessed and received to the support of the poor and the help of the needy. It was a hard time in which he lived, the age of the birth throes of a new epoch of the world’s history. There is therefore much cause to thank the good providence which set such a man as spiritual father, teacher and pastor at the head of the Western Church. He took special interest in fostering monasticism and such-like institutions, which were, indeed, most conducive to the well-being of the world, for during this dangerous period of convulsion, monasticism was almost the only nursery of intellectual culture. The Roman Catholic church ranks him as the last of the Fathers, and places him alongside of Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine, the four greatest teachers of the church, Doctores ecclesiæ, whose writings have been long reverenced as the purest and most complete vehicles of the Catholic tradition. Among the Greeks a similar position is given to Athanasius, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen and Chrysostom. The rank thus assigned to Gregory is justifiable inasmuch as in him the formation and malformation of doctrine, worship, discipline and constitution peculiar to the ancient church are gathered up, completed and closed. His most complete work is the Expositio in b. Jobum s. Moralium, Ll. xxxv., (Engl. transl., Lib. of Fath., 3 vols., Oxf., 1844-1850) which, by dragging in all possible relations of life which an allegorical interpretation can furnish, is expanded into a repertory of moral reflections. His Regula pastoralis s. Liber curæ pastoralis obtained in the West a position of almost canonical authority. In his “Dialogues,” of which the first three books treat “de vita et miraculis Patrum Italicorum,” and the 4th book mostly of visionary views of the hereafter (heaven, hell and purgatory), “de æternitate animarum,” we meet with a very singular display of the most uncritical credulousness and the most curious superstition. Besides these we have from him Homilies on Ezekiel and the Gospels, as well as a voluminous correspondence in 880 Epistles of great importance for the history of the age. To Gregory also is attributed the oft quoted saying which compares holy scripture to a stream in quo agnus peditat et elephas natat.

§ 47.23. The Conservators and Continuators of Patristic Culture.

1. Boëthius, Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus, was descended from a distinguished Roman family, and stood high in favour with the Ostrogoth Arian king Theodoric. Accused, however, by his enemies of treasonable correspondence with the Byzantine court, he was, after a long imprisonment, condemned unheard and executed, A.D. 525. In prison he composed the celebrated treatise, De consolatione philosophiæ, which, written in pure and noble language, was the favourite book of the Latin Middle Ages, and was translated into all European languages: first of all by Alfred the Great into Anglo-Saxon, and often reprinted in its original form. The book owed its great popularity to the mediæval tradition which made its author a martyr for the Catholic faith under Arian persecution; but modern criticism has sought to prove that in all probability he was not even a Christian. Still more decidedly the theological writings on the Trinity and the Two Natures of Christ bearing his name are repudiated as irreconcileable with the contents and character of the De consolatione; though, on the other hand, their authenticity has again found several most capable defenders. Finally, Usener has conclusively, as it seems, in a newly discovered fragment of Cassiodorus, brought forward a quite incontestable witness for their authenticity. In any case Boëthius did great service in preserving the continuity of Western culture by his hearty encouragement and careful prosecution of classical studies at a time when these were threatened with utter neglect. Of special importance was his translation of a commentary on the logical works of Aristotle as the first and for a long time almost the only philosophical groundwork of mediæval scholasticism (§ 99, 2).

2. Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus, surnamed Senator, belonged to Southern Italy and held the highest civil offices under Odoacer and Theodoric for fifty years. About A.D. 540, he retired to the cloister of Vivarium founded by him in Southern Italy, and devoted the rest of his life to the sciences and the instruction of the monks. He collected a great library in his monastery, and employed the monks in transcribing classical and patristic writings. He died about A.D. 575 when almost a hundred years old. His own writings show indeed no independence and originality, but are all the more important as concentrated collections of classical and patristic learning for the later Latin Middle Ages. His twelve books of the History of the Goths have come down only in the condensed reproduction of Jordanes or Jornandes. His twelve books Variarum (sc. epistolarum et formularum), which consist of a collection of acts and ordinances of the period of his civil service, are important for the history of his age. His Historia ecclest. tripartita (§ 5, 1), was for many centuries almost the only text book of church history, and his Institutiones divinarum et sæcularum litterarum had a similar position as a guide to the study of theology and the seven liberal arts (§ 90, 8). Also his commentary on the Psalms and the most of the books of the New Testament, made up of compilations, was held in high esteem.

3. Dionysius Exiguus, a Scythian by birth, who became a Roman abbot, and died about A.D. 566, may also be placed in this group. He translated many Greek patristic writings, by his Cyclus paschalis became founder of the Western reckoning of Easter (§ 56, 3), and also the more universally adopted so-called Dionysian era. By his Codex Canonum he is also the founder of the Western system of Canon Law (§ 43, 3).

§ 48. BRANCHES OF THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIAN POETRY.

§ 48.1. Exegetical Theology.—Nothing was done in the way of criticism of the original biblical text. Even Jerome was only a translator. For the Old Testament the LXX. sufficed, and the divergences of the Hebrew text were explained as Jewish alterations. Hebrew was a terra incognita to the fathers, Polychronius and Jerome only are notable exceptions. The allegorical method of interpretation was and continued to be the prevalent one. The Antiocheans, however, put limits to it by their theory and practice of the right of historico-grammatical interpretation. Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia contested the principles of Origen, while Gregory of Nyssa in his Proemium in Cant. undertook their defence. The first attempt at a system of Hermeneutics was made by the learned Donatist Tychonius in his book the Regulæ vii. ad investigandam intelligentiam ss. Scr. More profound is Augustine’s De Doctrina Chr. The Εἰσαγωγὴ τῆς θείας γραφῆς of the Greek Adrianus with its opposition to the immoderate allegorizing that then prevailed, deserves mention here. Jerome contributed to biblical Introduction by his various Proœmia. The first attempt at a scientific introduction to biblical study (isagogical and biblico-theological in the form of question and answer), is met with in the 2 bks. Instituta regularia div. legis of the African Junilius, a prominent courtier at Constantinople, about A.D. 550. There is a Latin rendering made by Junilius at the request of Primasius, bishop of Adrumetum, of a treatise composed originally in Syriac, by Paul the Persian, teacher of the Nestorian seminary at Nisibis, which he had collected from the works of Theodore of Mopsuestia, for the purposes of instruction. The title Departibus div. legis, usually given to the whole, properly belongs only to the first part of the treatise. A more popular guide is Cassiodorus’ Institutio divinarum litt. Some contributions were made to biblical archaeology by Eusebius and Epiphanius. Of the allegorical Exegetes of the East, the most productive was Cyril of Alexandria. The Antiochean school produced a whole series of able expositors of the grammatico-historical sense of scripture. In the commentaries of Chrysostom and Ephraem [Ephraim] the Syrian, that method of interpretation is applied in a directly practical interest. The Westerns Hilary, Ambrose, Ambrosiaster, Jerome and Augustine, as well as their later imitators, all allegorize; yet Jerome also applied himself very diligently to the elucidation of the grammatical sense. Only Pelagius is content to rest in the plain literal meaning of scripture. From the 6th century, almost all independent work in the department of exegesis ceased. We have from this time only Catenæ, collections of passages from commentaries and homilies of distinguished fathers. The first Greek writer of Catenæ, was Procopius of Gaza, in the 6th century; and the first Latin writer of these was Primasius of Adrumetum, about A.D. 560.

§ 48.2. Historical Theology.—The writing of Church history flourished especially during the 4th and 5th centuries (§ 5, 1). For the history of heresies we have Epiphanius, Theodoret, Leontius of Byzantium; and among the Latins, Augustine, Philastrius [Philaster], and the author of Prædestinatus (§ 47, 21f). There are numerous biographies of distinguished fathers. On these compare the so-called Liber pontificalis, see § 90, 6. Jerome laid the foundation of a history of theological literature in a series of biographies, and Gennadius of Massilia continued this work. With special reference to monkish history, we have among the Greeks, Palladius, Theodoret and Joh. Moschus; and among the Latins, Rufinus, Jerome, Gregory the Great and Gregory of Tours (§ 90, 2). Of great importance for ecclesiastical statistics is the Τοπογραφία χριστιανική in 12 bks., whose author Cosmas Indicopleustes, monk in the Sinai peninsula about A.D. 540, had in his earlier years as an Alexandrian merchant travelled much in the East. The connection of biblical and profane history is treated of in the Chronicle of Eusebius. Orosius too treats of profane history from the Christian standpoint. The Hist. persecutionis Vandalorum (§ 76, 3), of Victor, bishop of Vita in Africa, about A.D. 487, is of great value for the church history of Africa. For chronology the so-called Chronicon paschale, in the Greek language, is of great importance. It is the work of two unknown authors; the work of the one reaching down to A.D. 354, that of the other, down to A.D. 630. These chronological tables obtained their name from the fact that the Easter cycles and indictions are always carefully determined in them.

§ 48.3. Systematic Theology.

1. Apologetics. The controversial treatises of Porphyry and Hierocles were answered by many (§ 23, 3); that of the Emperor Julian also (§ 42, 5), especially by Gregory Nazianzen, Chrysostum [Chrysostom] (in the Discourse on St. Babylas), and most powerfully by Cyril of Alexandria. Ambrose and the poet Prudentius answered the tract of Symmachus, referred to in § 42, 4. The insinuations of Zosimus, Eunapius, and others (§ 42, 5) were met by Orosius with his Historiæ, by Augustine with his Civ. Dei, and by Salvian [Salvianus] with his De gubernatione Dei. Johannes Philoponus wrote against Proclus’ denial of the biblical doctrine of creation. The vindication of Christianity against the charges of the Jews was undertaken by Aphraates, Chrysostom, Augustine, and Gregentius, bishop of Taphne in Arabia, who, in A.D. 540, disputed for four days amid a great crowd with the Jew Herban. Apologies of a general character were written by Eusebius of Cæsarea, Athanasius, Theodoret and Firmicus Maternus.

2. In Polemics against earlier and later heretics, the utmost energy and an abundance of acuteness and depth of thought were displayed. See under the history of theological discussions, § 50 ff.

3. Positive Dogmatics. Origen’s example in the construction of a complete scientific system of doctrine has no imitator. For practical purposes, however, the whole range of Christian doctrine was treated by Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nyssa, Apollinaris, Epiphanius, Rufinus (Expositio Symboli Apost.), Augustine (in the last book of the Civ. Dei, in first book of his De Doctrina Chr., and in the Enchiridium ad Laurentium). The African Fulgentius of Ruspe (De regula veræ fidei), Gennadius of Massilia (De fide sua), and Vincentius [Vincent] of Lerinum in his Commonitorium. Much more important results for the development of particular dogmas were secured by means of polemics. Of supreme influence on subsequent ages were the mystico-theosophical writings of the Pseudo-Areopagite. This mysticism, so far as adopted, was combined by the acute and profound thinker Maximus Confessor with the orthodox theology of the Councils.

4. Morals. The De officiis ministr. of Ambrose is a system of moral instruction for the clergy; and of the same sort is Chrysostom’s Περὶ ἱερωσύνης; while Cassianus’ writings form a moral system for the monks, and Gregory’s Exposit. in Jobum a vast repertory on general morality.

§ 48.4. Practical Theology.—The whole period is peculiarly rich in distinguished homilists. The most brilliant of the Greek preachers were: Macarius the Great, Basil the Great, Gregory Nazianzen, Ephraem [Ephraim] the Syrian, and above all Chrysostom. Of the Latins the most distinguished were Ambrose, Augustine, Zeno of Verona, Petrus [Peter] Chrysologus, Leo the Great, and Cæsarius of Arles. A sort of Homiletics is found in the 4th of Augustine’s De Doctr. Chr., and a directory for pastoral work, in the Regula pastoralia of Gregory the Great. On Liturgical writings, comp. § 59, 6; on Constitutional works, § 43, 3-5.

§ 48.5. Christian Poetry.—The beginning of the prevalence of Christianity occurred at a time when the poetic art had already ceased to be consecrated to the national life of the ancient world. But it proved an intellectual power which could cause to swell out again the poetic vein, relaxed by the weakness of age. In spite of the depraved taste and deteriorated language, it called forth a new period of brilliancy in the history of poetry which could rival classical poetry, not indeed in purity and elegance of form, but in intensity and depth. The Latins in this far excelled the Greeks; for to them Christianity was more a matter of experience, emotion, the inner life, to the Greeks a matter of knowledge and speculation. Among the Greeks the most distinguished are these: Gregory Nazianzen. He deserves notice mainly for his satirical Carmen de vita sua, περὶ ἑαυτοῦ. Among his numerous other poems are some beautiful hymns and many striking phrases, but also much that is weak and flat. The drama Χριστὸς πάσχων, perhaps wrongly bearing his name, modelled on the tragedies of Euripides and in great part made up of Euripidean verses, is not without interest as the first Christian passion-play, and contains some beautiful passages; e.g. the lament of Mary; but it is on the whole insipid and confused. Nonnus of Panopolis, about A.D. 400, wrote a Παράφρασις ἐπικὴ τοῦ Εὐαγγ. κατὰ Ἰωάννην, somewhat more useful for textual criticism and archaeology, than likely to afford enjoyment as poetry. Of the poetical works of the Empress Eudocia, wife of Theodosius II., daughter of the pagan rhetorician Leontius of Athens, hence called Athenais (she died about the year 460), only fragments of their renderings in the Cyprian legends have come down to us. The loss of her Homero-centoes celebrated by Photius, i.e. reproductions of the biblical books of the New Testament in pure Homeric words and verses, is not perhaps to be very sorely lamented. On the other hand, the poetic description of the church of Sophia, built by Justinian I. and of the ambo of that church which Paulus Silentiarius left behind him, is not only of archaeological value, but also is not without poetic merit.

§ 48.6. Christian Latin Poetry reached its highest excellence in the composition of hymns (§ 59, 4). But also in the more ambitious forms of epic, didactic, panegyric, and hortatory poems, it has respectable representatives, especially in Spain and Gaul, whose excellence of workmanship during such a period of restlessness and confusion is truly wonderful. To the fourth century belongs the Spaniard Juvencus, about A.D. 330. His Hist. evangelica in 4 books, is the first Christian epic; a work of sublime simplicity, free of all bombast or rhetorical rant, which obtained for him the name of “the Christian Virgil.” His Liber in Genesin versifies in a similar manner the Mosaic history of the patriarchs. His countryman Prudentius, who died about A.D. 410, was a poet of the first rank, distinguished for depth of sensibility, glowing enthusiasm, high lyrical flow, and singular skill in versification. His Liber Cathemerinon consists of 12 hymns, for the 12 hours of the day, and his Liber Peristephanon, 14 hymns on the same number of saints who had won the martyr’s crown; his Apotheosis is an Anti-Arian glorification of Christ; the Hamartigenia treats of the origin of sin; the Psychomachia describes the conflict of the virtues and vices of the human soul; and his 2 bks. Contra Symmachum combat the views of Symmachus, referred to in § 42, 4.—In the fifth century flourished: Paulinus, bishop of Nola in Campania, who died in A.D. 431. He left behind him 30 poems, of which 13 celebrate in noble, enthusiastic language, the life of Felix of Nola, martyr during the Decian persecution. Coelius Sedulius, an Irishman (?), composed in smooth dignified verse the Life of Jesus, and the Mirabilia divina s. Opus paschale, so called from 1 Cor. v. 7 in 5 bks.; and a Collatio V. et N.T. in elegiac verse. The De libero arbitrio c. ingratos of the Gaul Prosper Aquitanicus lashes with poetic fury the thankless despisers of grace (§ 53, 5).—The most important poet of the sixth century was Venantius Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers, Vita Martini, hymns, elegies, etc.

§ 48.7. In the National Syrian Church, the first place as a poet belongs to Ephraem [Ephraim], the Propheta Syrorum. In poetic endowment, lyrical flow, depth and intensity of feeling, he leaves all later writers far behind. Next to him stands Cyrillonas, about A.D. 400, a poet whose very name, until quite recently, was unknown, of whose poems six are extant, two being metrical homilies. Of Rabulas of Edessa, who died in A.D. 435, the notorious partisan of Cyril of Alexandria (§ 53, 3), and of Baläus, about A.D. 430, we possess only a number of liturgical odes, which are not altogether destitute of poetic merit. This cannot, however, be said of the poetic works of Isaac of Antioch, who died about A.D. 460, filled with frigid polemics against Nestorius and Eutyches, of which their Catholic editor (Opp. ed. G. Bickell, Giess., 1873 f.) has to confess they are thoroughly “insipid, flat and wearisome, and move backwards and forwards in endless tautologies.” Less empty and tiresome are the poetic effusions of the famous Jacob of Sarug, who died in A.D. 521; biblical stories, metrical homilies, hymns, etc. Most of the numerous liturgical odes are the compositions of unknown authors.

§ 48.8. The Legendary History of Cyprian.—At the basis of the poetic rendering of this legend in 3 bks. by the Empress Eudocia, about A.D. 440, lay three little works in prose, still extant in the Greek original and in various translations. In early youth Cyprian, impelled by an insatiable craving after knowledge, power and enjoyment, seeks to obtain all the wisdom of the Greeks, all the mysteries of the East, and for this purpose travels through Greece, Egypt, and Chaldæa. But when he gets all this he is not satisfied; he makes a compact with the devil, to whom he unreservedly surrenders himself, who in turn places at his disposal now a great multitude of demons, and promises to make him hereafter one of his chief princes. Then comes he to Antioch. There Aglaidas, an eminent heathen sophist, who in vain abandoned all to win the love of a maiden named Justina, who had taken vows of perpetual virginity, calls in his magical arts, in order thereby to gain the end so ardently desired. Cyprian enters into the affair all the more eagerly since he himself also meanwhile has entertained a strong passion for the fair maiden. But the demons sent by him, at last the devil himself, are forced to flee from her, through her calling on the name of Jesus and making the sign of the cross, and are obliged to own their powerlessness before the Christians’ God. Now Cyprian repents, repudiates his covenant with the devil, lays before an assembly of Antiochean Christians a confession inspired by the most profound despairing sorrow of the innumerable mischiefs wrought by him with the help of the demons, is comforted by the Christians present by means of consolatory words of scripture, receives baptism, enters the ranks of the clergy as reader, passes quickly through the various clerical offices, and suffers the death of a martyr as bishop of Antioch, along with Justina, under the Emperor Claudius II.—Gregory Nazianzen too in a discourse delivered at Constantinople in A.D. 379, “on the day of the holy martyr and bishop Cyprian,” treated of the legend, in which without more ado he identifies the converted Antiochean sorcerer with the famous Carthaginian bishop of that name, and makes him suffer martyrdom under Decius (?).—The romance may have borrowed the name of its hero from an old wizard; but his type of character is certainly to be looked for in the philosophico-theurgical efforts of the Syrio-Neoplatonic school of Iamblichus (§ 24, 2), in which the then expiring heathenism gathered up its last energies for conflict with victorious Christianity. The conception of the heroine on the other hand, is with slight modifications borrowed from the Thecla legend (§ 32, 6). By the Legenda aurea (§ 104, 8), which is just an adaptation of this earlier one, the legend of Cyprian was carried down even beyond the time of the Reformation. Calderon’s “Wonder-working Magician” presents a Spanish-Catholic, as the Faustus legend of the 16th century presents a German Protestant construction, which latter, however, in direct opposition to the tendency of the early Christian legend, allows the magician to drop into hell because his repentance came too late. The Romish Church, however, still maintains the historical genuineness of the old legend, and celebrates both of the supposed saints on one day, 25th September.

IV. DOCTRINAL CONTROVERSIES AND HERESIES.

§ 49. THE DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE GENERALLY.

When a considerable fulness of Christian doctrine had already in previous periods found subjective and therefore variously diversified development, it had now, besides being required by the altered condition of things, become necessary that the church should sift and confirm what was already developed or was still in the course of development. The endeavour after universal scientific comprehension and accurate definition became stronger every day. The lively intercourse between the churches, which prevented the various doctrinal types from being restricted to particular countries, brought opposite views into contact and conflict with one another. The court, the people, the monks took parts, and so the church became the scene of passionate and distracting struggles, which led to the issuing of a canon of orthodoxy recognised by the whole Catholic church of the West and of the East, and to the branding every deviation therefrom with the mark of heresy.

The Heresies of the previous period were mainly of a syncretic kind (§ 26). Those of the period now under consideration have an evolutionary or formatory character. They consist in the construction of the system of doctrine by exclusive attention and extreme estimation of the one side of the Christian truth that is being developed, which thus passes over into errors; while it is the task of orthodoxy to give proportionate development to both sides and to bring them into harmony. Of syncratic heresies only sporadic traces from the previous period are found in this (§ 54). The third possible form of heresies is the revolutionary or reformatory. Heretics of this class fancy that they see in the developed and fixed system of the Catholic church excrescences and degenerations which either do not exist, so that by their removal the church is injured and hindered in her essential and normal functions, or do really exist, but for the most part are not now duly distinguished from the results of sound and normal development, so that the good would be removed with the bad. During the period under consideration only isolated instances of this kind of heresy are met with (§ 62).

§ 50. THE TRINITARIAN CONTROVERSY, A.D. 318-381.[150]

The series of doctrinal contendings opened with the Trinitarian or Arian controversy. It first of all dealt with the nature and being of the Logos become man in Christ and the relation of this Logos to the Father. From the time of the controversy of the two Dionysiuses (§ 33, 7) the idea of the consubstantiality of the Son and the Father had found supporters even in Alexandria and a new school was formed with it as the fundamental doctrine (§ 47, 1). But the fear excited by Sabellius and the Samosatians (§ 33, 8), that the acknowledgment of the Homoousia might lead to Monarchianism, caused a strong reaction and doomed many excellent fathers to the bonds of subordinationism. It was pre-eminently the school of the Antiochean Lucian (§ 31, 9) that furnished able contenders against the Homoousia. In Origen the two contraries, subordination and the eternal generation from the substance of the Father, had been still maintained together (§ 33, 6). Now they are brought forward apart from one another. On the one side, Athanasius and his party repudiate subordination but hold firmly by the eternal generation, and perfected their theory by the adoption of the Homoousia; but on the other side, Arius and his party gave up the eternal generation, and held fast to the subordination, and went to the extreme of proclaiming the Heteroousia. A third intermediate party, the semi-Arians, mostly Origenists, wished to bind the separated contraries together with the newly discovered cement of the ὁμοιουσία. In the further course of the controversies that now broke out and raged throughout the whole church for almost a century, the question of the trinitarian position of the Holy Spirit was of necessity dragged into the discussion. After various experiences of victory and discomfiture, the Homoousia of the Son and of the Spirit was at last affirmed and became the watchword of inviolable orthodoxy.

§ 50.1. Preliminary Victory of the Homoousia, A.D. 318-325—Arius, a disciple of Lucian, from A.D. 313 presbyter at Alexandria, a man of clear intellect and subtle critical spirit, was in A.D. 318 charged with the denial of the divinity of Christ, because he publicly taught that while the Son was indeed before all time yet He was not from eternity (ἦν ὅτε οὐκ ἦν), that by the will of the Father (θελήματι θεοῦ) He was created out of nothing (κτίσμα ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων), and that by His mediating activity the world was called into being; as the most perfect created image of the Father and as executor of the Divine plan of creation, He might indeed in an inexact way be called θεός and λόγος. Alexander, bishop of Alexandria at that time, who maintained the doctrine of the eternal generation and consubstantiality, convened a synod at Alexandria in A.D. 321, which condemned the doctrine of Arius and deposed him. But the people, who revered him as a strict ascetic, and many bishops, who shared his views, took part with him. He also applied for protection to famous bishops in other places, especially to his former fellow student (Συλλουκιανίστης) Eusebius of Nicomedia, and to the very influential Eusebius of Cæsarea (§ 47, 2). The former unreservedly declared himself in favour of the Arian doctrine; the latter regarded it as at least not dangerous. Arius spread his views among the people by means of popular songs for men of various crafts and callings, for millers, sailors, travellers, etc. In this way a serious schism spread through almost all the East. In Alexandria the controversy was carried on so passionately that the pagans made it the subject of reproach in the theatre. When Constantine the Great received news of this general commotion he was greatly displeased. He commanded, fruitlessly, as might be expected, that all needless quarrels (ἐλάχισται ζητήσεις) should be avoided. Hosius, bishop of Cordŏva, who carried the imperial injunction to Alexandria, learnt the state of matters there and the serious nature of the conflict, and brought the emperor to see the matter in another light. Constantine now summoned in A.D. 325 an Œcumenical Council at Nicæa, where he himself and 318 bishops met. The majority, with Eusebius of Cæsarea at their head, were Origenists and sought, as did also the Eusebians, the party of Eusebius of Nicomedia, to mediate between the opposing views, the latter, however, being much more favourable to the Arians. The maintainers of the Homoousia were in a decided minority, but the vigorous eloquence of the young deacon Athanasius, whom Alexander brought with him, and the favour of the emperor, secured complete ascendancy to their doctrine. Upon the basis of the baptismal formula proposed by Eusebius of Cæsarea to his own congregation, a new confession of faith was sketched out, which was henceforth used to mark the limits of this trinitarian discussion. In this creed several expressions were avoided which, though biblical, had been understood by the Arians in a sense of their own, such as πρωτότοκος πάσης τῆς κτίσεως πρὸ πάντων τῶν αἰώνιων, and in their place strictly Homoousian formulæ were substituted, ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ πατρός, γεννηθεὶς οὐ ποιηθεὶς, ὁμοούσιος τῷ πατρί; while with added anathemas those entertaining opposite views were condemned. This was the Symbolum Nicænum. Arius was excommunicated and his writings condemned to be burnt. Dread of deposition and love of peace induced many to subscribe who were not convinced. Only Arius himself and two Egyptian bishops, Theonas and Secundus, refused and went into exile to Illyria. Also Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nicæa, who subscribed the Symbol but refused to sign the anathematizing formula, were three months afterwards banished to Gaul.[151]

§ 50.2. Victory of Eusebianism, A.D. 328-356.—This unity under the Nicene Symbol was merely artificial and could not therefore be enduring. The emperor’s dying sister Constantia and the persuasion of distinguished bishops induced Constantine to return to his earlier view of the controversy. Arius agreed to a Confession drawn up in general terms and was, along with the other banished ones, restored in A.D. 328. Soon thereafter, in A.D. 330, the emperor commanded that Arius should be restored to office. But meanwhile, in A.D. 328, Athanasius himself had become bishop and replied with unfaltering determination that he would not comply. The emperor threatened him with deposition, but by a personal conference Athanasius made such an impression upon him that he gave way. The enemies of Athanasius, however, especially the Meletians driven on by Eusebius of Nicomedia (§ 41, 4), ceased not to excite suspicion about him as a disturber of the peace, and got the emperor to reopen the question at a Synod at Tyre, in A.D. 335. consisting of pure Arians. Athanasius appealed against its verdict of deposition. A new Synod was convened at Constantinople in A.D. 335 and the emperor banished him to Treves in A.D. 336. It was now enjoined that, notwithstanding the opposition of the bishop of Constantinople, Arius should be there received back again into church fellowship, but on the evening before the day appointed he died suddenly, being over eighty years old. Constantine the Great soon followed him, A.D. 337, and Constantine II. restored Athanasius to his church which received him with enthusiasm. Constantius, however, was decidedly favourable to the Eusebians, and this gave tone to the court and to the capital where in all the streets and markets, in all the shops and houses, the questions referred to were considered and discussed. The Eastern bishops for the most part vacillated between the two extremes and let themselves be led by Eusebius of Nicomedia. He and his party managed for a time to set aside the Homoousian formula and yet to preserve an appearance of orthodoxy. Eusebius, who from A.D. 338 was bishop in the capital, died in A.D. 341, but his party continued to intrigue in his spirit. The whole West, on the other hand, was strictly Nicæan. The Eusebians in A.D. 340 opened a Council at Antioch, which anew deposed Athanasius, and put in his place a rude Cappadocian, Gregorius [Gregory]. Athanasius fled to Rome, where a Council under bishop Julius in A.D. 341 solemnly acknowledged his orthodoxy and innocence. A new Council convened at Antioch in A.D. 340 for the consecration of a church, sketched four creeds one after another, approaching indeed, in order to conciliate the West, as closely as possible that of Nicæa, but carefully avoiding the term ὁμοούσιος. In the interests of unity Constantius and Constans jointly convened an Œcumenical Council at Sardica in Illyria in A.D. 344. But when the Westerns under the presidency of Hosius, disregarding the Antiochean anathema, allowed a seat and vote to Athanasius, the Easterns withdrew and formed an opposition Council at Philippopolis in Thrace. At Sardica where important privileges were granted to the Roman bishop Julius (§ 46, 3), the Nicene creed was renewed and Athanasius was restored. Constantius, after Gregorius [Gregory] had died, who meanwhile had become doubly hated because of his violent deeds, confirmed Athanasius’ restoration, and the Alexandrian church received again their old pastor with shouts of joy. But after the death of Constans in A.D. 350, Constantius was again won over to the side of the Arians. They assembled at the Council of Sirmium in Pannonia in A.D. 351, where, however, they did not strike directly at Athanasius but at first only at a friend of his who presented to them a weak spot. The bishop Marcellus of Ancyra in Galatia by his zealous defence of the Nicene Homoousia had been betrayed into the use of Sabellian expressions and views. At a Synod at Constantinople in A.D. 336 he was on this account suspended, and then contended with by Eusebius of Cæsarea in the course of this Council; but in the West and at the Council of Sardica he had been defended. Afterwards, however, one of his own scholars Photinus, bishop of Sirmium, had drifted into unmistakable, and indeed into dynamic Monarchianism (§ 33, 1). His doctrine had been already rejected as heretical at a Council at Antioch in A.D. 344 and also in the West at a distinctly Nicæan Council at Milan in A.D. 345. The Council of Sirmium now formally deposed him and with his condemned also Marcellus’ doctrine.[152] The Eusebians, however, were not satisfied with this. So soon as Constantius by the conquest of the usurper Magnentius got an absolutely free hand, he arranged at their instigation for two Eusebian Synods, one at Arles in Gaul, A.D. 353, the other at Milan, A.D. 355, where Athanasius was again condemned. The emperor now commanded that all Western bishops should subscribe his condemnation. Those who refused were deposed and banished. Among them were, the Roman bishop Liberius, Hosius of Cordova, Hilary of Poitiers, Eusebius of Vercelli, and Lucifer of Calăris [Calaris]. And now a second Gregorius [Gregory], a Cappadocian, not less rude and passionate than the first, was forcibly installed bishop of Alexandria. Athanasius performed the service in a quiet and dignified manner, and then withdrew to the monks in the Egyptian desert in A.D. 356. Thus it seemed that Arianism in the modified or rather concealed form of Eusebianism had secured a final victory throughout the whole range of the Roman Empire.

§ 50.3. Victory of Homoiousianism, A.D. 357-361.—The Eusebians now, however, fell out among themselves. The more extreme party, with the Antiochean deacon Aëtius and bishop Eunomius of Cyzicus at their head, carried their heresy so far as to declare that the Son is unlike to the Father (ἀνόμοιος). They were hence called Anomœans, also Exucontians (ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων). But also the distinctly moderate party, called semi-Arians[153] or Homoiousians, from their adoption of the formula ὁμοιούσιος, made preparations for a decisive conflict. At their head stood Basil, bishop of Ancyra, and Constantius too was favourable to them. But the intriguing court bishops, Ursacius and Valens, strictly Arian at heart, knew how to gain their ends by secret paths. With the emperor’s consent they held a second Council at Sirmium in A.D. 357, where it was resolved to avoid wholly the non-biblical phrase οὐσία, which caused all the contention, to abandon all definitions of the nature of God which to man is incomprehensible, and to unite upon the simple formula, that the Son is like the Father (ὅμοιος hence the name Homoians). Hosius of Cordova, facile through age and sufferings, bought his reprieve by subscription. He died, after a bitter repentance, in A.D. 361, when almost a hundred years old. The rest of the Westerns, however, at the Synod of Agenum renewed their Nicene Confession; the semi-Arians under Basil at Ancyra their Antiochean Confession. The latter, too, found access to the emperor, who let their Confession be confirmed at a third Synod at Sirmium in A.D. 358, and obliged the court bishops to sign it. The latter then came to a compromise with the semi-Arians in the formula: τὸν Υἱὸν ὅμοιον τῷ Πατρὶ εἶναι κατὰ πάντα ὡς αἱ ἅγιαι γραφαὶ λέγουσιν. Liberius of Rome, too, worn out with three years’ exile, agreed to sign this symbol and ventured to return to Rome (§ 46, 4). The formula pleased the emperor so well that he decided to have it confirmed by an œcumenical Council. But in order to prevent the dreaded combination of the Homoousians and Homoiousians in the West, Ursacius and Valens contrived to have two Councils instead of one, an Eastern Council at Seleucia and a Western Council at Rimini, A.D. 359. Both rejected the formula of Sirmium; the Easterns holding by that of Antioch, the Westerns by that of Nicæa. But Ursacius knew how by cunning intrigues to weary them out. When the bishops had spent two years at Seleucia and Rimini, which seemed to them no better than banishment, and their messengers after a half year’s journey had not succeeded in obtaining an audience of the emperor, they at last subscribed the Homoian symbol. Those who refused, Aëtius and Eunomius, were persecuted as disturbers of the church’s peace. Thus the Homoian creed prevailed through the whole Roman empire. Constantius’ death, however, in A.D. 361, soon broke up this artificial bond.

§ 50.4. Final Victory of the Nicene Creed, A.D. 361-381.—Julian gave equal rights to all parties and recalled all the banished bishops, so that many churches had two or three bishops. Athanasius also returned. For the restoration of church order he called a Synod at Alexandria in A.D. 362, and here in the exercise of a gentle and wise temper he received back into church fellowship the penitent Arian bishops, in spite of the protest of the strict zealot Lucifer of Calaris. The happy results of Athanasius’ procedure led the emperor again to banish him, on the pretext that he was a disturber of the peace. Julian’s successor, Jovian, was favourable to the Nicene doctrine and immediately restored Athanasius, A.D. 364, meanwhile extending toleration to the Arians. But Valens, to whom his brother Valentinian I. surrendered the East, A.D. 364-378, proved a zealous Arian. He raged with equal violence against the Athanasians and against the semi-Arians, and thus drove the two into close relations with one another. Athanasius was obliged to flee, but ventured after four months to return, and lived in peace to the end of his days. He died in A.D. 373. Valens was meanwhile restricted in his persecutions on two sides, by the pressing representations of his brother Valentinian, and by the manly resistance of eminent bishops, especially the three Cappadocians (§ 47, 4). The machinations of the Western empress Justinia, during the minority of her son Valentinian II., were successfully checkmated by Ambrose of Milan. He passively but victoriously opposed the soldiers who were to take possession of his church for the Arians by a congregation praying and singing psalms. Theodosius the Great gave its deathblow to Arianism. He called Gregory Nazianzen to the patriarchal chair at Constantinople. To Gregory also at a subsequent time he assigned the presidency of the so-called Second Œcumenical Council at Constantinople in A.D. 381.[154]—When, however, his patriarchate was attacked, because he had changed his bishopric (§ 45), he resigned his office. No new Symbol was here drawn up, but only the Nicene Symbol was confirmed as irrefragable. On the so-called Nicæan-Constantinopolitan Symbol, comp. § 59, 2. After this the Arians ventured only to hold services outside of the cities. Subsequently all churches in the empire were taken from them.—The Constantinopolitan Council of A.D. 381 did not fairly represent parties. Being called by the then merely Eastern emperor, and so consisting only of Eastern bishops, it was not properly an œcumenical synod, and for a long time even in the East itself was not regarded as such. Still it was of importance to the bishop of Constantinople that it should have this rank, and his endeavours were favoured by the circumstance that it had been called by Theodosius who was honoured both in East and West as Sole Potentate and “second Constantine.” After the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451 (§ 46, 1) the whole East was unanimous in recognising it. The West, however, at least Rome, still rejected it, until finally under Justinian I., in consequence of the Roman chair becoming dependent upon the Byzantine court (§ 46, 9), the dispute was here no longer agitated.

§ 50.5. The Pneumatomachians, A.D. 362-381.—Arius and the Arians had described the Holy Spirit as the first creature produced by the Son. But even zealous defenders of the Homoousia of the Son vacillated. The Nicene Symbol was satisfied with a bare καὶ εἰς τὸ Πνεῦμα ἅγιον; and even Hilary of Poitiers, avoiding all exact definition, contented himself with recording the phrases of Scripture. But Athanasius, at the Synod of Alexandria in A.D. 362, Didymus the Blind, and the three Cappadocians, consistently applied their idea of the Homoousia to the Spirit and won the adhesion of the Nicene theologians. It was hardest for the semi-Arians who had accepted the Nicene platform, at whose head stood Macedonius, bishop of Constantinople, who had been deposed by the Homoians in A.D. 360, to acquiesce in this conclusion (Macedonians, Pneumatomachians). The so-called second œcumenical Council of A.D. 381 sanctioned in a now lost doctrinal “Tome” the full Homoousia of the Holy Spirit. The West had already in A.D. 380 at a Roman Synod under the presidency of Bishop Damasus condemned in 24 anathemas, along with all other trinitarian errors, every sort of opposition to the perfect Homoousia of the Spirit.[155]

§ 50.6. The Literature of the Controversy.—Arius himself developed his doctrine in a half poetical writing, the Θάλεια, fragments of which are given by Athanasius. Arianism found a zealous apologist in the Sophist Asterius, whose treatise is lost. The church historian, Philostorgius (§ 5, 1), sought to vindicate it historically. On the semi-Arian side Eusebius of Cæsarea wrote against Marcellus—Κατὰ Μαρκέλλου and Περὶ τῆς ἐκκλησιαστικῆς θεολογίας. The Ἀπολογητικός of Eunomius is lost. Among the opponents of Arianism, Athanasius occupies by a long way the first place (IV. Orations against the Arians, Ep. concerning Councils of Seleucia and Ariminum, Hist. of Arians to the Monks, Apology against the Arians, etc., all included in Hist. Tracts of Athanasius, “Lib. of Fath.,” 2 vols., Oxf., 1843 f.). On the works of Apollinaris belonging to this controversy see § 47, 5. Basil the Great wrote 4 bks. against Eunomius; Περὶ τοῦ ἁγίου Πνεῦματος, Ad Amphilochium, against the Pneumatomachians. Gregory Nazianzen wrote five Λόγοι θεολογικοί. Gregory of Nyssa 12 Λόγοι ἀντιῤῥητικοὶ κατὰ Εὐνομίου. Didymus the Blind, 3 bks. De Trinitate. Epiphanius, the Ἀγκυρώτος. Cyril of Alexandria a θησαυρὸς περὶ τῆς ἁγίας καὶ ὁμοούσιας Τριάδος. Chrysostom delivered twelve addresses against the Anomoians. Theodoret wrote Dialogi VII. d. s. Trinitate. Ephraëm [Ephraim] Syrus, too, combated the Arians frequently in his sermons. Among the Latins the most celebrated polemists are: Lucifer of Calaris (Ad Constantium p. Lb. II. pro Athen.); Hilary of Poitiers (De Trinitate Lb. I., de Synodus s. de fide Orientalium, contra Constantium Aug.; C. Auxentium); Phœbadius, bishop of Agenum about A.D. 359 (C. Arianos); Ambrose (De fide ad Gratianum Aug. Lb. V.); Augustine (C. Sermonem Arianorum; Collatio cum Maximo Arianorum episc.; C. Maximinum); Fulgentius of Ruspe (C. Arianos, and 3 bks. against the Arian Vandal king Thrasimund).

§ 50.7. Post-Nicene Development of the Dogma.—Even the Nicene Symbol did not completely surmount every trace of subordinationism. It is at least capable of a subordinationist interpretation when the Father alone is called εἷς θεός and so identified with the Monas. Augustine completely surmounted this defect (De Trinitate Lb. XV.). The personality of the Spirit, too, as well as His relation to the Father and the Son, had not yet been determined. A step was taken towards the formulating of the doctrine of the Spirit’s personality by the acknowledgment in the now lost Tome of the Council of Constantinople of A.D. 381 of the full Homoousia of the Spirit with the Father and the Son.[156] But the doctrine of the Spirit’s relations to Father and Son still continued undetermined and even by the addition (to the εἰς τὸ πν. ἅγ.) of: τὸ κυρίον, τὸ ζωοποιὸν, τὸ ἐκ πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον, τὸ σὺν τῷ πατρὶ καὶ τῷ υἱῷ συνπροσκυνούμενον καὶ συνδοξαζόμενον in the so-called Symbolum Nic.-Constant. (§ 59, 2), a definition so incomplete was obtained, that even five hundred years afterwards the great schism that rent the church into an Eastern and a Western division found in this its doctrinal basis (§ 67, 1). Augustine, too, had meanwhile come forward with a further development of this doctrine, and taught in his speculation upon the Spirit that He proceeded from the Son as well as from the Father (John xv. 26). Fulgentius of Ruspe was the next most famous representative of the further development of the dogma (De s. Trinitate). The so-called Athanasian Creed (§ 59, 2) simply adopted this advanced development in the proposition: qui procedit a Patre et Filio. Similarly the Filioque is found also in the so-called Nic.-Constant. Creed laid before the Synod of Toledo in A.D. 589 (§ 76, 2).—Continuation § 67, 1; § 91, 2.

§ 50.8. Schisms in consequence of the Arian Controversy.

1. The Meletian Schism at Antioch. The Arians at Antioch had already in A.D. 330 driven away Eustathius, the bishop of the see, who favoured the Nicene doctrine. A portion of his people, however, remained attached to him and Homoousianism under the leadership of the Presbyter Paulinus, and were called Eustathians. When in A.D. 360 Eudoxius, the Arian bishop, left Antioch, in order to take possession of the episcopal chair of the capital, his former congregation chose Meletius, bishop of Sebaste, formerly a Eusebian, but for some time friendly to the Nicene party, as his successor. His first sermon, however, served to undeceive those who had chosen him, so that after a few weeks they drove him away and put Euzoius, a decided Arian, in his place. Yet he had already won a following in the congregation which, when Julian’s succession made it possible for him to return, took him back as bishop. Athanasius and the Alexandrian Synod of A.D. 362 had meanwhile made every effort to reconcile these Meletians and the Eustathians and to unite them under the banner of Nicæanism. But Lucifer, bishop of Calaris, sent to Antioch for this purpose, confirmed the schism instead of healing it by ordaining Paulinus bishop on the death of Eustathius in A.D. 360. The whole church now took sides, the East that of Meletius, the West along with Egypt, that of Paulinus. The Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381 gave to Meletius the presidency as the oldest bishop present. When, after two days, he died, Gregory Nazianzen, his successor in the presidency, recommended that the next election should be postponed till the death of the aged Paulinus and that then both parties should join the election. It was, however, all in vain. Flavian was appointed successor to Meletius, and when Paulinus died in A.D. 388, the Presbyter Evagrius was chosen opposition bishop in his stead. Theodosius I., from A.D. 392 sole ruler, insisted upon the West recognising Flavian. But in Antioch itself the schism lasted down to the death of Evagrius. Finally, in A.D. 415, the able successor of Flavian, bishop Alexander, effected a reconciliation, by taking part on a feast day along with his congregation in the public worship of the Eustathians, joining with them in singing and prayer, and in this way won them over to join him in the principal church.

2. The Schism of the Luciferians. After Lucifer by his irrational zeal had caused so much discord in Antioch, he returned in A.D. 362 to Alexandria, and there protested against Athanasius for receiving back penitent Arians and semi-Arians. He and his fanatical adherents formed the sect of Luciferians, which renewed the Novatianist demands for Church purity, and continued to exist down to the fifth century.

3. On the Schism of Damasus and Ursacius at Rome, see § 46, 4.

§ 51. THE ORIGENIST CONTROVERSIES, A.D. 394-438.

Naturally and necessarily the Christological are closely connected with the Trinitarian controversies (§ 52). But between the two comes in another controversy, the Origenistic, which was indeed more of personal than of ecclesiastical interest, but still strengthened the church in the conviction that Origen was an arch-heretic.

§ 51.1. The Monks of the Scetic and Nitrian Deserts.—The most distinguished defenders of Nicene orthodoxy, Athanasius, the three Cappadocians, Didymus, Hilary, etc., had all held Origen in high esteem. But the constant references of the Arians to his authority brought him into discredit, not only among the more narrow-minded opposers of Arius, especially in the West, but also among the monks of the Scetic desert in Egypt, with Pachomius at their head. These repudiated the speculation of Origen as the source of all heresy, and in their views of God and divine things adopted a crude anthropomorphism. Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis, also belonged originally to this party (§ 47, 10). In direct opposition to them, another Egyptian monkish order in the Nitrian desert adhered to Origen with enthusiastic reverence and occupied themselves in a pious contemplative mysticism that tended to a somewhat extreme spiritualism.

§ 51.2. The Controversy in Palestine and Italy, A.D. 394-399.—In Palestine Origen had a warm supporter in bishop of Jerusalem, and in the two Latins Jerome and Rufinus who were staying there (§ 47, 16, 17). But when in A.D. 394 a couple of Westerns who happened to come there expressed their surprise, Jerome, anxious for his reputation for orthodoxy, was at once prepared to condemn the errors of Origen. Meanwhile the Scetic monks had called the attention of the old zealot Epiphanius to the Palestinian nursery of heresy. Immediately he made his way thither and took advantage of John’s friendly invitation to occupy his pulpit by preaching a violent sermon against Origenism. John then preached against anthropomorphism. Epiphanius pronounced an anathema against that tendency but desired John to do the same in regard to Origenism. When John refused, then Epiphanius, together with Jerome and the Bethlehemite monks withdrew from communion with John and Rufinus, and invaded John’s episcopal rights by ordaining a presbyter over the Bethlehemite monks. Now sprang up a violent controversy, which Theophilus of Alexandria, by sending the presbyter Isidore, sought to allay. Jerome and Rufinus were reconciled at the altar in A.D. 396. The latter soon again returned to the West. He translated, omitting objectionable passages, Origen’s work Περὶ ἀρχῶν, and was indiscreet enough to remark in the preface that even the orthodox Jerome was an admirer of Origen. Stirred up by his Roman friends, Jerome began with unmeasured violence a passionate polemic against Origenism and the friend of his youth. He produced at the same time a literal rendering, no longer extant, of the Περὶ ἀρχῶν. Rufinus replied with equal bitterness, and the passion displayed by both led to further causes of offence. The Roman bishop Siricius took part with Rufinus, but his successor Anastasius summoned him to answer for his opinions at Rome. Rufinus did not appear, but sent an apology which so little satisfied Anastasius that he rather consented to send letters to John of Jerusalem and other oriental bishops in condemnation of Origenism, A.D. 399. Rufinus withdrew to Aquileia and there continued to translate the writings of Origen and others of the Greeks.

§ 51.3. The Controversy in Alexandria and Constantinople, A.D. 399-438.—Theophilus, patriarch of Alexandria, a pompous, ambitious and strong-handed ecclesiastical prince, had down to A.D. 399 been on good terms with the Origenist monks and even in the Easter address of that year expressed himself in strong terms against the heresy of the anthropomorphists. The monks rose in rebellion over this, attacked him with clubs and forced him to pronounce an anathema upon Origen. Soon thereafter he had a personal dispute with his former friends. The aged and venerable presbyter Isidore and the four so-called “long brothers,” ἀδελφοὶ μακροί, two of whom served in his church as œconomi, refused to pay him pupils’ and legates’ money and fled from his passionate displeasure to their companions in the Nitrian desert. In A.D. 399, however, at an endemic Synod at Alexandria he condemned Origen, and in A.D. 401 published a violent manifesto against the Origenists.[157] The noble but shortsighted Epiphanius approved it and Jerome hastened to translate it into Latin. With rude military force the Nitrian monks were scattered and driven away. Persecuted by the warrants issued by the patriarch, they sought protection from bishop John Chrysostom at Constantinople (§ 47, 8), whose intercession, however, Theophilus contemptuously rejected. For peace sake Chrysostom now wished to retire. But the monks found access to the Empress Eudoxia, and upon her appeal to the Emperor Arcadius, Theophilus was cited before a Synod at Constantinople over which Chrysostom presided. Theophilus foamed with rage. He succeeded by misrepresentation of the facts to win to his side the zealot Epiphanius. The noble old man hasted full of zeal and prejudice to Constantinople, but coming to see things in their true light, he withdrew from them with the words, “I leave to you the court and hypocrisy.” Theophilus, however, knew well how to get on with the court and hypocrisy. Chrysostom, by severe and searching preaching, had aroused the anger of the Empress. Relying upon this, Theophilus landed with a great retinue at Constantinople, and organized at the Empress’s estate of Drus, the Oak, near Chalcedon, a Council, Synodus ad Quercum, A.D. 403, which pronounced Chrysostom guilty of immorality, offences against the church and high treason. The Emperor condemned him to exile. Chrysostom soothed the people excited in his favour, and allowed himself quietly to be sent away. A violent earthquake, however, next night and the incontrollable excitement of the populace, led the Emperor to entreat the exile by special messenger immediately to return. After three days’ absence he had a triumphal entrance again into the city. Theophilus fled precipitately to Alexandria. Soon thereafter Chrysostom very solemnly denounced the noisy inauguration of a statue of the empress during the celebration of worship, and when on this account her rage flamed up against him afresh, the unfortunate words were uttered by him in a sermon on the day of John the Baptist: Πάλιν Ἡρωδίας μαίνεται, πάλιν πράσσεται, πάλιν ἐπὶ πίνακι τὴν κεφαλὴν τοῦ Ἰωάννου ζητεῖ λαβεῖν. Now the game was again in Theophilus’ favour. His party fanned the flame at the court. During the Easter vigils, A.D. 404, armed men burst into the church of Chrysostom and carried him away an exile to Cucusus in Armenia. With heroic courage he bore all the miseries of the journey, the climate and the wild lawless neighbourhood. With his people from the place of his banishment he maintained regular pastoral intercourse.—Soon after the outbreak of the conflict, Theophilus as well as Chrysostom had diligently sought to obtain the support of the West. Both sent letters and messengers to Rome, Milan and Aquileia, seeking to justify their cases before the churches. Innocent I. of Rome urged the deciding of the controversy at an œcumenical Council, but did not carry his point. After the disgraceful banishment of Chrysostom the whole West took his side, and Innocent got Honorius to apply to Arcadius for his recall; but the only result was that in A.D. 407 he was sent to still more severe banishment at Pityus, on the Black Sea. He succumbed to the fatigues of the journey and died on the way with words on his lips that had been the motto of his life: Δόξα τῷ θεῷ πάντων ἕνεκεν. A great part of his congregation at Constantinople refused to acknowledge the new patriarch Arsacius and his successor Atticus, and continued apart, notwithstanding all persecutions, under the name of Johannites, until Theodosius II. in A.D. 438 fetched back with honour the bones of their revered pastor and laid them in the imperial vault. Amid personal animosities and embittered feelings the Origenist controversy was long lost to view, but we must return to it again further on (§ 52, 6).[158]

§ 52. THE CHRISTOLOGICAL CONTROVERSY.[159]

In the Trinitarian controversy we dealt with the pre- and extra-historical existence of the Son of God, with His divine nature in itself; but now, at the crucial point of Christian speculation and ecclesiastical conflict, we come to treat of His historical existence as that of the incarnate Son of God, of the connection of the divine nature of the Logos with the human nature of the Son of Mary, and of the mutual relations of both to one another. Even during the Arian controversy the conflict was begun, and while the church maintained against Arius the full divinity of Christ, it also affirmed against Apollinaris the completeness of His humanity. In three further phases this conflict was continued. In the Dyoprosopic controversy the church maintained the unity of the Person of Christ against the Antiochean extreme represented by Nestorius, which hold both natures so far apart that the result seemed to be two persons. In the Monophysite controversy the opposite extreme of the new Alexandrian school was combated, which in the unity of the person lost sight of the distinctness of the natures. In the Monothelite controversy a unionistic effort was resisted which indeed allowed the duality of natures to be affirmed nominally, but practically denied it by the acknowledgment of only one will.

§ 52.1. The Apollinarian Controversy, A.D. 362-381.[160]—Previously the older Modalists, e.g., Beryllus and Sabellius, had taught that by the incarnation the Logos had received merely a human body. Marcellus shared this view; but also his antipodes Arius had adopted it in order to avoid postulating two creatures in Christ. Athanasius held by the doctrine of Origen, that the human soul in Christ is a necessary bond between the Logos and the body, as well as an organ for giving expression to the Logos through the body. At the Synod of Alexandria, A.D. 362, therefore, he obtained ecclesiastical sanction for the recognition of a complete human nature in Christ. Apollinaris of Laodicea (§ 47, 5), who had helped to arrange for this Council, also disapproved of the expression σῶμα ἄψυχον, but yet thought that the doctrine of the completeness of the human nature must be denied. He was led to this position by his adoption of trichotomic principles. He maintained that Christ has taken merely a σῶμα with a ψυχὴ ἄλογος, and that the place of the ψυχὴ λογικὴ (ὁ νοῦς) was represented in him by the divine Logos. If this were not so then, he thought, one must assume two persons in Christ or let Christ sink down to the position of a mere ἄνθρωπος ἔνθεος. Only in this way too could absolute sinlessness be affirmed of him. On the other hand, Athanasius and the two Gregories saw that in this way the substantiality of the incarnation and the completeness of redemption were lost. The so-called second œcumenical Council of A.D. 381 rejected the doctrine of Apollinaris, who with his party was excluded from the Church. The Apollinarians subsequently joined the Monophysites.

§ 52.2. Christology of the Opposing Theological Schools.—In consequence of the Arian controversy the perfect divinity, and in consequence of the Apollinarian controversy the perfect humanity, of Christ were finally established. On the relation between the two natures conditioned by the union there was definite result attained unto. Apollinaris had taught a connection of the divinity with the incomplete manhood so intimate that he had unwittingly destroyed the duality of the natures, and by means of an ἀντιμεθίστασις τῶν ὀνομάτων transferred the attributes of the one nature to the other; so that not only the body of Christ must have been deified and have been therefore worthy of worship, but also birth, suffering and death must be referred to His divinity. In his treatise: Κατὰ μέρος πίστις, he teaches: οὐ δύο πρόσωπα, οὐδὲ δύο φύσεις, οὐδὲ γὰρ τέσσαρα προσκυνεῖν λέγομεν, θεὸν καὶ υἱὸν θεοῦ καὶ ἄνθρωπον καὶ πνεῦμα ἅγιον, and in the tract De incarnatione Verbi, wrongly attributed to Athanasius: Ὁμολογοῦμεν εἶναι αὐτὸν υἱὸν τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ θεὸν κατὰ πνεῦμα, υἱὸν ἀνθρώπου κατὰ σάρκα· οὐ δύο φύσεις τὸν ἕνα υἱὸν, μίαν προσκυνητὴν καὶ μίαν ἀπροσκύνητον, ἀλλὰ μίαν φύσιν τοῦ θεοῦ λόγου σεσαρκομένην καὶ προσκυνομένην μετὰ τῆς σάρκος αὐτοῦ μίᾳ προσκυνήσει. So, too, in the Epistle ascribed to Julius of Rome. The Alexandrian Theology, although rejecting the mutilation of the human nature favoured by Apollinaris, sympathized with him in his love for the mystical, the inconceivable and the transcendental. In opposition to the Arian heresy it gave special emphasis to the divinity of Christ and taught a ἕνωσις φυσική of both natures. Only before the union and in abstracto can we speak of two natures; after the incarnation and in concreto we can speak only of one divine-human nature. Mary was therefore spoken of as the mother of God, θεοτόκος. Athanasius in his treatise against Apollinaris acknowledged an ἀσύγχυτος φυσικὴ ἕνωσις τοῦ λόγου πρὸς τὴν ἰδίαν αὐτοῦ γενομένην σάρκα, and explained this φυσικὴ ἕνωσις as a ἕνωσις κατὰ φύσιν. The Cappadocians (§ 47, 4) indeed expressly admitted two natures, ἄλλο καὶ ἄλλα, but yet taught a commingling of them, σύγκρασις, κατάμιξις, a συνδραμεῖν of the two natures, εἰς ἕν, a μεταποιηθῆναι of the σὰρξ πρὸς τὴν θεότητα. Cyril of Alexandria taught that the ἐνσάρκωσις was a φυσικὴ ἕνωσις, an incarnation in the proper sense. Christ consists ἐκ δύο φύσεων, but not ἐκ δύο φύσεσι, i.e. only before the incarnation and in abstracto (κατὰ μόνην τὴν θεωρίαν) can we speak of two natures. In the God-man two natures would be two subjects, and so there would be two Christs; the redeemer would then only be an ἄνθρωπος θεοφόρος and not a θεάνθρωπος, and could thus afford no guarantee of a complete redemption, etc. The Antiochean Theology (§ 47, 8, 9), in opposition to Apollinaris, affirmed most emphatically the complete and unchangeable reality of the human nature of Christ at and after its union with the divine. It would therefore only admit of a συναφεία or a ἕνωσις σχετική, by which both are brought into the relation (σχέσις) of common being and common action. Expressions like θεοτόκος, θεὸς ἐγγέννηθεν, θεὸς ἔπαθεν, seemed to the thinkers of this school blasphemous, or at least absurd. They acknowledged indeed that the σάρξ of Christ is worthy of adoration but only in so far as it is the organ of the redeeming Logos, not because in itself it shares in the divine attributes. The most developed form of this doctrine was presented by Theodore of Mopsuestia in strict connection with his anthropology and soteriology. The historical development of the God-man is with him the type and pattern of the historical redemption of mankind. Christ assumed a complete human nature, with all its sinful affections and tendencies, but he fought these down and raised His human nature by constant conflict and victory to that absolute perfection to which by the same way He leads us through the communication of His Spirit. He expressly guarded himself against the charge of making Christ into two persons: Christ is ἄλλο καὶ ἄλλο, but not ἄλλος καὶ ἄλλος for the human nature has in the incarnation renounced personality and independence.—Each of these two schools represented one side of the truth of the church’s doctrine; in the union of the two sides the church proclaimed the full truth. On the other hand the two schools proceeded more and more one-sidedly to emphasise each its own side of the truth, and so tended toward positive error. Thus arose two opposite errors, the separating of the natures and the confusing of the natures, which the church rejected one after the other, and proclaimed the truth that lay at the root of both.—During this discussion arose the Western Theology as the regulator of the debate. So long as it dealt with the one-sided extreme of the Antiocheans it stood side by side with the Alexandrians. Augustine, e.g. used indeed the expression mixture, but in reality he explains the relation of both natures to one another quite in accordance with the afterwards settled orthodoxy. But when at last the method of exclusions reached the error of the Alexandrians, the Westerns turned quite as decidedly to the other side and maintained the union of the two sides of the truth (Leo the Great). The conflict attracted great attention when it broke out at first in the West, but it was so quickly settled that soon no trace of it remained. In Southern Gaul a monk Leporius came forward teaching the Antiochean doctrine of the union of the two natures. In A.D. 426 he went to Africa, entered into conflict with Augustine, but retracted his errors almost immediately.

§ 52.3. The Dyoprosopic or Nestorian Controversy, A.D. 428-444.[161]—In A.D. 428 a monk of Antioch called Nestorius, a distinguished orator, was appointed patriarch of Constantinople. He was an eloquent and pious man but hasty and imprudent, with little knowledge of the world and human nature, and immoderately severe against heretics. The hatred of an unsuccessful rival in Constantinople called Proclus and the rivalry of the patriarch of Alexandria, who hated him not only as a rival but as an Antiochean, made the position of the unsupported monk a very hard one, and his protection of the expatriated Pelagians (§ 53, 4) excited the Roman bishop Cœlestine against him. Anastasius, a presbyter brought with him by Nestorius, was annoyed at the frequent use of the expression θεοτόκος and preached against it. Nestorius took his part against people and monks, sentenced the monks who had insulted him personally to endure corporal punishment, and at an endemic Synod in A.D. 439 condemned the doctrine objected to. And now Cyril of Alexandria (§ 47, 6) entered the lists as champion of the Alexandrian dogmatics. He won to himself Cœlestine of Rome (§ 46, 6), as well as bishops Memnon of Ephesus and Juvenalis [Juvenal] of Jerusalem, and at the court, Pulcheria (sister of Theodosius II. A.D. 408-450); while the empress Eudocia (§ 48, 5) and the Syrian bishops took the side of Nestorius. All conciliatory attempts were frustrated by the stiffness of the two patriarchs. Cœlestine of Rome in A.D. 430 demanded of Nestorius a recantation within ten days, and Cyril at a Synod of Alexandria in A.D. 430 produced twelve strong counterpropositions containing anathemas, which Nestorius answered immediately by twelve counteranathemas. Thus the controversy and the parties engaged in it became more and more violent. For its settlement the emperor called the so-called Third (properly Second, comp. § 50, 4) Œcumenical Council at Ephesus in A.D. 431. Nestorius enjoyed the decided favour of the emperor, the imperial plenipotentiary was his personal friend, and a portion of the emperor’s bodyguard accompanied him to Ephesus. But Cyril appeared with a great retinue of bishops and a faithful guard of servants of the church and seamen, who should in case of need prove the correctness of the Alexandrian dogmatics with their fists. In addition Memnon of Ephesus had in readiness a crowd of clergy, monks and people from Asia Minor. Before the Roman legates and the Syrian bishops had arrived Cyril opened the Council without them with 200 bishops. Nestorianism was condemned, Nestorius excommunicated and deposed, and Cyril’s anathematizing propositions adopted as the standard of ecclesiastical orthodoxy. The Roman legate recognised the Council, but the imperial commissioner refused his approval; and the Syrian bishops, under the presidency of John of Antioch proceeded, on their arrival, to hold an opposition Council, which excommunicated Cyril and Memnon. Nestorius of his own accord retired into a monastery. Meanwhile in Constantinople, at the instigation of Pulcheria, a popular tumult was raised in favour of Cyril. The emperor set aside all the three leaders, Nestorius, Cyril and Memnon, and authorised a mediating creed drawn up by Theodoret (§ 47, 9) in which the θεοτόκος was recognised but an ἀσύγχυτος ἕνωσις was affirmed. Cyril and Memnon still remained in their offices. They subscribed Theodoret’s formula and John subscribed the condemnation of Nestorius, A.D. 433, who was deposed and given over to the vengeance of his enemies. Driven from his monastic retreat and in many ways ill-treated, he died in destitution in A.D. 440. The compromise of the two leaders called forth opposition on every side. The Syrian church was in revolt over their patriarch’s betrayal of the person of Nestorius. John avenged himself by deposing his opponents. This had well-nigh been the fate of the noble Theodoret; but the patriarch exempted him from condemning the person of Nestorius in consideration of his condemnation of the doctrine.—The Egyptians also charged their patriarch with the denial of the true doctrine. He was at pains, however, to give proof of his zeal by the vindictiveness of his persecutions. Not without an eye to results he wrought to have the anathema of the church pronounced upon the heads of the Antiochean school, and one of their partisans, bishop Rabulas of Edessa, pounced upon the famous theological school at Edessa, at the head of which then stood the distinguished presbyter Ibas (§ 47, 13). After the death of Rabulas, however, in A.D. 436, the school again rose to great eminence. Theodoret and Cyril meanwhile contended with one another in violent writings. Death closed the mouth of Cyril in A.D. 444. But Rabulas unweariedly sought out and burnt the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, which Ibas had translated into Syriac. The latter published a letter to Maris bishop of Hardashir in Persia, which at a subsequent period obtained symbolical rank among the Nestorians, and Thomas Barsumas, bishop of Nisibis, wrought successfully for the spread of Nestorianism in the Persian church. In A.D. 489 the school of Edessa was again destroyed by order of the emperor Zeno. Teachers and scholars migrated to Persia, and founded at Nisibis a school that long continued famous. At a Synod in Seleucia in A.D. 499, under the patriarch Babäus of Seleucia, the whole Persian church finally broke off from the orthodox church of the Roman empire (§ 64, 2). They called themselves according to their ecclesiastical language Chaldean Christians. Their patriarch bore the title Jazelich, καθολικός. The Nestorian church passed on from Persia into India, where its adherents, appropriating the old legend that the apostle Thomas had introduced Christianity into India (§ 16, 4), called themselves Thomas-Christians.

§ 52.4. The Monophysite Controversy.

1. Eutychianism, A.D. 444-451.—Cyril’s successor was Dioscurus, who was inferior to his predecessor in acuteness, but in passionateness and tyrannical cruelty left him far behind. An old archimandrite in Constantinople called Eutyches taught not only that after His incarnation Christ had only one nature, but also that the body of Christ as the body of God is not of like substance with our own. The patriarch Domnus of Antioch accused him without success to Theodosius II., and Theodoret wrote against him a controversial treatise under the title Ἐρανιστὴς ἤτοι Πολύμορφος, in which he opposed the doctrine of Eutyches as a conglomeration of many heresies. Dioscurus now joined in the fray, and wrought upon the emperor, whose minister the eunuch Chrysaphius and whose consort Eudocia he had won over to his side, to pass severe measures against the Syrians, and especially Theodoret, whom the emperor forbade to pass beyond the range of his diocese. Eusebius, bishop of Doryläum, in Phrygia, however, accused Eutyches before an endemic Synod at Constantinople, in A.D. 448, presided over by the patriarch Flavian. Eutyches, though under imperial protection, was nevertheless, upon his refusal to retract, excommunicated and deposed. He appealed to an œcumenical Synod and betook himself to Leo the Great (§ 46, 7) at Rome. Flavian also appeared before the Roman bishop. Leo took the side of Flavian, and in a letter to that patriarch developed with great acuteness and clearness the doctrine of the two natures in Christ. The emperor, however, convoked an œcumenical Council at Ephesus, A.D. 449, at which Dioscurus presided, while Flavian and his party had no vote and Theodoret was not even present, but at which for the first time there was a representative of the monastic order in the person of the zealous monophysite, the Abbot Barsumas. The Council was conducted in an extremely arbitrary and violent manner. The doctrine of two natures was rejected, and when Eusebius stepped forward to defend it, the Egyptians shouted: Away with him! Burn him! Tear him in two pieces, as he has torn the Christ! Flavian as well as Eusebius appealed to the bishop of Rome; but the Synod pronounced on both the sentence of excommunication. When now some bishops sprang forward, and embracing Dioscurus’ knees entreated him to desist from such injustice, he called in the soldiers to his help who with chains and unsheathed swords rushed into the church, after them a crowd of fanatical monks, stout parabolani and a raging rabble. Flavian was sorely injured by blows and kicks, and died soon afterwards in banishment. The Roman legates and Eusebius escaped similar maltreatment only by speedy flight. During the later sittings Eutyches was restored, but the chiefs of the opposite party, Ibas, Theodoret, Domnus, etc., were deposed and excommunicated. Leo the Great addressed to the emperor a vigorous protest against the decisions of this Robber Synod, Latrocinium Ephesinum, σύνοδος ληστρική. The result was that Theodosius quarrelled with Eudocia, was reconciled to Pulcheria, and dismissed his minister. Flavian’s body was now taken in state to Constantinople, and honourably buried. Theodosius’ death in A.D. 450 prevented any further steps being taken. His sister Pulcheria, with her husband Marcian, ascended the throne. A new Œcumenical Council (the so-called fourth) at Chalcedon in A.D. 451, deposed Dioscurus, who was banished to Gangra in Paphlagonia, but spared the other party leaders of the Monophysites, and condemned Nestorianism as well as Eutychianism. Cyril’s synodal rescripts against Nestorius and Leo’s Epistle were made the basis of the formal statement of the orthodox doctrine: “that Christ is true God and true man, according to His Godhead begotten from eternity and like the Father in everything, according to his humanity born of Mary the Virgin and God bearer in time and like to us men in everything, only without sin; and that after His incarnation the unity of the person consists in two natures which are conjoined without confusion (ἀσυγχύτως) and without change (ἀτρέπτως), but also without rending (ἀδιαιρέτως) and without separation (ἀχωρίστως).” In this Synod too there were frequently scenes which in unruly violence were little behind those of the Robber Synod. When, for example, Theodoret entered amid the loud cheers of the orientals, the Egyptians saluted him with wild shouts (δι’ εὐσέβειαν κράζομεν, said they): “Away with the Jew, the blasphemer of God!” A scene of wild confusion and tumult followed which only with the greatest difficulty was quelled by the imperial commissioners. Then at the eighth session, when the Egyptians demanded not only the express and special condemnation of the doctrine but also that of the person of Nestorius, and Theodoret sought to justify him, the storm broke out afresh, and this time the Egyptians gained their point, but they were again defeated after violent debate, in their attempt to secure the condemnation of the person and writings of Ibas.[162]

§ 52.5.

1. Imperial Attempts at Union, A.D. 451-519.—The supporters of the Alexandrian dogmatics left the Council full of resentment at the defeat which they had sustained. They were henceforth called Monophysites. The whole church was now in a state of feverish excitement. In Palestine the monk Theodosius, secretly co-operating with the dowager empress Eudocia living there in exile, roused the mob into rebellion. In Egypt the uproar was still more violent. Timotheus Aëlurus assumed the position of an opposition patriarch and drove out the orthodox patriarch Proterius. The same thing was done in Antioch by the monk Petrus [Peter] Fullo (ὁ γραφεύς). In order to give a Monophysite colour to the liturgy he added to the Trishagion (Is. vi. 3), which had been liturgically used in the oldest churches, the formula θεὸς ὁ σταυρωθεὶς δι’ ἡμᾶς. Party violence meanwhile went the length of insurrections and blood-shedding on both sides. The new emperor Leo I. the Thracian, A.D. 457-474, a powerful and prudent ruler, interposed to bring about a pacification. In accordance with the advice of the most distinguished bishops of the empire the two mutinous leaders of the Monophysites were banished, and the patriarchal sees thus vacated filled by moderate Dyophysites. But after Leo’s death and the dethronement of his son-in-law Zeno in A.D. 475, the usurper Basiliscus issued an edict in A.D. 476, under the name of an Encyclion, by which the Chalcedonian Symbol, along with Leo’s Epistle, was condemned, and Monophysitism was proclaimed to be the universal national religion. Fullo and Aëlurus were also reinstated. The patriarch Acacius of Constantinople, on the other hand, organized a Dyophysite counter-revolution, Basiliscus was overthrown, and the emperor Zeno again placed upon the throne in A.D. 477. About this time Aëlurus died, and his party chose Petrus [Peter] Mongus (μογγός, stammering) as his successor; but the court appointed a Dyophysite Johannes Talaja. Acacius, when Talaja took up a hostile position towards him, joined with his opponent Mongus. Both agreed upon a treaty of union, which also found favour with the emperor Zeno, and by an edict, the so-called Henoticon of A.D. 482 obtained the force of a law. Nestorianism and Eutychianism were condemned, Cyril’s anathematisms were renewed, the Chalcedonian decisions abrogated, and the Nicene faith alone declared valid, while all controverted points were to be carefully avoided in teaching and preaching. Naturally protests were made from both sides. The strict Monophysites of Egypt threw off Mongus, and were now called Ἀκέφαλοι. Felix III. of Rome, at the head of the Dyophysites, refused to have church fellowship with Acacius. Thus arose a 35 years’ schism, A.D. 484-519, between East and West. Only the Acoimetæ monks in Constantinople (§ 44, 3) continued to hold communion with Rome. Church fellowship between the parties was not restored until Justin I., who thought that the schism would hinder his projected reconquest of Italy, in conjunction with the Roman bishop Hormisdas in A.D. 519, cancelled the Henoticon, and deposed those who adhered to it.

§ 52.6.

1. Justinian’s Decrees, A.D. 527-553.—During the violent conflict of parties Justinian I. entered upon his long and politically considered glorious reign, A.D. 527-565. He regarded it as his life task permanently to establish orthodoxy, and to win back heretics to the church, above all the numerous Monophysites. But the well-disposed emperor, who moreover had no deep insight into the thorny questions of theological controversy, was in various ways misled by the intrigues of court theologians, and the machinations of his crafty consort Theodora, who was herself secretly a Monophysite. The Theopaschite Controversy first called forth from him a decree. The addition made to the Trishagion by Petrus [Peter] Fullo, θεὸς ὁ σταυρωθεὶς δι’ ἡμᾶς, had been smuggled into the Constantinopolitan liturgy about A.D. 512. The Acoimetæ pronounced it heretical, and Hormisdas of Rome admitted that it was at least capable of being misunderstood and useless. But Justinian sanctioned it in A.D. 533. Encouraged by this first success, Theodora used her influence to raise the Monophysite Anthimus to the episcopal chair of the capital. But the Roman bishop Agapetus, who stayed in Constantinople as ambassador of the Goths, unmasked him, and obtained his deposition. Mennas, a friend of Agapetus, was appointed his successor in A.D. 536. All Monophysite writings were ordered to be burnt, their transcribers were punished by the loss of their hand. Two Palestinian abbots, Domitian and Theodore Ascidas, secret Monophysites and zealous friends of Origen, lived at court in high favour. To compass their overthrow, Mennas at an endemic Synod at Constantinople in A.D. 543 renewed the condemnation of the arch-heretic and his writings. The court theologians, however, subscribed without objection, and in concert with Theodora plotted their revenge. Justinian had long regarded Egypt with peculiar interest as the granary of the empire. He felt that something must be done to pacify the Monophysites who abounded in that country. Theodora persuaded him that the Monophysites would be satisfied if it were resolved, along with the writings of Theodore, the father of the Nestorian heresy, to condemn also the controversial writings of Theodoret against the venerated Cyril and the Epistle of Ibas to Maris. The supposed errors of these were collected before him in the Three Chapters. The emperor did this by an edict in A.D. 544, and demanded the consenting subscription of all the bishops. The orientals obeyed; but in the West opposition was shown on all sides, and thus broke out the violent Controversy of the Three Chapters. Vigilius of Rome, a creature of Theodora (§ 46, 9), had secretly promised his co-operation, but, not feeling able to face the storm in the West, he broke his word. Justinian had him brought to Constantinople in A.D. 547 and forced from him a written declaration, the so-called Judicatum, in which he agreed to the condemnation of the Three Chapters. The Africans, under Reparatus of Carthage excommunicated the successor of Peter, and fought manfully for the rights and honour of the calumniated fathers. Fulgentius Farrandus [Ferrandus] wrote Pro tribus capitt., Facundus of Hermiane, Defensío III. capitt., and the deacon Liberatus of Carthage, a Breviarium causæ Nestorian. et Eutychianorum, an important source of information for the history of the Christological Controversies. Justinian finally convened the Fifth Œcumenical Council at Constantinople in A.D. 553, which confirmed all the imperial edicts. Vigilius issued a Constitum ad Imp., in which he indeed rejected the doctrines of the Three Chapters but refused to condemn the persons. Under imprisonment and exile he became pliable, and subscribed in A.D. 554. He died in A.D. 555 on his return to his bishopric. His successor Pelagius formally acknowledged the Constantinopolitan decrees, and North Africa, North Italy and Illyria renounced the dishonoured chair of Peter. At last Gregory the Great, with much difficulty, gradually brought this schism to an end.

§ 52.7.

1. The Monophysite Churches.—Justinian, however, did not thereby reach the end he had in view. The Monophysites continued their separation because the hated Chalcedonian Symbol was still acknowledged. But more injurious to them than the persecutions of the orthodox national church were the endless quarrels and divisions among themselves. First of all the two leaders in Alexandria, Julianus and Severus, became heads of rival parties. The Severians or φθαρτολάτραι taught that the body of Christ in itself had been subject to corruption (the φθορά); the Julianists denied it. This first split was followed by many others. By transferring the Monophysite confusion of οὐσία and ὑπόστασις to the doctrine of the Trinity arose the Monophysite sect of the Tritheists, who taught that in Christ there is one nature, and that in the Trinity a separate nature is to be ascribed to each of the three persons. Among them was the celebrated philosopher, Johannes Philoponus (§ 47, 11), who supported this doctrine by the Aristotelian categories. He also vindicated the notion that the present world as to form and matter would perish at the last day, and an entirely new world with new bodies would be created. In opposition to this Conon, bishop of Tarsus, affirmed that the overthrow of the world would be in form only, and that the risen saints would again possess the same bodies though in a glorified form. His followers the so-called Cononites separated from the main stem of the Tritheists and formed an independent sect.—The Monophysites were most numerous in Egypt. Out of hatred to the Greek Catholics they forbade the use of the Greek language in their churches, and chose a Coptic patriarch for themselves. They aided the Saracens in their conquest of Egypt in A.D. 640, who out of gratitude for this drove away the Catholic patriarch. From Egypt Monophysitism spread into Abyssinia (§ 64, 1). Already in A.D. 536 Byzantine Armenia had been conquered by the Persians, who showed favour to the previously oppressed Monophysites (§ 64, 3). In Syria and Mesopotamia, during Justinian’s persecutions, the unwearied activity of a monk, Jacob Zanzalus, commonly called el Baradai, because he went about clad as a beggar, ordained by the Monophysites as bishop of Edessa and the whole East, saved the Monophysite church from extinction. He died in A.D. 538. After him the Monophysites were called Jacobites. They called the Catholics Melchites, Royalists. Their patriarch resided at Guba in Mesopotamia. Subordinate to him was a suffragan bishop at Tagrit with the title of Maphrian, i.e. the Fruit-bearer. At the head of the Armenian Monophysites stood the patriarch of Aschtarag with the title Catholicus. The Abyssinian church had a metropolitan with the title Abbuna[163]—Continuation § 72, 2.

§ 52.8. The Monothelite Controversy, A.D. 633-680.—The increasing political embarrassments of the emperor made a union with the Monophysites all the more desirable. The emperor Heraclius, A.D. 611-641, was advised to attempt a union of parties under the formula: that Christ accomplished His work of redemption by the exercise of one divine human will (μιᾷ θεανδρικῇ ἐνεργείᾳ). Several Catholic bishops found nothing objectionable in this formula which had already been used by the Pseudo-Dionysius (§ 47, 11). In A.D. 633 the patriarchs Sergius of Constantinople and Cyrus of Alexandria on the basis of this concluded a treaty, in consequence of which most of the Severians attached themselves again to the national church. Honorius of Rome also was won over. But the monk Sophronius, who soon thereafter in A.D. 634 became patriarch of Jerusalem, came forward as the decided opponent Of this union, which led back to Monophysitism. The conquest of Jerusalem, however, soon after this, A.D. 637, by the Saracens put him outside of the scene of conflict. In A.D. 638 the emperor issued an edict, the Ecthesis, by which it was sought to make an end of the strife by substituting for the offensive expression ἐνέργεια the less objectionable term θέλημα, and confirming the Monothelite doctrine as alone admissible. Now the monk Maximus (§ 47, 12) entered the lists as the champion of orthodoxy. He betook himself to Africa, where since Justinian’s time zeal for the maintenance of the Chalcedonian faith was strongest, and here secured political support in Gregorius [Gregory] the imperial governor who sought to make himself independent of Byzantium. This statesman arranged for a public disputation at Carthage in A.D. 645 between Maximus and the ex-patriarch Pyrrhus of Constantinople, the successor of Sergius, who, implicated in a palace intrigue, deposed from his office and driven from Constantinople, sought refuge in Africa. Pyrrhus willingly submitted and abjured his error. An African General Synod in A.D. 646 unanimously condemned Monothelitism, renounced church fellowship with Paulus, the new patriarch of Constantinople, and demanded of Pope Theodorus, A.D. 642-649, a fulmination against the heresy. In order to give this demand greater emphasis, Maximus and Pyrrhus travelled together to Rome. The latter was recognised by the pope as legitimate patriarch of Constantinople, but, being induced by the exarch of Ravenna to recant his recantation, he was excommunicated by the pope, with a pen dipped in the sacramental wine, returned to Constantinople and was, after the death of Paulus, reinstated in his former office. Maximus remained in Rome and there won the highest reputation as the shield of orthodoxy.—The proper end of the union, namely the saving of Syria and Egypt, was meanwhile frustrated by the Mohammedan conquest of Syria in A.D. 638, and of Egypt in A.D. 640. The court, however, for its own honour still persevered in it. Africa and Italy occupied a position of open revolt. Then emperor Constans II., A.D. 642-668, resolved to annul the Ecthesis. In its place he put another enactment about the faith, the Typus, A.D. 648, which sought to get back to the state of matters before the Monothelite movement; that neither one nor two wills should be taught. But Martin I. of Rome at the first Lateran Synod at Rome in A.D. 649 condemned in the strongest terms the Typus as well as the Ecthesis along with its original maintainers, and sent the Acts to the emperor. The exarch of Ravenna, Olympius, was now ordered to take the bold prelate prisoner, but did not obey. His successor sent the pope in chains to Constantinople. In A.D. 653 he was banished for high treason to the Chersonese, where he literally suffered hunger, and died in A.D. 655 six months after his arrival. Still more dreadful was the fate of the abbot Maximus. At the same time with Martin or soon after he too was brought to Constantinople a prisoner from Rome. Here for a whole year every effort imaginable was made, entreaties, promises, threats, imprisonment, hunger, etc., in order to induce him to acknowledge the Typus, but all in vain. The emperor then lost all patience. In a towering rage at the unparalleled obstinacy of the monk’s resistance he doomed him, A.D. 662, to dreadful scourging, to have his tongue wrenched out and his hand hewn off, and to be sent into the wildest parts of Thrace, where he died a few weeks after his arrival at the age of 82 years. Such barbaric severity was effectual for a long time. But under the next emperor Constantinus Pogonnatus, A.D. 668-685, the two parties prepared for a new conflict. The emperor resolved to make an end of it by a General Council. Pope Agatho held a brilliant Synod at Rome in A.D. 679, where it was laid down that not one iota should be abated from the decisions of the Lateran Synod. With these decisions and a missive from the pope himself, the papal legates appeared at the Sixth Œcumenical Council at Constantinople in A.D. 680, called also Concil. Trullanum I., because it was held in the mussel-shaped vaulted hall Trullus in the imperial castle, under the presidency of the emperor. As at Chalcedon the Epistle of Leo I., so also here that of Agatho lay at the basis of the Council’s doctrinal decrees: δύο φυσικὰ θελήματα ἀδιαιρέτως, ἀτρέπτως, ἀμερίστως, ἀσυγχύτως, οὐχ ὑπεναντία, ἀλλὰ ἑπόμενον τὸ ἀνθρώπινον καὶ ὑποτασσόμενον τῷ θείῳ. The Synod even condescended to grant the pope a report of the proceedings and to request his confirmation of its decisions. But the Greeks, finding a malicious pleasure in the confusion of their rivals, contrived to mix in the sweet drink a strong infusion of bitter wormwood, for the Council among the other representatives of Monothelite error ostentatiously and expressly condemned pope Honorius as an accursed heretic. Pope Leo II. in a letter to the emperor confirmed the decisions of the Council, expressly homologating the condemnation of Honorius, “qui profana proditione immaculatam fidem subvertere conatus est.”—Henceforth Dyothelitism prevailed universally. Only in one little corner of Asia, to which the arm of the state did not reach, a vestige of Monothelitism continued to exist. Its scattered adherents gathered in the monastery of St. Maro in Lebanon, and acknowledged the abbot of this cloister as their ecclesiastical head. They called themselves Maronites, and with sword in hand maintained their ecclesiastical as well as political independence against Byzantines and Saracens (§ 72, 3).

§ 52.9. The Case of Honorius.—The two Roman Synods, A.D. 649 and 679, had simply ignored the notorious fact of the complicity of Honorius in the furtherance of Monothelite error, and Agatho might hope by the casual statement in his letter, that the Roman chair never had taken the side of heretical novelties, to beguile the approaching œcumenical Synod into the same obliviousness. But the Greeks paid no heed to the hint. His successor Leo II. could not do otherwise than homologate the Eastern leaders’ condemnation of heresy, even that of Honorius, hard though this must have been to him. On the other hand, the biographies of the popes from Honorius to Agatho in the Roman Liber pontificalis (§ 90, 6) help themselves out of this dilemma again by preserving a dead silence about any active or passive interference of Honorius in the Monothelite controversy. In the biography of Leo II. for the first time is Honorius’ name mentioned among those of the condemned Monothelites, but without any particular remark about him as an individual. So too in the formulary of a profession of faith in the Liber diurnus of the Roman church made by every new pope and in use down to the 11th century (§ 46, 11). From the biography of Leo in the Pontifical book was copied the simple name into the readings of the Roman Breviary for the day of this saint, and so it remained down to the 17th century. It had then been quite forgotten in the West that by this name a pope was designated. Oftentimes it had been affirmed that even Roman popes might fall and actually had fallen into error; but only such cases as those of Liberius (§ 46, 4), Anastasius (§ 46, 8), Vigilius (§ 52, 6), John XXII. (§ 110, 3; 112, 2) were adduced; that of Honorius occurred to nobody. It was only in the 15th century, through more careful examination of Acts of Synods that the true state of matters was discovered, and in the 16th century when the question of the infallibility of the pope had become a burning one (§ 149, 4), the case of Honorius became the real Sisyphus rock of Roman Catholic theology. The most laborious attempts have been made by most venturesome means to get it out of the way. The condemnation of Honorius by the sixth œcumenical Council has been described as merely a spiteful invention of later Greeks, who falsified everything relating to him in the Acts of the Council; so, e.g. Baronius, Bellarmine, etc.—The condemnation actually took place but not at the œcumenical first, but at the schismatical second, Trullan Council of A.D. 692 (§ 63, 2), and the record of procedure has been by the malice of later Greeks transferred from the record of the second to that of the first.—Forged epistles of Honorius were laid before the sixth œcumenical Council, by means of which it was misled into passing sentence upon him.—The condemnation of the pope did not turn upon his doctrine but upon his unseasonable love of peace.—The pope meant well, but expressed himself so as to be misunderstood; so e.g. the Jesuit Garnier in his ed. of the Liber diurnus, the Vatican Council, and Hefele in the 2nd ed. of his Hist. of the Councils.—In the epistles referred to he spoke as a private individual and not officially, ex cathedra.—It is, however, fatal to all such explanations that the infallible pope Leo II. solemnly denounced ex cathedra his infallible predecessor Honorius as a heretic. Besides the only other possible escape by distinguishing the question du fait and the question du droit has been formally condemned ex cathedra in connection with another case (§ 156, 5).[164]

§ 53. THE SOTERIOLOGICAL CONTROVERSIES, A.D. 412-529.[165]

While the Trinitarian and Christological controversies had their origin in the East and there gave rise to the most violent conflicts, the West taking indeed a lively interest in the discussion and by the decisive voice of Rome giving the victory to orthodoxy at almost every stage of the struggle, it was in the West that a controversy broke out, which for a full century proceeded alongside of the Christological controversy, without awakening in the East more than a passing and even then only a secondary interest. It dealt with the fundamental questions of sin and grace. In opposition to the Pelagian Monergism of human freedom, as well as the semi-Pelagian Synergism of divine grace and human freedom, the Augustinian Monergism of divine grace finally obtained the victory.

§ 53.1. Preliminary History.—From the earliest times the actual universality of sin and the need of divine grace in Christ for redemption from sin received universal acknowledgment throughout the whole church. But as to whether and how far the moral freedom of men was weakened or lost by sin, and in what relation human conduct stood to divine grace, great uncertainty prevailed. Opposition to Gnosticism and Manichæism led the older fathers to emphasise as strongly as possible the moral freedom of men, and induced them to deny inborn sinfulness as well as the doctrine that sin was imprinted in men in creation, and to account for man’s present condition by bad training, evil example, the agency of evil spirits, etc. This tendency was most vigorously expressed by the Alexandrians. The new Alexandrian school showed an unmistakable inclination to connect the universality of sin with Adam’s sin, without going the length of affirming the doctrine of inherited sinfulness. In Soteriology it remained faithful to its traditional synergism (comp., however, § 47, 7k, l.) The Antiochean school sought to give due place to the co-operation of the human will alongside of the necessity of divine grace, and reduced the idea of inherited sin to that of inherited evil. So especially Chrysostom, who was indeed able to conceive that Adam by his actual sin become mortal could beget only mortal children, but not that the sinner could beget only sinners. The first man brought death into the world, we confirm and renew the doom by our own sin. Man by his moral will does his part, the divine grace does its part. The whole East is unanimous in most distinctly repudiating all predestinational wilfulness in God. In the West, on the other hand, by Traducianism or Generationism introduced by Tertullian, which regards the soul as begotten with the body, the way was prepared for recognising the doctrine of inherited sin (Tradux animæ, tradux peccati) and consequently also of monergism. Tertullian, himself, proceeding from the experience, that in every man from birth there is present an unconquerable tendency to sin, spoke with great decidedness of a Vitium originis. In this he was followed by Cyprian, Ambrose and Hilary. Yet even these teachers of the church had not altogether been emancipated from synergism, and alongside of expressions which breathe the hardest predestinationism, are found others which seem to give equal weight to the opposite doctrine of human co-operation in conversion. Augustine was the first to state with the utmost consistency the doctrine of the divine monergism; while Pelagius carried out the synergism of the earlier fathers until it became scarcely less than human monergism.—Meanwhile Traducianism did not succeed in obtaining universal recognition even in the West. Augustine vacillates; Jerome and Leo the Great prefer Creationism, which represents God as creating a new soul for each human being begotten. Most of the later church fathers, too, are creationists, without, however, prejudicing the doctrine of inherited sin. Those of them who supported the trichotomic theory (§ 52, 1) held that it was the cobegotten ψυχὴ ἄλογος, anima sensitiva as opposed to the anima intellectualis, while those who supported the dichotomic theory, which posits merely body and soul, held that it was the soul created good by God, which was infected on its passing into the body begotten by human parents with its inherited sin. The theory of Pre existence, which Origen had brought forward (§ 31, 5) had, even in the East, only occasional representatives (§ 47, 7m, n, o).[166]

§ 53.2. The Doctrine of Augustine.—During the first period of his Christian life, when the conflict with Manichæism still stood in the forefront of his thinking and controversial activity, Augustine, looking at faith as a self-determining of the human will, had thought a certain measure of free co-operation on the part of man in his conversion to be necessary and had therefore refused to maintain his absolute want of merit. But by his whole life’s experience he was irresistibly led to acknowledge man’s natural inability for any positive co-operation and to make faith together with conversion depend solely upon the grace of God. The perfect and full development of this doctrine was brought about by means of his controversy with the Pelagians. Augustine’s doctrinal system in its most characteristic features is as follows: Man was created free and in the image of God, destined to and capable of attaining immortality, holiness and blessedness, but also with the possibility of sinning and dying. By the exercise of his freedom he must determine his own career. Had he determined himself for God, the being able not to sin and not to die, would have become an impossibility of sinning and dying, the Posse non peccare et mori would have become a Non posse peccare et mori. But tempted by Satan he fell, and thus it became for him impossible that he should not sin and die, non posse non peccare et non mori. All prerogatives of the Divine image were lost; he retained only the capacity for outward civil righteousness, Justitia civilis, and a capacity for redemption. In Adam, moreover, all mankind sinned, for he was all mankind. By generation Adam’s nature as it was after sin, with sin and guilt, death and condemnation, but also the capacity for redemption, passed over to all his posterity. Divine grace, which alone can redeem and save man, attached itself to the remnant of the divine image which expressed itself in the need of redemption and the capacity for redemption. Grace is therefore absolutely necessary, in the beginning, middle and end of the Christian life. It is granted man, not because he believes, but that he may believe; for faith too is the work of God’s grace. First of all grace awakens through the law the consciousness of sin and the desire for redemption, and leads by the gospel to faith in the Redeemer (gratia præveniens). By means of faith it thus secures the forgiveness of sin as primum beneficium through appropriating the merits of Christ and in part the powers of the divine life through the implanting of living fellowship with Christ (in baptism). Thus is free will restored to the good (Gratia operans) and evidences itself in a holy life in love. But even in the regenerate the old man with his sinful lusts is still present. In the struggle of the new with the old he is continually supported by Divine grace (Gratia co-operans) unto his justification (Justificatio) which is completed in the making righteous of his whole life and being through the Divine impartation (Infusio) of new powers of will. The final act of grace, which, however, according to the educative wisdom of God is not attained in this life, is the absolute removal of evil desire (Concupiscentia) and transfiguration into the perfect likeness of Christ through resurrection and eternal life (Non posse peccare et mori). Apart from the inconsistent theory of justification proposed, this view of nature and grace is thoroughly Pauline. Augustine, however, connects with it the doctrine of an absolute predestination. Experience shows that not all men attain to conversion and redemption. Since man himself can contribute nothing to his conversion, the ground of this must be sought not in the conduct of the man but only in an eternal unconditional decree of God, Decretum absolutum, according to which He has determined out of the whole fallen race of man, Massa perditionis, to save some to the glory of His grace and to leave others to their deserved doom to the glory of His penal righteousness. The ground of this election is only the wise and mysterious good pleasure of the divine will without reference to man’s faith, which is indeed only a gift of God. If it is said: “God wills that all men should be saved,” that can only mean, “all who are predestinated.” As the outcasts (Reprobati) can in no way appropriate grace unto themselves, the elect (Electi) cannot in any way resist it (Gratia irresistibilis). The one sure sign that one is elected is, therefore, undisturbed perseverance in the possession of grace (Donum perseverantiæ). To the heathens, even the noblest of them, he refused salvation, but made a distinction in the degrees of their penal tortures. So too unbaptized children were all regarded as lost. Although over against this he also set down the proposition: Contemtus, non defectus sacramenti damnat, the resolution of this contradiction lay in the special divine election of grace, which secures to the elect the dispensation of the sacrament.[167]

§ 53.3. Pelagius and his Doctrine.—Pelagius (§ 47, 21), a British monk of respectable learning and decided moral earnestness, living far away from the storms and strife of life, without any strong inward temptations, without any inclination to manifest sins and without deep experience of the Christian life, knowing and striving after no higher ideal than that of monkish asceticism, had developed a theory quite antagonistic to that of Augustine. He was strengthened in his opposition to Augustine’s doctrine of the corruption of human nature and its unfitness for all co-operation in conversion and sanctification, by observing that this doctrine was often misused by careless men as an excuse for carnal confidence and moral selfishness. He was thus made more resolute in maintaining that it is more wholesome to preach to men an imperative moral law whose demands they, as he thought, could satisfy by determined will and moral endeavour. Man at first was created mortal by God, and not temporal but spiritual death is the consequence and punishment of sin. Adam’s fall has changed nothing in human nature and has had no influence upon his descendants. Every man now is born just as God created the first man, i.e. without sin and without virtue. By his wholly unweakened freedom he decides for himself on the one side or the other. The universality of sin results from the power of seduction, of mere example and habit. Still there may be completely sinless men; and there have been such. God’s grace facilitates man’s accomplishment of his purpose. It is, therefore, not absolutely, but by the actual universality of sin, relatively necessary. Grace consists in enlightenment by revelation, in forgiveness of sin as the expression of divine forbearance, and in the strengthening of our moral powers by the incentive of the law and the promise of eternal life. God’s grace is destined for all men, but man must make himself worthy of it by honest striving after virtue. Christ became man, in order by His perfect teaching and by the perfect pattern of His life to give us the most powerful incentive to reformation and the redeeming of ourselves thereby. As in sin we are Adam’s offspring, so in virtue shall we be Christ’s offspring. He regarded baptism as necessary (infant baptism in remissionem futurorum peccatorum). Children dying unbaptized he placed in a lower stage of blessedness. The same inconsistent submission to the fathers of ecclesiastical tradition shows itself in the acceptance of ecclesiastical views of revelation, miracles, prophecy, the Trinity and the Divinity of Christ, whereas a more consistent and systematic thinker would have felt compelled from his anthropological principles to set aside or at least modify these supernaturalistic elements.

§ 53.4. The Pelagian Controversy, A.D. 411-431.—From A.D. 409 Pelagius resided in Rome. Here he gained over to his views Cœlestius, a man of greater acuteness and scientific attainments than himself. Both won high respect in Rome for their zeal for morality and asceticism and promulgated their doctrine without opposition. In A.D. 411 both went to Carthage, whence Pelagius went and settled in Palestine. Cœlestius remained behind and obtained the office of presbyter. Now for the first time his errors were opposed. Paulinus deacon of Milan (§ 47, 20) happening to be there formally complained against him, and a provincial Synod at Carthage A.D. 412 excommunicated him, on his refusal to retract. In the same year too Augustine published his first controversial treatise: De peccatorum meritis et remissione et de baptismo parvulorum, Lb. III. In Palestine Pelagius had attached himself to the Origenists. Jerome, besides passing a depreciatory judgment upon his literary productions, contested his doctrine as an expounder of the Origenist heresy (Ep. ad Ctesiphontem and Dialog. c. Pelagium, Lb. III.), and a young Spanish presbyter Paulus [Paul] Orosius (§ 47, 20) complained of him to the Synod of Jerusalem A.D. 415, under the presidency of bishop John of that city. The synergistic orientals, however, could not be convinced of the dangerous character of his carefully guarded doctrine. Such too was the result of the Synod of Diospolis or Lydda in A.D. 415 under bishop Eulogius of Cæsarea, where two Gallic bishops appeared as accusers. Augustine proved to the Palestinians in De gestis Pelagii that they had allowed themselves to be kept in the dark by Pelagius. Orosius too published a controversial tract, Apologeticus c. Pelag., in reply to which, or more probably to Jerome, Theodore of Mopsuestia wrote the book now lost, Περὶ τοὺς λέγοντας, φύσει καὶ οὐ γνώμη πταίειν τοὺς ἀνθρώπους. Then the Africans again took up the controversy. Two Synods at Mileve and Carthage, in A.D. 416, reiterated their condemnation and sent their decree to Innocent I. at Rome. The Pope acquiesced in the proceedings of the Africans. Pelagius sent a veiled confession of faith and Cœlestius appeared personally in Rome. Innocent died, however, in A.D. 417, before his arrival. His successor Zozimus [Zosimus], perhaps a Greek and certainly weak as a dogmatist, allowed himself to be won over by Cœlestius and brought severe charges against the Africans, against which again these entered a vigorous protest. In A.D. 418 the emperor Honorius issued his Sacrum rescriptum against the Pelagians and a general Synod at Carthage in the same year emphatically condemned them. Now Zozimus [Zosimus] was prevailed on also to condemn them in his Epistola tractatoria. Eighteen Italian bishops, among them Julian of Eclanum in Apulia, the most acute and able apologist of Pelagianism, refused to subscribe and were banished. They sought and obtained protection from the Constantinopolitan bishop Nestorius. But this connection did harm to both. The Roman bishop Cœlestine took part with those who opposed the Christological views of Nestorius (§ 52, 3), and at the Œcumenical Council of Ephesus in A.D. 431, the orientals condemned along with Nestorius also Pelagius and Cœlestius, without, however, determining anything positive in regard to the doctrine under discussion. To this end with unwearied zeal laboured Marius Mercator, a learned layman of Constantinople, who published two Commonitoria against Pelagius and Cœlestius, and a controversial treatise against Julian of Eclanum. Meanwhile too Augustine rested not from his energetic polemic. In A.D. 413 he wrote De spiritu et littera ad Marcellinum; in A.D. 415 against Pelagius, De natura et gratia; against Cœlestius, De perfectione justitiæ hominis. In A.D. 416, De gestis Pelagii. In A.D. 418, De gratia Dei et de peccato originali Lb. II. c. Pelag. et Cœl. In A.D. 419, De nuptiis et concupiscentia Lb. II., against the charge that his doctrine was a reviling of God-appointed marriage. In A.D. 420, C. duas epistolas Pelagianorum et Bonifatium I., against the vindicatory writings of Julian and his friends. In A.D. 421, Lb. VI. c. Julianum. And later still, Opus imperfectum c. secundam Juliani responsionem. Engl. Transl.; Ante-Nicene Lib.: Anti-Pelag. Wr., 3 vols., Edin., 1867 ff.

§ 53.5. The Semi-Pelagian Controversy, A.D. 427-529.—Bald Pelagianism was overthrown, but the excessive crudeness of the predestination theory, as set forth by Augustine, called forth new forms of opposition. The monks of the monastery of Adrumetum in North Africa, by severely carrying out the predestination theory to its last consequences, had fallen, some into sore distress of soul and despair, others into security and carelessness, while others again thought that to avoid such consequences, one must ascribe to human activity in the work of salvation a certain degree of meritoriousness. The abbot of the monastery in this dilemma applied to Augustine, who in two treatises, written in A.D. 427, De gratia et libero arbitrio and De correptione et gratia, sought to overcome the scruples and misconceptions of the monks. But about this time in Southern Gaul there was a whole theological school which rejected the doctrine of predestination, and maintained the necessity of according to human freedom a certain measure of co-operation with divine grace, in consequence of which sometimes the one, sometimes the other, is fundamental in conversion. At the head of this school was Johannes Cassianus († A.D. 432), a disciple and friend of Chrysostom, founder and president of the monastery at Massilia. His followers are thence called Massilians or Semi-Pelagians. He had himself contested Augustine’s doctrine, without naming it, in the 13th of his Collationes Patrum (§ 47, 21). Of his disciples the most famous was Vincentius [Vincent] Lerinensis (of the monastery of Lerinum), who in his Commonitorium pro Catholicæ fidei antiquitate et universitate (Engl. Transl., Oxford, 1836) laid down the principle that the catholic faith is, quod semper, ubique et ab omnibus creditum est. Judged by this standard Augustine’s doctrine was by no means catholic. The second book of this work, now lost, probably contested Augustinianism expressly and was, therefore, suppressed. But Augustine had talented supporters even in Gaul, such as the two laymen Hilarius and Prosper Aquitanicus (§ 47, 20). What took place around them they reported to Augustine, who wrote against the Massilians De predestinatione Sanctorum and De dono perseverantiæ. He was prevented by his death, which took place in A.D. 430, from taking part longer in the contest. Hilarius and Prosper, however, continued it. Since the Roman bishop Cœlestine, before whom in A.D. 431 they personally made complaint, answered with a Yes and No theology, Prosper himself took up the battle in an able work De gratia Dei et libero arbitrio contra Collatorem, but in doing so unwittingly smoothed off the sharpest points of the Augustinian system. This happened yet more decidedly in the ingenious treatise De Vocatione gentium, whose author was perhaps Leo the Great, afterwards pope but then only a deacon. On the other side, opponents (Arnobius the younger?) used the artifice of presenting, in the notable work entitled Prædestinatus, pretending to be written by a follower of Augustine, a caricature of the doctrine of predestination carried to the utmost extreme of absurdity, and these sought to justify their own position. The first book contains a description of ninety heresies, the last of which is predestinationism; the second gives as supplement to the first the pretended treatise of such a predestinarian; and the third confutes it. A certain presbyter Lucidus, a zealous adherent of the doctrine of predestination, was by a semi-Pelagian synod at Aries in A.D. 475 forced to recant. Faustus, bishop of Rhegium (§ 47, 21), sent after him by order of the Council a controversial treatise De gratia Dei et humanæ mentis libero arbitrio, and also in the same year A.D. 475, a Synod at Lyons sanctioned semi-Pelagianism. The treatise of Faustus, although moderate and conciliatory, caused violent agitation among a community of Scythian monks in Constantinople, A.D. 520. They complained through bishop Possessor of Carthage to pope Hormisdas, but he too answered with a Yes and No theology. Then the Africans banished by the Vandals to Sardinia took up the matter. They held a Council in A.D. 523, by whose order Fulgentius of Ruspe (§ 47, 20), a zealous apologist of Augustinianism composed his De veritate prædest. et gratia Dei Lb. III., which made an impression even in Gaul. And now two able Gallic bishops, Avitus of Vienne and Cæsarius of Arles (§ 47, 20) entered the lists in behalf of a moderate Augustinianism, and won for it at the Synod of Oranges in A.D. 529 a decided victory over semi-Pelagianism. Augustine’s doctrine of original sin in its strictest form, and his assertions about the utter want of merit in every human act and the unconditional necessity of grace were acknowledged, faith was extolled as exclusively the effect of grace, but predestination in regard to the Reprobati was reduced to mere foreknowledge, and predestination to evil was rejected as blasphemy against God. A synod held in the same year, A.D. 529, at Valence confirmed the decrees of Oranges. Boniface II. of Rome did the same in A.D. 530.[168]—Continuation § 91, 5.

§ 54. REAPPEARANCE AND REMODELLING OF EARLIER HERETICAL SECTS.

Manichæism (§ 29) had still numerous adherents not merely in the far off eastern provinces but also in Italy and North Africa; and isolated Marcionite churches (§ 27, 11) were still to be found in almost all the countries within the empire and also beyond its bounds. An independent reawakening of Gnostic-Manichæan tendencies arose in Spain under the name of Priscillianism.

§ 54.1. Manichæism.—The universal toleration of religion, which Constantine introduced, was also extended to the Manichæans of his empire (§ 29, 3). But from the time of Valentinian I. the emperors issued repeatedly severe penal laws against them. The favour which they obtained in Syria and Palestine led bishop Titus of Bostra in Arabia Petræa, about A.D. 370, to write his 4 Bks. against the Manichæans. The Manichæan church stood in particularly high repute in North Africa, even to the 4th and 5th centuries. Its most important representative there, Faustus of Mileve, published a controversial treatise against the Catholic church, which Augustine, who had earlier been himself an adherent of the Manichæans, expressly answered in 33 Bks. (Engl. Transl.: “Ante-Nicene Lib.” Treatises against Faustus the Manichæan, Edin., 1868). When the Manichæan Felix, in order to advance the cause of his church, came to Hippo, Augustine challenged him to a public disputation, and after two days’ debate drove him into such straits that he at last admitted himself defeated, and was obliged to pronounce anathema on Mani and his doctrine. With still greater zeal than by the imperial government were the African Manichæans persecuted by the Vandals, whose king Hunerich (§ 76, 3) burnt many, and transported whole ships’ loads to the continent of Europe. In the time of Leo the Great († A.D. 461) they were very numerous in Rome. His investigations tend to show that they entertained antinomian views, and in their mysteries indulged in lustful practices. Also in the time of Gregory the Great († A.D. 604) the church of Italy was still threatened by their increase. Since then, however, nothing more is heard of Manichæan tendencies in the West down to the 11th century, when suddenly they again burst forth with fearfully threatening and contagious power (§ 108, 1). In the eastern parts of the empire, too, numerous Gnostic-Manichæan remnants continued to exist in secret, and from the 9th to the 12th century reappeared in a new form (§ 71). Still more widely about this time did such views spread among the Mussulman rulers of the Eastern borderlands, as far as China and India, as the Arabian historians of this period testify (§ 29, 1).

§ 54.2. Priscillianism, A.D. 383-563.—The first seeds of the Gnostic-Manichæan creed were brought to Spain in the 4th century by an Egyptian Marcus. A rich and cultured layman Priscillian let himself be drawn away in this direction, and developed it independently into a dualistic and emanationistic system. Marriage and carnal pleasures were forbidden, yet under an outward show of strict asceticism were concealed antinomian tendencies with impure orgies. At the same time the sect encouraged and required lies and perjury, hypocrisy and dissimulation for the spread and preservation of their community. “Jura, perjura, secretum perdere noli.” Soon Priscillianists spread over all Spain; even some bishops joined them. Bishop Idacius of Emerida by his passionate zeal against them fanned the flickering fire into a bright flame. A synod at Saragossa in A.D. 380 excommunicated them, and committed the execution of its decrees to Bishop Ithacius of Sossuba, a violent and besides an immoral man. Along with Idacius he had obtained from the emperor Gratian an edict which pronounced on all Priscillianists the sentence of banishment. Priscillian’s bribes, however, not only rendered this edict inoperative, but also an order for the arrest of Ithacius, which he avoided only by flight into Gaul. Here he won over the usurper Maximus, the murderer of Gratian, who, greedy for their property, used the torture against the sect, and had Priscillian as well as some of his followers beheaded at Treves in A.D. 385. This was the first instance of capital punishment used against heretics. The noble bishop, Martin of Tours (§ 47, 14), to whom the emperor had previously promised that he would act mildly, hastened to Treves and renounced church fellowship with Ithacius and all bishops who had assented to the death sentence. Ambrose too and other bishops expressed their decided disapproval. This led Maximus to stop the military inquisition against them. But the glory of martyrdom had fired the enthusiasm of the sect, and among the barbarians who made their way into Spain from A.D. 409 they won a rich harvest. Paulus [Paul] Orosius (§ 47, 20) wrote his Commonitorium de errore Priscillianist. in A.D. 415, looking for help to Augustine, whom, however, concern and contests in other directions allowed to take but little part in this controversy. Of more consequence was the later interference of Leo the Great, occasioned by a call for help from bishop Turribius of Astorga. Following his instructions, a Concilium Hispanicum in A.D. 447 and still more distinctly a Council at Braga in A.D. 563 passed vigorous rules for the suppression of heresy. Since then the name of the Priscillianists has disappeared, but their doctrine was maintained in secret for some centuries longer.[169]

V. WORSHIP, LIFE, DISCIPLINE AND MORALS.

§ 55. WORSHIP IN GENERAL.

Christian worship freed by Constantine from the pressure of persecution developed a great wealth of forms with corresponding stateliness of expression. But doctrinal controversies claimed so much attention that neither space nor time was left for carrying the other developments in the same way through the fire of conflict and sifting. Hence forms of worship were left to be moulded in particular ways by the spirit of the age, nationality and popular taste. The public spirit of the church, however, gave to the development an essential unity, and early differences were by and by brought more and more into harmony. Only between East and West was the distinction strong enough to make in various ways an impression in opposition to the levelling endeavours of catholicity.

The age of Cyril of Alexandria marks an important turning point in the development of worship. It was natural that Cyril’s prevailing doctrine of the intimate connection of the divine and human natures in the person of Christ should have embodied itself in the services of the church. But this doctrine was yet at least one-sided theory which did not wholly exclude its perversion into error. In the dogma, indeed, thanks to the exertions of Leo and Theodoret, the still extant Monophysite error had no place given it. But in the worship of the church it had embedded itself, and here it was not overcome, and its presence was not even suspected, so, it could now not only develop itself undisturbed in the direction of worship of saints, images, relics, of pilgrimages, of sacrifice of the mass, etc., but also it could decisively deduce therefrom a development of dogmas not yet established, e.g. in the doctrine of the church, of the priesthood, of the sacraments, especially of the Lord’s Supper, etc., etc.

§ 56. FESTIVALS AND SEASONS FOR PUBLIC WORSHIP.

The idea of having particular days of the week consecrated in memory of special incidents in the work of redemption had even in the previous period found expression (§ 37), but it now passed into the background all the more as the church began to apply itself to the construction in the richest possible form of a Christian year. The previous difference in the development of East and West occasioned each to take its own particular course, determined in the one case very much by a Jewish-Christian, in the other by a Gentile-Christian, tendency. Nevertheless in the 4th century we find a considerable levelling of these divergences. This at least was attained unto thereby that the three chief festivals received an essentially common form in both churches. But in the 5th and 6th centuries, in the further development of the Christian year, the two churches parted all the more decidedly from one another. The Western church especially gave way more and more unreservedly to the tendency to make the natural year the type and pattern for the Christian year. Thus the Western Christian year obtained a richer development and grew up into an institution more vitally and inwardly related to the life of the people. The luxuriant overgrowth of saints’ days, however, prevented the church from here reaching its ideal.

§ 56.1. The Weekly Cycle.—Constantine the Great issued a law in A.D. 321, according to which all magisterial, judicial and municipal business was stopped on Sunday. At a later period he also forbade military exercises. His successors extended the prohibition to the public spectacles. Alongside of Sunday the Sabbath was long celebrated in the East by meetings in the churches, avoidance of fasting and by standing at prayers. The Dies stationum, Wednesday and Friday (§ 37), were observed in the East as fast days. The West gave up the Wednesday fast, and introduced in its place the anti-Judaic Sabbath fast.

§ 56.2. Hours and Quarterly Fasts.—The number of appointed hours of prayer (the 3rd, 6th and 9th hours, comp. Dan. vi. 10-14; Acts ii. 15; iii. 1; x. 9) were increased during the 5th century to eight (Horæ canonicæ: Matutina or matins at 3 a.m.; Prima at 6 a.m.; Tertia at 9 a.m.; Sexta at 12 noon; Nona at 3 p.m.; Vesper at 6 p.m.; Completorium at 9 p.m.; and Mesonyktion or Vigils at 12 midnight); yet generally two of the night hours were combined, so as to preserve the seven times required in Ps. cxix. 164. This arrangement of hours was strictly observed by monks and clerics. The common basis of prayer for devotions at these hours was the Psalter divided among the seven days of the week. The rest of the material adapted to the course of the Christian year, consisting of scripture and patristic readings, legends of martyrs and saints, prayers, hymns, doxologies, etc. gradually accumulated so that it had to be abbreviated, and hence the name Breviarium commonly given to such selections. The Roman Breviary, arranged mainly by Leo the Great, Gelasius and Gregory the Great, gradually throughout the West drove all other such compositions from the field. An abbreviation by Haymo, General of the Minorites, in A.D. 1241 was sanctioned by Gregory IX., but had subsequently many alterations made upon it. The Council of Trent finally charged the Papal chair with the task of preparing a new redaction which the clergy of the whole catholic church would be obliged to use. Such a production was issued by Pius V. in A.D. 1568, and then in A.D. 1631 Urban VIII. gave it the form in which it is still current.—In the West the year was divided into three-monthly periods, quatuor tempora, corresponding to the seasons of prayer recurring every three hours. There were harvest prayer and thanksgiving seasons, occupied, in accordance with Joel ii., with penance, fasting and almsgiving. Leo the Great brought this institution to perfection. The quatuor tempora, ember days, occur in the beginning of the Quadragesima, in the week after Pentecost, and in the middle of the 7th and 10th months (Sept. and Dec.), and were kept by a strict fast on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday with a Sabbath vigil.

§ 56.3. The Reckoning of Easter.—At the Council of Nicæa in A.D. 325 the Roman mode of observing Easter prevailed over that of Asia Minor (§ 37, 2). Those who adhered to the latter method were regarded as a sect (Quartadecimani Τεσσαρεσκαιδεκατῖται). The Council decreed that the first day of full moon after the spring equinox should be regarded as the 14th Nisan, and that the festival of the resurrection should be celebrated on the Sunday following. The bishop of Alexandria undertook the astronomical determination of the festival on each occasion, because there astronomical studies were most diligently prosecuted. He published yearly, usually about Epiphany, a circular letter, Liber paschalis, giving to the other churches the result of the calculation, and took advantage generally of the opportunity to discuss the ecclesiastical questions of the day. First of all at Alexandria, probably to prevent for all time a combination of the Jewish and Christian Easter festivals, the practice was introduced of keeping the feast when the 14th and 16th of the new moon fell upon Friday and Sunday, not on the same Sunday but eight days later,—a practice which Rome also, and with her a great part of the West, adopted in the 5th century (§ 77, 3). A further difference existed as to the point of time with which the day of full moon was to be regarded as beginning. The Easter Canon of Hippolytus (§ 31, 3) had calculated it in a very unsatisfactory manner according to a sixteen-years’ cycle of the moon, after the course of which the day of full moon would again occur on the same day of the year. In Alexandria the more exact nineteen-years’ cycle of Anatolius was adopted, according to which the day of full moon had an aberration of about one day only in 310 years, and even this was caused rather by the imperfection of the Julian year of 365 days with three intercalary days in 400 years. But in Rome the reckoning was made as the basis of an eighty-four years’ cycle which had indeed the advantage of completing itself not only on the same day of the year but on the same day of the week; while, on the other hand, it had this drawback that after eighty-four years it had fallen about a day behind the actual day of full moon. There was also this further difference that in Alexandria the 21st of March was regarded as the day when day and night were equal, and at Rome, but wrongly, the 18th of March. The cycle of 532 (28 ✕ 19) years reckoned in A.D. 452 by Victorius, a bishop of Aquitaine, was assimilated to the Alexandrian, without, however, losing the advantage of the eighty-four years’ cycle above referred to, which, however, it succeeded in obtaining only by once in every period of nineteen years fixing the equinox on the 20th of March. The Roman abbot Dionysius Exiguus (§ 47, 23), finally, in A.D. 525 harmonized the Roman and the Alexandrian reckoning by setting up a ninety-five years’ cycle (5 ✕ 19), and this cycle was introduced throughout all the West by Isidore of Seville and the Venerable Bede (§ 90, 2). The error occasioned by the inexactness of the Julian calendar continued till the Gregorian reform of the calendar (§ 149, 3).

§ 56.4. The Easter Festivals.—The pre-eminence of the Christian festival of victory (the resurrection) over that of suffering, especially among the Greeks, led, even in the 4th century to the former as the fruit of the latter being drawn into the paschal season, and distinguished as πάσχα ἀναστάσιμον from that as πάσχα σταυρώσιμον, and also at last to the adoption of the one name of Paschal or Easter Festival and to the regarding of the whole Quadragesima season as a preparation for Easter. The Saxon name Easter is derived from the old German festival of Ostara the goddess of spring which was celebrated at the same season.—With the beginning of the Quadragesima the whole mode of life assumes a new form. All amusements were stopped, all criminal trials sisted and the din of traffic in streets and markets as far as possible restricted. The East exempted Sunday and Sabbath from the obligation of fasting, with the exception of the last Sabbath as the day of Christ’s rest in the grave, but the West exempted only Sunday. Gregory the Great, therefore, fixed the beginning of the Quadragesima on Wednesday of the seventh week before Easter, Caput jejunii, Dies cinerum, Ash Wednesday, so called because the bishop strewed ashes on the heads of believers with a warning reference to Gen. iii. 19, comp. xviii. 27. With the Tuesday preceding, Shrove Tuesday (from shrive, to confess), ended the carnival season (carni valedicere) which, beginning with 6th Jan. or the feast of the three holy kings, reached its climax in the last days, from three to eight, before Ash Wednesday. On this closing day the people generally sought indemnification for the approaching strict fast by an unmeasured abandoning of themselves to pleasure. From Italy where this custom arose and was most fully carried out, it subsequently found its way into the other lands of the West. In opposition to these unspiritual proceedings the period of the Easter festivals was begun three weeks earlier with the 10th Sunday before Easter (Septuagesima). The Hallelujah of the Mass was silenced, weddings were no more celebrated (Tempus clausum), monks and clerics already began the fast. The Quadragesima festival reached its climax in the last, the great week. It began with Palm Sunday (ἑορτὴ τῶν βαΐων) and ended with the great Sabbath, the favourite time for baptisms (Rom. vi. 3). Thursday as the memorial day of the institution of the Lord’s Supper, and Friday as the day of Christ’s death, Good Friday, were days of special importance. A solemn night service, Easter vigils, marked the transition to the joyous Easter celebrations. The old legend that on this night Christ’s second coming would take place rendered the service peculiarly solemn. Easter morning began with the jubilant greeting: The Lord is risen, and the response, He is risen indeed. On the following Sunday, the Easter Octave, Pascha clausum, ἀντίπασχα, the Easter festival was brought to a close. Those baptized on the great Sabbath wore for the last time their white baptismal dress. Hence this sabbath was called Dominica in albis; subsequently, in accordance with the Introitus from 1 Pet. ii. 2, Quasimodogeniti; and by the Greeks, καινὴ κυριακή. The joyous celebrations of Easter extended over all the Quinquagesima period between Easter and Pentecost. Ascension day, Festum ascensionis, ἑορτὴ τῆς ἀναλήψεως, and Pentecost, πεντεκοστή, were introduced as high festivals by vigil services; and the latter was concluded by the Pentecost-Octave, by the Greeks called κυριακὴ τῶν ἁγίων μαρτυρησάντων and at a much later date styled by the Latins Trinity Sunday. The Festival-Octaves, ἀπολύσεις, had an Old Testament pattern in the עֲצֶרֶת of the Feast of Tabernacles, Lev. xxiii. 26.

§ 56.5. The Christmas Festivals.—The first traces of the Christmas festival (Natalis Christi, γενέθλια) in the Roman church are found about A.D. 360. Some decades later they appear in the Eastern church. The late introduction of this festival is to be explained from the disregard of the birthday and the prominence given to the day of the death of Christ in the ancient church; but Chrysostom even regarded it as the μητρόπολις πασῶν τῶν ἑορτῶν. Since the 25th of March as the spring equinox was held as the day of creation, the day of the incarnation, the conception of Christ, the second Adam, as the beginning of the new creation was held on the same day, and hence 25th Dec. was chosen as the day of Christ’s birth. The Christian festival thus coincided nearly with the heathen Saturnalia, in memory of the Golden Age, from 17th to 23rd Dec., the Sigillaria, on the 24th Dec., when children were presented with dolls and images of clay and wax, sigilla, and the Brumalia, on 25th Dec., Dies natalis invicti solis, the winter solstice. It was considered no mere chance coincidence that Christ, the eternal Sun, should be born just on this day. The Christmas festival too was introduced by a vigil and lasted for eight days, which in the 6th century became the Festum circumcisionis. The revelling that characterised the New Year Festival of the pagans, caused the ancient church, to observe that day as a day of penance and fasting. The feast of the Epiphany on the 6th Jan. (§ 37, 1) was also introduced in the West during the 4th century but obtained there a Gentile-Christian colouring from Luke ii. 21 and was kept as the festival of the first fruits of the Gentiles and received the name of the Festival of the three holy kings. For even Tertullian in accordance with Ps. lxxii. 10 had made the Magi kings; it was concluded that they were three because of the three gifts spoken of; and Bede, about A.D. 700, gives their names as Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. By others this festival was associated with Christ’s first miracle at the marriage in Cana, and also with the feeding of the 5,000 in the wilderness. After the analogy of the Easter festival since the 6th century a longer preliminary celebration has been connected with the Christmas festival. In the Eastern church, beginning with the 14th of Nov., it embraced six Sundays with forty fast days, as the second Quadragesima of the year. In the Latin church, as the season of Advent, it had only four Sundays, with a three weeks’ fast.

§ 56.6. The Church Year was in the East a symbolic adaptation of the natural year only in so far as it brought with it the Christianising of the Jewish festivals and the early recognition of Western ideas about the feasts. Only on the high festivals, Christmas, Easter and Pentecost are they retained; on the other Sundays and festivals they never obtained expression. The Easter festival was considered the beginning of the church year; thereafter the Quadragesima or Epiphany; and finally, the Old Testament beginning of the year in September. The whole church year was divided into four parts according to the Lectio continua of the gospel, and the Sundays were named thereafter. The κυριακὴ πρώτη τοῦ Ματθαίου was immediately after Pentecost. The Latin Church Year begins with the season of Advent, and distinguishes a Semestre Domini and a Semestre ecclesiæ. But only the former was fully developed: Christmas, Easter, Pentecost with the Sundays belonging to them, representing the founding, developing and completing of the history of salvation. To a corresponding development of the second half we find early contributions, e.g. the Feast of Peter and Paul on 29th June as festival of the founding of the church by the Apostles, the Feast of the leading martyr Laurentius (§ 22, 5) on 10th August as memorial of the struggle prescribed to the Ecclesia militans, and the Feast of Michael on 29th September with reference to the completion in the Ecclesia triumphans. That in these feasts we have already the germs of the three festivals of the community of the church which were to correspond to the three festivals of the Lord’s history appears significantly in the early designation of the Sundays after Pentecost as Dominica post Apostolos, post Laurentium, post Angelos. But it never was distinctly further carried out. This deeply significant distribution was overlaid by saint worship, which overflowed the Semestre Domini. The principle of Christianising the Pagan rites was legitimated by Gregory the Great. He instructed the Anglo-Saxon missionaries to the effect (§ 77, 4), that they should convert the heathen temples into churches and heathen festivals into ecclesiastical festivals and days of martyrs, ut duræ mentes gradibus vel passibus non autem saltibus eleventur. The saints henceforth take the place of gods of nature and the church year reproduced with a Christian colouring all the outstanding points in the natural year.—As the last festival connected with the history of the Lord, the Feast of the Glorification, ἁγία μεταμόρφωσις, was held in the East on 6th August. According to tradition the scene was enacted on Mt. Tabor, hence the feast was called Θαβώριον. The Latin church adopted it first in the 15th century (F. transfigurationis).[170]

§ 56.7. The Church Fasts (§ 37, 3).—In the Greek church the ordinance of fasting was more strict than in the Latin. In one period, however, we have a system of fasts embracing four great fasting seasons: The Quadragesima of Easter and of Christmas, the period of from three to five weeks from the Pentecost Octave (the Greek Feast of All Saints) to that of Peter and Paul on 29th June, and the fourteen days before the Ascension of Mary on 15th August. There were also the νηστεῖαι προεόρτιοι on the evenings previous to other festivals; and finally, the weekly recurring fasts of Wednesday and Friday. The strictest was the pre-Easter fast, observed with gradually advancing rigidness. On Sexagesima Sunday flesh was eaten for the last time, then followed the so-called Butter week, when butter, cheese, milk and eggs were still allowed; but thereafter complete avoidance of all fattening food was enjoined, reaching during the great week to the utmost possible degree of abstinence. In the West instead of Wednesday, Saturday was taken along with Friday, and down to the 13th century it was enjoined that nothing should be eaten on these two days of the week, as also on the quarterly days (quatuor tempora) and the evenings preceding the feasts of the most famous Apostles and martyrs, the vigil fasts, until 3 p.m. (Semijejunium) or even till 6 p.m. (Plenum jejunium); while in the longer seasons of fasting before Easter and before Christmas the injunction was restricted to avoidance of all fat foods (Abstinentia).—Continuation § 115, 1.

§ 57. WORSHIP OF SAINTS, RELICS AND IMAGES.[171]

Though with the times of persecution martyrdom had ceased, asceticism where it was preached with unusual severity gave a claim to canonisation which was still bestowed by the people’s voice regarded as the voice of God. Forgotten saints were discovered by visions, and legend insensibly eked out the poverty of historical reminiscences with names and facts. The veneration of martyrs rose all the higher the more pitiable the present generation showed in its lukewarmness and worldliness over against the world-conquering faith of that great cloud of witnesses. The worship of Mary, which came in as a result of the Nestorian controversy, was later of being introduced than that of the martyrs, but it almost immediately shot far ahead and ranked above the adoration of all the other saints. The adoration of Angels, of which we find the beginnings even in Justin and Origen, remained far behind the worship of the saints. Pilgrimages were zealously undertaken, from the time when the emperor’s mother Helena, in A.D. 326, went as a pilgrim to holy places in Palestine and afterwards marked these out by building on them beautiful churches. The worship of images was introduced first in the age of Cyril of Alexandria and was carried out with peculiar eagerness in the art-loving East. The Western teachers, however, and even Gregory the Great himself, only went the length of becoming decoration, using images to secure more impressiveness in teaching and greater liveliness in devotion. In the West, however, still more than in the East, veneration of relics came into vogue.

§ 57.1. The Worship of Martyrs and Saints (§ 39, 5).[172]—At a very early period churches were built upon the graves of Martyrs (Memoria, Confessio, μαρτύριον), or their bones were brought into churches previously built (Translationes). New edifices were dedicated in their names, those receiving baptism were named after them. The days of their death were observed as special holy seasons with vigil services, Agape and oblations at their graves. In glowing discourses the orators of the church, in melodious hymns the poets, sounded forth their praises. The bones of the martyrs were sought out with extraordinary zeal and were looked upon and venerated as supremely sacred. Each province, each city and each calling had its own patron saint (Patronus). Perhaps as early as the 3rd century several churches had their martyr calendars, i.e. lists of those who were to have the day of their death celebrated. In the 4th century this custom had become universal, and from the collection of the most celebrated calendars, with the addition of legendary stories of the lives and sufferings of martyrs or saints (Legendæ, so called because they were wont to be read at the memorial services of the individuals referred to), sprang up the Martyrologies and Legends of the Saints, among the Greeks called Menologies from μήν, a month. Most esteemed in the West was the martyrology of the Roman church, whose composition has been recently put down, equally with and upon the same grounds as that of the so called Liber Comitis, § 59, 3, to the time of Jerome as the chief representative of Western theological learning. This collection formed the basis of the numerous Latin martyrologies of the Middle Ages (§ 90, 9). A rich choice was afforded by these catalogues of saints to those wishing names to use at baptism or confirmation; the saint preferred became thereby the patron of him who took his name. The three great Cappadocians in the East and Ambrose in the West were the first to open the floodgates for the invocation of saints by their proclaiming that the glorified saints through communion with the Lord shared in His attribute of omniprescence and omniscience; while Augustine rather assigned to the angels the task of communicating the invocations of men to the saints. In the liturgies prayers for the saints were now displaced by invocations for their intercession. In this the people found a compensation for the loss of hero, genius and manes worship. The church teachers at least wished indeed to make a marked distinction between Adoratio and Invocatio, λατρεία and δουλεία, rendering the former to God only. A festival of All the Martyrs was celebrated in the East as early as the 4th century on the Pentecost octave (§ 56, 4). In the West, Pope Boniface IV., in A.D. 610, having received from the Emperor Phocas the Pantheon as a gift and having converted it into a church of the most Blessed Virgin and all the Martyrs, founded a Festum omnium Sanctorum, which was not, however, generally recognised before the 9th century (1st Nov.). Owing to the great number of saints one or more had to be assigned to each day in the calendar. The day fixed was usually that of the death of the saint. The only instance of the celebration of a birthday was the festival of John the Baptist (Natalis S. Joannis). The 24th June was fixed upon by calculating from Christmas (acc. to Luke i. 26), and its occurring in the other half of the year from that of Christ afforded a symbolical parallel to John iii. 30. As an appendage to this we meet even in the 5th century with the F. decollationis S. Joannis on 29th Aug. On the second day of the Christmas festival the Feast of the Proto-martyr Stephen was celebrated as the first fruits of the incarnation of God; on the third, the memory of the disciple who lay on the Master’s breast; on the fourth, the innocent children of Bethlehem (F. innocentium) as the flores or primitiæ martyrum. The festival of the Maccabees (πανήγυρις τῶν Μακκαβαίων) leads yet further back as the memorial of the heroic mother and her seven sons under Antiochus Epiphanes. It was observed as early as the 4th century and did not pass out of use till the 13th. Among the festivals of Apostles that of Peter and Paul (F. Apost. Petri et Pauli) on 29th June, as the solemnization of their common martyrdom at Rome, was universally observed. But Rome celebrated besides a double F. Cathedræ Petri, for the Cathedra Romana on 18th Jan., and for the Cathedra Antiochena on 22nd Feb. For a long time a symbolical arrangement of the calendar days prevailed; the patriarchs of the Old Testament were put in the time before Christmas, the later saints of the old dispensation in the Quadragesima, and the Apostles and Founders of the church after Pentecost, then the Martyrs, next the Confessors, and finally, the Virgins as prototype of the perfected church.

§ 57.2. The Worship of Mary and Anna.[173]—The εὐλογουμένη ἐν γυναιξί who herself full of the Holy Ghost had prophesied: ἰδοὺ γὰρ, ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν μακαριοῦσι με πᾶσαι αἱ γενεαί, was regarded as the highest ideal of all virginity. All the reverence, which the church accorded to virginity, culminated therefore in her. Even Tertullian alongside of the Pauline contrasts Adam and Christ, placed this other, Eve and Mary. The perpetua virginitas b. Mariæ was an uncontested article of faith from the 4th century. Ambrose understood of her Ezek. xliv. 3, and affirmed that she was born utero clauso; Gregory the Great saw an analogy between this and the entering of the Risen One through closed doors (John xx. 19); and the second Trullan Council, in A.D. 692, confessed: ἀλόχευτον τὸν ἐκ τῆς παρθένου θεῖον τόκον εἶναι. Irenæus, Tertullian, Origen, Basil, Chrysostom, had indeed still found something in her worthy of blame, but even Augustine refuses to admit that she should be reckoned among sinners: Unde enim scimus, quid ei plus gratiæ collatum fuerit ad vincendum omni ex parte peccatum? Yet for a long time this veneration of Mary made little progress. This was caused partly by the absence of the glory of martyrdom, partly by its development in the church being forestalled and distorted by the heathenish and godless Mariolatry of the Collyridians, an Arabian female sect of the 4th century, which offered to the Holy Virgin, as in heathen times to Ceres, cakes of bread (κολλυρίδα). Epiphanius, who opposed them, taught: ἐν τιμῇ ἔστω Μαρία, ὁ δὲ Πατὴρ καὶ Υἱὸς καὶ ἅγιον Πνεῦμα προσκυνείσθω, τὴν δὲ Μαρίαν οὐδεὶς προσκυνείτω. On the Antidicomarianites, see § 62, 2. The victory of those who used the term θεοτόκος in the Nestorian controversy gave a great impulse to Mariolatry. Even in the 5th century, the festival of the Annunciation, F. annunciationis, incarnationis, ἑορτὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελισμοῦ, τοῦ ἀσπασμοῦ, was held on the 25th March. With this was also connected in the West the festival of the Purification of Mary, F. purificationis on 2nd Feb., according to Luke ii. 22. On account of the candles used in the service it was called the Candlemas of Mary, F. candelarum, luminum, Luke ii. 32. In consequence of an earthquake and pestilence in A.D. 542, Justinian founded the corresponding ἑορτὴ τῆς ὑπαπάντης, F. occursus, only that here the meeting with Simeon and Anna (Luke ii. 24) is put in the foreground. Both festivals, the Annunciation and the Purification, had the same dignity as those dedicated to the memory of our Lord. From the endeavour to put alongside of each of the festivals of the Lord a corresponding festival of Mary, about the end of the 6th century the Feast of the Ascension of Mary (πανήγυρις κοιμήτεως, F. assumptionis, dormitionis M.) was introduced and celebrated on 15th Aug.; and in the 7th century, the Feast of the Birth of Mary (F. nativitatis M.), on 8th Sept. The former was founded on the apocryphal legend (§ 32, 4), according to which Christ with the angels brought the soul of his just departed mother, and, on the following day, its glorified body, to heaven, and there united it again with the soul.—The first traces of a veneration of Anna around whom, as the supposed wife of Joachim and mother of the Virgin, the apocryphal gospels of the childhood had already gathered a mass of romantic details, are found in the 4th century in Gregory of Nyssa and Epiphanius. Justinian I. in A.D. 550 built a church of St. Anna in Constantinople. In the East the 25th of July was celebrated as the day of her death, the 9th Sept. as the day of her marriage, and the 9th Dec. as the day of her conception. In the West the veneration of Anna was later of being introduced. It became popular in the later Middle Ages and was made obligatory on the whole catholic church by Gregory XIII. in A.D. 1584. The day fixed was 26th July. Yet Leo III. in the 8th century had allowed a pictorial representation of the legend of St. Joachim and St. Anna to be put in the church of St. Paul in Rome.—Continuation § 104, 7, 8.

§ 57.3. Worship of Angels.—The idea of guardian angels of nations, cities, individuals, was based on Deut. xxxii. 8 (in the LXX.); Dan. x. 13, 20, 21; xii. 1; Matt. xviii. 10; Acts xii. 15, even as early as the 2nd century. Ambrose required the invocation of angels. But when the Phrygian sect of the Angelians carried the practice the length of idolatrous worship, the Council at Laodicea in the 4th century opposed it, and Epiphanius placed it in his list of heresies. Supposed manifestations of the Archangel Michael led to the institution from the 5th century of the feast of Michael observed on 29th Sept., as a festival of the angels collectively representing the idea of the church triumphant.

§ 57.4. Worship of Images (§ 38, 3).—The disinclination of the ancient church to the pictorial representations of the person of Christ as such, and also the unwillingness to allow religious pictures in the churches, based upon the prohibition of images in the decalogue, was not yet wholly overcome in the 4th century. Eusebius of Cæsarea, with reference to the statues of Paneas (§ 13, 2) and other images of Christ and the Apostles, speaks of an ἐθνικὴ συνηθεία. He administered a severe reproof to the emperor’s sister, Constantia, and referred to the prohibition of the decalogue, when she expressed a wish to have an image of Christ. Asterius, bishop of Amasa in Pontus († A.D. 410), earnestly declaimed against the custom of people of distinction wearing clothes embroidered with pictures from the gospel history, and recommends them rather to have Christ in their hearts. The violent zealot, Epiphanius, the most decided opponent of all religious idealism, tore the painted curtain of a Palestinian village church in Anablatha with the injunction to wrap therewith a beggar’s corpse. But Greek love of art and the religious needs of the people gained the victory over Judaic-legal rigorism and abstract spiritualism. Here too the age of Cyril marks the turning point. In the 5th century authentic miraculous pictures of Christ, the Apostles and the God-mother (εἰκόνες ἀχειροποίητοι), made their appearance, and with them began image worship properly so called, with lighting of candles, kissing, burning incense, bowing of the knee, prostrations (προσκύνησις τιμητική). Soon all churches and church books, all palaces and cottages, were filled with images of Christ and the saints painted or drawn by the monks. Miracle after miracle was wrought beside, upon or through them. In this, however, the West did not keep pace with the East. Augustine complains of image worship and advises to seek Christ in the bible rather than in images. Gregory the Great, while blaming the violence of Serenus, bishop of Massilia in breaking the images, wishes that in churches images should be made to serve ad instruendas solummodo mentes nescientium. The Nestorians who were strongly opposed to images, expressly declared that the hated Cyril was the originator of Iconolatry.

§ 57.5. Worship of Relics (§ 39, 5).—The veneration for relics (λείψανα) proceeded from a pious feeling in human nature and is closely associated with that higher reverence which the church paid to its martyrs. It began with public assemblies at the graves of martyrs, memorial celebrations and services in connection with the translations of their bones held in the churches. Soon no church, no altar (Rev. vi. 9), could be built without relics. When the small number of known martyrs proved insufficient, single parts of their bodies were divided to different churches. But dreams and visions showed rich stores previously unthought of in remnants of the bones of martyrs and saints. The catacombs especially proved inexhaustible mines. Miracles and signs vouched for their genuineness. Theodosius I. already found it necessary in A.D. 386, to prohibit the traffic in relics. Besides bones, were included also clothes, utensils, instruments of torture. They healed the sick, cast out devils, raised the dead, averted plagues, and led to the discovery of offenders. The healed expressed their gratitude in votive tablets and in presentations of silver and golden figures of the healed parts. A scriptural foundation was sought for this veneration of relics in 2 Kings xiii. 21; Ecclesiastic. xlvi. 14; Acts xix. 12. According to a legend commonly believed in the 5th century, but unknown to Eusebius and the Bordeaux pilgrim of A.D. 333, Helena, mother of Constantine, found in A.D. 326 the Cross of Christ along with the crosses of the two thieves. The one was distinguished from the others by a miracle of healing or of raising from the dead. The pious lady left one half of the cross to the church of the Holy Sepulchre and sent the rest with the nails to her son, who inlaid the wood in his statues and some of the nails in his diadem, while of the rest he made a bit for his horse. Since the publication of the Doctrina Addaei, § 32, 6, it has become apparent that this Helena legend is just another version of the old Edessa legend about the Byzantine saint, according to which the wife of the emperor Claudius converted by Peter is represented in precisely similar circumstances as having found the cross. To pious and distinguished pilgrims permission was given to take small splinters of the wood kept in Jerusalem, so that soon bits of the cross were spread and received veneration throughout all the world. According to a much later report a σταυρώσιμος ἡμέρα on 14th Sept. was observed in the East as early as the 4th century in memory of the finding of the cross. From the time of Gregory the Great a F. inventionis S. Crucis was observed in the West on 3rd May. The festival of the exaltation of the cross, σταυροφανεία, F. exaltationis S. Crucis, on 14th Sept., was instituted by the emperor Heraclius when the Persians on their being conquered in A.D. 629, were obliged to restore the cross which they had taken away.

§ 57.6. The Making of Pilgrimages.—The habit of making pilgrimages (pilgrim=peregrinus) to sacred places also rested upon a common tendency in human nature. The pilgrimage of Helena in A.D. 326 found numerous imitators, and even the conquest of Palestine by the Saracens in the 7th century did not quench pilgrims’ ardour. Next to the sacred places in Palestine, Sinai, the grave of Peter and Paul at Rome (Limina Apostolorum), the grave of Martin of Tours (§ 47, 14) and the supposed scene in Arabia of the sufferings of Job, as a foreshadowing of Christ’s, were the spots most frequented by pilgrims. Gregory of Nyssa in an Epistle Περὶ τῶν ἀπιόντων εἰς Ἱεροσόλυμα most vigorously opposed the immoderate love of pilgrimages, especially among monks and women. In the strongest language he pointed out the danger to true religion and morality; and even Jerome so far gave way to reason as to say: Et de Hierosolymis et de Brittania æqualiter patet aula cœlestis. Chrysostom and Augustine, too, opposed the over estimating of this expression of pious feeling.

§ 58. THE DISPENSATION OF THE SACRAMENTS.

During this period nothing was definitely established as to the idea and number of the sacraments (μυστήρια). The name was applied to the doctrines of grace in so far as they transcended the comprehension of the human understanding, as well as to those solemn acts of worship by which grace was communicated and appropriated in an incomprehensible manner to believers, so that only in the 12th century (§ 104, 2) were the consecrations and blessings hitherto included therein definitely excluded from the idea of the sacrament under the name Sacramentalia. It was, however, from the first clearly understood that Baptism and the Lord’s Supper were essentially the sacramental means of grace. Yet even in the 3rd century, anointing and laying on of hands as an independent sacrament of Confirmation (Confirmatio, χρίσμα) was separated from the idea of baptism, and in the West, from the administration of baptism. The reappearance of the idea of a special priesthood as a divine institution (§ 34, 4) gave also to Ordination the importance of a sacrament (§ 45, 1). Augustine whom the Pelagians accused of teaching by his doctrine of original sin and concupiscence that God-ordained marriage was sinful, designated Christian marriage, with reference to Eph. v. 32, a sacrament (§ 61, 2) in order more decidedly to have it placed under the point of view of the nature sanctified by grace. Pseudo-Dionysius, in the 6th century (§ 47, 11), enumerates six sacraments: Baptism, Chrism, Lord’s Supper, Consecration of Priests and Monks and the Anointing of the Dead (τῶν κεκοιμημένων). On Extreme Unction, comp. § 61, 3.

§ 58.1. Administration of Baptism (§ 35, 4).—The postponing of baptism from lukewarmness, superstition or doctrinal prejudice, was a very frequent occurrence. The same obstacles down to the 6th century stood in the way of infant baptism being regarded as necessary. Gregory of Nyssa wrote Πρὸς τοὺς βραδύνοντας εἰς τὸ βάπτισμα, and with him all the church fathers earnestly opposed the error. In case of need (in periculo mortis) it was allowed even by Tertullian that baptism might be dispensed by any baptized layman, but not by women. The institution of godfather was universal and founded a spiritual relationship within which marriage was prohibited not only between the godparents themselves, but also between those and the baptized and their children. The usual ceremonies preceding baptism were: The covering of the head by the catechumens and the uncovering on the day of baptism; the former to signify the warding off every distraction and the withdrawing into oneself. With exorcism was connected the ceremony of breathing upon (John xx. 22), the touching of the ears with the exclamation: Ephphatha (Mark vii. 34), marking the brow and breast with the sign of the cross; in Africa also the giving of salt acc. to Mark ix. 50, in Italy the handing over of a gold piece as a symbol of the pound (Luke xiii. 12 f.) entrusted in the grace of baptism. The conferring of a new name signified entrance into a new life. At the renunciation the baptized one turned him to the setting sun with the words: Ἀποτάσσομαί σοι Σατανᾶ καὶ πασῇ τῇ λατρείᾳ σου; to the rising sun with the words: Συντάσσομαί σοι Χριστέ. The dipping was thrice repeated: in the Spanish church, in the anti-Arian interest, only once. Sprinkling was still confined to Baptismus Clinicorum and was first generally used in the West in infant baptism in the 12th century, while the East still retained the custom of immersion.

§ 58.2. The Doctrine of the Supper (§ 36, 5).—The doctrine of the Lord’s Supper was never the subject of Synodal discussion, and its conception on the part of the fathers was still in a high degree uncertain and vacillating. All regarded the holy supper as a supremely holy, ineffable mystery (φρικτόν, tremendum), and all were convinced that bread and wine in a supernatural manner were brought into relation to the body and blood of Christ; but some conceived of this relation spiritualistically as a dynamic effect, others realistically as a substantial importation to the elements, while most vacillated still between these two views. Almost all regarded the miracle thus wrought as μεταβολή, Transfiguratio, using this expression, however, also of the water of baptism and the anointing oil. The spiritualistic theory prevailed among the Origenists, most decidedly with Eusebius of Cæsarea, less decidedly with Athanasius and Gregory Nazianzen, and again very decidedly with Pseudo-Dionysius. In the West Augustine and his disciples, even including Leo the Great, favour the spiritualistic view. With Augustine the spiritualistic view was a consequence of his doctrine of predestination; only to the believer, i.e. to the elect can the heavenly food be imparted. Yet he often expresses himself very strongly in a realistic manner. The realistic view was divided into a dyophysitic or consubstantial and a monophysitic or transubstantial theory. A decided tendency toward the idea of transubstantiation was shown by Cyril of Jerusalem, Chrysostom, Hilary of Poitiers, and Ambrose. The view of Gregory of Nyssa is peculiar: As by Christ during His earthly life food and drink by assimilation passed into the substance of His body, so now bread and wine by the almighty operation of God by means of consecration is changed into the glorified body of Christ and by our partaking of them are assimilated to our bodies. The opposing views were more sharply distinguished in consequence of the Nestorian controversy, but the consistent development of dyophysitism in the eucharistic field was first carried out by Theodoret and Pope Gelasius († A.D. 496). The former says: μένει γὰρ ἐπὶ τῆς προτέρας οὐσίας; and the latter: Esse non desinit substantia vel natura panis et vini.... Hoc nobis in ipso Christo Domino sentiendum (Christological), quod in ejus imagine (Eucharistical), profitemur. The massive concrete popular faith had long before converted the μεταβολή into an essential, substantial transformation. Thence this view passed over into the liturgies. Gallican and Syrian liturgies of the 5th century express themselves unhesitatingly in this direction. Also the tendency to lose the creaturely in the divine which still continued after the victory of Dyophysitism at Chalcedon, told in favour of the development of the dogma and about the end of our period the doctrine of Transubstantiation was everywhere prevalent.[174]—Continuation § 91, 3.

§ 58.3. The Sacrifice of the Mass (§ 36, 6).—Even in the 4th century the body of Christ presented by consecration in the Supper was designated a sacrifice, but only in the sense of a representation of the sacrifice of Christ once offered. Gradually, however, the theory prevailed of a sacramental memorial celebration of the sacrifice of Christ in that of an unbloody but actual repetition of the same. To this end many other elements than those mentioned in § 36, 6 co-operated. Such were especially the rhetorical figures and descriptions of ecclesiastical orators, who transferred the attributes of the one sacrifice to its repeated representations; the re-adoption of the idea of a priesthood (§ 34, 4) which demanded a corresponding conception of sacrifice; the pre-eminent place given to the doctrine of sacraments; the tendency to place the sacrament under the point of view of a magically acting divine power, etc. The sacrificial idea, however, obtained its completion in its application to the doctrine of Purgatory by Gregory the Great (§ 61, 4). The oblationes pro defunctis which had been in use from early times became now masses for the souls of individuals; their purpose was not the enjoyment of the body and blood of Christ by the living and the securing thereby continued communion with the departed, but only the renewing and repeating of the atoning sacrifice for the salvation of the souls of the dead, i.e. for the moderating and shortening of purgatorial sufferings. The redeeming power of the sacrifice of the eucharist was then in an analogous manner applied to the alleviation of earthly calamities, sufferings and misfortunes, in so far as these were viewed as punishments for sin. For such ends, then, it was enough that the sacrificing priest should perform the service (Missæ solitariæ, Private Masses). The partaking of the membership was at last completely withdrawn from the regular public services and confined to special festival seasons.—Continuation § 88, 3.

§ 58.4. The Administration of the Lord’s Supper.—The sharp distinction between the Missa Catechumenorum and the Missa Fidelium (§ 36, 2, 3) lost its significance after the general introduction of infant baptism, and the name Missa, mass, was now restricted to the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper properly so called. In the Eastern and North African churches the communion of children continued common; the Western church forbade it in accordance with 1 Cor. xi. 28, 29. The Communis sub una (sc. specie), i.e. with bread only, was regarded as a Manichæan heresy (§ 29, 3). Only in North Africa was it exceptionally allowed in children’s communion, after a little girl from natural aversion to wine had vomited it up. In the East, as early as the 4th century, one observance of the Lord’s Supper in the year was regarded as sufficient; but Western Councils of the 5th century insisted upon its observance every Sunday and threatened with excommunication everyone who did not communicate at least on the three great festivals. The elements of the supper were still brought as presents by the members of the church. The bread was that in common use, therefore usually leavened. The East continued this practice, but the West subsequently, on symbolical grounds, introduced the use of unleavened bread. The colour of the wine was regarded as immaterial. Subsequently white wine was preferred as being free from the red colouring matter. The mixing of the wine with water was held to be essential, and was grounded upon John xix. 34; or regarded as significant of the two natures in Christ. Only the Armenian Monophysites used unmixed wine. The bread was broken. To the sick was often brought in the East instead of the separate elements bread dipped in wine. Subsequently also, first in children’s communion and in the Greek church only, bread and wine together were presented in a spoon. The consecrated elements were called εὐλογίαι after 1 Cor. x. 16. The εὐλογίαι left over (περισσεύουσα) were after communion divided among the clergy. At a later period only so much was consecrated as it was thought would be needed for use at one time. The overplus of unconsecrated oblations was blessed and distributed among the non-communicants, the catechumens and penitents. The name εὐλογίαι was now applied to those elements that had only been blessed which were also designated ἀντίδωρα. The old custom of sending to other churches or bishops consecrated sacramental elements as a sign of ecclesiastical fellowship was forbidden by the Council at Laodicea in the 4th century.—Continuation § 104, 3.

§ 59. PUBLIC WORSHIP IN WORD AND SYMBOL.

The text of the sermon was generally taken from the bible portion previously read. The liturgy attained a rich development, but the liturgies of the Latin and Greek churches were fundamentally different from one another. Scripture Psalms, Songs of Praise with Doxologies formed the main components of the church service of song. Gnostics (§ 27, 5), Arians (§ 50, 1), Apollinarians and Donatists found hymns of their own composition very popular. The church was obliged to outbid them in this. The Council at Laodicea, however, in A.D. 360, sought to have all ψαλμοὶ ἰδιωτικοί banished from the church, probably in order to prevent heretical poems being smuggled in. The Western church did not discuss the subject; and Chrysostom at least adorned the nightly processions which the rivalry of the Arians in Constantinople obliged him to make, with the solemn singing of hymns.

§ 59.1. The Holy Scriptures (§ 36, 7, 8).—The doubts about the genuineness of particular New Testament writings which had existed in the days of Eusebius, had now greatly lessened. Fourteen years after Eusebius, Athanasius in his 39th Festal Letter of A.D. 367 gave a list of canonical scriptures in which the Eusebian antilegomena of the first class (§ 36, 8) were without more ado enumerated among the κανονιζόμενα. From these he distinguished the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Esther, Judith, and Tobit, as well as the Διδαχὴ καλουμένη τῶν Ἀποστόλων and the Shepherd of Hermas as ἀναγινωσκόμενα, i.e. as books which from their excellent moral contents had been used by the fathers in teaching the catechumens and which should be recommended as affording godly reading. The Council at Laodicea gave a Canon in which we miss only the Apocalypse of John, objected to probably on account of the unfavourable view of chiliasm entertained by the church at that time (§ 33, 9); as regards the Old Testament it expressly limited the public readings in churches to the 22 bks. of the Hebrew canon. The Council at Hippo, in A.D. 393, gave synodic sanction for the first time in the West to that Canon of the New Testament which has from that time been accepted.—The question as to the value of the books added to the Old Testament in the LXX. remained undecided down to the time of the Reformation. The Greek church kept to the Athanasian distinction of these as ἀναγινωσκόμενα from the κανονιζόμενοι, until the confession of Dositheus in A.D. 1629 (§ 152, 3) in its anti-Calvinistic zeal maintained that even those books should be acknowledged as γνήσια τῆς γραφῆς μέρη. In the North African church Tertullian and Cyprian had characterized them without distinction as holy scripture. Augustine followed them, though not altogether without hesitation: Maccab. scripturam non habent Judæi ... sed recepta est ab ecclesia non inutilitor, si sobrie legatur vel audiatur; and the Synods at Hippo in A.D. 393 and at Carthage in A.D. 397 and A.D. 419 put them without question into their list of canonical books, adding this, however, that they would ask the opinion of the transmarine churches on the matter. Meanwhile too in Rome this view had prevailed and Innocent I. in A.D. 405 expressly homologated the African list. Hilary of Poitiers and Rufinus on the other hand upheld the view of Athanasius, and Jerome in his Prologus galeatus after enumerating the books of the Hebrew Canon went so far as to say: Quidquid extra hos est, inter Apocrypha ponendum, and elsewhere calls the addition to Daniel merely næniæ. In the Præfatio in libros Salom., he expresses himself more favourably of the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Judith, Tobit and Maccabees: legit quidem ecclesia, sed inter canonicas scripturas non recipit ... legat ad ædificationem plebis sed non ad auctoritatem dogmatum confirmandam. This view prevailed throughout the whole of the Middle Ages among the most prominent churches down to the meeting of the Council of Trent (§ 136, 4); whereas the Tridentine fathers owing to the rejection of the books referred to by the Protestants (§ 161, 8), and their actual or supposed usefulness in supporting anti-Protestant dogmas, e.g. the meritoriousness of good works, Tob. iv. 11, 12; intercession of saints, 2 Macc. xv. 12-14; veneration of relics, Ecclus. xlvi. 14; xlix. 12; masses for souls and prayers for the dead, 2 Macc. xii. 43-46, felt themselves constrained to pronounce them canonical.—The inconvenient Scriptio continua in the biblical Codices led first of all the Alexandrian deacon Euthalius, about A.D. 460, by stichometric copies of the New Testament in which every line (στίχος) embraced as much as with regard to the sense could be read without a pause. He also undertook a division of the Apostolic Epistles and the Acts into chapters (κεφάλαια). An Alexandrian church teacher, Ammonius, even earlier than this, in arranging for a harmony of the gospels had divided the gospels in 1,165 chapters and added to the 355 chapters of Matthew’s gospel the number of the chapter of parallel passages in the other gospels. Eusebius of Cæsarea completed the work by his “Evang. Canon,” for he represents in ten tables which chapters are found in all the four, in three, in two or in one of the gospels.[175]—Jerome made emendations upon the corrupt text of the Itala by order of Damasus, bishop of Rome, and then made from the Hebrew a translation of the Old Testament of his own, which, joined to the revised translation of the New Testament, after much opposition gradually secured supremacy throughout all the West under the name of the Vulgata. The Monophysite Syrians got from Polycarp in A.D. 508 at the request of bishop Xenajas or Philoxenus of Mabug, a new slavishly literal translation of the New Testament. This so-called Philoxenian translation was, in A.D. 616, corrected by Thomas of Charcal, provided after the manner of the Hexapla of Origen with notes—the Harclensian translation—and in A.D. 617 enlarged by a translation of the Old Testament executed by bishop Paulus of Tella in Mesopotamia according to the Hexapla text of the LXX.—Diligent Scripture Reading was recommended by all the fathers, with special fervour by Chrysostom, to the laity as well as the clergy. Yet the idea gained ground that the study of Scripture was the business of monks and clerics. The second Trullan Council, in A.D. 692, forbade under severe penalties that scripture should be understood and expounded otherwise than had been done by the old fathers.

§ 59.2. The Creeds of the Church.

1. The Nicæno-Constantinopolitan Creed.—The Nicene Creed (§ 50, 1, 7) did not in the East succeed in dislodging the various forms of the Baptismal formula (§ 35, 2); indeed, owing to the statement of this third article restricting itself to a mere καὶ εἰς τὸ πνεῦμα ἅγιον it was little fitted to become a universal symbol. But what the Nicænum in spite of its unexampled pretensions never won, the so-called Nicæno-Constantinopolitanum of A.D. 451, not being chargeable with the deficiency referred to, actually achieved. The idea prevailing until quite recently that this Symbol originated at the so-called second œcumenical Council at Constantinople in A.D. 381 as an enlargement of the Nicene confession, has now been shown to be quite erroneous. After the Romish theologian Vincenzi laboured to prove that this was a production forged by the Greeks in the interests of their “heretical” doctrine of the procedure of the Holy Spirit from the Father only (§ 50, 7), Harnack on the basis of the researches of Caspari and Hort reached the following results: The so-called Nicæno-Constantinopolitan Creed is identical with the creed recommended by Epiphanius in his Anchoratus, about A.D. 373, as genuinely apostolic-Nicene; the creed of the Anchoratus is that which forms the subject of Cyril’s Catechetical Lectures (§ 47, 10), probably at a later date revised, enriched by the introduction of the most important phrases from the Nicænum and an additional section on the Holy Spirit (comp. § 50, 5, 7), and issued in his own name by Cyril while bishop of Jerusalem (A.D. 351-386) as a Baptismal formula for the church of Jerusalem; this new recension of the Jerusalem Symbol was probably laid before the Council at Constantinople in A.D. 381 by Cyril as a proof of his own orthodoxy that had always been somewhat questionable and as such passed over into the Acts which are now lost; thus at least is it most simply explained how even in A.D. 451 it could be quoted in the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon alongside of the Nicene as the Constantinopolitan; in proportion then as the Council of Constantinople of A.D. 381 came to be regarded as an œcumenical Council (§ 50, 4), this creed, erroneously ascribed to that Council, had accorded to it the rank of an œcumenical Symbol.

2. The Apostles’ Creed.—The Roman church and with it the whole West, standing upon the supposed Apostolic origin of their symbol, did not suffer it to be dislodged by the Nicænum nor to be assimilated by any importations from it. Nevertheless during the period when the Roman chair was dominated by the Byzantine court theology (§ 52, 3) the so-called Nicæno-Constantinopolitanum succeeded in displacing the old Western creed, aided by the opposition to the Arianism that was being driven forward by the Visigoths and Ostrogoths in Italy and Spain (§ 76, 2, 7), which demanded a more decidedly anti-Arian formula. After this danger had been long overcome, the desire was expressed in the 9th century for a shorter creed that might serve as a baptismal formula and as the basis of catechetical teaching. They fell back, however, not upon the old Roman creed, but upon a more modern Gallic expansion of it, which forms what is called by us now the Apostles’ Creed. Owing to the reverence shown to the Roman church this creed soon found its way throughout all the West, and arrogated to itself here the name of an œcumenical Symbol, although it has never been acknowledged by the Greek church. The legend of its apostolic origin was carried out still further by the assertion that each of the twelve Apostles composed one article as his contribution to the formula (συμβολή). Laurentius Valla and Erasmus were the first to dispute its apostolic origin.

3. The Athanasian Creed.—The so-called Athanasian Symbol, which from its opening words is also known as Symb. “Quicunque,” sprang up in the end of the 5th century out of the opposition of Western Catholicism to German Arianism, so that it is doubtful whether it had its origin in Gaul, Spain or North Africa. In short, sharply accentuated propositions it sets forth first of all the Nicene-Constant. doctrine of the Trinity in its fuller form as developed by Augustine (§ 50, 7), then in the second part the dogmatic results of the Nestorian and Eutychian controversies (§ 52, 3, 4), and in the severest terms makes eternal salvation dependent on the acceptance of all these beliefs. The earliest certain trace of its existence is found in Cæsarius of Arles (A.D. 503-543) who quotes some sentences borrowed from it as of acknowledged authority. The idea that Athanasius was its author arose in the 8th century and was soon accepted throughout the West as an undoubted truth. It was first taken notice of by the Greek church in the 11th century, and on account of the filioque (§ 67, 1) was pronounced heretical.[176]

§ 59.3. Bible Reading in Church and Preaching.—The Reading of non-canonical books in church, which had previously been customary (§ 36, 3), was now forbidden. The Lectio continua, i.e. the reading of entire biblical books was the common practice down to the 5th century. In the Latin church at each service there were usually two readings, one from the Gospels, the other from the Epistles or the Prophets. The Apostolic Constitutions (§ 43, 4) have three, the Prophets, Epistles, and Gospels; so too the Gallican and Spanish churches; while the Syrian had four, the additional one being from Acts. As the idea of the Christian Year was carried out, however, the Lectio continua gave place to the Lectio propria, i.e. a selection of passages which correspond to the character of the particular festival. In the West this selection was fixed by the Lectionaries among which the so-called Liber comitis, which tradition assigned to Jerome, in various forms and modifications, found acceptance generally throughout the West. In the East where the Lectio continua continued much more prevalent, lectionaries came into use first in the 8th century. The lesson was read by a reader from a reading desk; as a mark of distinction, however, the gospel was often read by the deacon. For the same purpose, too, lights were often kindled during this reading.—The Sermon was generally by the bishop, who might, however, transfer the duty to a presbyter or deacon. Monks were forbidden to preach in the church. They were not hindered from doing so in the streets and markets, from roofs, pillars and trees. The bishop preached from his episcopal throne, but often, in order to be better heard, stood at the railing of the choir (Cancelli). Augustine and Chrysostom often preached from the reading desk. In the East preaching came very much to the front, lasted often for an hour, and aimed at theatrical effects. Very distracting was the practice, specially common in Greece of giving loud applause with waving of handkerchiefs and clapping of hands (κρότος, Acclamatio). In the West the sermon consisted generally of short simple addresses (Sermones). Extempore discourses (ὁμιλίαι σχεδιασθεῖσαι) were greatly appreciated, more so than those repeated from memory; reading was quite an exceptional occurrence. Even the emperors after Constantine’s example gave sometimes sermonic lectures in extra-ecclesiastical assemblies. Among the Syrians sermons in verse and strophically arranged, with equal number of syllables in the lines but unrhymed, were very popular.

§ 59.4. Hymnology.[177]—Ephraëm [Ephraim] the Syrian († A.D. 378) introduced melodious orthodox hymns in place of the heterodox hymns of the Syrian Gnostics Bardesanes and Harmonius (§ 27, 5). On the later Syrian hymn writers, see § 48, 7. The introduction of their hymns into the public service caused no trouble. For the Greeks orthodox hymns were composed by Gregory Nazianzen and Synesius of Ptolemais. The want of popularity and the ban of the Laodicean Council hindered their introduction into the services of the church; but this ban was removed as early as the 5th century. Under the name of Troparies, from τρόπος=art of music, shorter, and soon also longer, poems of their own composition were introduced alongside of the church service of Psalms (§ 70, 2). But unquestionably the palm for church hymn composition belongs to the Latin church. With Hilary of Poitiers († A.D. 368) begins a series of poets (Ambrose, Damasus, Augustine, Sedulius, Eunodius, Prudentius, Fortunatus, Gregory the Great) who bequeathed to their church a precious legacy of spiritual songs of great beauty, spirituality, depth, power, grandeur and simplicity.

§ 59.5. Psalmody and Hymn Music.[178]—From the time when clerical cantores (§ 34, 3) were appointed the symphonic singing of psalms by the congregation seems to have been on the wane. The Council of Laodicea forbade it altogether, without, however, being able quite to accomplish that. Antiphonal or responsive singing was much enjoyed. Hypophonic singing of the congregation in the responses with which the people answered the clerical intonings, readings and prayers, and in the beating of time with which they answered the clerical singing of psalms, was long persisted in in spite of clerical exclusiveness. The singing of prayers, readings and consecrations was first introduced in the 6th century. At first church music was simple, artless, recitative. But the rivalry of heretics forced the orthodox church to pay greater attention to the requirements of art. Chrysostom had to declaim against the secularisation of Church music. More lasting was the opposition of the church to the introduction of instrumental accompaniments. Even part singing was at this time excluded from the church. In the West psalmody took a high flight with a true ecclesiastical character. Even in A.D. 330, bishop Sylvester erected a school at Rome for training singers for the churches. Ambrose of Milan was the author of a new kind of church music full of melodious flow, with rhythmical accent and rich modulation, nobly popular and grandly simple (Cantus Ambrosianus). Augustine speaks with enthusiasm of the powerful impression made on him by this lively style of singing, but expresses also the fear that the senses might be spellbound by the pleasant sound of the tune, and thus the effect of the words on the mind be weakened. And in fact the Ambrosian chant was in danger during the 6th century through increasing secularisation of losing its ecclesiastical character. Then appeared Gregory the Great as reformer and founder of a new style of music (Cantus Romanus, ferinus, choralis) for which at the same time, in order that he might fix it in a tune book (Antiphonarium), he invented a special notation, the so-called Neumæ, either from πνεῦμα as characterizing the music, or from νεῦμα as characterizing the musical notes, a wonderful mixture of points, strokes and hooks. The Gregorian music is in unison, slow, measured and uniform without rhythm and beat, so that it approaches again the old recitative mode of psalm singing, while still at the same time its elaboration of the art with much richer modulation marks an important step in advance. The Ambrosian briskness, freshness and popular style were indeed lost, but all the more certainly the earnestness, dignity and solemnity of Church music were preserved. But it was a very great defect that the Gregorian music was assigned exclusively to well equipped choirs of clerical singers, hence Cantus choralis, for the training of which Gregory founded a school of music in Rome. The congregation was thus deprived of that lively participation in the public service which up to that time it had enjoyed.

§ 59.6. The Liturgy.—The numerous liturgies that had sprung up since the 4th century were reared on the basis of one common type which we find in the liturgy of the Apostolic Constitutions (§ 43, 4). The most important orthodox liturgies are: the Jerusalem liturgy which is ascribed to the Apostle James, the Alexandrian which claims as its author Mark, disciple of the Apostles (§ 16, 4), the Byzantine which professes to have been composed by Basil and abbreviated by Chrysostom, which ultimately dislodged all others from the orthodox church of the East. Among Western liturgies the following are distinguished for antiquity, reputation and significance: the Gallican Masses of the 5th century, the Milan liturgy, professedly by Barnabas, probably by Ambrose, and the Roman or that of St. Peter, to the successive revisions of which are attached the names of the great popes Leo the Great, † A.D. 461, Gelasius I., † A.D. 496, and Gregory the Great, † A.D. 604. It gradually obtained universal ascendancy in the West. Its components are: The sacramentarium, prayers for the service of the Mass, the antiphonarium, the lectionarium, and the Ordo Romanus, guide to the dispensation of the Mass. The uniting of these several writings to the Missale Romanum belongs to a later period.—The Greek Liturgy in the combining of the vesper, matins and principal service of worship represents a threefold religious drama in which the whole course of the sacred history from the creation of the world to the ascension of our Lord is brought to view. In the lighting and extinguishing of candles, in opening and closing of doors, in the figured cloth covering the altar space, (§ 60, 1), in burning of incense and presentations, in the successive putting on of various liturgical vestments, in the processions and genuflections of the inferior clergy, in the handling of the sacramental elements, etc., the chief points of the gospel history are symbolically set forth. The word accompanying the ceremonies (intonations, responses, prayers, readings, singing) has a subordinate significance and forms only a running commentary on the drama.—The Latin Church changed the dramatic character of the liturgy into a dogmatic one. It is no longer the objective history of salvation which is here represented, but the subjective appropriation of salvation. The sinner in need of redemption comes to the altar of the Lord, seeks and finds quickening and instruction, forgiveness and grace. The real pillar of the whole service is therefore the word, and to the symbol is assigned only the subordinate part of accompanying the word with a pictorial representation. The components of the liturgy are partly such as invariably are repeated in every Mass, partly such as change with the calendar and the requirements of particular festivals. Among the former the canon of the Mass forms the real centre of the whole Mass. It embraces the eucharistic forms of consecration with the prayer offered up in connection with the offering of it up.—Among the liturgical writings are specially to be named the Diptychs (δὶς ἀπτύσσω, to fold twice), writing tablets which were covered on the inside with wax. They were the official lists of persons of the ancient church, and were of importance for the liturgy inasmuch as the names written upon them were the subject of special liturgical intercession. We have to distinguish, δίπτυχα ἐπισκόπων, in which are written the names of the foreign bishops with whom church fellowship is maintained, and δίπτυχα ζώντων or lists of their own church members as the offerers, and δίπτυχα νεκρῶν.[179]

§ 59.7. Liturgical Vestments.—A special clerical costume which made the clergy recognisable even in civil life arose from their scorning to submit to the whims of fashion. The transition from this to a compulsory liturgical style of dress was probably owing to the fact that the clergy in discharging their official functions wore not their every-day attire, but a better suit reserved for the purpose. If in this way the idea of sacred vestments was arrived at it was an easy step to associate them with the official costume of the Old Testament priesthood, attributing to them, as to the dress of the Jewish priests, a symbolico-mystical significance, to be diversified according to their patterns as well as according to the needs of the worship and their hierarchical rank. In the West the proper dress for Mass was and continued the so-called Alba, among the Greeks στοιχάριον or στιχάριον, a white linen shirt reaching down to the feet after the pattern of the old Roman Tunica and corresponding to the long coat of the Old Testament priest, with a girdle (Cingulum). The shorter Casula or Pineta, among the Greeks φελώνιον, over the Alba took the place of the Toga. It was originally without sleeves, simply a coloured garment of costly material furnished with an opening for the head, but in later times made more convenient by being slit half way down on both sides. The Orarium, ὀράριον, afterwards called Stola, is a long wide strip of costly cloth which the deacon threw over his left shoulder and on his right thigh, but the priest and the bishop wore it over both shoulders and at the sacrifice of the Mass in the form of the cross over the breast. Over these priestly vestments the bishop wore as representing the high priest’s ephod the so-called Dalmatica, among the Greeks σάκκος, a costly sleeved robe; and the archbishop also the Pallium, ὠμοφόριον. This last was originally a complete robe, but in order not to conceal the episcopal and priestly ornaments it was reduced to a small white woollen cape with two strips hanging down on the breast and the back. To episcopal ornaments of the Greeks besides belonged the ἐπιγονάτιον, a square-shaped piece of cloth, hanging down from the σάκκος on the left side, ornamented with a picture of Christ sewed on stiff pasteboard; and to correspond to the high priest’s Urim and Thummim, the πανάγιον, a painting in enamel of a saint, hung to the breast by a golden chain. Among the Latins the place of the latter is taken by the golden cross for the breast or Pectorale. As covering of the head the priest had the Barretta (birretum), the bishop the mitre, mitra (§ 84, 1). The ring and staff (marriage ring and shepherd’s staff) were in very early times made the insignia of the episcopal office. The settling of the various liturgical colours for the successive festivals of the Christian year was first made during the 12th century.[180]

§ 59.8. Symbolical Acts in Worship.—The fraternal kiss was a general custom throughout the whole period. On entering, the church door or threshold was kissed; during the liturgical service the priest kissed the altar, the reader the Gospel. Even relics and images were kissed. When one confessed sin he beat upon his breast. The sign of the cross was made during every ecclesiastical action and even in private life was frequently used. The custom of washing the hands on entering God’s house and lighting candles in it, was very ancient. No quite certain trace of sprinkling with holy water is found before the 9th century. The burning of incense (thurificari) is first found late in the 4th century. In earlier times it was supposed to draw on and feed the demons; afterwards it was regarded as the surest means of driving them away. The consecration of churches and the annual commemoration thereof are referred to even by Eusebius (ἐγκαινίων ἑορταί). Even so early as the times of Ambrose the possession of relics was regarded as an indispensable condition to such services.

§ 59.9. Processions are of early date and had their prototypes in the heathen worship in the solemn marches at the high festivals of Dionysos, Athene, etc., etc. First at burials and weddings, they were practised since the 4th century at the reception of bishops or relics, at thanksgivings for victories, especially at seasons of public distress and calamity (Rogationes, Supplicationes). Bishop Mamertus of Vienna about A.D. 450 and Gregory the Great developed them into regularly recurring institutions whose celebration was rendered more solemn by carrying the gospels in front, costly crosses and banners, blazing torches and wax candles, relics, images of Mary and the saints, by psalm and hymn singing. The prayers arranged for the purpose with invocation of saints, and angels and the popular refrain, Ora pro nobis! were called Litanies.

§ 60. PLACES OF PUBLIC WORSHIP, BUILDINGS AND WORKS OF ART.[181]

Church architecture made rapid advance as a science in the times of Constantine the Great. The earliest architectural style thus developed is found in the Christian Basilicas. Whether this was a purely original kind of building called forth by the requirements of congregational worship, or whether and how far it was based upon previously existing styles, is still a subject of discussion. In later, and especially oriental, church buildings the flat roof of the basilica was often changed into a cupola. Of the plastic arts painting was the next to be represented.

§ 60.1. The Basilica.—The original form of the Christian basilica was that of an oblong four-sided building running from west to east. It was divided lengthwise by rows of pillars, into three parts or aisles, in such a way as to leave the middle aisle at least double the breadth of each of the other two. The middle aisle led up to a semicircular recess (κόγχη, ἀψίς, Concha, Absida), curved out of the eastern side wall, which was separated from the middle aisle proper by a railing (κιγκλίδες, Cancelli) and a curtain (καταπέτασμα, Velum), and, because raised a few steps, was called βῆμα (from βαίνω). From the 5th century the pillars running down the length of the house were not carried on to the eastern gable, and thus a cross passage or transept was formed, which was raised to the level of the Bema and added to it. This transept now in connection with the middle aisle and the recess imprints upon the ground plan of the church the significant form of the cross. At the entrance at the western end there was a porch which occupied the whole breadth of the house. Thus then the whole fell into three divisions. The Bema was reserved for the clergy. The elevated seat of the bishop (θρόνος, Cathedra) stood in the middle of the round wall forming the recess, lower seats for the presbyters on both sides (σύνθρονοι), the altar in the centre or in front of the recess. As a place reserved for the altar and the clergy the βῆμα had also the names ἅγιον, ἄδυτον, ἱερατεῖον, Sacrarium, Sanctuarium, the name of Choir being first given it in the Middle Ages. Under the Apse or Bema there was usually a subterranean chamber, κρυπτή, Memoria, Confessio, containing the bones of martyrs. The altar space in later times in the Eastern churches instead of being marked off by railings or curtains was separated by a wooden partition which because adorned with sacred pictures painted often on a golden ground and inlaid with most precious stones, was called the picture screen (εἰκονόστασις). It had usually three doors of which the middle one, the largest of the three, the so-called “Royal” door, was reserved for the bishop and for the emperor when he communicated. The Nave or main part of the building, consisting of three, less frequently of five, aisles (νάος, ναῦς, Navis, so called partly from its oblong form, partly and chiefly on account of the symbolical significance of the ship as a figure of the means of salvation, Gen. vii. 23), was the place where the baptized laity met, and were arranged in the different aisles according to sex, age and rank. In the Eastern churches galleries (ὑπερῶα) were often introduced along the sides for the women. The Porch (πρόναος, Vestibulum) which from its great width was also called νάρθηξ or Ferula, properly the hollow stalk of an umbelliferous plant, was the place occupied by the catechumens and penitents. In front of it, in earlier times unroofed, afterwards covered, was the enclosure (αἴθριον, αὐλή, Atrium, Area) where a basin of water stood for washing the hands. Here too the penitents during the first stage of their discipline, as well as the energumeni, had to stand. That the Atrium was also called Paradisus, as Athanasius tells us, is best explained by supposing that here for the warning of penitents there was a picture of Adam and Eve being driven out of Paradise. The porch and the side aisles just to the height of the pillars, were shut in with tesselated rafters and covered with a one-sided slanting roof. But middle aisle and transept were heightened by side walls resting on the pillars and rising high above the side roofs and covered with a two-sided slanting roof. In order that the pillars might be able to bear this burden, they were bound one to another by an arched binding. The walls of the middle aisle and transepts rising above the side roofs were supplied with windows, which were usually wanting in the lower walls.—Utility was the main consideration in the development of the plan of the basilicas, but nevertheless at the same time the idea of symbolical significance was also in many ways very fully carried out, such as the form of the cross in the ground plan, and the threefold division into middle and side aisles. In the bow-shaped binding of the pillars the idea of pressing forward (Phil. iii. 13, 14) was represented, for there the eye was carried on from one pillar to the other and led uninterruptedly forward to the recess at the east end, where stood the altar, where the Sun of righteousness had risen (Mal. iv. 2). The semicircle of the recess to which the eye was carried forward reminded of the horizon from which the sun rose in his beauty; and the bold rising of the walls of the middle aisle, which rested on the arched pillars, pointed the eye upwards and gave the liturgical sursum corda which the bishop called out to the congregation a corresponding expression in architectural form. This significance was further intensified by the light falling down from above into the sacred place.

§ 60.2. Secular Basilicas.—All spaces adorned with pillared courts were called among the ancient Romans basilicas. In the private houses of distinguished Romans the name Basilica domestica was given to the so-called Oëcus, i.e. the chamber reserved for solemn occasions with the peristyle in front, the inner open court surrounded by covered pillared halls; while public markets and courts of justice were called Basilicæ forenses. The latter were oblong in shape; at the end opposite the entrance the dividing wall was broken through and in the opening a semicircular recess was carved out with an elevated platform, and in this were the tribunal of the prætor and seats for the assessors and the jury. In the covered pillared courts along the two sides were the wares exposed for sale and in the usually uncovered large middle space the buyers and lookers-on moved about. Outside of the enclosing wall before the entrance was often a pillared porch standing by itself for a lobby.—From having the same name and many correspondences in construction the later Christian basilica was supposed to have been copied from the forensic basilica. Zestermann was the first to contest this theory and in this found hearty support especially on the Catholic side. According to him the Christian basilica had nothing in common with the forensic, but was called forth quite independently of any earlier style of building by the requirements of Christian worship. Now certainly on the one side the similarity had been quite unduly over-estimated. For almost everything that gave its symbolically significant character to the ecclesiastical basilica,—the transept and the form of the cross brought out by it, the bow-shaped binding of the pillars, the walls of the middle aisle resting on the pillars rising sheer into the heights, as well as the entirely new arrangement of the whole house, are the essential and independent product of the Christian spirit. But on the other hand, differences have been greatly exaggerated and features which the ecclesiastical basilica had in common with the forensic, which were demonstrably copied from the latter, have been ignored. On both sides, too, the importance for our question of the basilicæ domesticæ used for worship before regular churches were built, has been overlooked. Here the peristyle with its pillared courts with the oëcus attached supplied the divisions needed for the different classes attending divine service (clergy, congregation, penitents, catechumens). What was more natural than that this form of building, brought indeed into more perfect accord with the Christian idea and congregational requirements, should be adopted in church building and with it also the name with a new application to Christ the heavenly King? But one and indeed a very essential feature in the later basilica style is wanting generally in the oëcus of private houses, viz. the Apse. One would naturally suppose that it was borrowed from the forensic basilica in consideration of its purpose there, scruples against such procedure being lessened as the heathen state passed over to Christianity. Thus too it is easily explained how the earliest basilicas, like that of Tyre consecrated in A.D. 313, of which Eusebius’ description gives us full information, have as yet no Apse.

§ 60.3. The Cupola Style.—We meet with the first example of the cupola style among Christian buildings in the form of Roman mausoleums in chapels or churches raised over martyrs’ graves. This style, however, was in many ways unsuitable for regular parish churches. The necessarily limited inner space embraced within the circular or polygonal walls would not admit of the significant shape of the nave being preserved; it could not be proportionally partitioned among clergy, congregation, catechumens and penitents. In an ideal point of view only the centre of the whole space was suitable for the bema with the altar, bishop’s throne, etc. In that case, however, the half of the congregation present would have to stand behind the officiating clergy and so this arrangement was not to be thought of. In the later ecclesiastical buildings, therefore, of the cupola style the ground plan of the basilica was adopted, with atrium and narthex at the west end and bema and apse at the east end. The old basilica style, though capable of so much artistic adornment, passed now indeed more and more into desuetude before the overpowering impression made upon one entering the building by the cupola (θόλος, Cuppula) like a cloud of heaven overspanning at a giddy height the middle space, pierced by many windows and resting on four pillars bound by arches one to another. Besides this main and complete cupola there were often a number of semi- and secondary cupolas, which gave to the whole building from without the appearance of a rich well ordered organism. The greatest masterpiece in this style, which Byzantine love of art and beauty valued far more than the simple basilica, is the church of Sophia at Constantinople (Σοφία=Λόγος), at the completion of which in A.D. 587 Justinian I. cried out: Νενίκηκά σε Σαλομών.

§ 60.4. Accessory and Special Buildings.—Alongside of the main building there generally were additional buildings for special purposes (ἐξέδραι), surrounded by an enclosing wall. Among these isolated extra buildings Baptistries (βαπτιστήρια, φωτιστήρια) held the first rank. They were built in rotunda form after the pattern of the Roman baths. The baptismal basin (κολυμβήθρα, Piscina) in the middle of the inner space was surrounded by a series of pillars. In front there was frequently a roomy porch used for the instruction of catechumens. When infant baptism became general, separate baptistries were no longer needed. Their place was taken by the baptismal font in the church itself on the north side of the main entrance. For the custody of church jewels, ornaments, robes, books, archives, etc. in the larger churches there were special buildings provided. The spirit of brotherhood, the Philadelphia, expressed itself in the πτωχοτροφεῖα, ὀρφανοτροφεῖα, γηροκομεῖα, βρεφοτροφεῖα (Foundling Hospitals), νοσοκομεῖα, ξενοδοχεῖα. The burying ground (κοιμητήριον, Cimeterium, Dormitorium, Area) was also usually within the wall enclosing the church property. The privilege of burial within the church was granted only to emperors and bishops. When clocks came into vogue towers were introduced, but these were at first simply attached to the churches, occasionally even standing quite apart.

§ 60.5. Church furniture.—The centre of the whole house of God was the Altar (ἁγία τράπεζα, θυσιαστήριον, Ara, Altare), since the 5th century commonly of stone, often overlaid with gold and silver. The altar stood out at the east end, the officiating priest behind it facing the congregation. The introduction of the Missæ solitariæ (§ 58, 3) made it necessary in the West to have a large number of altars. In the Greek church the rule was to have one altar. Moveable altars, for missionaries, crusaders, etc., were necessary since the consecration of the altar had been pronounced indispensable. The Latins used for this purpose a consecrated stone plate with a cover (Palla); the Greeks only a consecrated altar cloth (ἀντιμήνσιον). The altar cloth was regarded as essential, a denudatio alteris as impious desecration; according to liturgical rule, however, the altar was bared on Friday and Saturday of Passion Week. From the altar cloth was distinguished the Corporale, εἰλητόν, for covering the oblations. On the altar stood the Ciborium, a canopy supported by four feet, to which by a golden chain was attached a dove-shaped vessel (περιστήριον) with the consecrated sacramental elements for the communion of the sick. The Thuribulum was for the burning of incense, cross for marches and processions (Cruces stationales) and banners (Vexilla). In the nave were seats for the congregation; in the narthex there were none. The pulpit or reading desk (Pulpitum) at first movable, afterwards permanently fixed to the railings in the middle of the bema in the basilica was called the Ambo from ἀναβαίνω, or Lectorium, our English Lectern. In many churches two ambos were erected, on the north or left side for the gospel, and on the south or right side for the epistle. In larger churches, however, the ambo was often brought forward into the nave. Our chancel had its origin late in the Middle Ages by a separate preaching Ambo being erected beside the lectern, and raised aloft in order that the preacher might be better seen and heard.—The introduction of church clocks (Nolæ, Campanulæ, because commonly made of Campanian brass which was regarded as the best) is sometimes ascribed to bishop Paulinus of Nola in Campania, who died in A.D. 431, sometimes to Pope Sabinianus, who died in A.D. 606. In the East they were first introduced in the 9th century. In early times the hours of service were announced by Cursores, ἀνάδρομοι, afterwards by trumpets or beating of gongs.

§ 60.6. The Graphic and Plastic Arts (§ 38, 3; § 57, 4).—The Greek church forbade all nudity; only face, hands and feet could be left uncovered. This narrowness was overcome in the West. Brilliancy of colour, costliness of material and showy overloading of costume made up for artistic deficiencies. The εἰκόνες ἀχειροποίητοι afforded stereotyped forms for the countenances of images of Christ, Mary and the Apostles. The Nimbus, originally a soft mist or transparent cloud, with which pagan poets and painters surrounded the persons or heads of the gods, in later times also those of the Roman emperors, made its appearance during the 5th century in Christian painting as the halo, in the form of rays, of a diadem or of a circle, first of all in figures of Christ. Images of the Saviour bound to the cross were first introduced about the end of the 6th century. The symbol was previously restricted to the representation of a lamb at the foot of the cross, a bust of Christ at the top or in the middle of the cross, or the full figure of Christ holding His cross before Him. Anastasius Sinaita in the 7th century, to show his opposition to the monophysite doctrine that only the body had been crucified, painted a figure of the crucified which straightway came to be regarded in the Eastern church as the pattern figure, without the crown of thorns, with nimbus, the wound of the spear with blood streaming forth, the cross with an inscription on both sides—JC. XC.—and a sloping peg as support for the feet, and under the cross the skull of Adam. The Western crucifix figures, on the other hand, though likewise governed by a special type, show greater freedom in artistic development. Wall or fresco painting was most extensively carried on in the Catacombs during the 4th-6th centuries. Mosaic painting, Musivum, λιθοστράτια, with its imperishable beauty of colouring, was used to decorate the long flat walls of the basilicas, the vaulted ceilings of the cupolas and the curving sides of the apse (glass-mosaic on a gold ground). Liturgical books were adorned with miniature figures. Sublimity came more and more to characterize ecclesiastical art; it became more majestic, dignified and dispassionate, but also stiffer and less natural. Statues seemed to the ancient church heathenish, sensuous and realistic. The Greek church at last prohibited them entirely and would not suffer even a single crucifix, but only simple crosses with a sloping transverse beam at the foot. The West had more liberal views, yet even there Christian statues were only quite isolated phenomena. There was less scruple in regard to bas-reliefs and alto-reliefs (ἀναγλυφαί) especially on sarcophagi and ecclesiastical furniture.

§ 61. LIFE, DISCIPLINE AND MORALS.[182]

When whole crowds of worldly-minded men, who only sought worldly advantages from professing Christ, were drawn into the church after the State had become Christian, the Christian life lost much of the earnestness, power and purity, by which it had conquered the old world of heathenism. More and more the church became assimilated and conformed to the world, church discipline grew more lax, and moral decay made rapid progress. Passionate contentions, quarrels and schisms among bishops and clergy filled also public life with party strife, animosity and bitterness. The immorality of the court poisoned by its example the capital and the provinces. Savagery and licentiousness grew rampant amid the devastating raids of the barbarians. Hypocrisy and bigotry speedily took the place of piety among those who strove after something higher, while the masses consoled themselves with the reflection that every man could not be a monk. But in spite of all Christianity still continued to act as a leaven. In public and civil life, in the administration of justice and the habits of the people, the Christian spirit, theoretically at least, and often also practically, was still everywhere present. The requirements of humanity and the rights of man were recognised; slavery was more and more restricted; gladiatorial shows and immoral exhibitions were abolished; the limits of proud exclusive nationality were broken through; polygamy was never tolerated, and the sanctity of marriage was insisted upon, the female sex obtained its long unacknowledged rights; benevolent institutions (§ 60, 4) flourished; and the inveterate vices of ancient paganism could at least be no longer regarded as the sound, legitimate and natural conditions and expressions of civil and social life. Even the pagan, who, adopting the profession of Christianity, remained pagan at heart, was obliged at least to submit himself to the forms and requirements of the church, to its discipline and morals. The shady side of this period is glaring enough, but a bright side and noble personages of deep piety, moral earnestness, resolute denial of self and the world, are certainly not wanting.

§ 61.1. Church Discipline.—The Penitential Discipline of the 3rd century (§ 39, 2) dealt only with public offences which had become common scandal. But even those who were burdened in conscience with heavy but hidden sins and thereby felt themselves excluded from church fellowship, were advised to seek deliverance from this secret excommunication by public confession of sin before the church in the form of exomologesis and to submit to whatever humiliation the church should lay upon them. In presence of this hard and unreasonable demand the need must have soon become apparent of a secret and private tribunal in place of this public one, which when once introduced would soon drive the earlier out of the field. The first step in this direction was taken in the end of the 3rd and beginning of the 4th century in the Eastern church by the appointment of a special penitential presbytery (πρεσβ. ἐπὶ τῆς μετανοίας), who under an oath of secresy heard the confession of such sinners and laid upon them the proper penances. But when in A.D. 391, a female penitent, a married lady of good family in Constantinople, having committed adultery in the church with a deacon during her time of penance, confessed this sin also to a priestly confessor and so brought about the excommunication of the guilty deacon, the Patriarch Nectarius was obliged on account of the popular feeling excited to again abolish the whole institution and to leave to the consciences of such sinners themselves the question of partaking in the sacraments. But it was evident that this could not exclude pastoral advice and guidance by the clergy. In the West, notwithstanding the confident assertions of Socrates, we never meet with a penitential priest expressly appointed to such duties. Jerome on Matt. xvi. 19 calls it pharisaic pride in a bishop or presbyter to arrogate the judicial function of forgiving sins, “cum apud Deum non sententia sacerdotum, sed reorum vita quæratur.” Augustine distinguishes three kinds of penance corresponding to the three classes in the congregation.

1. The penance of catechumens; all their previous sins are atoned for by baptism.

2. The penance of believers whose venial sins (peccata venialia) occasioned by the universal sinfulness of human nature obtain forgiveness in daily prayer.

3. The penance of those who on account of serious actual breaches of the decalogue (peccata gravia s. mortalia) are punished with ecclesiastical excommunication.

In estimating the church discipline to be exacted of this last class of offenders he lays down the principle that the degree of its publicity is to be measured in accordance with the degree of publicity of the offence committed, and according to the magnitude of the scandal which it has occasioned. And when some Italian bishops demanded “in pœnitentia, quæ a fidelibus postulatur” the reading before the congregation of a written confession of their sin, Leo the Great forbade this extreme practice, as unevangelical as it was unreasonable, declaring that it was quite enough to confess the sin first to God and then in secret confession to the priest. But when Leo added the assertion: divina bonitate ordinatum esse, ut indulgentia Dei nisi supplicationibus sacerdotum nequeat obtineri; et salvatorem ipsum, qui hane præpositis ecclesiæ tradidit potestatem, ut et confidentibus actionem pœnitentiæ durent, et eosdem salubri satisfactione purgatos ad communionem sacramentorum per januam reconciliationis admitterent, huic utique operi incessabiliter intervenire,—we have here the first foundation laid of the present Roman Catholic doctrine of penance. But this confessio secreta is still something very different from the later so-called Auricular Confession. Leo’s ordinance treats only of the confession of grave offences, which, if openly committed or proclaimed, would have called forth punishment from the judicial tribunal; quibus, says Leo, possint legum constitutione percelli. But still more important is the distinction that even Leo does not confer upon the priest absolute power of forgiving sin as God’s vicegerent, but only allows him to officiate as “peccator pro delictis pœnitentium.” Besides Leo’s view of the unconditional necessity of confession in order to obtain divine forgiveness of heinous sins by no means gained universal acceptance in the church. The opinion that it was enough to confess sins to God alone, and that confession to a priest, while helpful and wholesome, was not absolutely necessary, was universally prevalent in the East, where Chrysostom especially maintained it, and even in the West down to the time of Gratian, A.D. 1150, and Petrus [Peter] Lombardus [Lombard], † A.D. 1164, had numerous and important representatives among the teachers of the church (§ 104, 4). An important step onwards on the path opened up by Leo was taken soon after him in the West when not merely actual sins but even sinful dispositions and desires, ambition, anger, pride, lust, etc., of which Joh. Cassianus enumerates eight as vitia principalia, as well as the sinful thoughts springing from them, were included in the province of secret confession. A system of confession as a regular and necessary preparation for observing the sacrament did not as yet exist.—The so-called Penitential books from the 6th century afforded a guide to determine the penances to be imposed upon the penitents in the form of fasts, prayers, almsgiving, etc., according to the degree of their guilt. The first Penitential book for the Greek church is ascribed to the Patriarch of Constantinople, Joh. the Faster or Jejunator, † A.D. 595, and is entitled: Ἀκολουθία καὶ τάξις ἐπὶ τῶν ἐξομολογουμένων.[183]—Continuation § 89, 6.

§ 61.2. Christian Marriage.—The ecclesiastical consecration of the marriage tie (§ 39, 1) performed after, as well as before, civil marriage by mutual consent before two secular witnesses, was made more solemn by being separated from the ordinary worship and celebrated at a special week-day service (missa pro sponsis), and a rich ritual grew up which gradually developed itself into an independent liturgy. Into this many bridal customs hitherto despised as heathenish were introduced, the wedding ring, veiling the bride, the crowning both betrothed parties with wreaths, bridal sashes, bridal torches, bridesmaids or παράνυμφοι. The granting of the wedding ceremony was regarded as an honour which would be refused in the case of marriages not approved by the church. But neither the refusal nor the neglect of the ceremony on the part of those newly married interfered with the validity of the marriage. Charlemagne was the first in the West and Leo VI. (§ 70, 2) was the first in the East, to make the church ceremony obligatory. Marriage between free and bond, which was regarded by the state as concubinage, was regarded by the church as perfectly valid. Blood relationship by consanguinity and affinity was regarded as hindrance to marriage; artificial relationship by adoption and spiritual relationship by baptismal and confirmational sponsorship (§ 58, 1) were also hindrances. Marriage between brothers’ or sisters’ children was pronounced unbecoming by Augustine. Gregory the Great forbade it on physiological grounds, and permitted marriage only in the third or fourth degree of relationship. With gradually increasing strictness the prohibition was extended even to the seventh degree, but finally was fixed at the fourth by Innocent III. in A.D. 1215. In direct opposition to the Roman law of hereditary claims which established the degree of relationship according to the number of actual descendants, so that father and son were counted as related in the first degree to one another, brothers and sisters as in the second degree, uncle and niece or nephew as in the third, brothers’ or sisters’ children as in the fourth degree, the canon law on hindrances to marriage begins this reckoning after the withdrawal of the common parents, so that brother and sister are related in the first degree, uncle and niece in the second, etc. Several Councils of the 4th century wished to make the contracting of a second marriage occasion of church discipline; subsequently this demand was abandoned. Many canonists, however, contest even yet the legitimacy of a third marriage, and a fourth was almost universally admitted to be sinful and unallowable (§ 67, 2). The contracting of mixed marriages, with heathens, Jews or heretics, demanded penance, and was strictly forbidden by the second Trullan Council in A.D. 692. Only adultery was usually admitted as affording ground for divorce; and also for the most part, unnatural vice, murder and apostasy. The Council at Mileve in Africa in A.D. 416 for the first time forbade divorced persons marrying again, even the innocent party, and Pope Innocent I. † A.D. 417, made this prohibition applicable universally.—Continuation § 89, 4.

§ 61.3. Sickness, Death and Burial.—The anointing the sick with oil (Mk. vi. 13; Jas. v. 14) as means of charismatic bodily healing is met with down to the 5th century. Innocent I. put it in a decretal of A.D. 416, for the first time as a sacrament for the dispensation of spiritual blessing to the sick. But many centuries passed before the anointing of the sick was generally observed as the sacrament of Extreme Unction (§ 70, 2; 104, 5). On the other hand, the Areopagite (§ 47, 11) reckoned the anointing of the dead a sacrament. The closing of the eyes implied that death was a sleep with the hope of an awakening in the resurrection. The fraternal kiss sealed the communion of Christians even beyond the grave. The putting garlands on the corpse as expressive of victory still met with opposition. Several Synods found it necessary to forbid the absurdity of squeezing the consecrated elements into the lips of the dead or laying them in the coffin. Passionate lamentation, rending of garments, wearing sackcloth and ashes, hired mourners, cypress branches, etc., were regarded as despairing, heathenish customs. So too festivals of the dead by night were condemned, while on the contrary funeral processions by day, with torches, lamps, palm and olive branches, were in high repute. Julian and the Vandals prohibited them. In the 4th century the celebration of the Agape and Supper at the grave was still frequent. In their place afterwards we find mourning feasts, but these, on account of their being abused, were disallowed by the church.

§ 61.4. Purgatory and Masses for Souls.—The connection of the custom already referred to by Tertullian of not only praying in family worship for members of the family that had fallen asleep, but also by oblations of sacramental elements on the memorial days of the dead (Oblationes pro defunctis) of giving to the intercessions at the Supper in public worship a special direction to them, with the doctrine of Purgatory (Ignis purgatorius) which had developed itself in the West since the 5th century, gave rise to the institution of masses for souls (§ 58, 3). The idea of a place of punishment between death and the resurrection, in which the venial sins (peccata venialia) of believers must be atoned for, was quite unknown to the whole ancient church down to the age of Augustine and to the Greek church till even after his day (§ 67, 6). Mention is made indeed even by Origen of a future πῦρ καθάρσιον or καθαρτικόν; but he means by it a mere spiritual burning, from which even a Paul and a Peter were not exempted. In the West it was first Augustine who deduced from Matt. xii. 32, that even in the hereafter forgiveness of sins is possible, holding in accordance with 1 Cor. iii. 13-15 that it is not incredible, but yet always questionable, that many believers who took over with them into the hereafter a sinful connection with their earthly past life, might there he purified by an “ignis purgatorius” of longer or shorter duration as the continuation and completion of the earthly “ignis tribulationis,” fiery trial, from the earthly dross still adhering to them, and so might be saved. With greater confidence Cæsarius of Arles teaches that believers who during their earthly life had neglected to atone for their minor offences by almsgiving and other good works, must be purified by a lingering fire in the next world, in order to win admission into eternal blessedness. Finally, Gregory the Great raised this idea into an established dogma of the Western church, while he, at the same time, taught that by the intercession of the living for the dead, and especially by the sacrifices of the mass offered for them their purgatorial pains would be moderated and curtailed. He too referred to Matt. xii. and 1 Cor. iii. The reference to 2 Maccabees xii. 41-46 belongs to a later period.—Continuation, § 106, 2, 3.

§ 62. HERETICAL REFORMERS.

During the 4th century a spirit of opposition to the dominant ecclesiastical system was awakened, but as it manifested itself in isolated forms, it had no abiding result and was soon stamped out. This spirit showed itself in various attempts which passed beyond what evangelical principles could vindicate. It directed its attacks partly against the secularization of the church, branching out often into wild fanaticism and rigorism, and partly against superstition and externalism. Disgusted with the interminable theological controversies and heresy huntings of that age, many came to regard the distinction between orthodoxy and heresy as a matter of indifference so far as religion is concerned, and to look for the core and essence of Christianity not so much in doctrine as in morals.

§ 62.1. Audians and Apostolics.—As fanatical opponents of the secularizing of the church, besides the Montanists (§ 40, 1) and the Novatians (§ 41, 3) still surviving as isolated communities down to the 5th century, we meet during the 4th century with the Donatists (§ 63, 1), the Audians and the Apostolics. The sect of the Audians was founded about A.D. 340 by a layman, a monk, Audius or Udo from Mesopotamia. Having been challenged for his crude anthropomorphic views, in support of which he referred to Gen. i. 26 and other passages, he allowed himself to be chosen and ordained bishop over his adherents. Placed thus in a directly hostile relation to the Catholic church, they accused the church of most arrant worldliness and degeneracy, called for a return to apostolic poverty and avoided all communion with its members. They also rejected the Nicene canon on the observance of Easter and adopted the quartodeciman practice (§ 56, 3). On the motion of several Catholic bishops the emperor banished the founder of the sect to Scythia, where he laboured earnestly for the conversion of the Goths, founded also some bishoprics and monasteries with strict rules, and died in A.D. 372. The persecution of the Christians under Athanaric, in A.D. 370 (§ 76, 1), pressed sorely upon the Audians. Still remnants of them continued to exist down to the end of the 5th century.—The so-called Apostolics of Asia Minor in the 4th century went even further than the Audians. Of their origin nothing certain is known. They declared that the holding of private property and marriage are sinful, and unconditionally refused readmission to all excommunicated persons.

§ 62.2. Protests against Superstition and External Observances.—About the end of the 4th century lively protests were made against the superstitions and shallow externalism of the church. They were directed first of all to the worship of Mary, especially the now wide-spread belief in her perpetua virginitas as mother of Jesus (§ 57, 2). The first protesters against this doctrine that we meet with are the so-called Antidicomarianites in Arabia, whom Epiphanius sought to turn from their heresy by a doctrinal epistle incorporated in his history of heresies. In the West too there sprang up several opponents of this dogma of the church. One of the most prominent of these was a layman Helvidius in Rome in A.D. 380, a scholar of Auxentius, the Arian bishop of Milan. Then about A.D. 388 the Roman monk Jovinian opposed on substantial doctrinal grounds the prevailing notions about the merit of works and external observances, especially monasticism, asceticism, celibacy and fasting. And finally, Bonosus, bishop of Sardica, about A.D. 390, wrought in the same direction, though at a later period he seems to have given his adhesion to the Ebionite error that Jesus had been an ordinary man whom God adopted as His Son on account of His merit (Filius Dei adoptivus). At least his younger contemporary Marius Mercator describes him as an advocate of these views alongside of Paul of Samosata and Photinus. We also find many allusions during the 7th century to a sect of Bonosians teaching similar doctrines in Spain and Gaul, who are frequently associated with the Photinians. Even before Jovinian, Aërius, a presbyter of Sebaste in Armenia, about A.D. 360, entered his protest against the doctrine of the merit of external observances. He objected to prayer and oblations for the dead, would have no compulsory fasting, and no distinction of rank between bishops and presbyters. In this way he was brought into collision with his bishop Eustathius (§ 44, 3). Persecuted on all sides, his adherents betook themselves to the caves and forests. The two monks of Milan, Sarmatio and Barbatianus, about A.D. 396, were perhaps scholars of Jovinian, were at least of the same mind with him. Finally, Vigilantius, presbyter at Barcelona about A.D. 400, with passionate violence opposed the veneration of relics, the invocation of saints, the prevailing love of miracles, the vigil services, the celibacy of the clergy and the merit of outward observances.—The counterblast of the church was hot and violent. Epiphanius wrote against the Audians and Aërians; Ambrose against Bonosus and the followers of Jovinian; Jerome with unparalleled bitterness and passion against Helvidius, Jovinian and Vigilantius; Augustine with greater moderation discussed the views of Jovinian which in their starting point were related to his own soteriological views.[184]

§ 62.3. Protests against the Over-Estimation of Doctrine.—Even in the times of Athanasius a certain Rhetorius made his appearance with the assertion that all heretics had a right to their opinion, and Philastrius [Philaster] speaks of a sect of Rhetorians in Egypt who, perhaps with a reference to Phil. i. 18, set aside altogether the idea of heresy and placed the essence of orthodoxy in fidelity to convictions. The Gnosimachians were related to them in the depreciation of dogma, but went beyond them by wholly withdrawing themselves from the domain of dogmatics and occupying themselves exclusively with morals. They are put in the list of heretics by Joh. Damascenus. This sect had sprung up during the monophysite and monothelite controversies, and maintained that since God requires of a Christian nothing more than a righteous life (πράξεις καλάς), all striving after theoretical knowledge is useless and fruitless.

§ 63. SCHISMS.

The Novatian and the Alexandrian Meletian Schisms (§ 41, 3, 4) continued to rage down into our period. Then in consequence of the Arian controversy there arose among the orthodox three new schisms (§ 50, 8). Among them was a Roman schism, followed later by several others that grew out of double elections (§ 46, 4, 6, 8, 11). The most threatening of all the schisms of this period was the Donatist in North Africa. On the Johannite schism in Constantinople, see § 51, 3. Owing to various diversities in the development of doctrine (§ 50, 7), constitution (§ 46), worship (§ 56 ff.), and discipline (§ 61, 1), material was accumulating for the grand explosion that was to burst up the connection of East and West (§ 67). The imperial union attempts during the Monophysite controversy caused a thirty-five years’ schism between the two halves of the Christian world (§ 52, 5), and want of character in the Roman bishop Vigilius split off the West for half a century (§ 52, 6). The split between the East and West over the union with the Monothelite party (§ 52, 8) was soon indeed overcome. But soon thereafter the second Trullan Council at Constantinople, A.D. 692, which, as the continuation of the 5th and 6th œcumenical Councils (σύνοδος πενθέκτη, Concilium quinisextum), occupied itself exclusively with questions of constitution, worship, and discipline, which had not there been discussed, gave occasion to the later incurable and disastrous schism.

§ 63.1. The Donatist Schism, A.D. 311-415.—In North Africa, where echoes of the Montanist enthusiasm were still heard, many voluntarily and needlessly gave themselves up to martyrdom during the Diocletian persecution. The sensible bishop of Carthage Mensurius and his archdeacon Cæcilian [Cæcilius] opposed this fanaticism. Both had given up heretical books instead of the sacred books demanded of them. This was sufficient to make the opposite party denounce them as traditores. Mensurius died in A.D. 311, and his followers chose Cæcilian [Cæcilius] as his successor, and had him hastily ordained by bishop Felix of Aptunga, being sorely pressed by the machinations of the other party. The opposition, with a bigoted rich widow Lucilla at its head, denounced Felix as a traditor, and so treated his ordination as invalid. It put up a rival bishop in the person of the reader Majorinus, who soon got, in A.D. 313, a more powerful successor in Donatus, called by his own followers the Great. The schism spread from Carthage over all North Africa. The peasants, sorely oppressed by exorbitant taxes and heavy villeinage, took the side of the Donatists (Pars Donati). Constantine the Great at the very first declared himself against them. When they complained of this, the emperor convened for the purpose of special investigation a clerical commission at Rome in A.D. 313, under the presidency of the Roman bishop Melchiades, and then a great Western Synod at Arles in A.D. 314. Both decided against the Donatists. They appealed to the immediate decision of the emperor, who also heard the two parties at Milan, but decided in accordance with previous judgments in A.D. 316. Now followed severe measures, taking churches from them and banishing their bishops which powerfully excited and increased their fanaticism. Constantine resorted therefore to milder and more tolerant procedure, but in their fanatical zeal they repudiated all compromises. Under Constans the matter became still more formidable. Ascetics mad with enthusiasm, drawn from the very dregs of the people, who called themselves Milites Christi, Agonistici, swarmed as beggars through the country, Circumcelliones, roused the oppressed peasants to revolt, preached freedom and fraternity, forced masters to do the work of slaves, robbed, murdered, and burned. Political revolution was carried on under the cover of a religious movement. An imperial army put down the revolt, and an attempt was made in A.D. 348 to pacify the needy Donatists by imperial gold. But Donatus flung back the money with indignation, and the rebellion was renewed. A severe sentence was now passed upon the heads of the party, and all Donatist churches were closed or taken from them. Julian restored the churches and recalled the exiled bishops. He allowed the Donatists with impunity to take violent revenge upon the Catholics. Julian’s successor however again issued strict laws against the sectaries, and schisms arose among themselves. Toward the end of the 4th century bishop Optatus of Mileve opposed them in his treatise De Schismate Donatistarum Ll. VII. In A.D. 400 Augustine, bishop of Hippo Regius, began his unwearied attacks upon this sect. The mildest terms were offered to induce the Donatists to return to the church. Many of the more moderate took advantage of the opportunity; but this only made the others all the more bitter. They refused repeated invitations to a discussion, fearing Augustine’s masterly dialectic. Augustine, who at first maintained that force should not be used in matters of faith, was moved by the persistent stiffneckedness and senseless fanaticism of his opponents to change his opinion, and to confess that in order to restore such heretics to the church, to salvation, recourse must be had to violent compulsion (coge intrare, Lk. xiv. 23). A synod at Carthage in A.D. 405 called upon the Emperor Honorius to take proceedings against this stiffnecked sect. He did so by imposing fines, banishing their clergy, and taking their churches. Augustine renewed the challenge to a public disputation. The Donatists were at last compelled by the emperor to enter the lists. Thus came about the three days’ Collatio cum Donatistis of A.D. 411 at Carthage. There appeared 279 Donatist and 286 Catholic bishops. Petilian and Primian were the chief speakers on the side of the Donatists, Augustine and Aurelian of Carthage on the other. The imperial commissioner assigned the victory to the Catholics. In vain the Donatists appealed. In A.D. 414 the Emperor declared that they had forfeited all civil rights, and in A.D. 415 he threatened all who attended their meetings with death. The Vandals, who conquered Africa in A.D. 429, persecuted Catholics and Donatists alike, and a common need furthered their reconciliation and secured a good mutual understanding.—The Donatists started from the principle that no one who is excommunicated or deserves to be excommunicated is fit for the performance of any sacramental action. With the Novatians they demanded the absolute purity of the church, but admitted that repentance was a means for regaining church fellowship. They maintained that they were the pure and the Catholics were schismatics, who had nothing in common with Christ, whose administration of the sacraments was therefore invalid and useless, so that they even rebaptized those who had Catholic baptism. The partiality of the state for their opponents and confused blending of the ideas of the visible and invisible church led them to adopt the view that church and state, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world, had nothing in common with one another, and that the state should not interfere in religious matters.

§ 63.2. The Concilium Quinisextum, A.D. 692.—This Council claimed to be regarded as œcumenical and was recognised as such even by Pope Sergius I. The Greeks had not yet got over their vexation at the triumph which Rome had won at the last œcumenical Council (§ 52, 8). It thus happened that among the multitude of harmless decrees the following six were smuggled in which were in flat contradiction to the Roman practice.

1. In enumerating the sources of the canon law alone valid almost all the Latin Councils and Papal Decretals were omitted, and the whole 85 Canones Apostt. (§ 43, 4) included, whereas Rome had pronounced only the first 50 valid.

2. The Roman custom of enforcing celibacy on presbyters and bishops is condemned as unjustifiable and inhuman (§ 45, 2).

3. Fasting on the Saturdays of the Quadragesima is forbidden (§ 56, 4).

4. The 28th Canon of the Council of Chalcedon which makes the patriarch of Constantinople equal to the bishop of Rome is repeated and anew enforced (§ 46, 1, 7).

5. The Levitical prohibition against blood and things strangled is sanctioned as still binding upon Christians, although it had never been enforced by the Roman church.

6. Images of Christ in the shape of a lamb, which were very common in the West, were forbidden. The papal legates subscribed the decrees of the Council; but the Pope forbade their publication in all the churches of the West. Compare further § 46, 11.

VI. THE CHURCH OUTSIDE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.[185]

§ 64. MISSIONARY OPERATIONS IN THE EAST.

The real missionarizing church of this period was the Western (§ 75 ff.). It was pre-eminently fitted for this by its practical tendency and called to it by its intimate connection with the hordes of the migrating peoples. Examples of organized missionary activity in the East are rare. Yet other more occasional ways were opened for the spread of Christianity outside of the empire, by Christian fugitives and prisoners of war, political embassies and trade associations. Anchorets, monks and stylites, too, who settled on the borders of the empire or in deserts outside, by their extraordinary appearance made a powerful impression on the surrounding savage tribes. These streamed in in crowds, and those strange saints preached Christ to them by word and work.

§ 64.1. The Ethiopic-Abyssinian Church.[186]—About A.D. 316 a certain Meropius of Tyre on a voyage of discovery to the countries south of Egypt was murdered with his whole ship’s company. Only his two nephews Frumentius and Aedesius were spared. They won the favour of the Abyssinian king and became the tutors of the heir apparent, Aizanas. Frumentius was subsequently, in A.D. 438, ordained by Athanasius bishop of the country. Aizanas was baptised, the church spread rapidly from Abyssinia to Ethiopia and Numidia. A translation of the bible into the Geez dialect, the language of the country, is attributed to Frumentius. Closely connected with the Egyptian mother church, it fell with it into Monophysitism (§ 52, 7). In worship and discipline, besides much that is primitive, it has borrowed many things from Judaism, and retained many of the old habits of the country, e.g. observing the Sabbath alongside of the Sunday, forbidding certain meats, circumcision, covenanting. Their canon comprised 81 books: besides the biblical, there are 16 patristic writings of the Pre-Chalcedonian age.

§ 64.2. The Persian Church.—The church had taken root in Persia as early as the 3rd century. With the 4th century there came a sore time of bloody persecution, which was constantly fed partly by the fanatical Magians, partly by the almost incessant wars with the Christian Roman empire, which aroused suspicion of foreign sympathies hostile to the country. The first great and extensive persecution of the Christians broke out in A.D. 343 under Shapur or Sapores [Sapor] II. It lasted 35 years and during this dreadful time 16,000 of the clergy, monks and nuns were put to death, but the number of martyrs from the laity was far beyond reckoning. Only shortly before his death Shapur [Sapor] stopped the persecution and proclaimed universal religious toleration. During 40 years’ rest the Persian church attained to new vigour; but the fanaticism of Bishop Abdas of Susa who caused a fire-temple to be torn down in A.D. 418, occasioned a new persecution, which reached its height in A.D. 420 under Bahram or Baranes V. and was carried on for 30 years with the most fiendish ingenuity of cruel tortures. The generosity of a Christian bishop, Acacius of Amida in Mesopotamia, who by the sale of the church property redeemed a multitude of Persian prisoners of war and sent them to their homes, at last moved the king to stop the persecution. The Nestorians driven from the Roman empire found among the Persians protection and toleration, but were the occasion under king Firuz or Peroz of a new persecution of the Catholics, A.D. 465. In A.D. 498 the whole Persian church declared in favour of Nestorianism (§ 52, 3), and enjoyed forthwith undisturbed toleration, developed to an unexpected extent, retained its bloom for centuries, gave itself zealously to scientific studies in the seminaries at Nisibis, and undertook successfully mission work among the Asiatic tribes. The war with the Byzantines continued without interruption. Chosroes II. advanced victoriously as far as Chalcedon in A.D. 616 and persecuted with renewed cruelty the Catholic Christians of the conquered provinces. Finally the emperor Heraclius plucked up courage. By the utter rout of A.D. 628 the power of the Persians was broken (§ 57, 5), and in A.D. 651 the Khalifs overthrew the dynasty of the Sassanidæ.

§ 64.3. The Armenian Church.—There were flourishing Christian churches in Armenia so early as Tertullian’s time. The Arsacian ruler Tiridates III., from A.D. 286, was a violent persecutor of the Christians. During his reign, however, Gregory the Illuminator, the Apostle of Armenia, carried on his successful labours. He was the son of a Parthian prince, who, snatched when a child of two years’ old by his nurse from the midst of a massacre of his whole family, received in Cappadocia a Christian training. In A.D. 302 he succeeded in winning over to Christianity the king and the whole country. He left behind him the church which he thus founded in a most prosperous condition. His grandson Husig, his great grandson Nerses I. and his son Isaac the Great held possession of the patriarchal dignity and flourished even in the hard times, when Byzantines, Arsacides, and Sassanidæ fought for possession of the country. Mesrop, with the help of Isaac, whose successor he became in A.D. 440 (dying in A.D. 441), gave to his church a translation of the bible into their own tongue, for which he had to invent a national alphabet. Under his successor, the patriarch Joseph, the famous religious war with the Persian Sassanidæ broke out, who wished to lead back the Armenians to the doctrine of Zoroaster. In the fierce battle at the river Dechmud in A.D. 451 the holy league was defeated. But Armenia still maintained amid sore persecution its Christian confession. In A.D. 651 the overthrow of the Sassanidæ brought it under the rule of the Khalifs.—The Armenian church had vigorously and earnestly warded off Nestorianism, but willingly opened its arms to Monophysitism introduced from Byzantine Armenia. At a synod at Feyin, in A.D. 527, it condemned the Chalcedonian dogma.—Gregory the Illuminator had excited among the Armenians an exceedingly lively interest in culture and science, and when Mesrop gave them an independent system of writing, the golden age of Armenian literature dawned (the 5th century). Not only were many works of classical and patristic Greek and Syrian literature made the property of the Armenians through translations, but numerous writers built up a literature of their own. The history of the conversion of Armenia was written in the 4th century by Agathangelos, private secretary of the king. Whether this was composed in Greek or in Armenian is doubtful; both texts are still extant, evidently much interpolated with fabulous matter and also in many points conflicting with one another. In the 5th century Eznik in his “Overthrow of Heretics” addressed a vigorous polemic against pagans, Persians, Marcionites and Manichæans. Moses of Chorene, also a scholar of Mesrop, composed from the archives a history of Armenia, and Elisaeus described the Armeno-Persian religious war, in which, as secretary of the Armenian commander in chief, he had taken part. On the service done by the Mechitarists to the old Armenian literature, see § 164, 2.[187]

§ 64.4. The Iberians, in what is now called Georgia and Grusia, received Christianity about A.D. 326 through an Armenian female slave Nunia, whose prayer had healed many sick. The church then extended from Iberia to the Lazians in what is now Colchias and among the neighbouring Abasgians. In India Theophilus of Diu (an island of the Arabian Gulf?) found in the middle of the 4th century several isolated Christian communities. He was sent by his fellow-citizens as hostage to Constantinople and there was educated for the Arian priesthood. He then returned home and carried on a successful mission among the Indians. The relations of the Indian to the Persian church led to the former becoming affected with Nestorianism (§ 52, 3). Cosmas Indicopleustes (§ 48, 2) found in the 6th century three Christian churches still surviving in India. Theophilus also wrought in Arabia. He succeeded in converting the king of the Himyarite kingdom at Yemen. In the 6th century, however, a Jew Dhu-Nowas obtained for himself the sovereignty of Yemen and persecuted the Christians with unheard of barbarity. At last Eleesban king of Abyssinia interfered; the crowned Jew was slain, and from that time Yemen had Christian kings till the Persian Chosroes II. made it a Persian province in A.D. 616. Anchorets, monks and stylites wrought successfully among the Arab nomadic hordes.

§ 65. THE COUNTER-MISSION OF THE MOHAMMEDANS.[188]

Abu Al’ Kasem Mohammed from Mecca made his appearance as a prophet in A.D. 611, and founded a mixed religion of arid Monotheism and sensual Endæmonism drawn from Judaism, Christianity and Arabian paganism. His work first gained importance when driven from Mecca he fled to Medina (Hejira, 15th July, A.D. 622). In A.D. 630 he conquered Mecca, consecrated the old Heathen Kaaba as the chief temple of the new religion, Islam (hence Moslems), and composed the Coran, consisting of 114 suras, which had been collected by his father-in-law, Abu Bekr. At his death all Arabia had accepted his faith and his rule. As he made it the most sacred duty of his adherents to spread the new religion by the sword and had inspired them with a wild fanaticism, his successors snatched one province after another from the Roman empire and the Christian church. Within a few years, A.D. 633-651, they conquered all Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Persia, then, in A.D. 707, North Africa, and, in A.D. 711, Spain. Farther, however, they could not go for the present. Twice they unsuccessfully besieged Constantinople, A.D. 669-676, and A.D. 717-718, and, in A.D. 732, Charles Martel at Tours completely crushed all their hopes of extending further into the West. But the whole Asiatic church was already reduced by their oppressions to the most miserable condition, and three patriarchates, those of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, were forced to submit to their caprices. Amid manifold oppressions the Christians in those conquered lands were tolerated on the payment of a tax, but fear and an eye to worldly advantages led whole crowds of nominal Christians to profess Islam.

§ 65.1. The Fundamental Principle of Islam is an arid Monotheism. Abraham, Moses and Jesus are regarded as God-sent prophets. The miraculous birth of Jesus, by a virgin, is also accepted, and Mary is identified with Miriam the sister of Moses. The ascension of Christ is also received. Mohammed, the last and highest of all the prophets, of whom Moses and Christ prophesied, has restored to its original purity his doctrine, which had been corrupted by Jews and Christians. At the end of the days Christ will come again to conquer Antichrist and give universal sovereignty to Islam. Most conspicuous among the corruptions of the doctrine of Jesus is the dogma of the Trinity, which is without more ado pronounced Tritheism, and conceived of as including the mother of Jesus as the third person. So too the incarnation of God is regarded as a falsification. The doctrine of divine providence is strongly emphasized, but is contorted into the grossest fatalism. The Mussulman is in need of no atonement. Faith in the one God and His prophet Mohammed secure for him the divine favour, and his good works win for him the most abundant fulness of eternal blessedness, which consists in absolutely unrestricted sensual enjoyments. The constitution is theocratic; the prophet and his successors the Khalifs are God’s vicegerents on earth. Worship is restricted to prayers, fastings and washings. The Sunna or tradition of oral utterances of the prophet is acknowledged as a second principal source for Islam, alongside of the Coran. The opposition of the Shiites to the Sunnites is rooted in the non-recognition of the first three Khalifs and the prophet’s utterances only witnessed to by them. Mysticism was first fostered among the Ssufis. The Wechabites, who first appear in the 12th century, are the Puritans of Islam.

§ 65.2. The Providential Place of Islam.—The service under Providence rendered by Mohammedanism which first attracts attention is the doom which it executed upon the debased church and state of the East. But it seems also to have had a positive task which must be sought mainly in its relation to heathenism. It regarded the abolition of idolatry as its principal task. Neither the prophet nor his successors gave any toleration to paganism. Islam converted a mass of savage races in Asia and Africa from the most senseless and immoral idolatries to the worship of the one God, and raised them to a certain stage of culture and morality to which they could never have risen of themselves. But also upon yet another side, though only in a passing way, it has served a providential purpose, in spurring on mediæval Christianity by its example of devotion to scientific pursuits. Syncretic, as its religious and intellectual life originally was, during its flourishing period from A.D. 750, under the brilliant dynasty of the Abassidean Khalifs at Bagdad in Asia, and from A.D. 756 (comp. § 81) under the no less brilliant dynasty of the Ommaiadean Khalifs at Cordova in Spain, driven out by the Abassidæ from Damascus, it readily appropriated the elements of culture which the classical literature of the ancient Greeks afforded it (§ 42, 4), and with youthful enthusiasm its scholars for centuries on this foundation kept alive and advanced scientific studies—philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, natural science, medicine, geography, history—and by their appropriation of those researches the Latin Middle Ages reached to the height of their scientific culture (§ 103, 1). But also the reawakening of classical studies in the Byzantine Middle Ages (§ 68, 1), which is of still more importance for the West (§ 120, 1), is preeminently due to the impetus given by the scientific enthusiasm of the Moslems of Bagdad, who shamed the Greeks into the study of their own literature. With the overthrow of those two dynasties, the culture period of the Moslems closed suddenly and for ever, but not until it had accomplished its task for the Christian world.[189]

THIRD SECTION.

HISTORY OF THE GRÆCO-BYZANTINE CHURCH IN THE 8TH-15TH CENTURIES (A.D. 692-1453).

I. Developments of the Greek Church in Combination with the Western.

§ 66. ICONOCLASM OF THE BYZANTINE CHURCH (A.D. 726-842).[190]

The worship of images (§ 57, 4) had reached its climax in the East in the beginning of the 8th century. Even the most zealous defenders of images had to admit that there had been exaggerations and abuses. Some, e.g., had taken images as their godfathers, scraped paint off them to mix in the communion wine, laid the consecrated bread first on the images so as to receive the body of the Lord from their hands, etc. A powerful Byzantine ruler, who was opposed to image worship from personal dislike as well as on political grounds, applied the whole strength of his energetic will to the uprooting of this superstition. Thus arose a struggle that lasted more than a hundred years between the enemies of images (εἰκονοκλάσται) and the friends of images (εἰκονολάτραι), in which there stood, on the one side, the emperor and the army, on the other, the monks and the people. Twice it seemed as if image worship had been completely and for ever stamped out; but on both occasions a royal lady secured its restoration. In practice indeed the Roman church remained behind the Greek, but in theory they were agreed, and in the struggle it gave the whole weight of its authority to the friends of images. On the part taken by the Frankish church, see § 92, 1.

§ 66.1. Leo III., the Isaurian, A.D. 717-741.—Leo, who was one of the most powerful of the Byzantine emperors, after the attack of the Saracens on Constantinople, in A.D. 718, had been successfully repelled, felt himself obliged to take other measures against the aggressions of Islam. In the worship of images abhorred by Jews and Moslems he perceived the greatest obstacle to their conversion, and, being personally averse to image worship, he issued an edict, in A.D. 726, which first ordered the images to be placed higher in the churches that it might be impossible for the people to kiss them. But the peaceable overcoming of this deeply rooted form of devotion was frustrated by the unconquerable firmness of the ninety-year old patriarch Germanus in Constantinople, as well as by the opposition of the people and the monks. The greatest dogmatist of this age, Joh. Damascenus, who was secured from the rage of the emperor in Palestine under Saracen rule, issued three spirited tracts in defence of the images. A certain Cosmas took advantage of a popular rising in the Cyclades, had himself proclaimed emperor and went with a fleet against Constantinople. But Leo conquered and had him executed, and now in a second edict of A.D. 730 ordered all images to be removed from the churches. Now began a war against images by military force, which went to great excess in fanatical violence. Repeated popular tumults were quelled in blood. Only in Rome and North Italy did the powerful arm of the emperor make no impression. Pope Gregory II., A.D. 715-731, treated him in his letters like a stupid, ill-mannered school-boy. In proportion as the bitterness against the emperor increased enthusiasm for the pope increased, and gave expression to itself in the most vehement revolts against the imperial Council. A great part of the exarchate (§ 46, 9) surrendered voluntarily to the Longobards and so much of it in the north as remained with the emperor proved more obedient to the pope than to the sovereign. Gregory III., A.D. 731-741, at a Synod in Rome in A.D. 731 excommunicated all enemies of images. The emperor fitted out a powerful fleet to chastise him, but a storm broke it up. He now deprived the pope of all his revenues from Southern Italy, severed Illyria (§ 46, 5) in A.D. 732 from the papal chair and gave it to the patriarch of Constantinople, but in doing so he cut the last cord that bound the Roman chair to the interests of the Byzantine Court (§ 82, 1).

§ 66.2. Constantine V. A.D. 741-775.—To the son and successor of Leo the monks gave the unsavoury names of Copronymus and Caballinus in token of their hatred, the latter on account of his love of horses, the former because it was said that at his baptism he had defiled the water. He was like his father a powerful ruler and soldier, and in the battle against images yet more reckless and determined. He conquered his brother-in-law who had rebelled with the aid of the friends of the images, and caused him to be cruelly treated and blinded. As popular tumults still continued, he thought to get ecclesiastical sanction for his principles from an œcumenical Council. About 350 bishops assembled in Constantinople, A.D. 754. But, as the chair of Constantinople had just become vacant, while Rome, which had excommunicated the enemies of images, refused to answer the summons, and Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem were under Saracen rule, there was not a single patriarch present at the Synod. The Council excommunicated all who made images of Christ, for it declared that the Supper was the only true image of Christ, and condemned every kind of veneration of images. These decrees were now relentlessly carried out with savage violence. Thousands of monks were scourged, imprisoned, banished, chased through the circus with nuns in their arms for the sport of the people, or forced into marriage, many had their eyes gouged out, or had their nose or ears cut off, and the monasteries were turned into barracks or stables. Even in private houses no image of a saint was any longer to be seen. From Rome Stephen II. protested against the decisions of the Council, and Stephen III. from a Lateran Synod of A.D. 769 thundered a fearful anathema against the enemies of images. But in the Byzantine empire monkery and image worship were well nigh extinguished.

§ 66.3. Leo IV., Chazarus, A.D. 775-780.—The son of Constantine was of the same mind with his father, but wanted his energy. His wife Irene was an eager friend of the images. When the emperor discovered this, he began to take active measures, but his suspiciously sudden death put a stop to operations. Irene now used the freedom which the minority of her son Constantine VI. afforded her for the introduction of image worship. She called a new Council at Constantinople in A.D. 786, which also Hadrian I. of Rome attended, while the other patriarchs, being under Saracen rule, took no part in it. But the imperial guard attacked the place where they were sitting, and broke up the Council. Irene now arranged for the Seventh Œcumenical Council at Nicæa, A.D. 787. The eighth and last session was held in the imperial palace at Constantinople, after the guards had been withdrawn from the city and disarmed. The Council annulled the decisions of A.D. 754, and sanctioned image worship for it allowed the bowing and prostration before the images (τιμητικὴ προσκύνησις) as a token of the reverence which was due to the original, and declared that this in no way interfered with that worship (λατρεία) which was due to God alone.[191]

§ 66.4. The next emperors were friendly to image worship, but the victory had departed from their standards. Then the army, which had always been hostile to images, proclaimed Leo V., the Armenian, A.D. 813-820, emperor, an avowed opponent of images. He proceeded very cautiously, but the soldiers set aside his prudence and launched out into violent raids against images. At the head of the patrons of images was Theodorus Studita, abbot of the monastery of Studion (§ 44, 2), a man of unfeigned piety and unfaltering decision of character, the most acute apologist of image worship, who had even in exile been eagerly promoting the interests of his party. He died in A.D. 826. Leo lost his life at the hand of conspirators. His successor, Michael II., Balbus, A.D. 820-829, allowed at least that images should be reverenced in private. His son Theophilus, A.D. 829-842, on the other hand, made it the business of his life to root out entirely every trace of image worship. But his wife Theodora, who after his death conducted the government as regent, had it formally reintroduced by a Synod at Constantinople in A.D. 842. Since then all opposition to it has ceased in the Greek church, and the day of the Synodal decision, 19th February, was appointed a standing festival of orthodoxy.

§ 67. DIVISION BETWEEN GREEK AND ROMAN CHURCHES AND ATTEMPTS AT UNION, A.D. 857-1453.[192]

The second Trullan Council in A.D. 692 had given the first occasion to the great schism which rent the Christian world into two halves (§ 63, 2); Photius gave it a doctrinal basis in A.D. 867; and Michael Cærularius in A.D. 1053 completed its development. The increasing need of the Byzantine government drove it to make repeated attempts at reconciliation, but these either were never concluded or the union, if at all completed, proved a mere paper union. The Sisyphus labour of union efforts ended only with the overthrow of the Byzantine empire in A.D. 1453. The three stages referred to—the early misunderstandings, the avowed doctrinal divergence, and the final decisive separation—as well as the persistent rejection of attempts at reunion, were not wholly owing to the importance of ceremonial differences. After as well as before there had been free church communion between them. It was not owing to the importance of the almost solitary point of doctrinal difference between them, in reference to the filioque (§ 50, 7), where if there had been good will a common understanding might easily have been won. It was really the papal claims to the primacy to which the Greeks absolutely refused to submit.

§ 67.1. Foundation of the Schism, A.D. 867.—During the minority of the emperor Michael III., son of Theodora (§ 66, 4), surnamed the Drunkard, his uncle Bardas, Theodora’s brother, directed the government. Ignatius, patriarch of Constantinople at that time, himself descended from the imperial family, lashed severely the godless, vicious life of the court, and in A.D. 857 kept back from the communion the all-powerful Bardas, who lived in incestuous intercourse with his own daughter-in-law. He was then deposed and banished. Photius, the most learned man of his age, previously commander of the imperial bodyguard, was raised to the vacant chair, and inherited the hatred of all the friends of Ignatius. He made proposals of agreement which were proudly and scornfully rejected. He then held a Synod in A.D. 859, which confirmed the deposition of Ignatius and excommunicated him. But nothing in the world could make his party abandon his claims. Now Photius wished to be able to lay in the scales the Roman bishop’s approval of his questionable proceedings. He therefore laid an account of matters highly favourable to himself before Pope Nicholas I., and sought his brotherly love and intercessions. The pope answered that he must first examine the whole affair. His two legates, Rhodoald of Porto and Zacharias of Anagni, were bribed and at a Council at Constantinople in A.D. 861 gave their consent to the deposition of Ignatius. Nicholas, however, had other reporters. He excommunicated his own legates and pronounced Ignatius the lawful patriarch. Bitterness of feeling reached its height in Constantinople, when soon thereafter the Bulgarians broke their connection with the Byzantine mother church and submitted to the pope (§ 73, 3). Photius now by an Encyclica of A.D. 866 called the patriarchs of the East to a Council at Constantinople, and charged the Roman church with the most extreme heresies; that it enjoined fasting on Saturday (§ 56, 1), allowed milk, butter and cheese to be eaten during the first week of the Quadragesima (§ 56, 7), did not acknowledge married priests (§ 45, 2), did not prohibit the clergy from shaving the beard (§ 45, 1), pronounced anointing by a presbyter invalid (§ 35, 4), but above all, that by the addition of the filioque (§ 50, 7) it had falsified the creed, recognising thus two principles and so falling back into dualism. With such heresies too the pope had now infected the Bulgarians. The meeting of the Council took place in A.D. 867. Three monks, tutored by Photius, represented the patriarchs under Saracen rule. Excommunication and deposition were hurled against the pope, and this sentence was communicated to the Western churches. The pope was evidently alarmed. He justified himself before the Frankish clergy and insisted that they should answer the charges of the Greeks in a scholarly reply. This was done by several, most ably by Ratramnus, monk at Corbie. But during that year, A.D. 867, the emperor Michael was murdered. His murderer and successor Basil the Macedonian undertook the patronage of the party of Ignatius, and asked of Pope Hadrian II. a new investigation and decision. A Synod at Constantinople, A.D. 869, counted by the Latins the 8th œcumenical, condemned Photius and restored Ignatius. The deciding about the Bulgarians, however, was not committed to the Council but to the reputed representatives of the Saracen patriarchs as impartial umpires. They naturally decided in favour of the Byzantine patriarch. In vain the legates remonstrated. Photius in other respects under misfortune displays a character worthy of our esteem. For several years he languished without company, without books, under the strictest monastic rules. Yet he reconciled himself to Ignatius. Basil entrusted him with the education of his children, and on the death of Ignatius in A.D. 878, restored him to the patriarchate. But still the ban of an œcumenical Council lay upon him. Only a new œcumenical Council could vindicate him. John VIII. agreed to this against the remonstrances of the Bulgarians. But at the ninth Council at Constantinople, A.D. 879, the eighth according to the Greeks, the papal legates were completely duped. There was no mention of the Bulgarians, the Council of A.D. 869 was repudiated, and every one excommunicated who dared add anything to the creed. The pope afterwards indeed launched an anathema against the patriarch, his Council, and his followers. The succeeding emperor, Leo the Philosopher, A.D. 886-911, again deposed Photius in A.D. 886, but only that he might put an imperial prince in his place. Photius died in monastic exile in A.D. 891.

§ 67.2. Leo VI., the Philosopher, A.D. 886-911.—This emperor was three times married without having any children. He married the fourth only when he had assured himself that she would not be barren. The patriarch Nicolaus [Nicolas] Mysticus refused (§ 61, 2) to celebrate the marriage and was deposed. A Synod at Constantinople in A.D. 906, attended by the legates of Pope Sergius III., approved the marriage and the deposition. But on his deathbed Leo repented of his violence. His brother and successor Alexander restored the patriarch Nicolas, and Pope John X. attended a Synod at Constantinople in A.D. 920, which condemned the Council of A.D. 906, and pronounced a fourth marriage absolutely unallowable, but showed no inclination to make any concessions to the pope. New negociations were begun by the emperor Basil II. In consideration of a large sum of money the venal pope John XIX. was willing to acknowledge the Byzantines as œcumenical patriarchs of the East, and to resign all claims of the chair of Peter upon the Eastern church. But the affair became known before it was concluded. The removal of the new Judas was loudly demanded throughout the West, and the pope was compelled to break off his negociations.

§ 67.3. Completion of the Schism, A.D. 1054.—Though so many anathemas had been flung at Rome by Byzantium and at Byzantium by Rome, they had hitherto been directed only against the persons and their followers, not against the respective churches as such. This defect was now to be supplied. The emperor Constantine Monómachus sought the papal friendship which he thought necessary to the success of his warlike undertakings. But the patriarch Michael Cærularius frustrated his efforts. In company with the Metropolitan of the Bulgarians, Leo of Achrida, he addressed in A.D. 1053 an epistle to bishop John of Trani in Apulia, in which he charged the Latins with the worst heresies, and adjured the Western bishops to separate from them. To the heresies already enumerated by Photius, he added certain others; the use of blood and things strangled, the withdrawal of the Hallelujah during the fast season, and above all the use of unleavened bread in the Supper (§ 58, 4), on account of which he invented for the heretics the name of Azymites. This letter fell into the hands of Cardinal Humbert, who translated it and laid it before pope Leo IX. A violent correspondence followed. The emperor offered to do anything to restore peace. At his request the pope sent three legates to Constantinople, among them the occasion of the strife, Humbert (§ 101, 2), and Cardinal Frederick of Lothringen, afterwards pope Stephen IX. (§ 96, 6). These fanned the flame, instead of quenching it. Imperial pressure indeed brought the abbot of Studion, Nicetas Pectoratus to burn his controversial treatise before the legates, but no threat nor violence could move to submission the patriarchs, on whose side were the people and the clergy. The legates finally laid a formal decree of excommunication on the altar of the church of Sophia, which Michael together with the other Eastern patriarchs solemnly returned, A.D. 1054.

§ 67.4. Attempts at Reunion.—The crusades increased the breach instead of healing it. Many negociations were begun but none of them came to much. At a Synod at Bari in Naples, in A.D. 1098, Anselm of Canterbury (§ 101, 1), who then lived as a fugitive in Italy, proved to the Greeks there present the correctness of the Latin doctrine of the Procession of the Holy Spirit. In A.D. 1113, Petrus [Peter] Chrysologus, Archbishop of Milan, vindicated it in a complete discourse before the emperor at Constantinople. And in A.D. 1135, Anselm of Havelberg, who went to Constantinople as ambassador for Lothair II., disputed with the Archbishop Nicetas of Nicomedia, and afterwards at the command of the pope wrote down the disputation with creditable faithfulness. The hatred and abhorrence of the Greeks reached its climax on the erection of the Latin empire at Constantinople, A.D. 1204-1261 (comp. § 94, 4). Nevertheless Michael Palæologus, A.D. 1260-1282, who brought this dynasty to an end, strove on political grounds in every way possible to overcome this ecclesiastical schism. The patriarch Joseph of Constantinople and his librarian, the celebrated Joannes Beccus, stubbornly withstood him. The latter indeed in imprisonment became convinced that the differences were unessential and that a union was possible. This change of mind secured for him the patriarch’s chair. Meanwhile the negotiations of the emperor with the pope, Gregory X., in which he acknowledged the Roman chair to be the highest court of appeal in doctrinal controversies, were brought to a point in the œcumenical Council at Lyons, A.D. 1274, reckoned by the Latins the fourteenth. The imperial legates here acknowledged the primacy of the pope and subscribed a Roman creed, while to them was granted liberty to use their creed without the addition and to practise their peculiar ecclesiastical customs. Beccus vindicated this union in several treatises. But a change of dynasty overthrew him in A.D. 1283. Joseph was restored and the union of Lyons was broken up leaving no trace behind.

§ 67.5. The advance of the Turks made it absolutely necessary for the East Roman emperors to secure the support of the West by reconciling and uniting themselves with the papacy. But the powerful party of the monks, supported by popular prejudice against the proposal, thwarted the imperial wishes on all sides. The patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem too were zealous opponents, not only animated by the old bitterness toward their more prosperous rivals on the chair of Peter, but also influenced against the views of the emperor by the policy of their Saracen rulers. The emperor Andronicus III. Palæologus won to his side the abbot Barlaam of Constantinople, hitherto, though born in Calabria and there educated in the Roman Catholic faith, a zealous opponent of the Western doctrine. Barlaam went at the head of an imperial embassy to Avignon where the pope at that time, Benedict XIII., resided, A.D. 1339. Negotiations, however, broke down through the obstinacy of the pope, who demanded of the Greeks above all unconditional submission in doctrine and constitution, and also showed not once any wish for renewing the conference.—On Barlaam, comp. § 69, 2.—The political difficulties of the emperor, however, continually increased, and so Joannes V. Palæologus took further steps. He himself in A.D. 1369 in Rome passed over to the Latin church, but neither did he get his people to follow him, nor did pope Urban V. get the Western princes to give help against the Turks.

§ 67.6. The union attempts of Joannes VII. Palæologus had more appearance of success. The emperor had won over the patriarch Joseph of Constantinople, as well as the clever and highly cultured archbishop Bessarion of Nicæa, and went personally in company with the latter and many bishops, in A.D. 1438, to the papal Council at Ferrara (§ 110, 8), where the pope, Eugenius IV., fearing lest the Greeks might join the reformatory Council at Basel, showed himself very gracious. The Council, nominally on account of the outbreak of a plague at Ferrara was transferred to Florence, and here the union was actually consummated in A.D. 1439. The primacy of the pope was acknowledged, though not altogether without dubiety of expression, the ritual differences as well as the priestly marriages of the Greeks tolerated, the doctrinal difference reduced to a misunderstanding and the orthodoxy of both churches maintained. In the Latin text of the decree referred to the pope was acknowledged as “Successor of Peter, the chief of the Apostles, and the vicar of Christ,” as “head of the whole Church, and father and teacher of all Christians, to whom plenary power was given by our Lord Jesus Christ to feed, rule, and govern the universal Church”—yet with the significant addition “in such a way as it is set forth in the œcumenical Councils and in the sacred Canons,” by which certainly the Greeks thought only of the Canons of Nicæa and Chalcedon referred to in § 46, 1, but the Latins mainly of the Pseudo-Decretals of § 87, 2; and thus it happens that in most of the Greek texts the propositions that define the universal primacy of the pope are either wanting, or essentially modified. The first place after the pope is given to the patriarch of Constantinople. In regard to the doctrine of the Procession of the Holy Spirit it was admitted that the Greek formula “ex Patre per Filium” was essentially the same as the Latin “ex Patre Filioque,” and by the definition “quod Sp. S. ex P. simul et F. et ex utroque æternaliter tanquam ab uno principio et unica spiratione procedit,” the latter was saved from the charge of dualism. A new difference, however, came to light in reference to Purgatory (§ 61, 4). The intercessions of the living and the presenting of masses for the dead were allowed by the Greeks as helping to secure the forgiveness of their still unatoned for venial sins, but they decidedly opposed the view that any of the dead could obtain this by his own temporary endurance of penal sufferings, and they would not hear of a fire as a means for its attainment. The Latins also taught that the unbaptized or those dying in mortal sin immediately pass into eternal condemnation and the perfectly pious immediately pass into God’s presence; while the Greeks maintained that this happens only at the last judgment. After long disputes, the Greeks, urged by their emperor, at last gave in on both points. Without much difficulty they accepted the seven sacraments of the Westerns (§ 104, 2). Thus was the union consummated amid embracings and jubilant shoutings. But in reality everything remained as of old. A powerful party at whose head stood archbishop Marcus Eugenicus of Ephesus, who had been shouted down at Florence, roused the whole East against the union that had been made on paper. The new patriarch Metrophanes, whom they repudiated, was ridiculed as Μητροφόνος, and in A.D. 1443 the rest of the Eastern patriarchs at a Synod at Jerusalem excommunicated all who maintained the union. When moreover the hoped for help from the West did not come even the union party lost their interest in it. Bessarion passed over to the Roman church, became cardinal and bishop of Tuscoli, and was as such on two occasions very near being made pope.[193]

§ 67.7. The Byzantine Christian empire went meanwhile rapidly to decay. On the 29th May, 1453, Constantinople was stormed by Mohammed II. The last emperor, Constantine XI., fell in a heroic struggle against tremendous odds. Mohammed conferred upon the patriarch Gennadius (§ 68, 5) the spiritual primacy and even temporal supremacy and full jurisdiction over the whole orthodox inhabitants of the empire, making him, however, answerable for their conduct. The other two patriarchates of Jerusalem and Antioch were in religious matters co-ordinate, in political matters subordinate, to him. For the executing of his spiritual power he had around him a Synod of twelve archbishops, of whom four as holders of the four divisions of the patriarchal diocese resided in Constantinople. The Synod chose the patriarchs and the Sultan confirmed the elections.—All union negociations were now at an end, for the Porte could only wish for the continuance of the schism. The enormous crowds of Greek refugees who sought protection in foreign lands, especially in Italy, Hungary, Galicia, Poland, Lithuania, either went directly over to the Roman Catholic church, or formed churches of their own under the name of United Greeks, purchasing liberty to observe their old church constitution and liturgy by accepting the Romish doctrine and the papal primacy.

II. Developments in the Eastern Church without the Co-operation of the Western.

§ 68. THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE AND LITERATURE.

The iconoclastic struggle, A.D. 726-842, was to some extent a war against art and science. At least no period in the history of the Greek Middle Ages is so poor in these as this. But about the middle of the 9th century Byzantine culture awoke from its deep torpor to a vigour of which no one would have thought it capable. What is still more wonderful, for six hundred years it maintained its position without a break at this elevation and prosecuted literary and scientific studies with a zeal that seemed to be quickened as its political condition became more and more desperate. What specially characterized the scholarly efforts of this time was the revival of classical studies which from the 6th century had been almost entirely neglected. Now all at once the decaying Greeks, who were threatened with intellectual as well as political bankruptcy, began to realize the rich heritage which their pagan forefathers had bequeathed them. They searched out these treasures amid the dust of libraries and applied to them a diligence, an enthusiasm, a pride, which fills us with astonishment. The Hellenic intellect had, indeed, long lost its genial creative power. The most ambitious effort of this age did not go beyond explanatory reproduction and scholarship. Upon theology, however, bound hard and fast in traditional propositions and Aristotelian formulæ, the revival of classical studies had relatively little influence, and where it did break the fetters it only gave entrance to a deluge of heathen Hellenic views that paganized Christianity.

§ 68.1. The shame caused by the zeal with which the Khalifs of the Abassidean line at the end of the 8th century applied themselves to the classical Greek literature seems to have given the first impulse to the Revival of Classical Studies. Behind this we must suppose there was the influence of the Byzantine rulers, unless they had lost all trace of national feeling. Bardas, the guardian and co-regent of Michael III. (§ 67, 1), if there is nothing else in him worthy of praise, has the credit of having been the first to lay anew the foundation of classical studies by establishing schools and paying their teachers. Basil the Macedonian, although himself no scholar, patronized and protected the sciences. Photius was the teacher of his children, and implanted in them a love of study which they transmitted to their children and children’s children. Leo, the Philosopher, the son, and Constantine Porphyrogenneta, the grandson, of Basil were the brilliant scholars in the Macedonian dynasty. Their place was taken by the line of the Comneni from A.D. 1057, which introduced a most brilliant period in the history of scientific studies. The princesses of this house, Eudocia and Anna Comnena, won high fame as gifted and learned authors. What Photius was for the age of the Macedonians, Psellus was for the age of the Comneni. Thessalonica vied with Constantinople as a new Athens in the brilliancy of its classical culture. The rudeness of the crusaders threatened during the sixty years’ interregnum of the Latin dynasty, to undo the work of the Comneni. But when in A.D. 1261 the Palæologi again obtained possession of Constantinople, learning rose once more to the front and won an ever increasing significance. And when the Turks took it in A.D. 1453 crowds of learned Greeks settled in Italy and spread their carefully fostered culture all over the West.

§ 68.2. Aristotle and Plato.—The revival of classical studies secured again a preference for Plato, who seemed more classical, at least more Hellenic, than Aristotle. But the ecclesiastical imprimatur that had been given to Aristotle, which had been formally expressed by Joh. Damascenus, formed a barrier against the overflowing of Platonism into the theological domain. The church’s distrust of Plato, on the other hand, drove many of the more enthusiastic friends of classical studies into a sort of Hellenic paganism. The eagerness of the struggle reached its height in the 15th century. Gemisthus Pletho moved heaven and earth to drive the hated usurper Aristotle from the throne of science. He called for unconditional surrender to the wisdom of the divine Plato and expressed the confident hope that soon the time would come when Christianity and Islam would be conquered and the religion of pure humanity would have universal sway. Of similar views were his numerous scholars, of whom the most distinguished was Bessarion (§ 67, 6). But Aristotle also had talented representatives in George of Trebizond and his scholars. Numerous representatives of the two schools settled in Italy and there carried on the conflict with increasing bitterness.—Continuation § 120, 1.

§ 68.3. Scholasticism and Mysticism (μάθησις and μυσταγωγία).—By the application of the Aristotelian method which Joh. Philoponus (§ 47, 11) had suggested, and Joh. Damascenus had carried out, the scientific treatment of doctrine in the Greek church had taken a form which in many respects resembles the scholasticism of the Latin Middle Ages, without being able, however, to reach its wealth, power, subtlety and depth. But alongside of the dialectic scholastic treatment of dogma there was found, especially in the quiet life of the monasteries, diligent fostering of the mysticism based upon the pseudo-Areopagite (§ 47, 11). Its chief representative was Nicolas Cabasilas. This mysticism never ran counter to the worship or doctrine of the church, but rather rendered to it unconditional acknowledgment, and was specially characterized by its decided preference for the symbolical, to which it is careful to attach a thoroughly sacramental significance. No reason existed for any hostile encounters between dialectic and mysticism.

§ 68.4. The Branches of Theological Science.—About the beginning of our period Joh. Damascenus collected the results of previous Dogmatic labours in the Greek church by the use of the dialectic forms of Aristotle into an organic system. His Ecdosis is the first and last complete dogmatic of the old Greek church. The manifold intercourse with the Latin church occasioned by the union efforts was not, however, without influence on the Greek church. In spite of the keenest opposition on debated questions, the far more thoroughly developed statement by Latin scholasticism of doctrines in regard to which both were agreed communicated itself to the Greek church, so that all unwittingly it adopted on many points the same bases and tendencies of belief. Polemics were constantly carried on with Nestorians, Monophysites and Monothelites, and fresh subjects of debate were found in the iconoclastic disputes, newly emerging dualistic sects, the Latin schismatics and the defenders of the union. By the changed circumstances of the time Apologetics again came to the front as a theological necessity. The incessant advance of Islam and the Jewish polemic, which was now gaining boldness from the protection of the Saracens, urgently demanded the work of the Apologist, but the dominant scholastic traditional theology of the Greeks in its hardness and narrowness was little fitted to avert the storm of God’s judgment. Finally, too, the revival of classical studies and the introduction of pagan modes of thought were followed by a renewal of anti-pagan Apologetics (Nicolas of Methone). In Exegesis there was no independent original work. Valuable catenas were compiled by Œcumenius, Theophylact and Euthymius Zigabenus. Church History lay completely fallow. Only Nicephorus Callisti in the 14th century gave any attention to it (§ 5, 1). Incomparably more important for the church history of those times are the numerous Scriptores hist. Byzantinæ. As a writer of legends Simeon Metaphrastes in the 10th century (?) gained a high reputation.

§ 68.5. The most distinguished theologian of the 8th century was Joannes Damascenus. He was long in the civil service of the Saracens, and died about A.D. 760 as monk in the monastery of Sabas in Jerusalem. His admirers called him Chrysorrhoas; the opponents of image worship who pronounced a thrice repeated anathema upon him at the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 754, called him Mansur. His chief work, which ranks in the Greek church as an epoch-making production, is the Πηγὴ γνώσεως. Its first part, Κεφάλαια φιλοσοφικά, forms the dialectic, the second part, Περὶ αἱρέσεων, the historical, introduction to the third or chief part: Ἔκδοσις ἀκριβὴς τῆς ὀρθοδόξου πίστεως, a systematic collection of the doctrines of faith according to the Councils, and the teachings of the ancient Fathers, especially of the three Cappadocians. His Ἱερὰ παράλληλα contain a collection of loci classici from patristic writings on dogmatic and moral subjects arranged in alphabetical order. He wrote besides controversial tracts against Christological heretics, the Paulicians, the opponents of image worship, etc., and composed several hymns for church worship.[194]—Among the numerous writings of Photius, who died in A.D. 891, undoubtedly the most important is his Bibliotheca, Μυριοβίβλιον. It gives reports about and extracts from 279 Christian and pagan works, which have since in great part been lost. In addition to controversial treatises against the Latins and against the Paulicians, there are still extant his Ἀμφιλόχια, answers to more than 300 questions laid before him by bishop Amphilochius, and his Nomo-canon (§ 43, 3) which is still the basis of Greek canon law, and was, about A.D. 1180, commented on by the deacon of Constantinople, Theodore Balsamon in his Ἐξήγησις τῶν ἱερῶν καὶ θείων κανόνων.—The brilliant period of the Comnenian dynasty was headed by Michael Psellus, teacher of philosophy at Constantinople, a man of wide culture and possessed of an astonishingly extensive store of information which was evinced by numerous works on a variety of subjects, so that he was designated φιλοσόφων ὕπατος. He died in A.D. 1105. Among his theological writings the most important is Περὶ ἐνεργείας δαιμόνων (comp. § 71, 3). As this work is of the utmost importance for the demonology of the Middle Ages, so the Διδασκαλία παντοδαπή, a compendium of universal science on the basis of theology, is for the encyclopædic knowledge of that period. His contemporary Theophylact, archbishop of Achrida, in Bulgaria, left behind him an important commentary in the form of a catena. Euthymius Zigabenus, monk at Constantinople, in the beginning of the 12th century, composed, by order of the emperor Alexius Comnenus, in reply to the heretics, a Πανοπλία δογματικὴ τῆς ὀρθοδόξου πίστεως ἤτοι ὁπλοθήκη δογμάτων in 24 bks., which gained for him great repute in his times. It is a mere compilation, and only where he combats the sects of his own age is it of any importance. His exegetical compilations are of greater value. The most important personality of the 12th century was Eustathius, archbishop of Thessalonica. As commentator on Homer and Pindar he has been long highly valued by philologists; but from the publication of his theological Opuscula it appears that he is worthy of higher fame as a Christian, a theologian, a church leader and reformer of the debased monasticism of his age (§ 70, 4). His friend and pupil, Michael Acominatus of Chonæ, archbishop of Athens, treated with equal enthusiasm of the church and his fatherland, of Christian faith and Greek philosophy, of patristic and classical literature, and in a beautiful panegyric raised a becoming memorial to his departed teacher. His younger brother, Nicetas Acominatus, a highly esteemed statesman of Constantinople, wrote a Θεσαυρὸς ὀρθοδοξίας in 27 bks., which consists of a justificatory statement of the orthodox doctrine together with a refutation of heretics, much more independent and important than the similar work of Euthymius. He died in A.D. 1206. At the same time flourished the noble bishop Nicolas of Methone in Messenia, whose refutation of the attacks of the neo-Platonist Proclus, Ἀνάπτυξις τῆς θεολογικῆς στοιχειώσεως Πρόκλου is one of the most valuable productions of this period. His doctrine of redemption, which has a striking resemblance to Anselm of Canterbury’s theory of satisfaction (§ 101, 1), is worthy of attention. He also contributed several tracts to the struggle against the Latins. During the times of the Palæologi, A.D. 1250-1450, the chief subjects of theological authorship were the vindication and denunciation of the union. Nicolas Cabasilas, archbishop of Thessalonica and successor of Palamas, deserves special mention. He was like his predecessor the vindicator of the Hesychasts (§ 69, 2), and was himself one of the noblest mystics of any age. He died about A.D. 1354. His chief work is Περὶ τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ ζωῆς. His mysticism is distinguished by depth and spirituality as well as by reformatory struggling against a superficial externalism. He also shares the partiality of Greek mysticism for the liturgy as his Expositio Missæ shows. From his contemporary Demetrius Cydonius we have an able treatise De Contemnenda Morte. Archbishop Simeon of Thessalonica belongs to a somewhat later time, about A.D. 1400, a thorough expert in classical and patristic literature and a distinguished church leader. His comprehensive work, De Fide, Ritibus et Mysteriis Ecclesiast. is an important source of information about the church affairs of the Greek Middle Ages. Marcus Eugenicus of Ephesus, the most capable opponent of the Florentine union (§ 67, 2), besides controversial tracts, wrote a treatise Περὶ ἀσθενείας ἀνθρώπου as a philosophico-dogmatic foundation of the doctrine of eternal punishment at which the emperor John VII. Palæologus had taken offence as incompatible with divine justice and human frailty. His disciple Gregorius [Gregory] Scholarius, known as a monk by the name Gennadius, was the first patriarch of Constantinople after it had been taken by the Turks. At the Council of Florence he still supported the union, but was afterwards its most vigorous assailant. In the controversy of the philosophers he contended against Pletho for the old-established predominance of Aristotle. At the request of the Sultan, Mohammed II., he laid before him a Professio fidei.

§ 68.6. A religious romance entitled Barlaam and Josaphat whose author is not named, but evidently belonged to the East, was included, even in the Middle Ages, among the works of Joh. Damascenus, read by many especially in the West, translated into Latin and rendered often in metrical form. It describes the history of the conversion of the Indian prince Josaphat by the eremite Barlaam with the object of showing the power of Christianity against the allurements of sin and its superiority to other religions. An uncritical age accepted the story as historical, and venerated its two heroes as saints. The Roman martyrology celebrated the 27th Nov. in their memory. Liebrecht has discovered that the romance so popular in its days was but a Christianized form of a legendary history of the life and conversion of the founder of Buddhism, which existed in pre-Christian times, and has come down to us under the title Lalita ristara Purâna, often copying its original even in the minutest details.

§ 69. DOCTRINAL CONTROVERSIES IN THE 12TH-14TH CENTURIES.

With the mental activity of the Comnenian age there was also reawakened a love of theological speculation and discussion, and several doctrinal questions engaged considerable attention. Then there came a lull in the controversial strife for two hundred years, to be roused once more by a question of abstruse mysticism.

§ 69.1. Dogmatic Questions.—Under the emperor Manuel Comnenus, A.D. 1143-1180, the question was discussed whether Christ presented His sacrifice for the sins of the world only to the Father and the Holy Spirit, or also at the same time to the Logos, i.e. to Himself. A Synod at Constantinople in A.D. 1156 sanctioned the latter notion.—Ten years later a controversy arose over the question whether the words of Christ: “The Father is greater than I,” refer to His divine or to His human nature or to the union of the two natures. The discussion was carried on by all ranks with a liveliness and passionateness which reminds one of the similar controversies of the 4th century (§ 50, 2). The emperor’s opinion that the words applied to the God-man gained the victory at a Synod at Constantinople in A.D. 1166. The dissentients were punished with the confiscation of their goods and banishment.—Manuel excited a third controversy by objecting to the anathema of “the God of Mohammed” in the formula of abjuration for converts from Mohammedanism. In vain did the bishops show the emperor that the God of Mohammed was not the true God. The formula had to be altered.

§ 69.2. The Hesychast Controversy, A.D. 1341-1351.—In the monasteries of Mount Athos in Thessaly the Areopagite mysticism had its most zealous promoters. Following the example given three centuries earlier by Simeon, an abbot of the monastery of Mesnes in Constantinople, the monks by artificial means put themselves into a condition that would afford them the ecstatic vision of God which the Areopagite had extolled as the highest end of all mystic endeavours. Kneeling in a corner of the solitary closed cell, the chin pressed firmly on the breast, the eyes set fixedly on the navel, and the breath held in as long as possible, they sank at first into melancholy and their eyes became dim. Continuing longer in this position the depression of spirit which they at first experienced gave way to an inexpressible rapture, and at last they found themselves surrounded by a bright halo of light. They called themselves Resting Ones, ἡσυχάζοντες, and maintained that the brilliancy surrounding them was the uncreated divine light which shone around Christ on Mount Tabor. Barlaam (§ 67, 5), just returned from his unfortunate union expedition, accused the monks and their defender, Gregorius [Gregory] Palamas, afterwards archbishop of Thessalonica, as Ditheistic heretics, scornfully styling them navel-souls, ὀμφαλόψυχοι. But a Council at Constantinople, in A.D. 1341, the members of which were unfavourable to Barlaam because of his union efforts, approved the doctrine of uncreated divine light which as divine ἐνεργεία is to be distinguished from the divine οὐσία. Barlaam, in order to avoid condemnation, recanted, but withdrew soon afterwards to Italy, where he joined the communion of the Latin church in A.D. 1348, and died as a bishop in Calabria. A disciple of Barlaam, Gregorius [Gregory] Acindynos and the historian Nicephorus Gregoras [Gregory] continued the controversy against the Hesychasts. Down to A.D. 1351 as many as three Synods had been held, which all decidedly favoured the monks.

§ 70. CONSTITUTION, WORSHIP AND LIFE.

The Byzantine emperors had been long accustomed to carry out in a very high-handed manner their own will even in regard to the internal affairs of the church. The anointing with sacred oil gave them a sacerdotal character and entitled them to be styled ἅγιος. Most of the emperors, too, from Leo the Philosopher (§ 68, 1), possessed some measure of theological culture. The patriarchate, however, if amid so many arbitrary appointments and removals it fell into the proper hands, was always a power which even emperors had to respect. What protected it against all encroachments of the temporal power was the influence of the monks and through them of the people. In consequence of the controversies about images, Theodorus Studita (§ 66, 4) founded a strong party which fought with all energy against every interference of the State in ecclesiastical matters and against the appointing of ecclesiastical officers by the temporal power, but only with temporary success. The monks, who had been threatened by the iconoclastic Isaurian with utter extermination, at the restoration grew and prospered more than ever in outward appearance, but gave way more and more to spiritual corruption and extravagance. The Eastern monks had not that genial many-sided culture which was needed for the cultivation of the fields and the minds of the barbarians. They were deficient in those powers of tempering, renovating and ennobling, whereby the monks of the West accomplished such wonderful results. But, nevertheless, if in those debased and degenerate days one looks for examples of fidelity to convictions, firmness of character, independence and moral earnestness, he will always find the noblest in the monasteries.—Public worship had already in the previous period attained to almost complete development, but theory and practice received enrichment in various particulars.

§ 70.1. The Arsenian Schism, A.D. 1262-1312.—Michael Palæologus, after the death of the emperor Theodore Lascaris in A.D. 1259, assumed the guardianship of his six years’ old son John, had himself crowned joint ruler, and in A.D. 1261 had the eyes of the young prince put out so as to make him unfit for governing. The patriarch Arsenius then excommunicated him. Michael besought absolution, and in order to obtain it submitted to humiliating penances; but when the patriarch insisted that he should resign the throne, the emperor deposed and exiled him, A.D. 1267. The numerous adherents of Arsenius refused to acknowledge the new patriarch Joseph (§ 67, 4), seceded from the national church, and when their leader died in exile in A.D. 1273, their veneration for him expressed itself in burning hatred of his persecutors. When Joseph died in A.D. 1283, an attempt was made to decide the controversy by a direct appeal to God’s judgment. Each of the two parties cast a tract in defence of its position into the fire, and both were consumed. The Arsenians, who had expected a miracle, felt themselves for the moment defeated and expressed a readiness to be reconciled. But on the third day they recalled their admissions and the schism continued, until the patriarch Niphon in A.D. 1312 had the bones of Arsenius laid in the church of Sophia and pronounced a forty days’ suspension on all the clergy who had taken part against him.

§ 70.2. Public Worship.—In the Greek church preaching retained its early prominence; the homiletical productions, however, are but of small value. The objection to hymns other than those found in Scripture was more and more overcome. As in earlier times (§ 59, 4) Troparies were added to the singing of psalms, so now the New Testament hymns of praise and doxologies were formed into a so-called Κανών, i.e. a collection of new odes arranged for the several festivals and saints’ days. The 8th century was the Augustan age of church song. To this period belonged the celebrated ἅγιοι μελωδοί, Andrew of Crete, John of Damascus, Cosmas of Jerusalem, and Theophanes of Nicæa. The singing after this as well as before was without instrumental accompaniment and also without harmonic arrangement.—There was a great diversity of opinion in regard to the idea of the sacraments and their number. Damascenus speaks only of two: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Theodorus Studita, on the other hand, accepts the six enumerated by the Pseudo-Areopagite (§ 58). Petrus [Peter] Mogilas in his Anti-Protestant Confessio orthodoxa of A.D. 1643 (§ 152, 3) is the first confidently to assert that even among the Latins of the Middle Ages the Sacraments had been regarded as seven in number. The Greeks differed from the Latins in maintaining the necessity of immersion in baptism, in connecting the chrism with the baptism, using leavened bread in the Supper and giving both elements to all communicants. From the time of Joh. Damascenus the teachers of the church decidedly subscribed to the doctrine of Transubstantiation; but in regard to penance and confession they stoutly maintained (§ 61, 1), that not the priest but God alone can forgive sins. The Unctio inferiorum, εὐχέλαιον, also made way in the Greek church, applied in the form of the cross to forehead, breast, hands and feet; yet with this difference that, expressly repudiating the designation “extreme” unction, it was given not only in cases of mortal illness, but also in less serious ailments, and had in view bodily cure as well as spiritual benefit.—The emperor Leo VI. the Philosopher made the benediction of the church (§ 61, 2) obligatory for a legally valid marriage.

§ 70.3. Monasticism.—The most celebrated of all the monastic associations were those of Mount Athos in Thessaly, which was covered with monasteries and hermit cells, and as “the holy mount” had become already a hallowed spot and the resort of pilgrims for all Greek Christendom. The monastery of Studion, too (§ 44, 3), was held in high repute. There was no want of ascetic extravagances among the monks. There were numerous stylites; many also spent their lives on high trees, δενδρίται, or shut up in cages built on high platforms (κιονῖται), or in subterranean caverns, etc. Others bound themselves to perpetual silence. Many again wore constantly a shirt of iron (σιδηρούμενοι), etc. A rare sort of pious monkish practice made its appearance in the 12th century among the Ecetæ, Ἱκέται. They were monks who danced and sang hymns with like-minded nuns in their monasteries after the pattern of Exod. xv. 20, 21. Although they continued orthodox in their doctrine and were never charged with any act of immorality, Nicetas Acominatus proceeded against them as heretics.

§ 70.4. Endeavours at Reformation.—In the beginning of the 12th century a pious monk at Constantinople, Constantinus Chrysomalus, protested against prevailing hypocrisy and formalism. A decade later the monk Niphon took a similar stand. Around both gathered groups of clergy and laymen who, putting themselves under their pastoral direction and neglecting the outward forms of the church, applied themselves to the deepening of the spiritual life. Both brought down on themselves the anathema of the church. The patriarch Cosmas, who was not convinced that Niphon was a heretic and so received him into his house and at his table, was deposed in A.D. 1150. Eustathius, archbishop of Thessalonica (§ 68, 5), carried on his reformatory efforts quite within the limits of the dominant institutions of the church, and so kept himself safe from the machinations of his enemies. Relentlessly and powerfully he struggled against the corruption in the Christian life of the people, and especially against the formalism and hypocrisy, the rudeness and vulgarity, the spiritual blindness and pride, and the eccentric caricatures of ascetism that were exhibited by the monks, though he was himself in heart and soul a monk. Two hundred years later Nicolas Cabasilas (§ 68, 5) yet more distinctly maintained that a consistent life was the test and love the root of all virtue.

§ 71. DUALISTIC HERETICS.

Remnants of the Gnostic-Manichæan heresy lingered on into the 7th century in Armenia and Syria, where the surrounding Parseeism gave them a hold and support. Constantinus of Mananalis near Samosata gathered these together about the middle of the 7th century and reformed them somewhat in the spirit of Marcion (§ 27, 11). The Catholics, sneeringly called by them Ῥομαῖοι, gave the name of Paulicians to them because they regarded Paul alone as a true apostle. Even before the rise of the Paulicians, a sect existed in Armenia called Children of the Sun who had mixed up the Zoroastrian worship with Christian elements. They, too, during the 9th and 10th centuries, by reorganization reached a position of more importance, and represented, like the Paulicians, a reformatory opposition to the formal institutions of the Catholic church. A similar attitude was assumed by the Euchites in Thrace during the 11th century. Like the old Euchites (§ 44, 7), they got their name from the unceasing prayers which they regarded as the token of highest perfection. Their dualistic-gnostic system is met with again among the Bogomili in Bulgaria. These were still more decidedly hostile to the Catholic church, and had adopted the anthropological views of Saturninus and the Ophites as well as the trinitarian theory of Sabellius (§ 27, 6, 9; 33, 7). All these sects were accused by their Catholic opponents with entertaining antinomian doctrines and practising licentious orgies and unnatural abominations.

§ 71.1. The Paulicians.—They called themselves only Χριστιανοί, but were in the habit of giving to their leaders and churches the names of Paul’s companions and mission stations. They combined dualism, demiurgism and docetism with a mysticism that insisted upon inward piety, demanded a strict but not rigorous asceticism, forbade fasting and allowed marriage. Their worship was very simple, their church constitution moulded after the apostolic pattern, with the rejection of the hierarchy and priesthood. They were specially averse to the accumulation of ceremonies and the veneration of images, relics and saints in the Catholic church. They also urged the diligent study of Scripture, rejecting, however, the Old Testament, and the Jewish-Christian gospels and epistles of the New Testament. The Catholic polemists of the 9th century traced their origin and even their name (=Παυλοϊωάννοι) to a Manichæan family of the fourth century, a widow Callinice and her two sons Paul and John. None of the distinctive marks of Manichæism, however, are discoverable in them, and their founding by Constantine of Mananalis is a historic fact, as also that he, in A.D. 657, assumed the Pauline name of Sylvanus. The first church, which he called Macedonia, was founded by him at Cibossa in Armenia. From this point he made successful missionary journeys in all directions. The emperor Constantinus Pogonnatus, A.D. 668-685, began a bloody persecution of the Paulicians. But the martyr enthusiasm of Sylvanus, who was stoned in A.D. 685, made such an impression upon the imperial officer Symeon, that he himself joined the sect, was made their chief under the name of Titus, and on the renewal of persecution in A.D. 690 joyfully died at the stake. His successor Gegnesius, who took the name of Timothy, was obliged by Leo the Isaurian to undergo an examination under the patriarch of Constantinople, had his orthodoxy attested, and received from the iconoclast emperor a letter of protection. Soon, however, divisions sprang up within the sect itself. One of their chiefs Baanes, on account of his antinomian practices, was nicknamed ὁ ῥυπαρός the smutty. But, about A.D. 801, Sergius Tychicus, converted in earlier years by a Paulician woman, who directed him to the Bible, made his appearance as a reformer and second founder of the sect. He died in A.D. 835. Leo the Armenian, A.D. 813-820, organized an expedition for their conversion. The penitents were received back into the church, the obstinate were executed. A mob of Paulicians murdered the judges, fled to the Saracen regions of Armenia, and founded at Argaum, the ancient Colosse, a military colony which made incessant predatory and retaliating raids upon the Byzantine provinces. They were most numerous in Asia Minor. The empress Theodora (§ 66, 4) carried out against them about A.D. 842 a new and fearfully bloody persecution. Many thousands were put to death. This too was the fate of an officer of high rank. His son, Carbeas, also an officer, incited by an ardent desire for revenge, gathered about 5,000 armed Paulicians around him in A.D. 844, fled with them to Argaum, and became military chief of the sect. New crowds of Paulicians streamed daily in, and the Khalifs assigned to them two other fortified frontier cities. With a well organized army, thirsting for revenge, Carbeas wasted the Byzantine provinces far and wide, and repeatedly defeated the imperial forces. Basil the Macedonian after two campaigns, at last in A.D. 871, hemmed in the Paulician army in a narrow pass and annihilated it. Their political power was now broken. The sect, however, still continued to gather members in Syria and Asia Minor. In A.D. 970, the emperor John Tzimisces transported the greater part of them as watchers of the frontier of Thrace, where Philippopolis became their Zion. They soon had possession of all Thrace. Alexius Comnenus, A.D. 1081-1118, was the first earnestly again to attempt their conversion. He himself appeared at Philippopolis in A.D. 1115, disputed a whole day with their leaders, promised and threatened, rewarded and punished, but all his efforts were fruitless. From that time we hear nothing more of them. Their remnants probably joined the Euchites and the Bogomili.

§ 71.2. The Children of the Sun, or Arevendi were a sect gathered and organized in the 9th century in Armenia by a Paulician Sembat in the country town of Thontrace into a separate community of Thontracians. In A.D. 1002 the metropolitan Jacob of Harkh gave a Christian tinge to their doctrine, went through the country preaching repentance and the performances of ritual observances, and obtained much support from clergy and laity. The Catholicus of the Armenian church caused him to be branded and imprisoned. He made his escape, but was afterwards slain by his opponents.

§ 71.3. The Euchites, Messelians [Messalians], Enthusiasts, attracted the attention of the government in the beginning of the 11th century as a sect widely spread in Thrace. In common with the earlier Euchites (§ 44, 7) they had great enthusiasm in prayer, but they were distinguished from them by their dualism. Their doctrine of the two sons of God, Satanaël and Christ, shows a certain relation to the form of Persian dualism, which derives the two opposing principles, Ormuzd and Ahriman, from one eternal primary essence, Zeruane Acerene. The germs of this sect may have come from the transplanting of Paulicians to Thrace by the emperor Tzimisces. The Byzantine government sent a legate to Thrace to suppress them. This may have been Michael Psellus (§ 68, 5) whose Διάλογος περὶ ἐνεργείας δαιμόνων is the only source of information we have regarding them.

§ 71.4. The Bogomili, θεόφιλοι, taught: that Satanaël, the firstborn son of God, as chief and head over all angels, clothed with full glory of the Godhead, sat at the right hand of the Father; but, swelling with pride, he thought to found an empire independent of his Father and seduced a portion of the angels to take part with him. Driven with them out of heaven, he determined after the pattern of the creation of the Father (Gen. i. 1) to create a new world out of chaos (Gen. ii. 3 ff.). He formed the first man of earth mixed with water. When he set up the figure, some of the water ran out of the great toe of the right foot and spread out over the ground; and after he had breathed his breath into it, that also escaped owing to the looseness of the figure by the toe, permeated the soil moistened with the water and animated it as a serpent. At Satanaël’s earnest entreaty the heavenly Father took pity on the miserable creature, and gave it life by breathing into it His own breath. Afterwards with the Father’s help Eve, too, was created. Satanaël in the form of the serpent seduced, deceived and lay with Eve in order that by his seed, Cain and his twin sister Calomina, Adam’s future descendants, Abel, Seth, etc., might be oppressed and brought into bondage. Jealous lest the latter should obtain that heavenly dwelling place from which they had been driven, Satanaël’s angels seduced their daughters (Gen. vi.). From this union sprang giants who rebelled against Satanaël, but were destroyed by him in the flood. Henceforth he reigned unopposed as κοσμοκράτωρ, seduced the greater part of mankind, and endowed Moses with the power of working miracles as the instrument of his tyranny. Only a few men under the oppression of his law attained the end of their being; the sixteen prophets and those named in Matt. i. and Luke iii. Finally, in the year 5,500 after the creation of man, the supreme God moved with pity caused a second son, the Logos, to go forth from His bosom, who as chief of the good angels is called Michael, and sent Him to earth for man’s redemption. He entered in an ethereal body through the right ear into the virgin to be born of her with the semblance of an earthly body. Mary noticed nothing of all this. Without knowing how or whence, she found the child in swaddling clothes before her in the cave. His death on the cross was naturally in appearance only. After his resurrection he showed himself to Satanaël in his true form, bound him with chains, robbed him of his divine power, and compelled him to abandon his divine designation, by taking the El from his name, so that he is henceforth called Satan. Then He returned to the Father, took the seat that formerly was Satanaël’s at His right hand, and sinks again into the bosom of the Father out of which He had come. This, however, did not take place before a new Aëon [Æon], the Holy Spirit, emanated from the Godhead, and was sent forth as continuator and completer of the work of redemption. This Spirit, too, after he has finished his task will sink back again into the Father’s bosom.—Of the Old Testament the Bogomili acknowledged only the Psalter and the Prophets; of the New Testament books they valued most the Gospel of John. Veneration of relics and images, as well as the sign of the cross they abhorred as demoniacal inventions. Church buildings were regarded by them as the residences of demons. Satanaël himself in earlier days resided in the temple of Jerusalem, later in the church of Sophia at Constantinople. Water baptism, which was introduced by John the Baptist a servant of Satanaël, they rejected; but the baptism of Christ is spiritual baptism (παράκλησις=Consolamentum). It was imparted by laying the Gospel of John on the head of the subject of baptism, with invocation of the Holy Spirit and chanting the Lord’s Prayer. They declared the Catholic mass to be a sacrifice presented to demons; the true eucharist consists in the spiritual nourishment by the bread of life brought down in Christ from heaven, to which also the fourth petition in the Lord’s Prayer refers. They placed great value upon prayer, especially the use of the Lord’s Prayer. So too they valued fasting. Their ascetism was strict and required abstinence from marriage and from the eating of flesh. But prevarication and dissimulation they regarded as permissible.—The emperor Alexius Comnenus caused their chief Basil to be brought to Constantinople, under the delusive pretext of wishing himself to become a proselyte of the sect, got him to open all his heart, and enticed him under the semblance of a purely private conference to make reckless statements, while behind the curtain a judge of heresies was taking notes. This first act in the drama was followed by a second. The sentence of death was passed upon all adherents of Basil who could be laid hold upon. Two great funeral piles were erected, one of which was furnished with the figure of the cross. The emperor exhorted them, at least to die as true Christians, and in token of this to choose the place of death provided with a cross. Those who did so were pardoned, the rest for the most part condemned to imprisonment for life. Basil himself, however, was actually burnt, A.D. 1118. The sect was not by any means thus rooted out. The Bogomili hid themselves mostly in monasteries, and Bulgaria long remained the haunt of dualistic heresy, which spread thence through the Latin church of the West.

§ 72. THE NESTORIAN AND MONOPHYSITE CHURCHES OF THE EAST.

The Nestorian and Monophysite churches of the East owed the protection and goodwill of their Moslem rulers to their hostile position in regard to the Byzantine national church. Among the Persian Nestorians as well as among the Syrian and Armenian Monophysites we find an earnest endeavour after scholarship and great scientific activity. They were the teachers of the Saracens in the classical, philosophical and medical sciences, and with no little zeal pursued the study of Christian theology. The Nestorians also long manifested great earnestness in missions. Only when the science-loving Khalifs gave place to Mongolian and Turkish barbarians did those churches lose their prestige, and that stagnation and torpidity passed over them in which they still lie. In order to crown the Florentine union attempts of A.D. 1439 (§ 67, 6), Rome solemnly proclaimed in the immediately following year the complete union with all the detached churches of the East. But this was a vain self-delusion or a bit of jugglery. Men pretending to be deputed by those churches treated about restoration to the bosom of the church, which was accorded them amid great applause.

§ 72.1. The Persian Nestorians, or Chaldean Christians (§ 64, 2), stood in peculiarly friendly relations to the Khalifs, who, in the Nestorian opposition to Theotokism, worship of saints, images and relics, and priestly celibacy, saw an approach to a rational Christianity more in accordance with the Moslem ideal. The Nestorian seminaries at Edessa, Nisibis, Seleucia, etc., were in high repute. The rich literature issued by them is, however, mostly lost, and what of it remains is known only by Asseman’s [Assemani’s] quotations (Biblioth. Orientalia). Among the later Nestorian authors the best known is Ebed Jesus, Metropolitan of Nisibis, who died in A.D. 1318. His writings treat of all subjects in the domain of theology. The missionary zeal of the Nestorians continued unabated down to the 13th century. Their chief mission fields were China and India. At the beginning of the 11th century they converted the prince of the Karaites, a Tartar tribe to the south of Lake Baikal, who as vassals of the great Chinese empire had the name Ung-Khan. A large number of the people followed their prince. The Mongol conqueror Genghis-Khan married the daughter of the Karaite prince, but quarrelled with him, drove him from his throne, and took his life, A.D. 1202.—With the overthrow of the Khalifs by Genghis-Khan in A.D. 1219, the prosperity of the Nestorian church came to an end. At first the Nestorians attempted missionary operations not unsuccessfully among the Mongols. But the savage Tamerlane, the Scourge of Asia, A.D. 1369-1405, drove them into the inaccessible mountains and wild ravines of the province of Kurdistan.[195]

§ 72.2. Among the Monophysite Churches the most important was the Armenian (§ 64, 3). It boasted, at least temporarily and partially, of political independence under national rulers. The Armenian patriarch from the 12th century had his residence in the monastery of Etshmiadzin at the foot of Ararat. The literary activity in the translation of classical and patristic writings, as well as in the production of original works, reached a particularly high point in the 8th and then again in the 12th century. To the earlier period belong the patriarch Johannes Ozniensis and the metropolitan Stephen of Sünik, to the later, the still more famous name of the patriarch Nerses IV. Clajensis, whose epic “Jesus the Son” is regarded as the crown of Armenian poetry, and his nephew, the metropolitan Nerses of Lampron. The two last named readily aided the efforts for reunion with the Byzantine church, but owing to the troubles of the time these came to nothing. The Western endeavours after union which were actively carried on from the beginning of the 13th century, split upon the dislike of the Armenian church to the Western ritual, and found acceptance with only a relatively small fragment of the people. These United Armenians acknowledged the primacy of the pope and the catholic system of doctrine, but retained their own constitution and liturgy.—In the Jacobite-Syrian Church (§ 52, 7), too, theological and classical studies were prosecuted with great vigour. The most distinguished of its scholars during our period was George, bishop of the Arabs, who died in A.D. 740. He translated and annotated the Organon of Aristotle, and wrote exegetical, dogmatic, historical and chronological works, also poems on various themes, and a number of epistles important for the history of culture during these times, in which he answered questions put to him by his friends and admirers. The brilliant Gregory Abulfarajus is the last of the distinguished scholars of the Jacobite-Syrian church. He was the son of a converted Jewish physician, and hence he is usually called Barhebræus. He was made bishop of Guba, afterwards Maphrian of Mosul, and died in A.D. 1286. His noble and truly benevolent disposition, his extraordinary learning, the rich and attractive productions of his pen, and his skill as a physician made him universally revered by Christians, Mohammedans and Jews. Among his writings, for the most part still in manuscript, the most important and best known is the Chronicon Syriacum.—The Jacobite church suffered most in Egypt. The perfidy of the Copts, who surrendered the country to the Saracens, was terribly avenged. From A.D. 1254 the Fatimide Khalifs held them down under the most severe oppression, and this became yet more severe under the Mamelukes. The Copts were completely driven out of the cities, and even in the villages maintained only a miserable existence. Their church was now in a condition of utter stagnation. In Abyssinia (§ 64, 1) the national rulers maintained their position, though pressed within narrower limits from time to time by the Saracens. But here, too, church life became fossilized. At the head of the church was an Abbuna consecrated by the Coptic patriarch (§ 64, 1; 165, 3).

§ 72.3. The Maronites (§ 52, 8) attached themselves to the Western church on the appearance of the crusades in A.D. 1182, renouncing their Monothelite heresy and acknowledging the primacy of the pope, but retaining their own ritual. In consequence of the Florentine union measures they renewed their connection in A.D. 1445, and subsequently adopted also the doctrinal conclusions of the Council of Trent. Their numbers at the present day amount to somewhere about 200,000.

§ 72.4. The Legend of Prester John.—In A.D. 1144 Bishop Otto of Freisingen obtained from the bishop of Cabala in Palestine, whom he met at Viterbo, information about a powerful Christian empire in Central Asia, and published it in A.D. 1145 in his widely-read Chronicle. According to this story the king of that region, a Nestorian Christian, who was named Prester John, had not long before driven to flight the Mohammedan kings of the Persians and Medes, and thus delivered from great danger the crusaders in the Holy Land. He had also wished to go to the help of the church of Jerusalem, but was prevented by the Tigris which overflowed its banks. Twenty years later appeared a writing attributed to Prester John, first referred to by the Chronicler Alberich. It was addressed to the European princes in a Latin translation which contained the most fabulous stories, borrowed from the Alexander legends, about the extent and glory of his empire and the many wonders in nature, white lions, the phœnix, giants and pigmies, dog-headed and horned men, fauns, satyrs, cyclops, etc., which were to be seen in his country; and notwithstanding all these absurdities it was received as genuine. The pope, Alexander III., took occasion from its appearance to send an answer to Prester John by his own physician Philip, of whose fate nothing more is known. When in A.D. 1219 the first news reached Palestine of the irrepressible advance of Mongolian hordes under Genghis Khan, the crusaders felt justified in assuming that he was the successor of the celebrated Prester John, and was now to accomplish what his distinguished predecessor had wished to undertake. But they were soon cruelly undeceived. The missionaries sent to the Mongols about the middle of the 13th century (§ 93, 15), reported that the last Prester John had lost his kingdom and his life in battle with Genghis Khan. Nevertheless the belief in the continued existence of an exceedingly glorious and powerful empire ruled by a Christian priest in further India was not by any means overthrown; but it was no longer sought in an Asiatic but in an African “India,” and the Portuguese actually believed that at last the famed Prester John had been found in the Christian king of Abyssinia, so that that country was known down to the 17th century as Regnum presb. Joannis.—The Jacobite historian Barhebræus had identified the first Presbyter-king with the prince of the Mongolian Karaites converted by the Nestorians. His name Ung-Khan or Owang-Khan corresponded both to the name Joannes and to the Chaldean כַּהֲנָא=priest. This notion prevailed until recently the Orientalist Oppert by careful examination and comparison of all Oriental and Western reports reached the conclusion (§ 93, 16) that these legends are to be referred to the kingdom established about A.D. 1125 by Kur-Khan, prince of the tribe of the Caracitai in the Mandshuria of to-day. This prince, who was probably himself a Nestorian Christian, favoured the establishment of Christianity in his country; but this was utterly destroyed by Genghis Khan so early as A.D. 1208. The title Prester or Presbyter given to the prince of this tribe is to be explained perhaps by the statement of the missionary Ruysbroek that almost all male Nestorians in Central Asia received priestly consecration.[196]

§ 73. THE SLAVONIC CHURCHES ADHERING TO THE ORTHODOX GREEK CONFESSION.

Among the crowds of immigrants whom the wanderings of the people had set in motion, the Germans and the Slavs are those whose future is of most historic interest. The former went at once in a body over to the Roman Catholic church, and at first it appeared as if the Slavs were with similar unanimity to attach themselves to the Byzantine orthodox church. But only the Slavs of the Eastern countries remained true to that communion, though they were mostly with it brought under the yoke of the Turkish power. So was it with the specially promising Bulgarian church. All the more important was the incomparably more significant gain which the Greek church made in the conversion of the Russians.

§ 73.1. Soon after Justinian’s time the Slavic hordes began to overflow the Greek Provinces—Macedonia, Thessaly, Hellas and Peloponnesus. The old Hellenic population was mostly rooted out; only in well fortified cities, especially coast towns, as well as on the islands, did the Greek people and the Christian confession remain undisturbed. The empress Irene made the first successful attempt to restore Slavic Greece to the allegiance of the empire and the church, and Basil the Macedonian, A.D. 867-886, completed the work so thoroughly that at last even the old pagan Mainottes (§ 42, 4) in the Peloponnesus bent their necks to the double yoke. Regenerated Hellenism by its higher culture and national, as well as ecclesiastical, tenacity, completely absorbed by assimilation the numerically larger Slavic element of the population, and Mount Athos with its hermits and monasteries (§ 70, 3) became the Zion of the new church.

§ 73.2. The Chazari in the Crimea asked about A.D. 850 for Christian missionaries from Constantinople. The court sent them a celebrated monk Constantine, surnamed the Philosopher, better known under his monkish name of Cyril. Born at Thessalonica, and so probably of Slavic descent, at least acquainted with the language of the Slavs, he converted in a few years a great part of the people. In A.D. 1016, however, the kingdom of the Chazari was destroyed by the Russians.

§ 73.3. The Bulgarians in Thrace and Mœsia had obtained a knowledge of Christianity from Greek prisoners, but its first sowing was watered with blood. A sister, however, of the Bulgarian king Bogoris had been baptized when a prisoner in Constantinople. After her liberation, she sought, with the help of the Byzantine monk Methodius, a brother of Cyril, to win her brother to the Christian faith. A famine came to their aid, and a picture painted by Methodius, representing the last judgment, made a deep impression on Bogoris. In A.D. 861 he was baptized and compelled his subjects to follow his example. But soon thereafter, Methodius, along with his brother Cyril, was called to labour in another field, in Moravia (§ 79, 2), and political considerations led the Bulgarian prince in A.D. 866 to join the Western church. At his request pope Nicholas I. sent bishops and clergy into Bulgaria to organize the church there after the Roman model. Byzantine diplomacy, however, succeeded in winning back the Bulgarians, and at the œcumenical Council at Constantinople in A.D. 869, their ambassadors admitted that the Bulgarian church according to divine and human laws belonged to the diocese of the Byzantine patriarch (§ 67, 1). Meantime the two Apostles of the Slavs, Cyril and Methodius, by the invention of a Slavic alphabet and a Slavic translation of the Bible, laid the foundation of a Slavic ecclesiastical literature, which was specially fostered in Bulgaria under the noble-minded prince Symeon, A.D. 888-927. Basil II., the Slayer of the Bulgarians, conquered Bulgaria in A.D. 1018. It gained its freedom again, together with Walachia, in A.D. 1186; but fell a prey to the Tartars in A.D. 1285, and became a Turkish province in A.D. 1391.

§ 73.4. The Russian Church.—Photius speaks in A.D. 866 of the Conversion of the Russians as an accomplished fact. In the days of the Grand Duke Igor, about A.D. 900, there was a cathedral at Kiev. Olga, Igor’s widow, made a journey to Constantinople and was there baptized in A.D. 955 under the name Helena. But her son Swätoslaw could not be persuaded to follow her example. The aged princess is said according to the report of German chroniclers to have at last besought the emperor Otto I. to send German missionaries, and that in response Adalbert of Treves, afterwards archbishop of Magdeburg, undertook a missionary tour, from which, however, he returned without having achieved his purpose, after his companions had been slain. Olga’s grandson, Vladimir, “Equal of the Apostles,” was the first to put an end to paganism in the country. According to a legend adorned with many romantic episodes he sent ten Boyars in order to see how the different religions appeared as conducted in their chief seats. They were peculiarly impressed with the beautiful service in the church of Sophia. In A.D. 988, in the old Christian commercial town Cherson, shortly before conquered by him, Vladimir was baptized with the name Basil, and at the same time he received the hand of the princess Anna. The idols were now everywhere broken up and burnt; the image of Perun was dragged through the streets tied to the tail of a horse, beaten with clubs and thrown into the Dnieper. The inhabitants of Kiev were soon afterwards ordered to gather at the Dnieper and be baptized. Vladimir knelt in prayer on the banks and thanked God on his knees, while the clergy, standing in the stream, baptized the people. On the further organization of the Russian church Anna exercised a powerful and salutary influence. Vladimir died in A.D. 1015. His son Jaroslaw I., the Justinian of the Russians, attended to the religious needs of his people by the erection of many churches, monasteries and schools, improved the worship, enriched the psalmody, awakened a taste for art and patronized learning. The monastery of Petchersk at Kiev was the birthplace of Russian literature and a seminary for the training of the clergy. Here, at the end of the 11th century, the monk Nestor wrote his annals in the language of the country. The metropolitan of Kiev was the spiritual head of the whole Russian church under the suzerainty of the patriarch of Constantinople. After the great fire of A.D. 1170, which laid the glory of Kiev in ashes, the residency of the Grand Duke was transferred to Vladimir. In A.D. 1299 the metropolitan also took up his abode there, but only for a short time; for in A.D. 1328 the Grand Duke Ivan Danilowitsch settled at Moscow and the metropolitan went there along with him. The patriarch of Constantinople on his own authority consecrated in A.D. 1353 a second Russian metropolitan for the forsaken Kiev, to whom he assigned the Southern and Western Russian provinces which since A.D. 1320 had been under the rule of the pagan Lithuanians. This schism was overcome in A.D. 1380 on the next occasion of a vacancy in the Moscow chair by the appointment to Moscow of the Kiev metropolitan. But the Lithuanian government, which had meanwhile become Catholic (§ 93, 15), compelled the South Russian bishops in A.D. 1414 to choose a metropolitan of their own independent of Moscow, who in A.D. 1594 with his whole diocese at the Synod of Brest (§ 151, 3) attached himself to Rome. The primate of Moscow continued under the jurisdiction of Constantinople until, in A.D. 1589, the patriarch Jeremiah II. (§ 139, 26), on the occasion of his being personally present at Moscow voluntarily declared the Russian church independent of him, and himself consecrated Job, the metropolitan of that time, its first patriarch.[197]

§ 73.5. Russian Sects.—About A.D. 1150, the monk Martin, an Armenian by birth, insisted upon a liturgical reform that seemed to him most necessary. Among other things he declared that it was sinful to lead the subject of baptism to the baptismal font from right to left or from south to north; the direction should be reversed following the course of the sun. But it seemed to him most important that a reform should be made in the hitherto prevalent mode of making the sign of the cross. Instead of symbolizing, as up to this time had been done, the two natures in Christ and the three persons in the Trinity by bending the little finger and the thumb, and making the sign of the cross with other three, they made this sign with the fore and middle fingers. For nearly ten years this monk was allowed to disseminate his errors unchecked, till a Council obliged him to retract. Two hundred years later a certain Carp Strigolnik at Novgorod in A.D. 1375 publicly accused the clergy of sinning, because, in accordance with an old custom, they took fees in assisting in the consecration of bishops, and demanded of all orthodox Christians that they should separate from them as unworthy of their office. But he, along with many of his followers, was mobbed by the adherents of the opposite party and drowned in the Volga. More dangerous than all the earlier sectaries was the so-called Jewish sect at the end of the 15th century, which sought to reduce orthodox Christianity to a rationalistic cabbalistic Ebionitism. About A.D. 1470 the Jew Zachariah arrived at Novgorod. He won two distinguished priests Alexis and Denis to his views, that Christ was nothing more than an ordinary Jewish prophet, that the Mosaic law is a divine institution and is of perpetual obligation. By the advice of the Jew the two priests continued to profess the greatest zeal for the ceremonial laws of the Church, and by strict observance of the fasts obtained a great reputation for piety, but secretly they wrought all the more successfully for the dissemination of their sect among all classes of the people. When the czar, Ivan III., in A.D. 1480, came to Novgorod, they made so favourable an impression on him that he took them with him to Moscow, where they reaped a rich harvest for their secret doctrine. They succeeded through their influence with the czar in placing at the head of the whole Russian church a zealous proselyte for their sect in the archimandrite Zosima. Meanwhile at Novgorod iconoclast excesses were committed by the sectaries, which the archbishop of that place, Gennadius, set himself to suppress by imposing generally mild penalties. His successor Joseph Ssanin proceeded much more energetically. He did not rest till the czar in A.D. 1504 called a Church Synod at Novgorod which condemned the chiefs of the sect to be burnt, and their followers to be shut up in monasteries. Even the metropolitan Zosima as a favourer of the sect was sent to a monastery; but Alexis managed so cleverly that he retained his office and dignity to the end of his life. Secret remnants of this sect, as well as of the two previously referred to, continued to exist for a long time, even down to the 17th century, when sectarianism in the Russian Church made again a new departure (§ 163, 10).

§ 73.6. Romish Efforts at Union.—From a very early time Rome cast a covetous glance at the young Russian church, and she spared neither delicate hints nor attempts to subdue by force by the aid of Danes, Swedes, Livonians and at a later time, the Poles. In order to avert this danger and to obtain from the West assistance against the oppressive yoke of the Mongols, A.D. 1234-1480, the Grand Duke Jaroslav [Jaroslaw] II. of Novgorod was not averse to a union. His son Alexander succeeded him in A.D. 1247. By a glorious victory over the Swedes in A.D. 1240, on the Neva, he won for himself the surname Newsky, and in A.D. 1242 he defeated the Livonians on the ice of Lake Peipus. Pope Innocent IV. who had already in A.D. 1246 nominated Arch bishop Albert Suerbeer (§ 93, 12) a legate to Russia with the power to erect bishoprics there, addressed an earnest exhortation to the young prince in A.D. 1248 with promises of help against the Mongols, urging him to go in the footsteps of his father and to secure his own and his subjects’ salvation by doing what his father had promised. The Grand Duke referred to the wisest men of the land and answered the Pope: From Adam to the flood, from that to the Confusion of languages, etc., down to Constantine and the seventh œcumenical Council, we know the true history of the Church, but yours we do not wish to acknowledge. Alexander Newsky died in A.D. 1263, and has been ever since venerated by his country as a national hero and by his Church as a national saint. The prospects of the Roman Curia were more favourable during the 14th century owing to the Lithuanian and Polish supremacy in South and West Russia, and by the schism of the Russian Church into Kiev and Moscow primacies. In those Southern and Western provinces there was originally less disinclination to Rome than in Moscow. Still even here we meet during the 15th century in the metropolitan Isidore, born in Thessalonica, a prelate who made everything work toward a union with Rome. When the Union Synod of A.D. 1438 was to meet at Ferrara (§ 67, 6), he represented to the Grand Duke Vassili that it was his duty to appear there. He gave a hesitating and unwilling consent. At the Council Isidore along with Bessarion showed himself a zealous promoter of the union. He returned in A.D. 1441 as cardinal and papal legate. But when at the first public service in Moscow he read aloud the union documents, the Grand Duke had him imprisoned and banished to a monastery. He escaped from his prison and died in Rome in A.D. 1643.—Continuation, § 151, 3.

SECOND DIVISION.

THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GERMAN AND ROMAN CHURCH DURING THE MIDDLE AGES.[198]

§ 74. CHARACTER AND DIVISIONS OF THIS PERIOD OF THE DEVELOPMENT.

With the historically significant appearance of the Germanic peoples, from whose blending with the old Celtic and Latin races of the conquered countries the Romance group of nationalities has its origin, there begins a new phase in the historical development of the world and the church. The so-called migration of the nations produced an upheaval and revolution among the very foundations and springs of history such as have never since been seen. For a similar significance cannot be ascribed to the appearance at a somewhat later period of a motley crowd of Slavic tribes and a detached contingent of the Turanian-Altaic race (Finns, Magyars, etc.), because the stream of their development ran in the same channel. Thus the appearance of the Germans forms the watershed between the old world and the new. This dividing boundary, however, is not a straight line; for the shoots of the old world run on for centuries alongside of and among the young growths of the new world. In so far as those remnants of the old have no relation to the new and work out uninfluenced by their surroundings their own material in their own way, the history of their developments has no place here; but even these demand consideration at this point in so far as they affect the development of the new world as a means of educating and moulding, arresting and perverting. Just as the history of the church and the world as a whole is distributed into ancient and modern, so the special history of the Germano-Roman world can and must be distributed into ancient and modern, the dividing boundary of which is the Reformation of the 16th century. The earlier of these two phases of history presents itself to us with a Janus-head, whose two faces are directed the one to the ancient, the other to the modern world. This follows from the fact that the groups of peoples referred to did not require any longer to pursue the weary way of their development on their own charges, but rather entered upon the spiritual heritage of the defunct ancient world, and were able by means thereof more quickly and surely to grow to the maturity of their own proper and independent rank and culture. The Roman and, for some branches of the Slavic races, also the Byzantine, church was the bearer and medium of this spiritual heritage, and as such became teacher and disciplinarian of the young world. The Reformation is the emancipation from the administrator of discipline, whose leading strings were cast off by the youth when he reached the maturity of man’s estate. It is the assertion of the German nation that it had reached its intellectual majority.

§ 74.1. The Character of Mediæval History.—As its name implies the mediæval period of church history is one of transition from the old to the new. The old is the now completed development of Christianity under the moulding influences of the ancient Greek and Roman world; the new is the complete incorporation of the special forms of life and culture that characterize the new peoples, who are placed by means of the migration of the nations in the foreground of history. But since the peculiar culture of these nations was first present only potentially and as a capacity, and was to realize itself first through the influence of the early Christian culture, between the old and the new a middle and intermediate age intervened, the extent of which was just that influence of the old completed culture upon the new developing culture. This conflict during the whole course of the Middle Ages was carried on by those powerful waves of action and reaction (formation, deformation, reformation), which, however, amid the ferment of the times displayed an ever varying mixing of the one with the other. The Middle Ages have brought forth the most magnificent phenomena, the papacy, the monastic system, scholasticism, etc., but characteristic of them all is that crude blending of the three kinds of movement named above, which hindered its effectiveness and led to its own deterioration. First in the beginning of the 16th century did the reformatory endeavours become so mature and strong that it could assume a purer form and carry out its efforts with success. With this too we reach the end of the Middle Ages and witness the birth of the modern world.

§ 74.2. Periods in the Church History of the German-Roman Middle Ages.—The first regular period is marked by the end of the Carolingian age, which may be regarded as completed by the dying out of the German Carolingians in A.D. 911. The movement in all the chief departments of the church was hitherto regular and unbroken: before Charlemagne an ascending one, during his reign reaching the summit, and after his death declining. It is the universal German period of history. The fundamental idea of the Carolingian dynasty, which survived even its weakest representatives, was no other than the combination of all German, Roman and Slavic nationalities under the sceptre of one German empire. The last German Carolingian carried this idea with him to the grave. The powerful impulse present even in the 9th century toward national separation and the dismemberment of the Carolingian empire into independent Germanic, Romanic and Slavic nations has since asserted its irresistible power. But with the Carolingian empire the Carolingian epoch of civilization also came to an end. And even the glory of the papacy, whose intrigues had undermined the empire, because it had thus snapped the branch on which it sat, now sank into the lowest depths of weakness and corruption. When we take a general survey of the beginning of the 10th century, we find on all sides, in church and state, in secular and spiritual governments, in science, culture and art, the creations of Charlemagne overthrown, and a seculum obscurum introduced from which amid great oppression and savagery, emerge the conditions, earnests and germs of a new golden age.—A second period is marked out, in quite a different fashion, by the age of Pope Boniface VIII. or the beginning of the 14th century. Up to this time Germany stood distinctly in the foreground both of the history of the world and of the church; but the unhappy conflict of Boniface with Philip the Fair of France placed the papacy at the mercy of French policy, and so henceforth in all the movements of Church history France stands in the front. The pontificate of Boniface forms a turning point also for the historical development within the church itself. The most vast and influential products of mediæval ecclesiasticism are the papacy, monasticism and scholasticism. The period before Boniface is characterized by the growth and flourishing of these; the period after Boniface by their decay and deterioration. The reformatory current, too, which permeated the whole of the Middle Ages, has in each of these two periods its own distinctive character. Before Boniface those representatives of the dominant ecclesiastical system were themselves inspired by a powerful reformatory spirit working its way up from the great and widespread depravation of the 10th century, accompanied, however, by a hierarchical lust of power far beyond the limits justifiable on evangelical principles. The evangelical reformatory endeavours again directed against those representatives of ecclesiasticism are still relatively few and isolated and find but a slight echo, while as their caricature we see alongside of them heretical extravagances which have scarcely ever had their like in history. Toward the end of the first period, however, this relation begins to be reversed. The papacy, monasticism and scholasticism becoming more and more deteriorated are the patrons of every sort of deterioration within the church. The revolutionary heretical movement is indeed overcome, but all the more powerfully, generally and variedly does the evangelical reformatory movement, though still always burdened with much that was confused and immature, assert itself independently of and over against those ecclesiastical principalities, without being able, however, to exert upon them any abiding influence.—Thus our phase of development is divided into three periods: the period from the 4th to the 9th cent. (till A.D. 911); the period from the 10th to the 13th cent. (A.D. 911-1294); and the period of the 14th and 15th cent. (A.D. 1294-1517).

FIRST SECTION.

HISTORY OF THE GERMAN-ROMAN CHURCH FROM THE 4TH TO THE 9TH CENTURY (DOWN TO A.D. 911).

I. Founding, Spread, and Limitation of the German Church.[199]

§ 75. CHRISTIANITY AND THE GERMANS.

In the pre-German age Europe was for the most part inhabited by Celtic races. In Britain, Spain and Gaul, however, these were subjugated by the Roman forces and Romanized, whereas in northern, eastern and middle Europe they were oppressed, exterminated or Germanized by the Germans. In its victorious march through Europe, Christianity met with Celtic races of unmixed nationality only in Ireland and Scotland, for even among the neighbouring Britons the Celtic nationality was already blended with the Roman. Only in a very restricted field, therefore, could the church first of all develop itself according to the Celtic mode of culture. But here, with a wonderful measure of independence, missionary operations were so energetically prosecuted that for a long time it seemed as if the greater part of the opposite continent with its German population was to be its prey, until at last the Romish church would be driven out of its own home as well as out of its hopeful mission fields (§ 77).—Even in pre-Christian times a second and more powerful immigration from the East had begun to pour over Europe. The various Germanic groups of tribes now presented themselves, followed by other warlike races, Huns, Slavs, Magyars, etc., alternately driving and being driven. The Germans first came into contact with Christian elements in the second half of the 3rd century, and toward the end of the 5th a whole series of powerful German peoples are found professing the Christian faith, and each successive century far down into the Middle Ages brings always new trophies from these nations into the treasure-house of the church. It would certainly be wrong to ascribe these results to a national predisposition of the German churches and type of mind for Christianity. This cannot be altogether denied, but it did not predispose the German peoples to Christianity as it then was preached, but was first developed when this by other ways and means had found an entrance and only at the Reformation of the 16th century did it get full expression. For that predisposition was directed to the deepest and innermost sides of Christianity, for which the ecclesiastical institution of the times in its externalism had little appreciation; and the first task of the German spirit was to secure recognition of this reformatory principle.

§ 75.1. The Predisposition of the Germans for Christianity.—What we have been accustomed to hear about this subject is in part greatly exaggerated, in part sought for where its proper germ does not lie. The German mythology may indeed conceal many deep thoughts under the garb of legendary poetry which have some relation to Christian truth and afford evidence of the religious needs, the speculative gifts and the characteristic profundity of German thought, but this scarcely in a larger measure than in the Greek myths, philosophemes and mysteries.[200] Much more suggestive of a predisposition to Christianity than such bright spots in the mythological system of the Germans are the special and distinguishing characteristics of the life of the German people. The fidelity of the vassal to his lord, transferred to Christ the heavenly king, constitutes the special core of Christianity. Besides, closely connected therewith, the love of battle and faithfulness in battle for and with the hereditary or elected chief found a parallel in the struggles and victories of the Christian life. Further, the Germans’ noble love of freedom, sanctified by the Gospel, afforded form and expression for the glorious freedom of the children of God. And finally, the spirituality of the Germans’ worship, praised even by Tacitus, who says that they nec cohibere parietibus Deos, neque in ullam humani oris speciem adsimulare, ex magnitudine cœlestium arbitrantur, predisposed them in favour of the worshipping of God in spirit and in truth.

§ 75.2. What is of most significance, however, for understanding the almost unopposed Adoption of Christianity by so many German races is the slight hold that their heathen religion had upon them at that time. It is essentially characteristic of heathenism as the religion of nature that it can flourish only on its native soil. German paganism, however, had been uprooted by its transplantation to European soil and had, amid the movements of peoples during the first centuries after their migration, never quite struck root in the new ground. In the later centuries, when it had long enough time for doing so, e.g. among the Frisians, Saxons, Danes, it offered an incomparably more resolute resistance. Again, rapid conversion will be furthered or hindered according as the new home is one where already from Roman times Christian institutions existed or even had existed, or is one where the old primitive heathenism still prevailed. Only in the latter case could German paganism develop its full power and strike its roots deeply and feel at home upon the new soil; whereas in the other case, the higher culture and spiritual power of Christianity, even where it had been vanquished by the barbarians, disturbed the even tenour and naïvete of the genuinely pagan course of development. The circumstance also deserves mention, that the marriage of heathen princes with Christian princesses frequently secured their conversion along with that of their subjects. In the narrower circles of the home, the family, the tribe, innumerable instances of the same sort of thing repeatedly occurred. There is something specially Germanic, in the prominent position which German feeling had assigned to the wife: Inesse quin etiam, says Tacitus, sanctum aliquid et providum putant; nec aut consilia earum adspernantur, aut responsa negligunt.[201]

§ 75.3. Mode of Conversion in the Church of these Times.—Apart from the too frequent practice of Christian rulers to secure conversions by the sword, baptism and conversion were commonly regarded as an opus operatum, and whole crowds of heathens without any knowledge of saving truth, with no real change of heart and mind, were received into the church by baptism. No one can approve this. But it must be admitted that only in this way could striking and rapid results have been reached; that indeed in the stage of childhood, in which the Germans then were, it had a certain measure of justification. By the history even of its attack upon German paganism an entirely different career of conflict and victory was marked out to Christianity than that through which it had to pass in its conquests of Græco-Roman paganism. In this latter case it had to confront a high form of civilization which had outlived its powers and had lost itself in its own perplexities, which for a thousand years had proved in its civilization and history a παιδαγωγὸς εἰς Χριστόν. All this was wanting to the Germans. If the Roman world might be compared to a proselyte who in ripe, well proved and much experienced maturity receives baptism, the conversion of the Germans may be compared to the baptism of children.—Gregory the Great had at first directed the missionaries to the Anglo-Saxons (§ 77, 4) to destroy the idol temples of converted heathens. But further reflection convinced him that it was better to transform them into Christian churches, and now he laid it down as a maxim in Roman Catholic missions that pagan forms of worship and places of worship which were capable of modification to Christian uses should be carefully preserved and respected: “Nam duris mentibus simul omnia abscindere impossibile esse dubium non est, quia et is qui summum locum ascendere nititur, gradibus vel passibus, non autem saltibus, elevatur.” It was a fateful, two-edged word, which led Catholic missions to a brilliant outward success, but has saturated the Catholic worship and life with a pagan leaven, which works in it powerfully down to the present day.

§ 76. THE VICTORY OF CATHOLICISM OVER ARIANISM.[202]

The first conversions of multitudes of the German races occurred at the time when Arianism had reached its climax in the Roman empire. Internal disturbances and external pressure compelled a portion of the Goths in the second half of the fourth century to throw themselves into the arms of the East Roman empire and to purchase its protection by the adoption of Arian Christianity. The missionary zeal of the national clergy, with bishop Ulfilas at their head, though we cannot indicate particularly his methods, spread Arianism in a short time over a multitude of the German nationalities. Down to the end of the fifth century Arianism was professed by the larger portion of the German world, by Visigoths and Ostrogoths, by Vandals, Suevi and Burgundians, by the Rugians and Herulians, by the Longobards, etc. And as the early friendly relations to the Roman empire had given Arianism a foundation among those peoples, so the later hostile relations to the Roman empire now turned Catholic made them cling tenaciously to their Arian heresy. Arianism had more and more assumed the character of a national German Christianity, and it almost seemed as if the whole German world, and with it the universal history of the future, were its secure prey. But a quick end was made of these expectations by the conversion of one of its chief branches to Catholicism. The Franks had from the first pursued a policy which was directed rather to the strengthening of the future of its brother tribes, than to the accelerating of the downfall of the Roman empire. This policy led them to embrace Catholicism. Trusting to the protection of the Catholic Christians’ God and the sympathies of the whole Catholic West, the Frankish rulers took advantage of the call to suppress heresy and conquer heretics’ lands. To renounce heresy so as to find occasion for attacking the territories of heretics, was probably with them a matter of political necessity.

§ 76.1. The Goths in the lands of the Danube.—From the middle of the 3rd century Christianity had found an entrance among the Goths through Roman prisoners of war. At the Council of Nicæa in A.D. 325 there was present a Gothic bishop Theophilus. From A.D. 348 the scion of an imprisoned Cappadocian Christian family, Ulfilas[203] by name, wrought as bishop among the Visigoths, already attached to the Arian confession, with so much zeal and success for the spread of Christianity that the hatred of the pagans was roused to such a pitch that in A.D. 355 they began a bloody persecution of the Christians. With a great part of the Gothic Christians Ulfilas fled over the Danube, and the emperor Constantius, who honoured him as a second Moses, assigned him a dwelling-place in Mount Hæmus. Ulfilas continued his work for thirty-three years with many tokens of blessing. In order that the Goths might have access to the original fount of saving knowledge, he translated the Holy Scriptures into their language, for which he invented a written character of his own. He died in A.D. 381. A short biography of the Apostle of the Goths was written by his disciple Auxentius, bishop of Dorostorus in Silistria, which gives an account at first hand of his life and doctrine. But not all Gothic Christians were expatriated with Ulfilas. Those who remained behind were a leaven which ever continued to expand and spread. So Athanaric, king of the Thervingians, about A.D. 370, started a new and cruel persecution against them. Soon afterwards a rebellion broke out among the pagan Thervingians. At the head of the malcontents was Frithigern. He was subdued, but got aid from the emperor Valens and in gratitude for the help given adopted the Arian religion of the emperor. This was the first conversion in multitude among the Goths. A second followed not long after. The Huns had rushed down like a whirlwind in A.D. 375 and destroyed the empire of the Ostrogoths. A part of these were obliged to join the Huns; while another fled into the country of the Thervingians. These last again were driven before the conquerors and crossed the Danube under Frithigern and Alaviv, where in A.D. 376 Valens gave them a settlement on condition that they should profess Arian Christianity. But this friendship did not last long, and Valens fell in A.D. 378 fighting against them. Theodosius, the restorer of the Catholic faith in the Roman empire, made peace with them. They retained, however, their Arian Confession, which spread from them in a way not yet explained to the Ostrogoths and other related tribes. Chrysostom started a Catholic mission among them, but it was stopped at his death.

§ 76.2. The Visigoths in Gaul and Spain.—The death of Theodosius in A.D. 395 and the partition of his empire gave the signal to the Visigoths to attempt securing for themselves more room. Alaric devastated Greece, broke in upon Italy in search of prey and plundered Rome in A.D. 410. His successor Athaulf descended upon southern Gaul, and Wallia founded there a Visigoth empire with Toulouse for its capital, which under Euric, who died in A.D. 483, reached the summit of its glory. Euric extended his kingdom in Gaul, and in A.D. 475, conquered the most of Spain. He sought to strengthen his government by having one system of law and one religion, but in his projected conversion of his subjects to Arianism, he met with unexpected opposition, which he sought in vain to put down by a severe persecution of the Catholics. The Roman population and the Catholic bishops longed for a Catholic government and placed their hopes in the Frankish king Clovis who had been converted in A.D. 496. As saviour and avenger of the Catholic faith Clovis completely destroyed the Visigoth power on this side the Pyrenees in a battle at Vouglé near Poitiers in A.D. 507. In Spain, however, the Visigoths retained their power and persisted in their efforts to convert all to the Arian faith. Under the violent Leovigild these efforts culminated in A.D. 585 in a cruel persecution. His son and successor Reccared, however, saw the vanity and danger of this policy and took the opposite course. At the third Synod of Toledo in A.D. 589 he adopted the Catholic faith and with the co-operation of the able metropolitan Leander of Seville secured complete ascendency for Catholicism throughout the empire. Under the later kings the Visigoth power sank lower and lower amid the treacheries, murders and revolts of internal factions, and in A.D. 711 the last king of the Visigoths, Roderick, after a bloody fight at Xeres de la Frontera yielded to the Saracens who had rushed down from Africa upon Spain.

§ 76.3. The Vandals in Africa.—Early in the 5th century the Vandals, who were even then Arian Christians, combining with the Alani and Suevi, made a descent from Pannonia upon Gaul in A.D. 406 and from thence upon Spain in A.D. 409, and made dreadful havoc of these rich and fertile lands. In A.D. 428 the Roman proconsul of Africa, Boniface, unjustly accused of treason by the Roman government, in his straits called in the aid of the Vandals. Their king Genseric went in A.D. 429 with 50,000 men. Boniface, however, was meanwhile reconciled with his government and did all in his power to get the barbarians to retire. But all in vain. Genseric conquered Africa and founded there a powerful Vandal empire. In A.D. 455 he even made an attack upon Rome, which was plundered by his hordes for fourteen days. In order to prevent any sympathy being shown by Africa for Rome he determined to secure throughout his empire uniform profession of the Arian creed, and in prosecuting this purpose during his fifty years’ reign exercised continual cruelties. He died in A.D. 477. But the African Catholics were faithful to their creed unto death and went forth to martyrdom in a spirit worthy of their ancestors of the 2nd or 3rd centuries. His son Hunneric allowed them only a short respite and began again in A.D. 483 the bloody work. He died in A.D. 484. Under his successor Guntamund [Gunthamund], who died in A.D. 496, a stop was put to the persecution; but Thrasamund [Thrasimund], who died in A.D. 523, again adopted bloody measures. Hilderic, who died in A.D. 530, a man of mild and generous temper, and the son of a Catholic mother, openly favoured the Catholics. Gelimer, a great-grandson of Genseric, put himself at the head of the Arians whom Hilderic’s catholic sympathies had alienated, took Hilderic prisoner and had him executed. But before he could carry out the intended persecution, Justinian’s general Belisarius marched into Africa, annihilated the Vandal army in a battle near Tricameron in A.D. 533, and overthrew the Vandal empire.[204]

§ 76.4. The Suevi were still heathens when they entered Spain with the Vandals in A.D. 409. Here under their king Rechiar they adopted the Catholic faith. But Remismund to please the Visigoths went over to Arianism in A.D. 465 with the whole people. Carraric, who thought he owed the cure of his son to the relics of Martin of Tours, passed over again to Catholicism in A.D. 550. With the co-operation of Martin, metropolitan of Braga, he converted his people, and a Provincial Synod at Braga in A.D. 563 under Theodimir I. completed the work. The empire of the Suevi was destroyed by Leovigild king of the Visigoths, in A.D. 585.

§ 76.5. The Burgundians carried on by the irresistible advance of Vandals, Suevi and Alani from their home on the Main and the Neckar, where they had adopted the Catholic faith, founded an independent kingdom in the Jura district. Here they came into contact with the Visigoths and for the most part fell away to Arianism. Of Gundiac’s four sons, who divided the empire among them, only Chilperic II., the father of Clotilda, remained Catholic. By fratricide his brother Gundobald secured complete sovereignty. The bishop Avitus of Vienne (§ 53, 5), however, vigorously opposed Arianism, and to secure its suppression called a Council at Epaon in A.D. 517, the decisions of which were recognised by Sigismund, Gundobald’s son, and were made valid throughout the empire. But even this did not satisfy Clotilda, the wife of the Frankish king Clovis, as an atonement for her father’s death. Her sons, urged by their mother to prove avengers of her father’s blood, made an end of the Burgundian empire in A.D. 534.

§ 76.6. The Rugians, in combination with the Herulians, Scyrians and Turcellingians, had founded an independent kingdom in the Old Roman Noricum, the Lower Austria of to-day. Arianism had been introduced among them by the Goths but without the complete expulsion of paganism. The Romans among them attached to Catholicism were sorely oppressed. But from A.D. 454, Severinus wrought among them like a messenger from heaven to bless, help and comfort the heavily burdened. He died in A.D. 482. Even from the barbarians he won the deepest reverence, and over heathens and Arians he had an almost magical power. He prophesied to the Scyrian Odoacer his future greatness. This prince in A.D. 476 put an end to the West Roman empire and ruled ably and wisely as king of Italy for seventeen years. He put an end too to Arian fanaticism in Rugiland in A.D. 487 by overthrowing the empire of the Rugians. But in A.D. 489 the Ostrogoth Theodoric came down upon Italy, conquered Ravenna after a three years’ siege, took Odoacer prisoner and in a wild drunken revel had him put to death in A.D. 493.

§ 76.7. The Ostrogoths when they conquered Italy had already for a long time been Arians, but were free from that fanaticism which so often characterized German Arianism. Theodoric granted full liberty to Catholicism, spared, protected and prized Roman culture, in all which certainly his famous minister Cassiodorus (§ 47, 23) had no small share. This liberal-minded tolerance was indeed made easy to the king by the thirty-five years’ schism of that time (§ 52, 5), which prevented any suspicions of danger to the state from the combination of Roman and Byzantine Catholics. And in fact, when this schism was healed in A.D. 519, Theodoric began to interest himself more in Arianism and to give way to such suspicions. He died in A.D. 526. The confusions that followed his death were taken advantage of by the emperor Justinian for the reconquest of Italy. His general Narses annihilated the last remnants of the Ostrogoth power in A.D. 554. The Byzantine government again rose upon the ruins of the Goths, and in A.D. 567 established the exarchate with Ravenna as its capital. For the time being Arianism was completely destroyed in Italy.[205]

§ 76.8. The Longobards in Italy.—In A.D. 569 the Longobards under Alboin made a descent upon Italy from the lands of the Danube, and conquered what has been called Lombardy after them, with its capital Ticinum, now Pavia. His successors extended their conquests farther south, till at last only the farthest point of Italy, the duchies of Naples, Rome and Perugia, Ravenna with its subject cities and Venice, acknowledged Byzantine rule. Excited by desire of plunder and political jealousy, the Arian Longobards warred incessantly for twenty years with Roman culture and Roman Catholicism. But after this first outburst of persecution had been stilled, religious indolence won the upper hand and the Arian clergy were not roused from their indifference to spiritual things by the growing zeal for conversions which characterized the Catholic bishops. Pope Gregory the Great, A.D. 590-604, devoted himself unweariedly to the task, and was powerfully supported by a Bavarian princess, the zealous Catholic queen Theodelinde. The Longobards were so enamoured of this fair and amiable queen that, when her first husband Anthari was murdered in A.D. 590, one year after their marriage, they allowed her to choose for herself one of the dukes to be her husband and their king. Her choice fell on Agilulf, who indeed himself still continued an Arian, but did not prevent the spread of Catholicism among his people. Their daughter Gundiberge, married successively to two Longobard kings, Ariowald († A.D. 636) and Rothari († A.D. 652) was an equally zealous protectress of the Catholic church; and with Rothari’s successor Aribert, brother’s son of Theodelinde, who died in A.D. 663, begins the series of Catholic rulers of the Longobards.—Continuation, § 82, 1.

§ 76.9. The Franks in Gaul.—When the West Roman empire was overthrown by Odoacer in A.D. 476, the Roman authority was still for a long time maintained in Gaul by the proconsul Syagrius. But the Merovingian Clovis, A.D. 481-511, put an end to it by the battle of Soissons in A.D. 486. In A.D. 493 he married the Burgundian princess Clotilda, and she, a zealous Catholic, used every effort to convert her pagan husband. The national pride of the Frank resisted long, but she got permission to have her firstborn son baptized. The boy, however, died in his baptismal robes, and Clovis regarded this as a punishment from his gods. Nevertheless on the birth of his second son he was unable to resist the entreaties of his beloved wife. He too sickened after his baptism; but when contrary to expectation he recovered amid the fervent prayers of the mother, the heathen father confessed that prayer to the Christian’s God is more powerful than Woden’s vengeance. He remembered this when threatened in A.D. 496 at Tolbiac with loss of the battle, of his life and of his empire in the war with the Alemanni. Prayer to the national gods had proved fruitless. He now turned in prayer to the God of the Christians, promising to own allegiance to Him, if He should get the victory. The fortune of battle soon turned. The army and kingdom of the Alemanni were destroyed. At his baptism at Rheims on Christmas Eve, A.D. 496, Archbishop Remigius addressed him thus: “Bend thy neck, proud Sigamber; adore what thou hast burnt, burn what thou hast adored!” The later tradition, first reported by Hincmar of Rheims in the 9th century, relates that when the church officer with the anointing oil could not get forward because of the crowd, in answer to Remigius’ prayer a white dove brought an oil flask from heaven, out of which all the kings of the Franks from that day have been anointed. The conversion of Clovis, soon followed by that of the nobles and the people, seems really to have been a matter of conviction and genuine according to the measure of his knowledge of God. He made a bargain with the Christian’s God and fulfilled the obligations under which he had placed himself. Of an inner change of heart we can indeed find no trace. There was, however, no mention of that in his bargain. Just after his conversion he commits the most atrocious acts of faithlessness, treachery and secret murder. The Catholic clergy of the whole West nevertheless celebrated in him a second Constantine, called of God as avenger upon heathenism and Arian heresy, and asked of him nothing more, seeing in this the task which providence had assigned him. The conversion of Clovis was indeed in every respect an occurrence of the greatest moment. The rude Arianism of the Germans, incapable of culture, received here its deathblow. The civilization and remnants of culture of the ancient world found in the Catholic church its only suitable vehicle for introduction into the German world; and now the Franks were at the head of it and laid the foundation of a new universal empire which would for centuries form the central point of universal history. On the work of Friddin [Fridolin] and Columbanus in the land of the Franks, see § 77, 7.

§ 77. VICTORY OF THE ROMISH OVER THE OLD BRITISH CHURCH.[206]

According to an ancient but more than doubtful tradition a British king Lucius about the middle of the 2nd century is said to have asked Christian missionaries of the Roman bishop Eleutherus and by them to have been converted along with his people. This, however, is certain, that at the end of the 3rd century (§ 22, 6) Christianity had taken root in Roman Britain, probably through intercourse with the Romans. Down to the Anglo-Saxon invasion in A.D. 449, the British church certainly kept up regular communication with that of the continent, especially with Gaul. From that time, being driven back into North and South Wales, it was completely isolated from the continental church; but all the more successfully it spread itself out among its neighbours in the allied tribes of Ireland and Scotland, among the former through Patrick, the Apostle of the Irish, among the latter by Columba, the Apostle of the Scots, and followed a thoroughly independent course of development. When one hundred and fifty years later, in A.D. 596 the long interrupted intercourse with Rome was again renewed by a Romish mission to the Anglo-Saxons, several divergences from Roman practice were discovered among the Britons in respect of worship, constitution and discipline. Rome insisted that these should be corrected, but the Britons insisted on retaining them and repudiated the pretensions of the Romish hierarchy. The keen struggle which therefore arose, beginning amid circumstances that promised a brilliant success to the British church, ended with complete submission to Rome. The battle-field was then transferred to Germany, and there too in spite of the resolute resistance of their apostles the contest concluded with the same result (§ 78). The struggle was not merely one of highly tragic interest but of incomparable importance for the history of Europe. For had the result been, as for a time it seemed likely that it would be, in favour of the old British church, not only England but also all Germany would have taken up a decidedly anti-papal attitude, and not only the ecclesiastical but also the political history of the Middle Ages would have most likely been led into an altogether different course.

§ 77.1. The Conversion of the Irish.—Among the Celtic inhabitants of the island of Ireland there were some individual Christians from the beginning of the 5th century. The mission of a Roman deacon Palladius in A.D. 431 was without result. But in the following year, A.D. 432, the true apostle of the Irish, Patrick, with twenty-four companions, stept upon the shore of the island. The only reliable source of information about his life and work is an autobiography which he left behind him, Confessiones. According to it he was grandson of a presbyter and son of a deacon residing at Banava, probably in Britain, not likely in Gaul. In his sixteenth year he was taken to Ireland by Irish pirates and sold to an Irish chief whose flocks he tended for six years. After his escape by flight the love of Christ which glowed within his heart gave him no rest and his dreams urged him to bring the glorious liberty of the children of God to those who so long kept him bound under hard slavery. Familiar with the language and the customs of the country, he gathered the people by beat of drum into an open field and told them of the sufferings of Christ for man’s salvation. The Druids, priests of the Celts, withstood him vigorously, but his attractive and awe-inspiring personality gained the victory over them. Without a drop of martyr’s blood Ireland was converted in a few years, and was thickly strewn with churches and monasteries. Patrick himself had his residence at Macha, round which the town of Armagh, afterwards the ecclesiastical metropolis, sprang up. He died about A.D. 465, and left the island church in a flourishing condition. The numerous monasteries, in which calm piety flourished along with diligent study of Scripture and from which many teachers and missionaries went forth, won for the land the name of Insula Sanctorum. Only after the robber raids of the Danes in the 9th century did the glory of the Irish monasteries begin to fade.[207]

§ 77.2. The Mission to Scotland.—A Briton, Ninian, educated at Rome, wrought, about A.D. 430, among the Celtic Picts and Scots in Scotland or Caledonia. But those converted by him fell back into paganism after his death. The true Apostle of Scotland was the Irishman Columba. In A.D. 563 he settled with twelve disciples on the small Hebridean island Hy. Its common name, Iona, seems to have originated by a clerical error from Ioua, and was then regarded as the Hebrew equivalent of Columba, a dove. Icolmkill means Columba’s cell. Here he founded a monastery and a church, and converted from this centre all Caledonia. Although to the last only a presbyter and abbot of this monastery, he had all the authority of an apostle over the Scottish church and its bishops, a position that was maintained by successive abbots of Iona. He died in A.D. 597. The numerous monasteries founded by him vied with the Irish in learning, piety and missionary zeal. The original monastery of Iona flourished in a superlative degree.[208]

§ 77.3. The Peculiarities of the Celtic Church.—In the Anglo-Saxon struggle the following were the main points at issue.

1. On the part of Rome it was demanded that they should submit to the archiepiscopal jurisdiction instituted by the pope, which the British refused as an unrighteous assumption.

2. The British had an Easter Canon different from that of the Romish church. They were indeed nothing else than Quartodecimans, although they like these in ignorance referred to the Johannine tradition (§ 34, 2), but celebrated their Easter always on a Sunday, the settling of which they decided according to an 84 years’ cycle of the moon, after Rome had adopted a cycle of 19 years (§ 56, 3).

3. The Celtic clergy had also a different Tonsure from the Roman Tonsura Petri which seems to have been the Greek Tonsura Pauli (§ 45, 1), although the zealous advocate of the Roman customs, Ceolfrid, abbot of Jarrow, in a letter to Naitan, king of the Picts, derives it from Simon Magus.

4. Besides this there was also the question of the Marriage of Priests, which indeed the popish Anglo-Saxon Archbishop Augustine declared himself at first willing to allow to the British, which, however, was subsequently so passionately denounced by Boniface as fornicatio and adulterium.

5. If, further, according to Bede’s statement, besides their divergent views about Easter, the British et alia plurima imitati ecclesiasticæ contraria faciebant, this certainly cannot be understood of doctrinal divergences, but only of different forms of constitution and worship, or ecclesiastical habits and customs, as might be well expected in churches that had been completely separated since A.D. 449. We need only think, e.g., of the progress made by the idea of the papal primacy (§ 46, 7-10), the consolidation and reconstruction of monasticism under Benedict (§ 85), the codification of Roman canon law by Dionysius Exiguus (§ 43, 3), the modification of the idea of penance since Leo the Great (§ 61, 1) and the development of the doctrine of the mass down to Gregory the Great (§ 58, 3; 59, 6). The most considerable peculiarity of constitution in the Celtic church seems to have been that above referred to in placing the abbots of the principal monasteries at the head of the hierarchy. Only in one passage (Bede, III. 19) is there mention of ecclesiastical doctrine: In A.D. 640 Pope John IV. addressed a conciliatory letter to the Scots in which he warns them against the Pelagian heresy, “quam apud eos revivescere didicerat.”

When then we turn our attention to the Celtic church planted on the continent at a later period, it is specially Columbanus’ view of Easter that is regarded in France as heretical. Often and loud as Boniface lifted up his voice against the horrible heresies of British, Irish and Scotch intruders, it is found at last that these consist in the same or similar divergences as those of the Anglo-Saxons. Not insisting upon the law of celibacy, opposition to the Roman primacy, the Romish tradition and the Romish canon law, especially the ever-increasing strictness of the Roman marriage laws (§ 61, 2), more simple modes of administering the sacraments and conducting public worship, even in unconsecrated places in forests and fields,—these and such like were the heresies complained of.—As concerns the pro and con. of the evangelical purity of the ancient British Christianity, so highly praised by Ebrard, one occupying an impartial historical standpoint is justified in expecting that as all the good development so also all the bad development which had taken firm root in the common thought and feeling of the church down to the middle of the 5th century, would not have been uprooted from the church of Patrick and Columba, so also in the 7th century it would be still prevalent there. And this expectation is in general confirmed, so far as our information goes about all which was not expressly imported from Rome into the British church. If we deduct the by no means insignificant amount of unevangelical corruption which was first introduced into the Romish church during the period between Leo the Great and Gregory the Great, A.D. 440-604, partly by exaggerating and adorning elements previously there, partly by bringing in wholly new elements of ecclesiastical credulity, superstition and mistaken faith, there still remains for the Celtic church standing outside of this process of deterioration a relatively purer doctrine. Yet the Christianity that remains is by no means free of mixture from unevangelical elements as Jonas of Bobbio himself shows in his biography of his teacher Columbanus. But the more embittered the conflict between the British and the Romish churches became over matters of constitution and worship, the more did differences in faith and life, which had been overlooked at first, assume serious proportions, and supported by a careful study of Scripture, led to greater evangelical freedom and purity on the side of the British. This is thoroughly confirmed by Ebrard’s numerous quotations from the literature of that period.[209]

§ 77.4. The Romish Mission to the Anglo-Saxons.—To protect himself against the robber raids of the Picts and Scots, the British king Vortigern sought the aid of the Germans inhabiting the opposite shores. Two princes of the Jutes, Hengist and Horsa, driven from their home, led a horde of Angles and Saxons over to Britain in A.D. 449. New hordes kept following those that had gone before and after a hundred years the British were driven back into the western parts of the island. The incomers founded seven kingdoms; at the head of all stood the prince of one of the divisions who was called principal king, the Bretwalda. The Anglo-Saxons were heathens and the bitter feelings that prevailed between them and the ancient Britons prevented the latter from carrying on missionary operations among the former. The opportunity which the British missed was seized upon by Rome. The sight of Anglo-Saxon youths exposed as slaves in the Roman market inspired a pious monk, afterwards Pope Gregory I., with a desire to evangelize a people of such noble bodily appearance. He wished himself to take the work in hand, but was hindered by the call to the chair of Peter. He now bought Anglo-Saxon youths in order to train them as missionaries to their fellow-countrymen. But when soon thereafter the Bretwalda Ethelbert of Kent married the Frankish princess Bertha, Gregory sent the Roman abbot Augustine to England with forty monks in A.D. 596. Ethelbert gave them a residence and support in his own capital Dorovernum, now Canterbury. At Pentecost the following year he received baptism and 10,000 of his subjects followed his example. Augustine asked from Gregory further instructions about relics, books, etc. The pope sent him what he sought and besides the pallium with archiepiscopal rights over the whole Saxon and British church. Augustine now demanded of the Britons submission to his archiepiscopal authority and that they should work together with him for the conversion of the Saxons. But the British would do nothing of the sort. A personal interview with their chiefs under Augustine’s oak in A.D. 603 was without result. At a second conference everything was spoilt by Augustine’s prelatic pride in refusing to stand up on the arrival of the Britons. Inclined to compliance the Britons had just proposed this at the suggestion of a member as a sign. Augustine died in A.D. 605. The pope nominated as his successor his previous assistant Laurentius. Ethelbert’s heathen son and successor, Eadbald, oppressed the missionaries so much that they decided to withdraw from the field, in A.D. 616. Only Laurentius delayed his retreat in order to make a final attempt at the conversion of Eadbald. He was successful. Eadbald was baptized; the fugitives returned to their former posts. In the kingdom of Essex Augustine had already established Christianity, but a change of government had again restored paganism. The gospel, however, soon afterwards got entrance into Northumbria, the most powerful of the seven kingdoms. King Edwin, the founder of Edinburgh, won the hand of the Kentish princess Ethelberga, daughter of Bertha. With her, as spiritual adviser of the young queen, went the monk Paulinus, A.D. 625. These two persuaded the king and he again persuaded his nobles and the priests to embrace Christianity. At a popular assembly Paulinus proved the truth of Christianity, and the chief priest Coisi, setting at defiance the gods of his fathers, flung with his own hand a spear into the nearest idol temple. The people thought him mad and looked for Woden’s vengeance. When it came not, they obeyed the command of Coisi and burnt down the temple, A.D. 627. Paulinus was made bishop of Eboracum, now York, which pope Honorius on sending a pallium raised to a second metropolitanate. Edwin, however, fell in battle in A.D. 633 fighting against Penda, the pagan king of Mercia; Paulinus had to flee and the church of Northumbria was almost entirely rooted up.[210]

§ 77.5. Celtic Missions among the Anglo-Saxons.—The saviour of Northumbria was Oswald, A.D. 635-642, the son of a former king who had been driven out by Edwin. He had found refuge as a fugitive in the monastery of Hy and was there converted to Christianity. To restore the church in Northumbria the monks sent him one of their number, the amiable Aidan. Oswald acted as his interpreter until he acquired the Saxon language. His success was unexampled. Oswald founded a religious establishment for him on the island of Lindisfarne, and supported by new missionaries from Hy, Aidan converted the whole of the northern lands to Christianity. Oswald fell in battle against Penda. He was succeeded as king and also as Bretwalda by his brother Oswy. Irish missionaries joined the missionary monks of Hy, rivalling them in their exertions, and by A.D. 660 all the kingdoms of the Heptarchy had been converted to Christianity, and down to this date all, with the exception of Kent, which alone still adhered to the Romish church, belonged to the ancient British communion.[211]

§ 77.6. The Celtic Element Driven out of the Anglo-Saxon Church.—Oswy perceived the political danger attending the continuance of such ecclesiastical disputes. He succeeded in convincing also his neighbour kings of the need of ecclesiastical uniformity. The only question was as to which of the two should be recognised. The choice fell upon the Romish. Oswy himself most decidedly preferred it. His wife Eanfled, Edwin’s daughter, was a zealous partisan of the Romish church, and on her side stood a man of extraordinary power, prudence and persistence, the abbot Wilfrid, a native Northumbrian, trained in the monastery of Lindisfarne. He had, however, visited Rome, and since then used all his eloquence and skill in intrigue in order to lay all England at the feet of the pope. The queen and the abbot wrought together upon the Bretwalda, and he in his turn upon the other princes. To these personal influences were added others of a more general kind: the preference for things foreign over those of home growth, the brilliancy and preponderating weight of the Romish church, and above all, the gulf, not yet by any means bridged over, between the Saxons and the British. When secret negociations toward the desired end had been carried out, Oswy called a general Synod at the nunnery of Streoneshalch, now Whitby, Synodus Pharensis, A.D. 664. Here all the civil and ecclesiastical notabilities of the Heptarchy were assembled. The chief speaker on the Roman side was Wilfrid, on the Celtic side bishop Colman of Lindisfarne. The observance of Easter was the first subject of discussion. Wilfrid referred to the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord said: Thou art Peter, etc. Then Oswy asked Colman whether it was true that the Lord had said so to Peter. Colman could not deny it, and Oswy declared that he would follow him who had the power to open for them the gates of heaven. And so the question was settled. Oswy as Bretwalda carried out with energy the decisions of the Council, and within a few weeks the scissors had completed the conversion of the whole Heptarchy to the Roman tonsure and the Roman faith.[212]

§ 77.7. Spread and Overthrow of the British Church on the Continent.—The first Celtic missionary who crossed the channel was the Irishman Fridolin, about A.D. 500. With several companions he settled near Poitiers in Aquitaine which was then under the Visigoths, converted the Arian bishop of that place together with his congregation to trinitarian orthodoxy, and, under the protection of Clovis, who had meanwhile, A.D. 507, overthrown the Visigoth power in Gaul, founded churches and monasteries. Afterwards he wrought among the heathen Alemanni in Switzerland (§ 78, 1). We have fuller and more reliable accounts of Columba the younger, usually called Columbanus, an Irishman by birth, who, in A.D. 590, with twelve zealous companions, went forth from the British monastery of Bangor in Co. Down, Ireland, and settled among the Vosges mountains. Here they founded the monastery of Luxovium, now Luxeuil, as centre with many others affiliated to it. They cultivated the wilderness and wrought laboriously in restoring church discipline and order in a region that had been long spiritually neglected. But their strict adherence to the British mode of observing Easter caused offence. The severe moral discipline which they enjoined was galling to the careless Burgundian clergy, and the aged Brunehilda swore to compass their death and destruction, because of the influence adverse to her authority which they exercised upon her grandson, the young king Theodoric II. Thus it happened that in A.D. 610, after twenty years’ labours, they were driven away. They turned then to Switzerland (§ 78, 1). But when persecuted here also, Columbanus with his followers migrated to Italy, about A.D. 612, where, under Agilulf’s protection (§ 76, 8), he founded the celebrated monastery of Bobbio and contended against Arianism. The Regula Columbani extant in several MSS. constitutes a written guide to Christian piety and breathes a free evangelical spirit, while the annexed Regula cœnobialis fratrum de Hibernia, also ascribed to him, bears a rigoristic ascetic character, enjoining frequent flagellations. Columbanus died in A.D. 615. The monks of his order joined the Benedictines in the 9th century. On his personal relation to the Romish chair during his residence in Gaul and Italy we get some information from three of his epistles still extant. In the first he asks Gregory the Great for an explanation of the Gallic observance of Easter, and in the second he asks Boniface IV. to confirm his old British mode of reckoning Easter. In both he recognises the pope as occupier of the chair of Peter, and in the second greets him as head of all the churches of Europe and describes the Roman church as the chief seat of the orthodox faith. In the third, on the other hand, he demands of the pope in firm terms an account of his own faith and that of the Roman church. He did so in consequence of a report having reached him, probably through the mention by the 5th œcum. Council (§ 52, 6) of a schism between Rome and Northern Italy, that the Roman chair had fallen into the heresies of Eutyches and Nestorius.—The ablest of Columbanus’ followers was Gallus or St. Gall. He remained in Switzerland and had his faithfulness rewarded by rich success. After Columbanus had been expelled from France traces of Celtic ecclesiastical institutions may indeed for a considerable time have lingered on among his Frankish scholars and friends animated by the missionary zeal of their master. For from their midst as it would seem proceeded most of those Frankish missionaries who carried the gospel in the 7th century to the German lands (§ 78). But from the time of the overthrow of the old Celtic ecclesiastical system at the Synod of Streoneshalch in A.D. 664, whole troops of its adherents, British, Irish, Scotch and Anglo-Saxons, crossed the channel to convert Germany. With very few exceptions, only the names of these men, and for the most part not even these, have come down to us. But their zeal and success are witnessed to by the fact that even in the beginning of the 8th century throughout all the district of the Rhine, as well as Hesse, Thuringia, Bavaria and Alemannia we find a network of flourishing churches bearing the impress of Celtic institutions. And the overthrow of this great and promising ecclesiastical system, partly by peaceful, partly by violent transportation into the Romish church, was the work of the Anglo-Saxon Winfrid, whom the Romanists, quite rightly from their point of view, honour, under the name of Boniface, as the Apostle of Germany (§ 78, 4-8).[213]

§ 77.8. Overthrow of the Old British System in the Iro-Scottish Church.—After the British Church had lost, in A.D. 664, all support in the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, it could not long maintain itself in its own original Celtic home. The Scottish kings on political grounds, in order to avoid giving their Saxon neighbours an opportunity of gratifying the love of conquest under the pretext of zeal for the faith, were obliged to assimilate their church organization with that of the Southerns. The learned Abbot Adamnan of Hy, when, in A.D. 684, by order of his king, he visited the Northumbrian court, professed to be there convinced of the correctness of the Romish observance of Easter. But when his monks stoutly resisted, he left the monastery and went on a missionary tour to Ireland where he urged his views so successfully that in A.D. 701 the most of the Irish adopted the Roman reckoning. Some years later, in A.D. 710, Naitan II., the powerful king of the Picts, asked instructions from Abbot Ceolfrid about the superiority of the Romish practice regarding Easter and the tonsure, forced his whole people to adopt the Romish doctrine and banished the obstinate priests. Finally, the Anglo-Saxon Egbert, educated in Ireland, but subsequently won over to the Romish church, induced by visions and tempests to abandon his projected mission to the heathen Frisians (§ 78, 3), and to devote himself to what was regarded as the more arduous task of the conversion of the schismatical monks of Hy, succeeded in A.D. 716 in so far overcoming their obstinacy that they at least gave up their divergent tonsure and Easter reckoning. Thereafter the Romanists were satisfied with the gradual Romanizing of the whole Celtic regions in the west and north. In worship, constitution and discipline all remained for a long time as it had been of old. The Roman law of celibacy could not win its way. Public worship was conducted and the sacraments dispensed in the language of the people and in the simple forms of primitive times. Canon law was almost everywhere made subordinate to the customs of the national church. Indeed, when in A.D. 843, the kingdom of the Picts, where the papacy had made most progress, went by inheritance to the Scottish king Kenneth, he restored even there the old ecclesiastical institutions of their fathers. Malcolm III., who died in A.D. 1093, was the first of the Scottish kings to begin the complete, thorough and lasting Romanizing of the whole country. His marriage with the English princess Margaret, a zealous supporter of the papacy, marks the beginning of that policy which was carried out and completed by their son David, who died in A.D. 1152. In Ireland the English conquest of A.D. 1171 under Henry III. prepared the way for the complete Romanizing of the island. Still in both Scotland and Ireland down to the 14th century many of the old Celtic priests survived. To them was given the Celtic name Kele-de, servus or vir Dei, Latinized as Colidei, and in modern form, Culdees. They were secular priests who, bound by a strict rule, in companies generally of twelve with a prior over them, like a Catholic canon (§ 84, 1), devoted themselves to a common spiritual life and activity, maintaining an existence in many places down to the end of the 8th century. The origin of the rule under which they lived is still very obscure. It allowed them to marry but enforced abstinence from marital intercourse during the period of their service, and required of them, besides the charge of the public services, special attention to the poor. In Scotland particularly their societies soon became so numerous that almost the whole secular clergy went over to them. By the forcible introduction of regular canons they were crushed more and more down to the 11th century, or where they still existed, they were deprived of the right of pastoral supervision and administration of the sacraments and reduced to subordinate positions, such as that of choir singers.—The usual application of the name of Culdees to all, even earlier representatives of the Celtic church, is quite unjustifiable.[214]

§ 78. THE CONVERSION AND ROMANIZING OF GERMANY.[215]

In the Roman period the regions of the Rhine and the Danube had become Christian countries, but the rush of the migration of the peoples had partly destroyed the Christian foundations, partly overlaid them with heathen superstitions. By the end of the 6th century a great part of Germany was already under the dominion of the Franks, and, to distinguish it from the country of the West Franks or Neustria, was called Austrasia or the land of the East Franks. South-western and South-eastern Germany (Alemannia, Bavaria, Thuringia) was governed by native dukes under the often disputed over-lordship of the Franks. North-western Germany (embracing the Frisians and the Saxons) still enjoyed undisputed national independence. The first serious attempt to introduce or restore Christianity in Austrasia began about the end of the 6th century. The missionaries who took the work in hand went, partly from Neustria, partly from this side of the Channel. The Irish and Scottish monasteries were overflowing. Those dwelling in them had an unconquerable passion for travel and in their hearts an eager longing to spread Christ’s kingdom by preaching the gospel. This impulse was greatly strengthened by the overthrow of their national prestige (§ 77, 6). They were thus out of sympathy with their native land, and were encouraged to hope that they might win on the opposite continent what they had lost at home. Crowds of monks from Iro-Scottish monasteries crossed over into the heathen provinces of Germany. But Romish Christian Anglo-Saxons, no less fond of travel, impelled by the same missionary fervour and no slight zeal for their own communion, followed in their steps. Thus in the 8th century on German soil the struggle was renewed which at home had been already fought out, to end again as before in the defeat of the Celtic claims. In almost all German countries we find traces of Irish or Scottish missionaries and married priests, reproachfully styled adulterers. What mainly secured for the Anglo-Saxons the victory over them was the practical talent for organization shown by the former, and their attachment to the imposing spiritual power of the papal see. To them alone is Germany indebted for her incorporation into the Roman ecclesiastical union; for even the Frankish missionaries for the most part had no connection with Rome.—Most rapid and successful progress was made by the mission where there had previously been Christian institutions, e.g. in the provinces of the Rhine and the Danube. The work was more difficult on the east of the Scheldt in Friesland, Hesse, Thuringia and Saxony, where paganism had reigned undisturbed. Mission work was at once furthered and hindered by the selfish patronage of the Frankish rulers. Paganism and national liberty, the yoke of Christ and the yoke of the Franks, seemed inseparably conjoined. The one stood and fell with the other. The sword of the Franks was to make the way for the cross of Christ, and the result of preaching was to afford an introduction to political subjection. The missionaries submitted regretfully to this amalgamation of religious and political interests, but it was generally unavoidable.

§ 78.1. South-Western Germany.—Here were located the powerful race of the Alemanni. Of the Christian institutions of the Roman period only some shadowy remnants were now to be seen. The diet of Tolbiac in A.D. 496 which gave the Franks a Christian king, first secured an entrance among the Alemanni to Christianity. Yet progress was slow, for the Franks did not resort to force. The revision of Alemannian jurisprudence, concluded by Dagobert I. about A.D. 630, assumed indeed that the country was wholly Christian, but it only anticipated what the country was destined to become. Fridolin (§ 77, 7), founder of the monastery of Seckingen on an island of the Rhine above Basel, is called the first Apostle of the Alemanni, A.D. 510. The reports that have reached us of his work are highly legendary and unreliable. After Columbanus in A.D. 610 had been compelled along with his companions to leave the Frankish territory (§ 77, 7), he chose Alemannian Switzerland as the field of their operations. They settled first of all at Tuggen on the Zurich lake. The fiery zeal with which they destroyed heathen idols, roused the wrath of the inhabitants, who maltreated them and drove them away. They next wrought for three years at Bregentz where they converted many pagans. The main instrument in this work was Gallus who had gained thorough mastery of the language of the people. Driven from this place also, Columbanus and his followers settled in Italy. Only Gallus, who was ill at the time, remained behind. He felt obliged, in spite of all unfavourable circumstances, to carry on the work that had been begun. In a wild forest dale by the stream Steinach, where he was held firm by a thorn bush while on his knees praying, he built a cell, from which arose in later times the famous abbey of St. Gall. He died, after an eminently useful and successful life in his 95th year in A.D. 646. He does not seem to have been so persistent as Columbanus in maintaining the peculiarities of the British church. His disciple Magnoald continued his work and founded the monastery of Füssen on the Upper Lech in Swabia. At the same time there wrought at Breisgau the hermit Trudpert, an Irishman, who laid the foundation of the future abbey of Trudpert at the foot of the Black Forest, and was murdered in A.D. 643 by a servant given up to him for forced labour. Somewhat later we meet with Pirminius, a Frankish cleric, on the Lake of Constance, where, under the protection of the Frankish ruler Charles Martel, he founded the monastery of Reichenau in A.D. 724. A national rising of the Alemanni against the Franks drove him away after three years; but the monastery remained uninjured. He then proceeded down the Rhine and founded several monasteries, the last at Hornbach in the diocese of Metz, where he died in A.D. 753.

§ 78.2. South-Eastern Germany.—After the successful labours of Severinus (§ 76, 6) the history of the Danubian provinces is shrouded in thick darkness. A hundred years later we find there the powerful nation of the Boyars, now Bavarians, with native dukes descended from Agilulf. Only scanty remnants of Christianity were to be seen. In A.D. 615 the Frankish abbot Eustasius of Luxeuil, the successor of Columbanus, appears prosecuting the missionary labours, and struggling against the so-called heresies of Bonosus and Photinus, remnants probably of Gothic Arianism. About the middle of the 7th century, at the court of the Duke of Bavaria, Theodo I., at Regensburg, Emmeran, bishop of Poitiers, laboured for three years. Suddenly he left the country and made a pilgrimage to Italy. Being charged with the seduction of the Princess Ota, he was on his journey in A.D. 652, according to others in A.D. 715, overtaken by her brother and cruelly murdered. Ota is said at the advice of the saint himself to have named him as her seducer, in order to screen the actual seducer from vengeance. The true Apostle of Bavaria was bishop Rupert of Worms. In A.D. 696 he baptized the Duke Theodo II. with his household, founded many churches and monasteries, and almost completed the Christianizing of the country. The centre of his operations was the bishopric of Salzburg, founded by him. About A.D. 716 he returned to Worms and died there in A.D. 717. An old tradition describes him as a Scot, whether in respect of his descent or of his undoubtedly ecclesiastical tendencies, is uncertain. We find at least no trace of his having had any connection with Rome. Soon after him a Frankish itinerant bishop called Corbinianus made his appearance in Bavaria, and was the founder of the episcopal see at Freisingen, A.D. 724. He was a man of imperious temper and unbending stubbornness, who exercised discipline with reckless strictness, rooted out the remnants of pagan superstition, and founded many churches and monasteries. He died in A.D. 730.—That the Frankish missionaries were still more or less influenced by the old British traditions is shown by the fact that Boniface found the Bavarian church free from Rome. Duke Theodo II. soon after Rupert’s departure on a pilgrimage to Rome had indeed entered into relations with Gregory II., in consequence of which three Roman clerics made their appearance in Bavaria. But the organization of the Bavarian church committed to them by the pope could not be carried out on account of political troubles. Boniface was the first who succeeded in some measure in doing this.—The Apostle of the neighbouring Thuringians was an Irishman Kilian or Kyllena, who, toward the end of the 7th century, along with twelve companions, entered the province of Würzburg. These faithful men found the reward of their labours in the crown of martyrdom. But crowds of their zealous believing fellow-countrymen followed them, and continued with rich success the work which they had begun, until, after a hard struggle, they were obliged to resign the field to Boniface.

§ 78.3. North-Western Germany.—In the Middle Rhine provinces Christian episcopal dioceses had been maintained, but in a feeble condition and overrun with crowds of heathen people. About the middle of the 6th century a Frank called Goar settled as a hermit within the bounds of the diocese of Treves, converted many of the surrounding heathens and put to shame the envious suspicions of the clergy of Treves, his holiness being attested according to later legends by many extraordinary miracles. The beautiful town of St. Goar has grown up round the spot where he built his cell and church. After him in the same region wrought a Longobard Wulflaich who as a stylite (§ 44, 6), in spite of the northern climate, preached down to the heathens from his pillar. But the neighbouring bishops disliked his senseless asceticism and had the pillar thrown down.—After the Frankish king Dagobert I. conquered the south of the Netherlands in A.D. 630, an accomplished Frankish priest, Amandus, appeared at Rome preaching the gospel among the Frisians settled there. The command given by him for the compulsory baptism of all the pagans only intensified the hatred against him and his sacred message. Insulted, maltreated and repeatedly thrown into the Scheld, he left the country to missionarize among the Basques of the Pyrenees and then among the Slavs of the Danube. But at a later period he returned to Ghent, and gained great influence after having succeeded in converting a rich Frisian called Bavo, with whose help he built two monasteries. In A.D. 647 he was chosen bishop of Maestricht, but retired in A.D. 649, notwithstanding the dissuasion of Pope Martin I., on account of the opposition of his clergy, and then founded the monastery of Elno, afterwards called St. Amand, near Tournay, where he died in A.D. 648. During the same period wrought Eligius, formerly a skilful goldsmith at the court of Dagobert, from A.D. 641 bishop of Noyon, where he died in A.D. 658. He took numerous missionary journeys for the conversion of the Frisians extending as far as the Scheld. From this side of the Channel too wistful eyes had looked over to the Frisian coasts. A Briton said to have been converted to Romanism by Augustine the Apostle of the Anglo-Saxons, Livinus, appeared as a missionary on the Scheld about A.D. 650, but was slain by the heathens soon after his arrival. The celebrated supporter of Romish claims, Wilfrid (§ 77, 6), first preached the gospel to the Frisians living north of the Scheld. He had been elected archbishop of York, but, expelled from his bishopric (§ 88, 3), he went to seek protection at Rome and was cast by a storm on the Frisian shores, which was fortunate for him as hired assassins waited for him in France. He spent the winter of A.D. 677-678 in Friesland, preached daily, baptized Duke Aldgild and “thousands” of the people. But in the following spring he took his departure. Aldgild’s successor Radbod († A.D. 719), who passed his whole life in war with Pippin of Heristal († A.D. 714) and Charles Martel, hated and persecuted Christianity as the religion of the Franks, and the seed sown by Wilfrid perished. Pippin’s victory at Dorstadt in A.D. 689 compelled him for a time to show greater toleration. Then immediately a Frankish mission was started under bishop Wulfram of Sens, a pupil of the monastery of Fontanelle founded by Columbanus. According to an interesting tradition, which, however, does not stand the test of criticism, Radbod was himself just about to receive baptism, but drew back from the baptismal font, because he would rather go with his glorious forefathers to hell than enter the Christian heaven with a crowd of miserable people. It is probably only a legend designed in the interest of the doctrine of predestination.—The true Apostle of the Frisians was the Anglo-Saxon Wilibrord who, in company with twelve followers, undertook the work in A.D. 690. Born in Northumbria about A.D. 658, he received his first training under Wilfrid at the monastery of Ripon and then in an Irish monastery under the direction of Egbert, whose debt to the Frisians (§ 77, 8) he now undertook to pay. Pippin gave protection and aid to the missionaries, and Wilibrord travelled to Rome that he might get there support for his life work. He returned armed with papal approbation and supplied with relics. But meanwhile a party of his followers, probably dissatisfied with his control, sent one of their number called Suidbert to England, where he received episcopal consecration. Wilibrord’s party, however, kept the upper hand. Suidbert went to the Bructeri on the Upper Ems, and, when driven thence by the Saxons, to the Rhine, where he built a monastery on an island of the Rhine given him by Pippin, and died there in A.D. 715.—After many years’ successful labour Wilibrord, at Pippin’s command, went a second time to Rome in A.D. 696, to be there consecrated a bishop. Sergius I. gave him consecration under the name of Clement, distinguishing him in this way as an eminent man, and Pippin gave him the castle of Utrecht as an episcopal residence. From this centre his missionary labours stretched out over Radbod’s realm and even across the Danish frontier. During a visit to the island of Heligoland he ventured to baptize three men in a holy well. Radbod would have the blasphemers together to sacrifice to the gods; thrice he enquired at the sacred lot, but it answered regularly in favour of the missionaries. But, in consequence of the complete defeat which Charles Martel suffered at the hands of Radbod at Cologne, in A.D. 715, the Frisian mission was stopped and only after Radbod’s death in A.D. 719 could Wilibrord commence operations again from the monastery of Echternach, to which he had meanwhile withdrawn. When he died at the age of eighty-one in A.D. 739, the conversion at least of South Friesland was almost completed. We hear nothing of conflicts and disputes with Celtic missionaries all through his fifty years of missionary labour, in consequence, no doubt, of his mild and peaceful temper, which led him to attend rather to the Christianizing of the heathen than to the Romanizing of those who were already Christian.—In consequence of jurisdictional claims of the Cologne see, the episcopate of Utrecht remained vacant for a long time after Wilibrord’s death. The mission among the heathens was meanwhile conducted with zeal and success by Gregory, a Frankish nobleman of the Merovingian family and a favourite pupil of Boniface, who as abbot of the monastery of Utrecht presided over its famous seminary. Willehad, the Anglo-Saxon, was held in high repute by his scholars and was made bishop of Bremen by Charlemagne. The conversion of the northern Frisians was completed by Liudger, a native Frisian, afterwards bishop of Münster.

§ 78.4. The Missionary Work of Boniface.—The Anglo-Saxon Winfrid or Boniface,[216] born at Kirton in Wessex about A.D. 680 had at an early age, on account of his piety, ecclesiastical tastes and practical talent, gained an honourable position in the church of his native land. But he was driven by an irresistible impulse to devote himself to the heathen tribes of Germany. In A.D. 716 he landed in Friesland. Although Radbod, then at war with Charles Martel, considering that he had no connection with the Franks, put no hindrances in his way, he had not such success as encouraged him to continue, and so before winter he returned home. But his missionary ardour gave him no rest; even his election as abbot of his monastery of Nutscall was not sufficient to hold him back. And so in the spring of A.D. 718 he crossed the Channel a second time, but went first of all to Rome, where Gregory II., A.D. 715-731, supplied him with relics and papal authority for the German mission. The task to which he now applied himself was directed less to the uprooting of paganism than to the overthrow of that Celtic heresy which had on many sides struck its roots deeply in German soil. He next attempted to gain a footing in Thuringia. But he could neither induce the “adulterous” priests to submit to Rome, nor seduce their people from allegiance to them. News of Radbod’s death in A.D. 719 moved him to make a journey into Friesland, where he aided Wilibrord for three years in converting the heathens. Wilibrord wished him to remain in Friesland as his coadjutor, and to be his future successor in the bishopric of Utrecht. But this reminded him of his own special task. He tore himself away and returned to Upper Hesse in A.D. 722. Here he won to Roman Christianity two Christian chiefs Dettic and Deorulf, erected with their help the monastery of Amanaburg (Arnöneburg, not far from the Ohm or Amana), and baptized, as his biographer Willibald assures us, in a short time “many thousands” of the heathens. He reported his success to the pope who called him to Rome in A.D. 723, where, after exacting of him a solemn vow of fealty to the papal chair, he consecrated him Apostolic bishop or Primate of all Germany, and gave him a Codex canonum and commendatory letters to Charles Martel and the German clergy, as well as to the people and princes of Thuringia, Hesse, and even heathen Saxony. He next secured at the court of Charles Martel a letter of protection and introduction from that powerful prince, and then again betook himself to Hesse. The cutting down of the old sacred oak of Thor at Geismar near Fritzlar in A.D. 724, against which he raised the axe with his own hand amid the breathless horror of the heathen multitudes, building a Christian chapel with its timber, marked the downfall of heathenism in the heart of Germany. In the following year, A.D. 725, he extended his operations into Thuringia, where Celtic institutions were still more widely spread than in Hesse. This extension of his field of labour required a corresponding increase of his staff. He applied to his English friends, of whom bishop Daniel of Winchester was the most distinguished. His call was responded to year after year by Anglo-Saxon priests, monks and nuns. All England was roused to enthusiasm for the work of its apostle and supported him with advice and practical aid, with prayers and intercessions, with gifts and presents for his personal and ecclesiastical necessities. Thus there soon arose two spiritual armies over against one another; both fought with equal enthusiasm for what seemed to them most high and holy. But the Anglo-Saxon invader gained ground always more and more, though indeed amid much want, weariness and care, and the Celtic church gradually disappeared before advancing Romanism. Meanwhile Gregory II. had died. His successor Gregory III., A.D. 731-741, to whom Boniface had immediately submitted a report, answered by sending him the archiepiscopal pallium with a commission as papal legate in the German lands to found bishoprics and consecrate bishops. His work in Thuringia, after ten years’ struggles and contests, was so far successful that he could look around for other fields of labour. He chose now, however, not heathen Saxony but the already Christianized Bavaria, which, as still free from Rome and strongly infected with the British heresy, seemed to afford a more attractive field for his missionary zeal. He made a hasty tour of inspection through the country in A.D. 735-736. The most important result of this journey was the accession of a fiery young Bavarian named Sturm, supposed to be next in succession to Odilo the heir of the throne, whom Boniface took with him to educate at the seminary at Fritzlar. In the following year he undertook a third journey to Rome, undoubtedly to consult with the pope about the further organization of the German church and the best mode of its accomplishment. He had the most flattering reception and stayed almost a whole year in Rome. The pope sent him away in A.D. 738 with apostolic letters to the clergy, people and nobles of Middle Germany, and also to some distinguished Bavarian and Alemannian bishops, in which those addressed were urged to assist his legate by their ready and hearty obedience in bringing about a much-needed organization of the churches in their several provinces.[217]

§ 78.5. The Organization Effected by Boniface.—The attention of Boniface was directed first of all to Bavaria, and duke Odilo reigning there since A.D. 737 anticipated it by an invitation. Arriving in Bavaria he divided the whole Bavarian church into four dioceses. Bivilo of Passau had before this been consecrated as bishop in Rome. Erembert of Freisingen received consecration at the hand of the legate. The bishops of Regensburg and Salzburg, however, down to the close of their lives, asserted themselves as opposition bishops over against those appointed by Boniface. Odilo, too, withdrew from him his favour, and entrusted not to him but to Pirminian the Alemannian Apostle, who sided with the Celtic church, the organization and oversight of several newly-founded Bavarian monasteries. Thus the results of the papal legate’s visit to Bavaria were of a very doubtful kind, and he had not even made a beginning of Romanizing Alemannia. In the meantime, however, an incident occurred which gave him in a short time the highest measure of influence and success. Charles Martel died in A.D. 741 and his sons succeeded him, Carloman in Austrasia and Pepin the Short in Neustria. Charles Martel had indeed on Gregory’s recommendation given Boniface a letter of protection that he might carry on his work in Hesse and Thuringia, but he had never gone further, so that Boniface often complained bitterly to his English friends of the indolent, even hostile attitude of the Frankish prince. But he could not wish a better coadjutor than Carloman, who was really rather more a monk than a prince. And so Boniface no longer delayed the organization of the Hessian and Thuringian churches, for in the course of the year 741 he founded four bishoprics there. It was a matter of still greater consequence that Carloman and then also Pepin aided him in the reorganization of the Frankish national church on both sides of the Vosges mountains, where partly on account of sympathy with the British church system, partly on account of the wild spirit engendered by a life of war and the chase, the clergy had not hitherto submitted to the influence of the papal emissary. In order that the estates of the realm might be advised by “the envoy of St. Peter” and the clergy of the empire about what was necessary for the Austrasian church, Carloman, at the close of an imperial diet, at a place unknown, called the first Austrasian Synod, Concilium Germanicum, in A.D. 742, and gave to its decrees the authority of imperial laws. Boniface was recognised as Archbishop and Primate of the whole Austrasian church; it was forbidden that the higher or lower clergy should have anything to do with arms, hunting and war, that all “false and adulterous” priests should be expelled; that the admission of “strange” clerics should be dependent on examination before a Synod to be held annually; that in all monasteries the Benedictine rule (§ 85, 1) should be enforced; and that it be made the duty of counts to support the bishops in maintaining church discipline and stamping out all remnants of paganism. In the next year, A.D. 743, Carloman summoned the Second Austrasian Synod at Liptinä, now Lestines, near Cambray, which confirmed the decrees of the first and enlarged their scope, especially in regard to the rooting out of pagan superstition and enforcing strictly the Romish prohibition of marriage between those naturally (§ 61, 2) and spiritually (§ 58, 1) related. Thus upon the whole the legal reorganization of the church of Austrasia might have been regarded as complete, even though its actual enforcement required yet many severe struggles. In A.D. 744 Boniface laid the foundation of the famous monastery of Fulda which for many centuries was a chief resort and principal school of the Benedictine monks of Germany. Its first abbot was young Sturm.—After the close of the Austrasian Synod Boniface began to treat with Pepin about the reorganization of the church in Neustria. Pepin called a Neustrian provincial Synod at Soissons in A.D. 744. Its decrees in regard to discipline were in essential agreement with those of the two Austrasian Synods. Besides it was resolved to erect three metropolitan sees. Two of the prelates designate, however, refused to accept the pallium offered by pope Zacharias, A.D. 741-752, ostensibly on the plea that the payment of the fee demanded would render them guilty of simony. Their refusal, however, was perhaps mainly due to Pepin’s discovery that the political unity of Neustria required a Primate at Rheims rather than three metropolitans (§ 83). At a national Synod, place of meeting unknown, held in A.D. 745, called by the two princes acting together, at Boniface’s request the bishop Gewilib of Mainz, a rude warrior guilty of secret murders, was deposed. It was now the wish of Boniface that he should receive the vacant episcopal chair of Cologne, which was destined to be raised into a metropolitan see. Yet, through the machinations of his opponents, the vacancy at Cologne was otherwise filled, and Boniface was at last obliged to be satisfied with the less important bishopric of Mainz. At a second national Council of A.D. 748 held probably at Düren he succeeded in getting a considerable number of Austrasian and Neustrian bishops to subscribe a declaration of absolute submission to the pope in which they fully acknowledged the papal supremacy over the Frankish church. Pepin, who now, after the retirement of his brother Carloman from the government in A.D. 747, in order to spend the rest of his days in the monastery of Monte Cassino, was sole ruler of both kingdoms, obtained the express approval of pope Zacharias in A.D. 752 in making an end of the puppet show of a sham Merovingian royalty (§ 82, 1). But it is quite a mistake to say that Boniface was the intermediary in this matter between the pope and the mayor of the palace. His letters rather show, from the disfavour in which he at that time stood at the court of Pepin, that the negociations were carried on directly with the pope without his knowledge.[218]

§ 78.6. Heresies Confronted by Boniface.—Among the numerous heresies with which Boniface had to deal the most important were those of the Frankish Adalbert, the Scotchman Clement, and the Irishman Virgilius. Adalbert wrought on the left bank of the Rhine far into the interior of Neustria; Clement among the East Franks. In the summer of A.D. 743 Carloman had at Boniface’s urgent request cast both into prison, and at the Neustrian Synod of Soissons in A.D. 744 Boniface secured Adalbert’s condemnation. Yet soon after we find both at liberty. Boniface now accused them before the pope Zacharias, and they were condemned unheard at a Lateran Council in A.D. 745. The legate’s written accusation charged the Frankish Adalbert with the vilest hypocrisy and blasphemy: He boasted that an angel had brought him relics of extraordinary miracle-working power, by which he could do anything that God could; he placed himself on an equality with the apostles; he introduced unlearned and uncanonically ordained bishops; he forbade pilgrimages to Rome, and the consecration of churches and chapels in the names of apostles and martyrs, but had no objection to their consecration in his own name; he neglected divine service in consecrated places and assembled the people for worship in woods and fields and wheresoever it seemed good to him; he let his own hair and nails be venerated as relics; he absolved those who came to him in confession with the words: I know all your sins, for nothing is hidden from me, confession is unnecessary, go in peace, your sins are forgiven you, etc.; in this way he won great influence especially over women and peasants, who honoured him as a great apostle and miracle-worker. Three documents supported the report of Boniface; viz., a biography of Adalbert composed by one of his admirers, according to which his mother in the “ever blessed” hour of his birth had in vision seen an ox go forth out her right side; also, a letter said to have fallen from heaven to Jerusalem which guaranteed his divine mission; and finally, a prayer composed by him which while generally breathing a spirit of deep humility and firm faith, went on to invoke a rarely-named angel. If we strike out from these charges those which evidently rest upon misunderstanding and legendary or malevolent exaggeration, we have before us a man who in opposition to the prevailing worship of saints and relics maintained that the relics set up for veneration were no more worthy of it than his own hair and nails would be, who also disputed the advantage of pilgrimages, denied the necessity of auricular confession, insisted upon the universal priesthood of believers in opposition to Romish hierarchical claims, and the evangelical worship of God in spirit and in truth in opposition to the Romish overestimation of consecrated places; but in doing so perhaps, more certainly in mystic-theosophic enthusiasm than in conscious deceitfulness, he may have boasted of divine revelations and the possession of miracle-working power.—The figure of the Scotchman Clement comes out yet more distinctly in the charge formulated against him. He is simply an adherent of the pure and unadulterated ecclesiastical system of the old British church. He treats with contempt the Canon law, and does not regard himself as bound by the decrees of Synods or the authority of the Latin Fathers; he claims to be a bishop and still lives in “adulterous” wedlock; he affirms that a man may marry the widow of his deceased brother; he teaches with reference to Christ’s descent into hell that even those who died in heathenism may yet be redeemed, and “affirmat multa alia horribilia de prædestinatione Dei contraria fidei cath.” The pope committed to his legate the execution of the Synod’s condemnatory judgment. But still in A.D. 747 Boniface again complains that the undiminished reputation of both heretics at all points stands in his way. Soon after this, however, Carloman, after Adalbert had submitted in a disputation with Boniface, sent him into confinement in the monastery of Fulda, from which he made his escape, and after long wanderings was at last killed by the swineherds. No information has reached us as to the end of Clement.—The Irishman Virgilius was from A.D. 744 bishop of Salzburg, and, as before at the court of Pepin, so now at his recommendation at the court of the Bavarian duke Odilo, he stood in high favour. After a long and determined refusal he at last agreed to submit to the Romish choice of bishops. A priest of his diocese unskilled in Latin had baptized in nomine patria et filia et speritus sancti, Boniface pronounced such baptism invalid. Virgilius thought otherwise and appealed to the pope who was obliged to admit that he was right. But now Boniface complained of him as a heretic because he taught: Quod alius mundus et alii homines sub terra sint, and this time the pope took the side of his legate, because upon the accepted notion of the orbicular form of the earth, the doctrine of antipodes (already regarded by Lactantius and Augustine as of dangerous tendency) amounted to a denial of the unity of the human race and the universality of redemption, whereas the Irishman belonging to a seafaring race probably considered the earth to be globular. The pope, in A.D. 748, ordered his deposition and removal from the clerical order, which Boniface, however, was not able to accomplish.[219]

§ 78.7. The End of Boniface.—On the one hand, distrusted, and set aside by Pepin and the new pope Stephen II., A.D. 752-757, from his position as legate (§ 82, 1), and also, on the other hand, feeling himself overborne in his old age by the burden of his episcopal and archiepiscopal cares, sorrows and conflicts, Boniface had his favourite pupil, the energetic Lullus, already recognised by pope Zacharias, elected as his successor, and with Pepin’s consent transferred to him at once the independent administration of the episcopal diocese of Mainz. He now determined to devote his last as he had his first energies undividedly to his archiepiscopal diocese embracing the Frisian church, which still needed firm episcopal control and was now threatened with a pagan reaction. After Wilibrord’s death in A.D. 739, Cologne, resting its pretensions on an ancient deed of gift by Dagobert, claimed jurisdiction over the Frisian church. Boniface indeed at Carloman’s orders had ordained a new bishop to the Utrecht chair, in A.D. 741, probably the Anglo-Saxon Eoban. Yet this new bishop never came into actual, at least not into undisputed possession. In one of his last letters Boniface earnestly but in vain implores pope Stephen II. to disallow the unjust pretensions of Cologne. Charlemagne first settled the dispute by requiring Alberich, Gregory’s successor in the Utrecht see, to receive consecration at the hands of the Cologne prelate. With a stately retinue of fifty-two followers clerical or lay, and with a foreboding presentiment carrying with him a winding sheet, Boniface sailed down the Rhine in the spring of A.D. 754. Whether he had now in view a reorganization of the existing Frisian church and how far he succeeded, we have no means of knowing. On the other hand his biographers in their legendary exaggeration cannot sufficiently extol the wonderful success of his missionary preaching. Wherever he appeared throughout the land he baptized thousands of heathens. At last he had pitched his tent in the neighbourhood of what is now Dokkum, and there, on June 5th, A.D. 755, a number of neophytes received confirmation. But a wild troop of heathen apostates rushed down on them before the break of day. The guard desired to offer armed resistance, but Boniface refused to shed blood, and, according to the report of an old woman, received his deathblow holding the gospel over his head. His companions were also cut down around him. Utrecht, Mainz and Fulda quarrelled over his bones. Signs and wonders at last decided in favour of Fulda, which he had himself fixed upon as their resting place.—By order of Lullus, a priest of Mainz called Wilibald wrote his life about A.D. 760. Another life by an anonymous author in Utrecht appeared about A.D. 790; and yet another by the Regensburg monk Othlo about A.D. 1060. His literary remains consist of Epistles, Sermons, and Penitentials of doubtful authenticity.

§ 78.8. An Estimate of Boniface.—In opposition to the current Roman Catholic apotheosis of Boniface which assigns to him as the true Apostle of the Germans the highest place of honour in the firmament of German saints and cannot find the least shadow or defect in all his life, struggles and doings, ultra-protestant estimates have run to the very contrary extreme. Ebrard has carried this to the utmost length. He refuses to credit him with zeal, any hearty regard, any real capacity for proper mission work among the heathens. Alongside of Wilibrord he was only a despicable Romish spy; in Hesse and Thuringia only the brutal destroyer of the Culdee church that flourished there, and in the Frankish empire only the inconscionable agent of Rome who allied himself to the Rome-favouring dynasty of Pepin in order to secure the overthrow of the Culdee-favouring Merovingians, purchasing thus Frankish aid in subjecting the German and Frankish churches to the hierarchical tyranny of Rome. He can find in him no trace of intellectual or spiritual greatness. On the contrary fanaticism, hatred and a persecuting spirit, intrigue and dishonesty, servility, dissimulation, hypocrisy, lying and double dealing are there in abundance. His world-wide fame is accounted for by this, that he is the accursed founder of all mischief which has arisen upon Germany from its connection with the papal chair.—It is true that Boniface stopped the course of the national and independent development of the German church that had begun and put it on the track of Roman Catholic development and mal-development. But even had Boniface never crossed the Channel this fate could scarcely have been averted. It is further true that Boniface was far more eager in uprooting heretical “Celtism” and bringing Frankish and Bavarian Christians under the Romish yoke than in converting heathen Saxons to Christianity. But he was thus eager because that seemed to him in the first instance more necessary and important than aiming at new conversions. It is a crying injustice to deny that he showed any zeal, any energy, or that he had any success in the conversion of the heathen in Friesland, Hesse and Thuringia. All his thoughts, labours and endeavours are dominated by a steadfast conviction that the pope is the head and representative of the church in which alone salvation can be found. But yet with him the church laws which emanate from the Holy Spirit stand superior to the pope. Hence the right of final decision on all ecclesiastical questions belongs indeed to the pope, but only secundum canones. The expression ascribed to Boniface in Gratian’s Decretal: Papa a nemine judicetur nisi devius a fide is never met with in any of his extant writings, but it thoroughly well characterizes his position. Thus alongside of the most abject submission to the chair of Peter, we see how firmly he speaks to pope Zacharias in connection with the Neustrian pallium affair about the Simoniacal greed of the officials, and on another occasion declares his profound indignation at the immoral, superstitious and blasphemous proceedings, fit to be compared to the old pagan Saturnalia, which, went on in Rome openly before the eyes of the pope unchecked and unpunished. He also showed brave resistance when papal dispensations infringed his ordinances founded upon the canon law, and protested vigorously, when Stephen II., in A.D. 754, disregarding the archiepiscopal authority gave episcopal consecration to Chrodegang of Metz. But Boniface never mixed himself up with the political intrigues of the popes, nor did he ever intermeddle in the political manœuvres between Pepin and the Merovingians, between the Frankish empire and its German vassals. An inventive genius, great and profound thoughts, a liberal and comprehensive view of matters, we certainly often miss in him. All his thoughts, feelings and desires were bound within the narrow limits of Romish ecclesiasticism. His piety was deep, earnest and sincere, but is quite of the legalistic and hard external kind that characterizes Roman Catholicism. With the most painful conscientiousness he holds by Rome’s ecclesiastical institutions; any resistance to these is abhorrent to him and he persecutes heresies as cursed and soul-destroying. He clearly understands the absurdity of prohibiting marriage between those who are related only in baptism and at confirmation. For he sees that on this principle all marriages between Christian people as recipients of baptism must be forbidden since by baptism they have all become sons and daughters of Christ and His church, and so are spiritually brothers and sisters. But then he willingly sacrifices his understanding, and continues to denounce all marriages between those spiritually related as fearful sin and horrible incest. Very characteristic too are many of his questions to the popes as to what should be held on this point and that, mostly about very trivial and indifferent matters of common life. Thus he lets himself be informed that raw bacon should only be eaten smoked, but that the eating of the flesh of horses, hares, beavers, jackdaws, ravens and storks is absolutely forbidden, “immundum enim est et execrabile.”[220]

§ 78.9. The Conversion of the Saxons.—The first missionary attempts among the Saxons, who had forced their way from the north-west of Germany down to the neighbourhood of the Rhine, were made by two Anglo-Saxon monks, who were both called Ewald, the black or the white Ewald. A Saxon peasant received them hospitably, but so soon as he discovered their object, fell upon them with his household servants and slew them, A.D. 691. Boniface had many pious wishes about his heathen kinsfolk but did nothing for their conversion. The most that he did was to found the monastery of Fulda on the Saxon frontier as the rallying point for a future clerical raid upon Saxon paganism. For thirty years, however, this remained but a pious wish, till at last the sword of the most powerful of the Frankish kings took up the mission. The subjugation of the powerful as well as hostile Saxon people was with Charlemagne a political necessity. But lasting subjugation was impossible without conversion and conversion was impossible without subjugation; for the Saxons hated the religion of the Franks no less heartily than they did the Franks themselves. Alcuin with true magnanimity exerted all his influence with his royal friend against any use of force in conversion, but political necessity overcame the counsel of the much trusted friend. The Saxon war lasted for thirty-three years, A.D. 772-804. In the very first campaign the strongest Saxon fortress Eresburg was stormed and their most revered idol, the Erminsul, was destroyed. Frankish priests followed the Frankish arms and Christianized immediately the conquered districts. But as soon as Charlemagne’s army was engaged elsewhere, the Saxons proceeded to destroy again all Christian foundations. In the imperial diet at Paderborn in A.D. 777 they were obliged to swear that life and property would be forfeited by a new apostasy. But the most powerful of the Saxon princes, Wittekind, who had not appeared at the diet, organized a new revolt. The Frankish army sustained a fearful defeat at Mount Sunthal, all Christian priests were murdered, all churches were destroyed. Charlemagne took a dreadful revenge. At Verden he beheaded in one day 4,500 Saxons. After a new rebellion, a second diet at Paderborn in A.D. 785 prescribed for them horribly bloody laws. The least resistance against the precepts of the church was punished with death. Wittekind and Albion, the two most famous Saxon chiefs, acknowledged the vanity of further resistance. They were baptized in A.D. 785 and continued thenceforward faithful to the king and the church. But the rebellions of the rest of the Saxons were still continued. In A.D. 804 Charlemagne drove 10,000 Saxon families from their homes on the Elbe, and gave the country to the Obohites [Obotrites] that were subject to him. Now for the first time was a lasting peace secured. Charlemagne had founded eight bishoprics in Saxony, and under these bishops’ care throughout this blood-deluged country, no longer disturbed, a Christianity was developed as truly hearty and fresh as in any other part of Germany. One witness to this among others is afforded by the popular epic the Heliand (§ 89, 3).[221]

§ 79. THE SLAVS IN GERMAN COUNTRIES.[222]

The sudden rush of the wild hordes of the Huns in the 5th century drove the Slavs to the south of the Danube and to the west of the Vistula. Again in the 6th century Slavic tribes forced their way westward under pressure from the Mongolian Avars who took possession of Dacia, Pannonia and Dalmatia. For the conversion of the Slavs in north-eastern Germany nothing was done; but much was attempted on behalf of the conversion of the southern Slavs and the Avars, who were specially under the care of the see of Salzburg.

§ 79.1. The Carantanians and Avars.—The Carantanian prince Boruth, in what is now called Carinthia, in A.D. 748 asked the help of the Bavarian duke Thassilo II. against the oppression of the Avars. His nephew Chatimar, who had received a Christian training in Bavaria, when in A.D. 753 he succeeded to the throne, introduced Christianity into his country. After the overthrow of Thassilo in A.D. 788, Carinthia came under Frankish rule, and Charlemagne extended his conquests over the Avars and Moravians. Bishop Arno of Salzburg, to whom metropolitan rights had been accorded, conducted a regular mission by Charlemagne’s orders for the conversion of these peoples. In A.D. 796, Tudun, the prince of the Avars, with a great band of his followers, received baptism, and vowed in A.D. 797 to turn the whole nation of the Avars to Christianity, and asked for Christian teachers. In the 9th century, however, the name of the Avars passed away from history.

§ 79.2. The Moravian Church.—In A.D. 855 Rastislaw, Grand Duke of Moravia, freed his country from the Frankish yoke and deprived the German bishops of all their influence. He asked Slavic missionaries from the Byzantine emperor. The brothers Cyril and Methodius (§ 73, 2, 3) who had already approved themselves as apostles of the Slavs, answered the call in A.D. 863. They introduced a liturgy and public worship in the language of the Slavs, and by preaching in the Slavic tongue they won their way to the hearts of the heathen people. But in spite of this encouraging success they found themselves, amid the political convulsions of the age, in a difficult position. Only by attachment to the pope could they reasonably expect to hold their ground. They accepted therefore an invitation of Nicholas I. in A.D. 867, but on their arrival in Rome they found that Hadrian II. had succeeded to the papal chair. Cyril remained in Rome and soon died, A.D. 869. Methodius swore fealty to the pope and was sent away as archbishop of Moravia. But now all the more were the German bishops hostile to him. They suspected his fidelity to the pope, charged him with heresy and inveighed against the Slavic liturgy which he had introduced. John VIII., rendered suspicious of him by these means, called upon him in strong terms in A.D. 879 to make answer for himself at Rome. Methodius obeyed and succeeded in completely vindicating himself. The pope confirmed him in his archiepiscopal rank and expressly permitted him to use the Slavic liturgy, enjoining, however, that by way of distinction the gospel should first be read in Latin and then rendered in a Slavic translation. The intrigues of the German clergy, however, continued and embittered the last days of the good and brave apostle of the Slavs. He died in A.D. 885. A general persecution now broke out against the Slavic priests and the metropolitan chair of Moravia remained vacant for fourteen years. John IX. restored it in A.D. 899. But in A.D. 908 the Moravian kingdom was overthrown. The Bohemians and Magyars shared the spoil between them.

§ 79.3. The Beginnings of Christianity in Bohemia.—On New Year’s day of A.D. 845 fourteen Bohemian lords appeared at Regensburg at the court of Louis of Germany and asked for baptism along with their followers. Of the motives and of the consequences of this step we know nothing. When Rastislaw raised the Moravian empire to such a height of glory the Bohemians connected themselves closely with Moravia. Rastislaw’s successor Swatopluc married a daughter of the Bohemian prince Borsivoi in A.D. 871. After that Methodius extended his missionary labours into Bohemia. Borsivoi himself and his wife, Ludmilla, were baptized by Methodius in A.D. 871. The sons of Borsivoi, also, Spitihnew, who died in A.D. 912 and Wratislaw, who died in A.D. 926, with the active support of their mother furthered the interests of the church in Bohemia.

§ 80. THE SCANDINAVIAN NATIONS.[223]

The mission to the Frisians and Saxons called the attention of missionaries to the neighbouring Jutes and Danes. Wilibrord (§ 78, 3) in A.D. 696 carried the gospel across the Eider, and Charlemagne felt it necessary in order to maintain his authority over the Frisians and Saxons to extend his conquest and that of the church over the peninsula of Jutland to the sea coast. He could not, however, accomplish his design. Better prospects opened up before Louis the Pious. Threatened with expulsion through disputes about the succession, Harald the king of the Jutes sought the protection of the Franks. Consequently Ebo, archbishop of Rheims, crossed the Eider in A.D. 823 at the head of an imperial embassy and clothed with full authority from pope Paschalis I. He baptized also a number of Danes, and when, after a year’s absence, he returned home, he took with him several young Jutes to educate as teachers for their countrymen. But Harald was again hard pressed and concluded to break entirely with the national paganism. In A.D. 826 he took ship, with wife and child, accompanied by a stately retinue, and at Mainz, where Louis then held his court, received baptism with great pomp and ceremony. Soon after his return a young monk followed him from the monastery of Corbei on the Weser. Ansgar, the apostle of the north, had committed to him by Louis the hard and dangerous task of winning the Scandinavian nations for the church. Ansgar devoted his whole life to the accomplishment of this task, and in an incomparable manner fulfilled it, so far as indomitable perseverance, devotion and self-denial amid endless difficulties and perverse opposition could do it.

§ 80.1. Ansgar or Anschar, the son of a Frankish nobleman, born A.D. 801, was educated in the monastery of Old Corbie in Picardy, and on the founding of New Corbie in A.D. 822 was made Superior of it. Even in very early youth he had dreams and visions which led him to look forward to the mission field and the crown of martyrdom. Accompanied by his noble-minded brother monk Autbert, who would not let his beloved friend go alone, Ansgar started in A.D. 826 on his first missionary journey. Harald had established his authority in the maritime provinces of Jutland, but he ventured not to push on into the interior. In this way the missionary efforts of the two friends were restricted. On the frontier of Schleswig, however, they founded a school, bought and educated Danish slave youths, redeemed Christian prisoners of war and preached throughout the country. But in the year following Harald was driven out and fled to the province of Rüstringen on the Weser, which Louis assigned to him for life. Also the two missionaries were obliged to follow him. Autbert died in the monastery of Corbie in A.D. 829, having retired again to it when seized with illness. Soon afterwards the emperor obtained information through ambassadors sent by the Swedish king Bjorn, that there were many isolated Christians in their land, some of them merchants, others prisoners of war, who had a great desire to be visited by Christian priests. Ansgar, with several companions, undertook this mission in A.D. 830. On the way they were plundered by Norse pirates. His companions spoke of returning home, but Ansgar would not be discouraged. King Bjorn received them in a very kindly manner. A little group of Christian prisoners gathered round them and heartily joined in worship. A school was erected, boys were bought and adults preached to. Several Swedes sought baptism, among them the governor of Birka, Herigar, who built at his own cost the first Christian church. After eighteen months Ansgar returned to the Frankish court in order to secure a solid basis for his mission. Louis thus perceived an opportunity of founding a bishopric for the Scandinavian Norsemen at Hamburg on the borders of Denmark. He appointed Ansgar bishop in A.D. 834, and assigned to him and the mission the revenues of the rich abbey of Turholt in Flanders. Ansgar obtained in Rome from Gregory IV. the support of a bull which recognised him as exclusively vicar apostolic over all the Norse. Then he built a cathedral at Hamburg, besides a monastery, bought again Danish boys to educate for the priesthood and sent new labourers among the Swedes, at whose head was the Frankish monk Gauzbert. But soon misfortunes from all sides showered down upon the poor bishop. His patron Louis died in A.D. 840, Harald apostatized from the faith, the Swedish missionaries were driven out by the pagans, the Norse rushed down on Hamburg and utterly destroyed city, church, monastery, and library. Moreover Charles the Bald took possession of the abbey of Turholt which according to the Treaty of Verdun in A.D. 843 had fallen to Flanders, in order to bestow it upon a favourite. Ansgar was now a homeless beggar. His clergy, when he had no longer support for them, left him. His mission school was broken up. His neighbour, bishop Leuterich of Bremen, with whom he sought shelter, inspired by despicable jealousy, turned him from his door. At last he got shelter from a nobleman’s widow who provided for him at her own expense a lodging at Ramslo, a country house near Hamburg. In A.D. 846 Leuterich died. Louis of Germany now gave to the homeless Apostle of the North a fixed habitation by appointing Ansgar to the vacant bishopric. The bishops of Cologne and Verden had divided between them the shattered fragments of the Hamburg bishopric. But at last pope Nicholas I. in A.D. 834 put an end to their selfish pretensions by uniting the two dioceses of Hamburg and Bremen into one, and conferring upon it metropolitan rights for the North. But meanwhile Ansgar notwithstanding all the neediness in which he himself lived had been working away uninterruptedly on behalf the Scandinavian mission. In Denmark the king was Eric whose court Ansgar repeatedly visited as ambassador of the German king. By Eric’s favour he had been enabled to found a church in Schleswig and to organize a mission stretching over the whole country. Eric did not venture himself to pass over to Christianity, and when pagan fanaticism broke out in open rebellion in A.D. 854, he fell in a battle against his nephew who headed the revolt. A boy, Eric II., perhaps grandson of the fallen Eric, mounted the throne. But the chief Jovi reigned in his name, a bitter foe of the Christians, who drove away all Christian priests and threatened every Christian in the land with death. Yet in A.D. 855 Eric II. emancipated himself from the regency of Jovi and granted toleration to the Christians. The work of conversion was now again carried on with new zeal and success.—All attempts, by means of new missionaries, to gather again the fragments of the mission in Sweden, broken up by Gauzbert’s expulsion, had hitherto proved vain. At last Ansgar himself started on his journey thitherward about A.D. 850. By rich presents and a splendid entertainment he won king Olaf’s favour. A popular assembly determined to abide by the decision of the sacred lot and this decided in favour of the adoption of Christianity. From that time the Swedish mission was carried on without check or hindrance under the direction of Erimbert, whom Ansgar left there. Ansgar died in A.D. 865. The most dearly cherished hope of his life, that he should be honoured with the crown of martyrdom, was not realized; but a life so full of toil, privation and trouble, sacrifice, patience and self-denial, was surely nobler than a martyr’s crown.[224]

§ 80.2. Ansgar’s Successor in the see of Hamburg-Bremen was Rimbert, his favourite scholar, his companion in almost all his journeys, who wrote an account of his master’s life and pronounced him a saint. He laboured according to his ability to follow in the steps of his teacher, especially in his care for the Scandinavian mission. But he was greatly hindered by the wild doings of the Danish and Norse pirates. This trouble reached its height after Rimbert’s death, and went so far that the archbishop of Cologne on the pretext that the Hamburg see had been extinguished was able to renew his claims upon Bremen.—Continuation, § 93.

§ 81. CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM.[225]

From A.D. 665 the Byzantine rule in North Africa (§ 76, 3) was for a time narrowed and at last utterly overthrown by the Saracens from Egypt, with whom were joined the Berbers or Moors who had been converted to Islam. In A.D. 711, called in by a rebel, they also overthrew the Visigoth power in Spain (§ 76, 2). In less than five years the whole peninsula, as far as the mountain boundaries of the north, was in the hands of the Moors. Then they cast a covetous glance upon the fertile plains beyond the Pyrenees, but Charles Martel drove them back with fearful loss in the bloody battle of Poitiers in A.D. 732. The Franks were in this the saviours of Europe and of Christianity. In A.D. 750 the Ommaiadean dynasty at Damascus, whose lordship embraced also the Moors, were displaced by the Abbassidean, but a scion of the displaced family, Abderrhaman I., appeared in Spain and founded there an independent khalifate at Cordova in A.D. 756, which soon rose to an unexampled splendour. Also in Sicily the Moslem power obtained an entrance and endeavoured from that centre to maintain itself by constant raids upon the courts of Italy and Provence. The expulsion of the Moors from Spain and Sicily was first completely accomplished during the next period (§ 95).

§ 81.1. Islam in Spain.—The Spanish Christians under the Ommaiade rule were called Mozarabians, Arabi Mustaraba, i.e. Arabianized Arabs as distinguished from Arabs proper or Arabi Araba. They were in many places under less severe restrictions than the Oriental Christians under Saracen rule. Many Christian youths from the best families attended the flourishing Moorish schools, entered enthusiastically upon the study of the Arabic language and literature, pressed eagerly on to the service of the Court and Government, etc. But in opposition to such abandonment of the Christian and national conscience there was developed the contrary extreme of extravagant rigorism in obtrusive confessional courage and uncalled-for denunciation of the prophet. Christian fanaticism awakened Moslem fanaticism, which vented itself in a bloody persecution of the Christians in A.D. 850-859. The first martyr was a monk Perfectus. When asked his opinion about Mohammed he had pronounced him a false prophet, and was executed. The khalif of that period, Abderrhaman II., was no fanatic. He wished to stop the extravagant zeal of the Christians at its source, and made the metropolitan Recafrid of Seville issue an ecclesiastical prohibition of all blasphemy of the prophet. But this enactment only increased the fanaticism of the rigorists, at whose head stood the presbyter, subsequently archbishop, Eulogius of Cordova and his friend Paulus Alvarus (§ 90, 6). Eulogius himself, who kept hidden from her parents a converted Moorish maiden, and was on this account beheaded along with her in A.D. 859, was the last victim of the persecution.—The rule of the Arabs in Spain, however, was threatened from two sides. When Roderick’s government (§ 76, 2) had fallen before the arms of the Saracens in A.D. 711, Pelayo, a relation of his, with a small band of heroic followers, maintained Christian national independence in the inaccessible mountains of Asturia, and his son-in-law Alphonso the Catholic in the Cantabrian mountains on the Bay of Biscay. Alphonso subsequently united both parties, conquered Galicia and the Castilian mountain land, erecting on all sides the standard of the cross. His successors in innumerable battles against the infidels enlarged their territory till it reached the Douro. Of these Alphonso II., the Chaste, who died in A.D. 850, specially distinguished himself by his heroic courage and his patronage of learning. Oviedo was his capital. On the east too the Christian rule now again made advance.—Charlemagne in A.D. 778 conquered the country down to the Ebro. But a rebellion of the Saxons prevented him advancing further, and the freebooting Basques of the Pyrenees cut down his noblest heroes. Two subsequent campaigns in A.D. 800, 801, reduced all the country as far as the Ebro, henceforth called the Spanish March, under the power of the Franks.[226]

§ 81.2. Islam in Sicily.—A Byzantine military officer fled from punishment to Africa in A.D. 827 and returned with 10,000 Saracen troops which terribly devastated Sicily. Further migrations followed and in a few years all Sicily was under the rule of the Arabs, who made yearly devastating raids from thence upon the Italian coasts, venturing even to the very gates of Rome. In A.D. 880 they settled on the banks of the Garigliano, and put all central Italy under tribute, until at last in A.D. 916 the efforts of pope John X. were successful in driving them out. Spanish-Moorish pirates landed in A.D. 889 on the coasts of Provence, besieged the fortress of Fraxinetum, and plundered from this centre for a hundred years the Alpine districts and northern Italy. Their robber career in south Italy was most serious of all. It lasted for three centuries and was first brought to an end by the Norman invasion.—Continuation, § 95, 1.

II. THE HIERARCHY, THE CLERGY AND THE MONKS.

§ 82. THE PAPACY AND THE CAROLINGIANS.

The Christianizing of the German world was in great part accomplished without the help of Rome. Hence the German churches, even those that were Catholic, troubled themselves little at first about the papal chair. The Visigoth church in Spain was most completely estranged from it. The Saracen invasion of A.D. 711 cut off all possibility of intercourse with Rome. Even the free Christian states in Spain down to the 11th century had no connection with Rome. The Frankish churches, too, in Gaul as well as in Austrasia, throve and ran wild in their independence during the Merovingian age. On the other hand, the relation of the English Church to Rome was and continued to be very intimate. Numerous pilgrimages of Anglo-Saxons of higher and lower ranks were undertaken to the grave of the chief of the Apostles, and increased the dependence of the nation on the chair of St. Peter. For the support of these pilgrims and as a training school for English clergy, the Schola Saxonica was founded in the 8th century, and for its maintenance and that of the holy places in the city, on Peter’s day the 29th June was collected the so-called Peter’s pence, a penny for every house. Out of this sprang a standing impost on all the English people for the papal chair, which in the 13th century became a money tax upon the kings of England which Henry VIII. was the first to repudiate in A.D. 1532. The credit belongs to the Anglo-Saxons and especially to Boniface of not only delivering the rich sheaves of their missionary harvest into the granaries of Rome, but also of organizing the previously existing churches of the Frankish territories after the Romish method and rendering them obedient to the Roman see. Since then there has been such a regular intercourse between the pope and the Carolingian rulers that it absorbed almost completely the whole diplomatic activity of the Romish curia.

§ 82.1. The Period of the Founding of the States of the Church.—From bequests and presents of ancient times the Roman chair succeeded to an immense landed property, Patrimonium S. Petri, which afforded it the means of greatly assuaging the distress of the inhabitants of Italy during the disturbances of the migrations of the peoples. There was naturally then no word of the exercise of sovereign rights. From the time of the restoration of the Byzantine exarchate in A.D. 567 (§ 76, 7) the political importance of the pope grew immensely; its continued existence was often dependent on the good will of the pope for whom generally indeed the idea of becoming the court patriarch of a Longobard-Roman emperor was not an enticing one. But the pope could not prevent the Longobard power (§ 76, 8) from gaining ground in the north as well as in the south of the peninsula. An important increase of influence, power and prestige was brought to the papal chair under Gregory II., A.D. 715-731, through the rebellions in northern and central Italy occasioned by the Byzantine iconoclastic disputes. Rome was in this way raised to a kind of political suzerainty not only over the Roman duchy but also over the rest of the exarchate in the north—Ravenna and the neighbouring cities together with Venice (§ 66, 1). Gregory III., A.D. 731-741, hard pressed by Luitprand the Longobard, thrice (A.D. 739, 740) applied for help to the Frank Charles Martel, who, closely bound in friendship with Luitprand, his ally against the Saracens, sent some clerics to Italy to secure a peaceful arrangement. Gregory’s successor Zacharias, A.D. 741-752, sanctioned by his apostolic judgment the setting aside of the Merovingian sham king Childeric III., whereupon Pepin the Short, in A.D. 752, assumed the royal title with the royal power which he had long possessed. The next elected pope called Stephen died before consecration, consequently his successor of the same name is usually designated Stephen II., A.D. 752-757. The Longobard Aistulf had in A.D. 751 conquered Ravenna and the cities connected with it. Pope Stephen II. sought help anew of the Frankish king and supported his petition by forwarding an autograph letter of the Apostle Peter, in which he exhorted the king of the Franks as his adopted son under peril of all the pains of hell to save Rome and the Roman church. He himself at Pepin’s invitation went to France. At Ponthion, where, in A.D. 754, the king greeted him, Pepin promised the pope to restore to Rome her former possessions and to give protection against further inroads of the Longobards; while the pope imparted to the king and his two sons Charles and Carloman the kingly anointing in the church of St. Dionysius or Denis in Paris. At Quiersy then Pepin took counsel with his sons and the nobles of his kingdom about the fulfilling of his promise, bound the Longobard king by oath in the year following after a successful campaign to surrender the cities, properties and privileges claimed by the pope, and assigned these in A.D. 755 as a present to St. Peter as their possessor from that time forth. But scarcely had he retired with his army when Aistulf not only refused all and any surrender, but broke in anew upon Roman territory, robbing and laying waste on every side. By a second campaign, however, in A.D. 756, Pepin compelled him actually to deliver over the required cities in the provinces of Rome and Ravenna the key of which he deposited with a deed of gift, no longer extant, on the grave of St. Peter; while the pope, transferring to Pepin the honorary title of Exarch of Ravenna, decorated him with the insignia of a Roman patrician. When the Byzantine envoys claimed Ravenna as their own property, Pepin answered that the Franks had not shed their blood for the Greeks but for St. Peter.—Aistulf’s death followed soon after this and amid the struggles for the succession to the throne one of the candidates, duke Desiderius of Tuscany, sought the powerful support of the pope and promised him in return the surrender of those cities of the eastern province of Ravenna which still remained in the hands of the Longobards. The pope obtained Pepin’s consent to this transaction, and Desiderius was made king. But neither Stephen nor his successor Paul I., A.D. 757-767, could get him completely to fulfil his promise, and new encroachments of the Longobards as well as new claims of the pope intensified the bad feeling between them, which the conciliation of Pepin, who died in A.D. 768 had not by any means overcome.[227]

§ 82.2. After the death of Paul I. the nobles forced one of their own order upon the Romans as pope under the name of Constantine II. Another party with Longobard help appointed a presbyter, Philip. The former maintained his ground for thirteen months, but was then overthrown by a clerical party and, with his eyes put out, was cast into the street. They now united in the choice of Stephen III., A.D. 768-772.—Desiderius wished greatly to form a marriage connection with the Frankish court, and found a zealous friend in Bertrada, the widow of Pepin. When Stephen heard of it his wrath was unbounded, and he gave unbridled expression to it in a letter which he sent to her sons Charlemagne and Carloman. Referring to the fact that the devil had already in Paradise by the persuasion of a woman overthrown the first man and with him the whole race, he characterized this plan as propria diabolica immissio, declared that any idea of a connection by marriage of the illustrious reigning family of the Franks with the fœtentissima Longobardorum gens, from which all vile infections proceed, was nothing short of madness, etc. Not peace and friendship, but only war and enmity with this robber of the patrimony of Peter would be becoming in the pious kings of the Franks. He laid down this his exhortation at the grave of Peter and performed over it a Mass. Whoever sets himself to act contrary to it, on him will fall the anathema and with the devil and all godless men he shall burn in everlasting flames; but whosoever is obedient to it, shall be partaker of eternal salvation and glory. Nevertheless Charles married Desiderata the daughter of Desiderius, and Gisela, Charles’ sister, married the son of Desiderius. But before a year had passed, in A.D. 771, he wearied of the Longobard wife and sent her home. Soon after this Carloman died. Charles seized upon the inheritance of his youthful nephews, who together with their mother found shelter with Desiderius. When Hadrian I., A.D. 772-795, refused to give the royal anointing to Carloman’s sons, Desiderius took from him a great part of the States of the Church and threatened Rome. But Charles hastened at the pope’s call to give him help, conquered Pavia, shut up king Desiderius in the monastery of Corbei, and joined Lombardy to the Frankish empire. Further information as to what passed between him and Hadrian at Rome in A.D. 774 is only to be got from the Vita Hadriani (§ 90, 6) written during the reign of Louis of France. It relates as follows: At the grave of Peter the pope earnestly exhorted him to fulfil at last completely the promise which his father Pepin I. with his own consent and that of the Frankish nobles gave to pope Stephen II. at Quiersy in A.D. 754. Charles after reading over the document referred to agreed to everything promised therein, and produced a new deed of gift after the style (ad instar) of the old, undertaking to transfer to the Roman church a territorial possession which, together with the assumed Promissio of Pepin described with geographical precision, embraced almost all Italy, excepting Lombardy but including Corsica, Venice and Istria. It is now quite inconceivable that Charles, let alone Pepin, should have given the pope such an immense territory which Pepin for a simple footing in A.D. 754, and Charles for at least three-fourths of it, must have first themselves conquered. Moreover this account of the matter is directly contradicted by the statement of all the witnesses of Pepin’s own times. On the part of the Franks the continuator of the Chronicler Fredégar, on the part of the Romans the biographer of Stephen II. in the Liber pontificalis and that pope himself in his letters to Pepin, all speak of the negociations between the king and the pope as having reference simply to Rome and Ravenna. And since all attempts to reconcile these contradictions by exegetical devices have failed, we can only regard this as a fiction designed to palm off upon Louis of France Rome’s own ambitious territorial scheme. All that Charlemagne did was to confirm and renew his father’s gifts, as Hadrian himself distinctly states: Amplius (=further, i.e. for time to come) confirmavit.—Moreover Pepin, and still more Charlemagne, would hardly have granted to the holy father by his gift absolute sovereignty over the States of the Church thus founded. By conferring the patriciate upon the two Frankish princes, the pope, indeed, himself acknowledged that the suzerainty now belonged to them which formerly the Byzantine emperor had exercised by his viceroy, the exarch of Ravenna. A more exact definition of these rights, however, may have been first given when Charles was crowned emperor, his imperial authority undoubtedly extending over the Papal States. The pope as a temporal prince was his vassal and must himself, like all citizens of Rome, take the oath of allegiance to the emperor. Judicial authority and the appointment of government officials belonged to him; but they were supervised and controlled by the Frankish ambassadors, Missi dominici, who heard appeals and complaints of all kinds and were authorized to give a final judgment.

§ 82.3. Charlemagne and Leo III.—Hadrian I. was succeeded by Leo III., A.D. 795-816. During a solemn procession in A.D. 799 he was murderously attacked by the nephews of his predecessor and severely beaten. Some of the bystanders declared that they had seen the bandits tear out his tongue and eyes. The legend vouched for by the pope himself was added that Peter by a miracle restored him both the next night. Leo meanwhile escaped from his tormentors and fled to Charlemagne. His opponents accused him before the king of perjury and adultery, and the hearing of witnesses seems to have confirmed the serious charges, for Alcuin hastened to burn the report which was given in to him on the subject. But the pope was honourably discharged and assumed again the chair of Peter under the protection of a Frankish guard. Next year Charles crossed the Alps with his army for a campaign against Benevento. He convened a Synod at Rome; but the bishops maintained that the pope, the head of all, can be judged of none; yet the pope with twelve sponsors swore an oath of purgation and prayed for his accusers. At the Christmas festival Charles went to the church of St. Peter. At the close of Mass the pope amid the applause of the people placed a beautiful golden crown upon his head (A.D. 800). The world is asked to believe that he did it by the immediate impulse of a divine inspiration; but it was the result of the negociations of years and the fulfilment of a promise by which the pope had purchased the king’s protection against his enemies. With the idea of the imperial power Charlemagne connected the idea of a theocratic Christian universal monarchy in the sense of Daniel’s prophecy. The Greeks had proved themselves unworthy of this position and so God had transferred it to the king of the Franks. As emperor, Charles stands at the head of all Christendom, and has only God and His law over him. He is the most obedient son, the most devoted servant of the church, so far as it is the vehicle and dispenser of salvation; but he is its supreme lord and ruler so far as it needs to adopt earthly forms and an earthly government. Church and state are two separate domains, which, however, on all sides limit and condition one another. Their uniting head they have in the person of the emperor. Hence on every hand Charles’ legislation enters the domain of the church, in respect of her constitution, worship and doctrine. On these matters he consults the bishops and synods, but he confirms, enlarges and modifies their decisions according to his own way of thinking, because for this he is personally answerable to God. In the pope he honours the successor of Peter and the spiritual head of the church; but, because the emperor stands over church and state, he is also ruler of the pope. The pope who gave him imperial consecration did it not by any power of his own immanent in the papacy, but by special divine impulse and authority. Hence the crowning of the emperor is only to be once received at the pope’s hand. This rank is henceforth hereditary in the house of Charles, and only the emperor can beget and nominate the new emperor. The unity of the empire is to be maintained under all circumstances, and hence, contrary to the Frankish custom of dividing the inheritance, younger sons are to receive only the subordinate rank of ruling princes.[228]

§ 82.4. Louis the Pious and the Popes of his Time.—Charlemagne’s weaker son Louis the Pious, A.D. 814-840, was not in a position to carry out the work his father had begun. But pious as Louis was, he was yet as little inclined as his immediate successor to give up the imperial suzerainty over the city and chair of St. Peter. The popes were most expressly required before receiving papal consecration to obtain imperial confirmation of their election. Leo’s successor Stephen IV., A.D. 816-817, seems indeed to have evaded it, yet still he let the Romans take the oath of fealty to the emperor, and unasked submitted to make a journey over the Alps in order to get over the anomaly of an emperor without the consecration of Peter’s hand. An agreement come to on that occasion, A.D. 816, between emperor and pope has not been preserved. A few days after his return the pope died. The newly-elected Paschalis I., A.D. 817-824, also indeed mounted the papal chair without imperial confirmation, but apologized by an embassy on the ground that he had been unwillingly obliged to act so, and praying for a continuation of the agreement made with his predecessor, to which the emperor consented. Indeed, according to a diploma of A.D. 817, extant only in a transcript, bearing the name of Louis, the king was to bestow upon the papal chair, besides what Pepin and Charlemagne had given, Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily, and many estates in Calabria and Naples. There was also an undertaking that only after having been consecrated should any newly-elected pope interchange friendly greetings with the emperor. All copies of this document can be traced back to a collection of imperial grants to the Romish church of the 11th century. At its basis there lay probably a genuine document, but it has been variously altered in the interests of the high church party.—Some years later, after he had decoyed to France and blinded his illegitimate nephew Bernard, who had as reigning prince in Italy rebelled against the law of succession passed in A.D. 817, Louis sent his son Lothair into Italy to quiet the tumults there, and the pope availed himself of this opportunity to crown the prince already crowned by his father as co-emperor. But scarcely had Lothair got over the Alps again when two of the most distinguished and zealous of the Frankish partisans were in A.D. 823 blinded and beheaded in the papal palace. Before the imperial commission the pope took an oath of purgation, to which 34 bishops and 5 presbyters joined with him in swearing, but bluntly refused to deliver up the perpetrator of the deed. As the pope died soon afterwards, Lothair was sent a second time to Rome, in order to enforce once and for all upon his successor Eugenius II., A.D. 824-827, the observance of imperial rights. The result of their conference was the so-called Constitutio Romano, by which the election of the pope (§ 46, 11) was taken from the common people and given to the clergy and nobles, but the consecration was made dependent on the emperor’s confirmation and an oath of homage from the newly-elected pope (A.D. 824). Nevertheless his successor Valentine was elected and consecrated without any reference to the constitution. He died, however, after six months, and now the Frankish party came forward so energetically that the new pope Gregory IV., A.D. 827-844, was obliged to submit in all particulars to the requirements of the law. But soon after political troubles arose in the Frankish kingdom which could not fail to contribute to the endeavours of the papacy after emancipation. From his weak preference for his younger son, Charles the Bald, born of a second marriage, Louis was led in A.D. 829 to set aside the law of succession he himself had issued in A.D. 817. The sons thus disinherited rebelled with the assistance of the most distinguished Frankish prelates, at whose head was Wala, abbot of Old Corbie, cousin of Charlemagne, and the bishops Agobard of Lyons, Ebo of Rheims, etc., as assertors of the unity of the empire. Also pope Gregory IV., whose predecessors had sanctioned the law of succession now set aside, was won over and was taken across the Alps by Lothair to strengthen his cause by the weight of his apostolic authority. The pope threatened with the ban those bishops who remained true to the old emperor and had obeyed his summons to attend the diet. But they answered the pope that he had no authority in the empire of the Franks, and that if he did not quietly take himself over the Alps again they would excommunicate him. He was inclined to yield, but Wala’s counsel restrained him. He answered the bishops earnestly and moderately, and, as a last attempt at conciliation, went himself personally to the camp of the emperor, but was unable to effect anything. But next morning Louis had no army; during the night most of his soldiers had passed over to the camp of his enemy. The emperor now had to surrender himself prisoner to his son Lothair, then at a diet at Compiègne in A.D. 833, to do humble penance in church and to resign the government. His penitent son, Louis the German, however, set him free in A.D. 834. A severe judgment was now passed upon the confederate prelates at the Diedenhosen in A.D. 835. But the brothers continued constantly at war with one another, and Louis the Pious did not live to see the end of it.

§ 82.5. The Sons of Louis the Pious and the Popes of their Days.—The Treaty of Verdun, A.D. 843, put an end to the bitter war between the sons of Louis the Pious, and made of the western empire three independent groups of states under Lothair, Louis the German and Charles the Bald. Lothair I., who got the title of Emperor with Italy and a strip of land between Neustria and Austrasia, died in A.D. 855. Of his sons, Louis II. inherited Italy with title of Emperor, Lothair II. the province called after him Lotharingia, Lotharii regnum, and Charles Burgundy and Provence. Lothair and Charles died in A.D. 869 soon after one another without heirs, and before the emperor Louis II. could lay his hands upon their territories they were seized by the uncle. By the treaty of Mersen, A.D. 870, Charles took the Romanic, and Louis the German took the German portions. Thus was completed the partition of the Carolingian empire into three parts distinguished as homogeneous groups of states by language and nationality: Germany, France and Italy.—Gregory IV. had survived the overthrow of the universal monarchy of Charlemagne. His successor, Sergius II., A.D. 844-847, did not observe the obligations devolving on him by the Constitutio Romana. But Lothair I. was not inclined to let pass this slight to his imperial authority. His son Louis was sent into Italy with a powerful army, and obliged the pope and the Romans to take the oaths of fealty to his father with the promise not again to consecrate a pope before they had the emperor’s consent. But the next pope Leo IV., A.D. 847-855, was also consecrated without it, but excused himself from the circumstances of the age, the pressure of the Saracens, while making humble professions of most dutiful obedience. His successor Benedict III., A.D. 855-858, did not regard the imperial consent as necessary, and the anti-pope set up by the French party could not maintain his position.

§ 82.6. The Legend of the Female Pope Joanna.—Between Leo IV. and Benedict III. is inserted an old legend of the pontificate of a woman, the so-called female pope Joanna: A maiden from Mainz went in man’s clothes with her lover to Athens, obtained there great learning, then appeared at Rome as Joannes Anglicus, was elected pope, but having become pregnant by one of her chamberlains, was seized with labour pains in the midst of a solemn procession and died soon after, having been pope under the name of John VIII. for two years, five months and four days. This story was widely credited from the 13th to the 17th century, but its want of historical foundation is proved by the following facts:

1. The immediate succession of Benedict III. to Leo. IV. has contemporary testimony from the Annales Bertiniani of A.D. 855, also from a letter of Hincmar to Nicholas I., Benedict’s successor, as well as the inscription “Benedict” and “Lothair,” on a Roman denarius of the same year.

2. Neither Photius nor Michael Cærularius, who certainly would not have failed to make a handle of such a papal scandal (§ 67), know anything of the matter.

3. The first certain trace of the existence of such a legend is found about A.D. 1230 in Stephen of Bourbon, yet there indeed the words are added: Ut dicitur in chronicis; but he makes the female pope mount St. Peter’s chair only about A.D. 1100, knows neither her name nor her native country, and describes the catastrophe of her overthrow differently from the legend current in later times.

4. On the other hand, the existence of her biography in the Liber pontificalis between that of Leo IV. and that of Benedict III., was regarded down to the 17th century as the oldest and indeed almost contemporary witness to the historicity of the female pope. It is wanting, however, in the oldest and best MSS. and must therefore be considered a later interpolation. This also applies to the reference made thereto by Marianus Sectus (d. A.D. 1086), Sigbert of Semblours (d. A.D. 1113), Otto of Friesingen (d. A.D. 1158), and Godfrey of Viterbo (about A.D. 1190). Even in the oldest MSS. of the Chronicle of the Roman penitentiary Martinus Polonus (d. A.D. 1278) we read nothing of the female pope; yet the story must soon have been inserted there, for Tolomeo of Lucca about A.D. 1312 affirms in his Church History, that all writers whom he had read, with the single exception of Martin, made Benedict III. follow immediately after Leo IV. Perhaps Martin himself in a second enlarged edition of his chronicle had inserted a biography of the female pope, which he might do with the less hesitation if it was true that the pope of his own time John XX., A.D. 1276-1277, thought it wrong not to count the female pope and so styled himself John XXI. From that time all chroniclers of the Middle Ages without the slightest expression of doubt repeated the legend in essentially the same way as Martin’s chronicle and the Liber pontificalis report it. The Reformed theologian, David Blondel, in A.D. 1649, performed a service to the Catholic church by his elaborate critical treatment of the legend which destroyed all belief in its historicity. After this, however, it was again vindicated by Spanheim (Opp. ii. 577) and Kist; and even Hase regards it as still conceivable that the church which has affirmed the existence of things that never were, may have denied the existence of things that were, if the knowledge of it might prove hazardous to the interests of the papacy.

The origin and gradual development of the legend, about the middle of the 12th century and certainly in Rome, may be most simply explained with Döllinger from a combination of the following data.

1. From the time of Paschalis II. in A.D. 1099 it was customary for the new pope in the solemn Lateran procession when having his entrance on office attested to sit upon two old chairs standing in the Lateran with pierced seats, which probably came from an old Roman bath. But the popular wit of the Romans suggested another reason for the pierced seats. The chairs were thus pierced in order that before the consecration a deacon might satisfy himself of the manhood of the new pope; for, it would be added by and by, a woman in disguise was once made pope, etc.

2. In a street of Rome was found a statue in white robes with a child and an enigmatical inscription, the letter P six times repeated which some read: Parce pater patrum papissæ prodere partum, others: Papa pater patrum peperit papissa papellum; so that this statue was supposed to represent the female pope with her child.

3. Further the papal processions between the Lateran and the Vatican at a point where the direct way was too narrow were wont to diverge into another wider street; this was done, it was now said, because at this place the catastrophe referred to had befallen the female pope.

4. That the name Joannes was given to the female pope is easily explained from the frequency of this name among the popes. In A.D. 1024 it had been already held by nineteen. And that she who had brought such a disgrace upon the papacy should have been described as a native of the German city of Mainz, is explained from national antipathy entertained by the Italians for everything German.

5. Finally, the most difficult part of the problem, why this episode should have been inserted just between Leo IV. and Benedict III., may perhaps find satisfactory solution in the supposition that the legend may have been first introduced as an appendix to a codex of the Liber ponficalis which closed with the biography of Leo IV.[229]

§ 82.7. Nicholas I. and Hadrian II.—The successor of Benedict III., Nicholas I., A.D. 858-867, was chosen with the personal concurrence of the emperor Louis II. then in Rome. This pope was undoubtedly the greatest of all the popes between Gregory I. and Gregory VII. He was a man of inflexible determination, clear insight and subtle intellect, who, favoured by the political movement of the age, supported by public opinion which regarded him as a second Elijah, and finally backed up in his endeavours after papal supremacy by the Isidorian collection of decretals just now brought forward (§ 87, 2), could give prestige and glory to the struggle for law, truth and discipline. Among the many battles of his life none brought him more credit and renown than that with Lothair II. of Lothringia. That he might marry his mistress Waldrade, Lothair accused his wife Thielberga of committing incest before her marriage with her brother, abbot Hucbert, and of having obtained abortion to conceal her wickedness. Before a civil tribunal she was in A.D. 858 acquitted by submitting to a divine ordeal, the boiling caldron ordeal which a servant undertook for her. But Lothair treated her so badly that at last, in order simply to be rid of her tormentors, she confessed herself guilty of the crime charged against her before a Synod at Aachen in A.D. 859 attended by the two Lothringian metropolitans Günther of Cologne and Thietgaut of Treves, and expressed the wish that she should atone for her sins in a cloister. But soon she regretted this step and fled to Charles the Bald in Neustria. A second Synod at Aachen in A.D. 860 now declared the marriage with Thielberga null, and Lothair formally married Waldrade. Meanwhile the Neustria metropolitan Hincmar of Rheims had published an opinion in respect of civil and ecclesiastical law (De divortio Lotharii) wholly favourable to the ill-used queen, and she herself had referred the matter to the pope. Nicholas sent two Italian bishops, one of whom was Rhodoald of Porto (§ 67, 1), to Lothringia to investigate the affair. These took bribes and decided at the Synod of Metz in A.D. 863 in favour of the king. But Nicholas annulled the decisions of the Council, excommunicated his legates and deposed the two Lothringian metropolitans who had vainly trusted to the omnipotence of Lothringian gold in Rome. Thirsting for revenge they incited the emperor Louis II., Lothair’s brother, against the pope. He besieged Rome, but came to an understanding with the pope through his wife’s mediation. Lothair, detested by his subjects, threatened with war by his uncles Louis of Germany and Charles the Bald as champions of the childless Thielberga, repented and besought the pope for grace and protection from the ambitious designs of his uncles. Nicholas now sent a legate, Arsenius, across the Alps, who acting as plenipotentiary in all three kingdoms, obliged Lothair to take back Thielberga and put away Waldrade. But she flung herself upon him and in her arms Lothair soon forgot the promise to which he had sworn. At the same time he reconciled himself to his uncles whose zeal had somewhat cooled in presence of the lordly conduct of the papal legate. Thielberga now herself sought divorce from the pope. But Nicholas continued firmly to insist upon his demands. His successor Hadrian II., A.D. 867-872, an old man of seventy-five years, could only gradually emancipate himself from the imperial party which had elected him and taken him under its protection. He received back again the two excommunicated metropolitans, without, however, restoring them to their offices, released Waldrade from church discipline, and always put off granting Thielberga’s reiterated request for divorce. Lothair now went himself to Rome, took a solemn oath that he had no carnal intercourse with Waldrade since the restoration of his wife, and received the sacrament from the pope’s hand. Full of hope that he would get success in his object he started for home, but died at Piacenza of a violent fever in A.D. 869. When dead the uncles pounced upon the kingdom. Hadrian used all his influence in favour of the emperor, the legitimate heir, and threatened his opponents with excommunication. But Hincmar of Rheims composed a state paper by order of his king, in which he told the pope that the opinion of France was that he should not interfere with things about which he knew nothing. The pope was obliged to let this insult pass unrevenged. In a dispute of his own Hincmar succeeded in giving the pope a second rebuff (§ 83, 2).[230]

§ 82.8. John VIII. and his Successors.—His successor John VIII., A.D. 872-882, was more successful than Hadrian in bringing the Carolingian king to kneel at his footstool. In the art of intrigue and in the perfidy, hypocrisy and unconscionableness required therefor, he was, however, greatly superior. He succeeded almost completely in freeing the papal chair from the imperial authority. But he did so only to make it a playball of the wildest party interests around his own hearth. To his account mainly must be laid the unfathomable degradation and debasement of the papacy during the 10th century. When the emperor Louis II. died in A.D. 875, Louis the German, as elder and full brother of his father, ought to have been his heir. But the pope wished to show the world that the papal favour could make a gift of the imperial crown to whomsoever it chose. Accepting his invitation, Charles the Bald appeared in Rome and was crowned by the pope on Christmas Day, A.D. 875. But he had to pay dearly for the papal favour, by formally renouncing all claims to the rights of superior over the States of the Church, allow for the future absolute freedom in the election of popes, and accept a papal representative and clerical primate for all France and Germany. But not altogether satisfied with this, the pope made the new emperor submit himself to a formal act of election by the Lombards of Pavia, and in order to secure the approval of his own nobles to his proceedings he even agreed to give them the right of election. The Neustrian clergy, however, with Hincmar at their head, offered a vigorous resistance and at the first Synod at Pontion in A.D. 876 there were violent altercations. The shameful compromise satisfied neither pope nor emperor. In Rome a wild party faction gained ground against the pope, and the Saracens pressed further and further into Italy. From the emperor, who knew not how to keep back the advances of the Normans in his own country, no help could be expected. Yet he made hasty preparations, purchased a dishonourable peace from the Normans, and crossed the Alps. But new troubles at home imperiously called him back, and at the foot of Mount Cenis in A.D. 877, he died in a miserable hut of poison administered by his physician, a Jew. The pope got into yet greater straits and made his position worse by further intrigues. Also his negotiations with Byzantium in A.D. 879 involved him in yet more serious troubles (§ 67, 1). He died in A.D. 882, apparently by the hand of an assassin. A year before his death Charles the Fat, the youngest son of Louis the German, had been crowned emperor, and he, the least capable of all the Carolingian line, by the choice of the Neustrian nobles, united once more all the Frankish empire under his weak sceptre. Marinus, the successor of John VIII., died after a single year’s pontificate. So was it, too, with Hadrian III. And now the Romans, without paying any heed to the impotent wrath of the emperor, elected and consecrated Stephen V., A.D. 885-891, as their pope. In A.D. 857 the German nobles at last put an end to the despicable rule of the fat Charles by passing an act of formal deposition. They chose in his place Arnulf of Carinthia, a natural son of Charles’ brother Carloman. Pope Formosus, A.D. 891-896, called him to his assistance in A.D. 894, and crowned him emperor. But he could not hold his ground in Italy and the opposition emperor Lambert, a Longobard, had possession of the field. Formosus died soon after Arnulf’s withdrawal. Boniface VI., who died after fifteen days, was succeeded by Stephen VI. in A.D. 896. This man, infected by Italian fanaticism, had the body of Formosus, who had favoured the Germans, lifted from the grave, shamefully abused and then thrown into the Tiber. The three following popes reigned only a few weeks or months, and were either murdered or driven away. John IX., A.D. 898-900, in order to pacify the German party, honoured again the memory of Formosus.—Arnulf’s tenure of the empire, however, had only been a short vain dream; but in Germany during a trying period he wielded the sceptre with power and dignity. When he died in A.D. 899, the German nobles elected his seven-year-old son, Louis the Child. He died in A.D. 911, and with him the dynasty of the Carolingians in Germany became extinct. In France this line continued to exist in pitiable impotence down to the death of Louis V. in A.D. 987.—Continuation, § 96.

§ 82.9. The Papacy and the Nationalities.[231]—From the time of Charlemagne the policy of the French kings was to establish bishoprics on the frontiers of their territories for Christianizing the neighbouring heathen countries, and thereby securing their conquest, or, if this had been already won, confirming it. The first part of this purpose the popes could only approve and further, but just as decidedly they opposed the second. There must be a reference to the chair of Peter, that the pope may maintain and preserve as head of the universal church the rights of nationalities. Each country won to Christianity should be received into the organism of the church with its national position unimpaired, and so under the spiritual fatherhood of the pope there would be established a Christian family of states, of which each member occupies a position of perfect equality with the others. In this way the interests of humanity, and at the same time, the selfish interests of papal policy, were secured. This policy was therefore directed to the emancipating as soon as possible the newly founded national churches from the supremacy of the German clergy and giving them an independent national church organization under bishops and archbishops of their own.

§ 83. THE RANK OF METROPOLITAN.[232]

The position of metropolitan was not regarded with equal favour in the German church and in the German state. Amid the variety of races the metropolitans represented the unity of the national church, as the pope did that of the universal church, while at the same time as an estate of the empire they exercised great influence on civil administration and foreign policy. The reigning princes recognised in the unity of the ecclesiastical administration of the country a support and security for the political unity and therefore opposed the partition of the national church into several metropolitanates, or, where the larger extension of the empire required several archbishoprics, wished rather to give the ablest of these the rank and authority of a primate. The popes on the other hand endeavoured to give each of the larger countries at least two or three metropolitans, and to prevent as far as possible the appointment of a national church primate; for in the unity of the national church they perceived the danger of such a prelate sooner or later giving way to the desire to emancipate himself from Rome and secure for himself the position of an independent patriarch.

§ 83.1. The Position of Metropolitans in General.—As representing the unity of the national churches the interests of the metropolitans were bound up with those of the ruling princes. They were the most vigorous supporters of their policy, and generally got in return the prince’s hearty support. This coalition of the metropolitans and the civil power, however, threatened the subordinate clergy with abject servitude, and drove them to champion the interests of the pope. Through pressure of circumstances, a widespread conspiracy of bishops and abbots was formed during the last years of Louis the Pious to emancipate the clergy and especially the episcopate from the dominion of the state and the metropolitans and to place them immediately under the papal jurisdiction. They founded upon the Isidorian decretals as showing their rights in the earliest times (§ 87, 2). Their endeavour met indeed powerful opposition, but the statements of the Pseudo-Isidore had now obtained the validity of canon law.

§ 83.2. Hincmar of Rheims.—Among the French prelates after the restoration of the order of metropolitans by Boniface the first place was held by the occupant of the see of Rheims. It reached the summit of its glory under Hincmar of Rheims, A.D. 845-882, the ablest of all the ecclesiastical leaders of France. His life consists of an uninterrupted series of battles of the most varied kind. The first fight in which he engaged was the predestination controversy of Gottschalk (§ 91, 5). But his strength did not lie in dogmatics but in church government. And here, every inch a metropolitan, he has fought the most glorious battles of his life and affirmed, against the assumptions of popes and emancipation efforts of bishops, the autonomy of reigning princes, the freedom and independence of national churches, and the jurisdiction of metropolitans. Of this sort was his contest with bishop Rothad of Soissons. Hincmar had deposed him in A.D. 861 for insubordination. Rothad appealed to pope Nicholas I. on the ground of the Sardican Canon (§ 46, 3), which, however, had never been accepted in the Frankish Empire. He had at the same time referred the pope to the Isidorian decretals. Thus supported, Nicholas after a hard struggle had Rothad reinstated in A.D. 865. The insolent defiance of his own nephew, Hincmar, bishop of Laon, led the archbishop into another obstinate fight. Here too the Isidorian decretals played a prominent part. Hadrian II. in A.D. 869 took the side of the nephew, but the metropolitan gained the victory, and the nephew, who defied the king as well as the metropolitan and moreover had entered into treasonable communication with the German court, ended his course by being deprived of his eyes by the king. Down to A.D. 875 Hincmar was inflexibly true to the king as a pillar of his policy and his throne. But when Charles the Bald in that year paid down as purchase price for the imperial throne, not only the autonomy of the empire but also the freedom of the French church and the rights of the metropolitans, he was obliged now to turn his weapons against him. Hincmar died in A.D. 882 in flight before the Normans. With him the glory of the French archbishopric sank into its grave. The pseudo-Isidorian party had triumphed, the bishops were emancipated from the government of the princes of their country, but instead of this were often surrendered to the rude caprice of secular nobles.

§ 83.3. Metropolitans in other lands.—The English princes in the interests of the political unity of the Heptarchy for a long time withstood the endeavours of the popes to place a rival alongside of the archbishop of Canterbury. The action and reaction of these opposing interests were particularly strong in the time of Wilfrid (§ 78, 3), whom the Roman party had appointed archbishop of York. Wilfrid was driven away and died in A.D. 709 after an eventful life, without succeeding in taking possession of the place to which he had been appointed. At last, however, the pope reached his end. In A.D. 735 a Northumbrian prince obtained a pallium, and after that the see of York got an undisputed place alongside that of Canterbury.—In Northern Italy there were metropolitan sees at Ravenna, Milan and Aquileia which still made their old claims to self-government (§ 46, 1). Sergius, the prelate of Ravenna, about A.D. 760, thought it would be well out of the ruins of the exarchate to found an ecclesiastical state after the model of that of Rome. There was often opposition there to the Roman supremacy. On this account the violent archbishop John of Ravenna, who was also a defrauder of the church, suffered the most complete humiliation from Nicholas I. in A.D. 861, in spite of the emperor’s protection. The force of public opinion compelled the emperor to abandon his protégé when excommunicated by the pope. But during the pontificate of John VIII., Ausbert, prelate of Milan (died A.D. 882), who kept true to the German party, could defy papal anathema and deposition. His successor, however, again acknowledged the papal supremacy.—In Germany, since the time of Charlemagne, new metropolitan sees had been created at Salzburg, Cologne, Treves and Hamburg-Bremen. Mainz, however, still claimed the primacy and represented the unity of the German church. The Isidorian forgery availed not here as in the land of its birth to stop the contention of the archbishop. The German metropolitanate to the advantage of the empire maintained its rights untouched for centuries. Among the primates of Mainz the most important by far was Hatto I., A.D. 891-913. Even under Arnulf (died A.D. 899), whose most trusted adviser he was, he exercised a wide as well as wholesome influence on the administration of the empire. It was still greater under Louis the Child (died A.D. 911) whom he raised to the throne and for whom he acted as regent. Conrad I. (§ 96, 1) also owed to him his election as king of the Germans. In the internal affairs of the German church, he directed and adjusted, organized and ruled in this time of general upheaval with wonderful insight, wisdom and energy, most conspicuously, and that too against papal assumptions, at the great national synod of Tribur in A.D. 895. The primate regarded it as a political axiom, that, in order to conserve and advance the unity of the empire, the particularism of the several races and the struggles of their chiefs and princes for independence should be crushed. Owing to the consistency and energy with which he carried out his idea, he did indeed make many enemies. The stories of insidious perfidy and bloody violence which have attached themselves to his memory are to all appearance due to their calumnious hatred. His sudden death probably gave rise to the legend that the devil fetched him away and cast him into the mouth of Etna. To him, and not to the much less important Hatto II., who died in A.D. 970, is the other equally baseless legend of the Mäusethurm near Bingen to be referred.—Continuation, § 97, 2.

§ 84. THE CLERGY IN GENERAL.[233]

The bishops subject to the archbishop were called diocesan bishops, or, as voting members of the Provincial Synod, suffragan bishops. The canonical election of bishops by the people and clergy was completely done away with in the German national church. Kings without opposition filled vacant bishoprics according to their own choice. Louis the Pious at the Synod of Aachen, in A.D. 817, restored canonical election by people and clergy, subject to the emperor’s confirmation, but his successors paid no attention to the law. Deposition was usually carried out by the Provincial and National Synods. The investiture of bishops with pastoral staff and marriage ring by the reigning prince is occasionally met with even in the Merovingian age and became general after the development of the benefice system in the 9th century. Out of the institution of bishops without dioceses, Episcopi regionarii, originally intended for missionary service, arose in all probability the institution of Chorepiscopi which flourished especially in France during the 8th and 9th centuries. With the old Chorepiscopi (§ 34, 2; § 45) they have nothing in common beyond the name. They were subordinate assistants of the diocesan bishops, whose convenience, unspirituality and often absence on state affairs demanded such substitutes. But by their arbitrary conduct and refractoriness they often gave great trouble to those bishops who had any care for their flock. A Synod at Paris, therefore, in A.D. 849, withdrew all authority from them. From that time they gradually sank out of view. The inferior clergy, taken generally from the serfs, stood mostly in slavish dependence on the bishop and often had not the barest necessaries of culture. Their appointment lay with the bishop, yet the founder of a church and his successors frequently retained the right of patronage in choosing their own officiating clergymen.[234] Especially in the later Merovingian and earlier Carolingian periods, the Frankish clergy, superior and inferior, had become terribly corrupt. Boniface was the first to reintroduce some sort of discipline (§ 78, 5) and Charlemagne’s powerful government contributed in an extraordinary measure to the ennobling of the clergy. Yet the corruption was too general and too great to be altogether eradicated. Louis the Pious, therefore, in A.D. 816, extended to the whole kingdom a reformation which Chrodegang of Metz had introduced fifty years previously among his own clergy, by which means discipline and order were again improved for some decades. But in the troublous times of the last Carolingians everything went again into confusion and decay. Exemption from civil jurisdiction was accorded the clergy during this period only to this extent, that the secular courts could not proceed against a clergyman without the advice of the bishop, and the bishop himself was subject only to the jurisdiction of the king and the Provincial Synod.

§ 84.1. The Superior Clergy.—In the German states from the earliest times the superior clergy constituted a spiritual aristocracy which by means of their higher culture won a more influential position in civil life than the secular nobles. In all important affairs of state the bishops were the advisers of the king; they were almost exclusively employed on embassies; on all commissions there were clerical members and always one half of the Missi dominici were clerics. This nearness to the person of the king and their importance in civil life made them rank as one of the estates of the realm. The Frankish idea of immunity, in consequence of which by royal gift along with the rights of territorial lords there were handed over to the new proprietors also the princely right of levying taxes and administering justice, brought to them secular as well as spiritual jurisdiction over a great part of the land. As the court of the Frankish king was moved from place to place, he required a special court, chapel, with a numerous court-clergy, at the head of which was an Arch-chaplain, usually the most distinguished prelate in the land. The names Capella and Capellani were originally applied only to court chapels and court chaplains, and were derived from the fact that in the chapel was kept the Cappa or coat of Martin of Tours as a precious relic and the national palladium of France. The court clergy formed the nursery for future bishops of the realm. In addition to the ring and staff as episcopal insignia we find in the Carolingian age the bishop’s cap, consisting of two long sheets of tin or pasteboard running up to a peak, covered with silk of the same colour as the dress used in celebrating mass, generally richly ornamented with gold and precious stones, called by the old pagan name Infula or Mitra.[235]

§ 84.2. The Inferior Clergy.—The enormous expansion of episcopal dioceses rendered a new arrangement of the inferior clergy indispensable. The extension churches in towns and the country churches which previously had been served by the clergy of the cathedral church, obtained a regular clergy of their own. As these churches were always dedicated to a saint they were called Tituli, and the clergy appointed to officiate in them, Intitulati, Incardinati, Cardinales. Thus originated the idea of Parochia, παροικία and of Parochus or parish priest,[236] who, because the cura animarum was committed to him was also called Curate, as in the French curé. Over about ten parishes was placed an Archipresbyter ruralis who was called Decanus, Dean. As the right of administering baptism belonged originally to him exclusively, his church was called Ecclesia baptisimalis; his diocese, Christianitas or Plebs; he himself also, Plebanus. A further arrangement was first introduced in the 8th century by Heddo of Strasburg [Strassburg], who gave to each of the deans in his diocese seven archdeacons, præpositi, provosts. Besides the parish churches there were many chapels or oratories where divine service was conducted only at certain times by the neighbouring parish clergy or chaplains appointed for that purpose. To this class also belong the domestic chapels in episcopal residences or on the estates of noblemen which were served by special domestic or castle chaplains. The latter indeed had in addition the duty of feeding the dogs, waiting at table and taking charge of the lady’s pony. Notwithstanding repeated reinforcement of the old law: Ne quis vage ordinetur, there was still a great number of so-called Clericis vagis, mostly vagabonds and idlers, who, ordained by unprincipled bishops for a reward, roamed over the country like clerical pedlars.

§ 84.3. Compulsory Celibacy was stoutly resisted by the German clergy. The inferior clergy were mostly married. At ordination they were ordered indeed to separate from their wives and to abstain from marital intercourse, but the promise was rarely fulfilled. Among the unmarried clergy, fornication, adultery and unnatural lust were prevalent. A bishop, Ulrich of Augsburg, addressed to Nicholas I. a philippic against the law of celibacy with fearless exposures of its evil consequences. The moral condition of the clergy was generally speaking shockingly low. Legacy hunting, forging of documents, simony and chaffering for benefices were carried on in a shameless way. The lordly habits of the bishops consisted in hunting, going about with dogs and falcons, and in wild drunken revels. In the 7th century it was the peculiar pleasure of the Frankish bishops in wild scenes of blood that induced them to take part in the wars, and led to their being afterwards obliged to fit out contingents for the field at the cost of their ecclesiastical revenues. Pepin, Charlemagne and Louis the Pious passed stringent laws against these warlike habits of churchmen; but the later Carolingians not only tolerated but actually encouraged them.

§ 84.4. Canonical life.—Augustine’s institution of a monasterii Clericorum (§ 45, 1) was often imitated in later times. But bishop Chrodegang of Metz, who died in A.D. 766, gave it for the first time, about A.D. 760, a fixed and permanent form. His rule or Canon is closely connected with the monastic rule of St. Benedict (§ 85), with the omission of the vow of poverty. He built a commodious residence Domus, monasterium (comp. Germ. words Dom and Münster), in which all the clergy of his cathedral church were obliged to live, pray, work, eat and sleep under the constant and strict supervision of the bishop or his archdeacon. This was the Vita canonica. After morning devotions all the members of the establishment gathered together in the hall where the bishop or provost read to them a chapter from the Bible, most frequently from Leviticus, from the rule or from the fathers, and added thereto the necessary explanations and exhortations. The hall was therefore called the Chapter House; then the name Chapter[237] was given to the whole body gathered together there. The Colleges[238] were a subsequent development of the chapter in non-episcopal city churches, with a provost or deacon at their head. Louis the Pious allowed Chrodegang’s rule to be revived and generalized by the deacon Amalarius of Metz, and at the National Assembly at Aachen in A.D. 817 enforced it for the whole kingdom. It is known as Regula Aquisgranensis. But soon after the Canons endeavoured to emancipate themselves more and more from the burdensome yoke of episcopal control. Gunther of Cologne (§ 82, 7) who, though deposed by the pope, retained his official position, was obliged to purchase the support of his chapter by a bargain in accordance with which a great part of the ecclesiastical revenues of the chapter were placed at their own full disposal as Prebends or Benefices. And what this one chapter gained for itself was afterwards contended for by others.[239]—Continuation, § 97, 3.

§ 85. MONASTICISM.[240]

While from the 5th century one rush of migrating peoples was rapidly followed by another, the monkish orders fell into decay, barbarism and corruption. They would scarcely have survived this period of commotion, at least would not have proved the great blessing that they have been to the German west, had not the spirit of ancient Rome with its practical turn, its appreciation of law and order and its organizing talent, given them at the right time, what they hitherto wanted, a rule answering to the requirements and circumstances of the age, and by means of it firm footing, unity, order and legal form. This task was accomplished by Benedict of Nursia (d. A.D. 543), the patriarch of Western Monasticism. The rule, which he prescribed in A.D. 529 to the monks of the monastery of Monte Cassino in Campania founded by him, was not unduly ascetic, combined strict discipline with a certain degree of mildness and indulgence, estimated the needs of human nature as well as the circumstances of the times, and was, in short, adaptable and practical. From the rule of Cassiodorus (§ 47, 23) Benedict’s disciples borrowed that zeal for scholarly studies about which their master had given no directions, and Gregory the Great inspired the order with enthusiasm for missionary labours. Thus the Benedictine order obtained its full consecration to its calling of worldwide significance. Soon spreading over all the West, being introduced into France by Maurus in A.D. 543, it nobly fulfilled its vocation by cultivating the soil and the mind, by clearing the forests, bringing in waste lands, zealously preaching the gospel, rooting out superstition and paganism, educating the young, fostering and restoring literature, science and art. The barbarous age, however, which saw the overthrow of the Merovingians and the rise of the Carolingians, exerted a deteriorating influence also on the Benedictines. But Charlemagne restored strict discipline, and assigned to the monasteries the task of erecting schools and prosecuting scholarly studies. By authority of Louis the Pious and by order of the National Assembly at Aachen in A.D. 817, Benedict of Aniane undertook a reformation and re-organization of all the monkish systems throughout the empire. At the head of a commission appointed for that purpose he visited all the Frankish monasteries, and compelled them to organize themselves after his improved Benedictine Rule.

§ 85.1. The one source of information regarding the life of Benedict of Nursia is the miracle-laden record of the miracle-loving pope Gregory the Great in the second book of his Dialogues. Benedict’s Rule comprises 73 chapters. The first principle of the monastic life is obedience to the Abbot, as representative of Christ. The choice of abbot lies with the brothers. Of serving brothers the rule knows nothing. The chief occupation is agriculture. Idleness is strictly forbidden. Charge of the kitchen and reading at table are duties performed by all the monks in turn week about. Divine service begins at 3 a.m. and is rendered regularly through all the seven hours (§ 56, 2). Two meals a day are partaken of and each monk has daily half a bottle of wine. Flesh meat is given only to the sick and weak. At table and after the Completorium or last hour of prayer, no word was allowed to be spoken. All the brothers slept in a common dormitory, each in a separate bed, but completely dressed and girded, so as to be ready at call for matins. The discipline was strict and reasonable; first private, then public rebuke, then penal fasting, corporal punishment, and finally excommunication. Hospitality and attention to the poor were enjoined on all monasteries. Reception was preceded by a year’s novitiate. The vow included Stabilitas loci, Conversio morum (poverty and chastity) and Obedientia. The Oblati were a special kind of novices, i.e. children who in their early youth were placed in the monastery by their parents. They were educated in the monastic schools and were not allowed to go back to the world.

§ 85.2. Benedict of Aniane (A.D. 821) was originally called Witiza and was the son of a Visigoth count. He had served as a soldier under Charlemagne. In attempting to save his brother he was himself almost drowned. His ambition was now directed to an ascetic life, in which his personal performances were most remarkable. On the river Anianus in Languedoc he founded in A.D. 779 the monastery of Aniane. He was the indispensable and all-powerful counsellor of Louis the Pious. In order to have him always near him, Louis founded for him the monastery of Inda or the Cornelius-Münster near Aachen. In the interests of his cloister reform he published in A.D. 817 a Codex regulorum in which he collected all the monastic rules previously known.

§ 85.3. The rule of the elder Benedict made no reference to Nunneries; but his sister Scholastica is regarded as the founder of the order of female Benedictines. Another form of female asceticism was developed after the model of the canonical life of the secular clergy in the institution of canonesses. The rule, which Louis the Pious at Aachen in A.D. 816 allowed them to draw up for themselves, is distinctly milder than that of the nuns. The ladies’ orders gradually became places of resort for the unmarried daughters of the nobles. The canonical age for taking the nun’s vows was twenty-five. The novitiate lasted three years. Besides the propria professio the paterna devotio was also regarded as binding. In regard to dress the adoption of the veil was the main thing; but in addition they wore the wreath as a symbol of virginity and the ring as token of spiritual marriage. At this time the cutting of the hair was only a punishment for unchaste nuns. The honourable position of the wife among the Germans secured special respect for the abbess, and obtained for the most famous nunneries exemption, civil prerogatives and proprietary, even princely rights. The frequent appearance of Double-Cloisters where monks and nuns, naturally in separate dwellings, under a common rule either of an abbess as often in England, or of an abbot, was also peculiarly German.

§ 85.4. The Greater Monasteries, formed as they were of a vast number of separate buildings for agriculture, cattle rearing, handicraft and arts of all kinds, for elementary teaching, for higher education, for hospitable entertainment, caring for the sick, etc., came by and by to attain the proportions of little towns. Frequently they were the centre around which cities were raised. The monastery of Vivarium in Calabria, Cassiodorus’ foundation, inspired Western monasticism with an enthusiasm for scholarly studies. The regulations of Monte Cassino were extended to all monasteries of the West. Columbanus’ monastery of Bobbio rooted out paganism and Arianism in northern Italy. The monasteries of Iona in Scotland and Bangor in Ireland gained high repute in the struggle of the Celtic church against the Roman. The English monastery of Wearmouth was a famous school of science. In France St. Denys near Paris and Old Corbei in Picardy gained a high reputation. In South Germany St. Gall, Reichenau, Lorsch and Hirschau, in Central Germany Fulda, Hersfeld and Fritzlar, and in North Germany New Corbei, a branch from Old Corbei, were main centres of Christian culture.

§ 85.5. In its new Western form also monasticism was still without the clerical character. But there was an ever-increasing tendency to draw the monastic and the clerical institutions more and more closely together. By means of celibacy and the introduction of the canonical life (§ 84, 4) the clergy came to have the monkish character, and on the other hand, most of the monks, in the first instance for monastic and mission services, took clerical orders. By and by monks sought appointments as curates (§ 84, 2), and thus rivalries arose between them and the clergy. The monasteries were wholly under the jurisdiction of the bishops in whose diocese they lay. The exemptions of this period were limited to security for the free election of the abbot, independent administration of property and gratuitous performance of consecrations by the bishop. In the Frankish empire, however, abbots were ordinarily appointed to vacancies by the court, and rich abbeys were also often bestowed upon distinguished noblemen in commendam, i.e., for temporary administration with the enjoyment of their revenues, or even to court and military officers as a reward for special services. Such lay abbots or abbacomites often stayed in the monasteries for months with their families, their huntsmen and their soldiers, and made them the scene of their drinking bouts, their field sports and their military exercises. The kings retained the richest abbacies to themselves or gave them to their sons and daughters, wives and concubines.

§ 85.6. The Stylites (§ 44, 6) on account of the climate, could gain no footing, though attempts were indeed made, e.g. by Wulflaich (§ 78, 3). In place of them we find male and female recluses, Reclusi (Inclusi) and Reclusæ, who shut themselves up in cells which they never quitted. Hermits of the Woods, unfettered by any rules, found great favour among the Germans. Their national melancholic temperament inclining them to solitude, their strong love of nature, their passionate delight in roaming unchecked through woods and mountains, contributed to make such a mode of life attractive. It was during the 6th century that this craze for hermit life reached its height in Germany, and its main seat was in Auvergne with its wild mountains, glens and gorges. But as the cell of the saint was often in later times developed into a monastery on account of the crowds of disciples that gathered round, the hermit life gradually passed over into a regulated cœnobite life. In Switzerland Meinard, son of a count of Zollern, was a hermit of this sort. In A.D. 861 he had been murdered by two robbers, and this was afterwards discovered, the legend says, by means of two ravens feeding upon the body of the murdered man. His cell in later times grew into the beautiful Benedictine abbey of Maria-Einsiedeln with its miracle-working image of the mother of God, which at this day is visited by more than a hundred thousand pilgrims yearly.

§ 86. THE PROPERTY OF CHURCHES AND MONASTERIES.

The inalienableness of church property being regarded as the first principle of its administration, it grew by enormous strides from year to year through donations and legacies, At the end of the 7th century there was in Gaul fully a third of the whole territory in the possession of the churches and monasteries, while the national exchequer was quite exhausted. In this emergency Charles Martel founded the benefice system, for which he also converted into money the abundant possessions of the church. His sons, however, Carloman and Pepin the Short, in consideration of the reorganization of the Frankish church effected by Boniface (§ 78, 5), sought to avert the impoverishment of many churches and cloisters by a partial restitution so far as the neediness of the times would allow. Charlemagne and Louis the Pious did still more in this direction, so that partly by these means, partly by the continued donations of rich people, church property soon acquired its earlier proportions. Thus, e.g., the monastery of Luxeuil had in the 9th century an estate with 15,000 farm-houses upon it.—The administration of the property of churches and monasteries lay in the hands of the bishops and abbots. For defending and maintaining secular and legal rights there were ecclesiastical and monastic advocates, Advocati ecclesiæ. This institution, however, often degenerated into an agency for oppressing the peasants and plundering the property of their clients; for many advocates assumed arbitrary powers and dealt with the property of the church and its proceeds just as they chose.

§ 86.1. The Revenues of Churches and Monasteries.—The main sources of their growing wealth were donations and legacies. Princes often made bequests of enormous magnitude and rich people in private life vied with them. Occasions were never wanting; restoration from sickness, escape from danger, the birth of a child, etc., regularly won for the church whose patron saint had been helpful, some valuable present. The clergy also used all means in their power to encourage this prevailing readiness to bestow presents; and to this must in great measure be traced the beginnings of the forging of deeds. A peculiar form for bequeathing a gift was that of the Precaria, according to which the giver retained to himself for his lifetime the use of the goods which he gifted. Church property was farther greatly increased by the personal possessions of the clergy and the monks, which at the death of the former and at the conversio of the latter usually became part of the revenue of the church or cloister to which their owners belonged. Besides the proceeds of its own estates the church drew the tithes of all property and incomes of parishioners, the claim being enforced as a jus divinum by a reference to the Mosaic legislation and made a law of the empire by the injunction of Charlemagne. On the other hand the clergy were forbidden to exact payment for discharge of official duties, so called stole-dues, because they were performed by the priest dressed in the stola. The cathedral church was entitled to an annual tax, Honor cathedræ, levied upon all the churches of the diocese. The inferior clergy, on the other hand, often arrogated to themselves the right in accordance with a bad custom of grasping by violent plunder the possessions of their deceased bishop, Spolium.[241]

§ 86.2. The Benefice System.—In consequence of the vast gifts of the Merovingians to the churches and their ministrants, when Charles Martel assumed the government, the sources of crown revenue that hitherto seemed inexhaustible were almost completely dried up, while this prince, in order to deliver the country from the Saracens and in order to maintain his rule over against the innumerable petty tyrants who threatened to dismember the empire, required a yet fuller treasury than any of his predecessors. Out of these circumstances grew the Benefice System. The soldiers who had served the nation and princes had been as before rewarded by grants of lands. These, however, were no longer given as hereditary possessions but only for the lifetime of the receiver (Beneficium), and for this he was under obligation to supply a proportionate contingent for military service. When the crown lands had been well nigh exhausted, Charles Martel did not hesitate to lay claim to the church property. His son Carloman at the first Austrasian national Synod in A.D. 742 (§ 78, 5) promised to restore the church property that had thus been alienated, but had soon to confess his inability to perform his promise. At the second Austrasian Synod at Lestines in A.D. 743 he therefore limited the immediate restitution to the most pressing cases of notoriously poor and needy churches and monasteries. He was driven to this by the absolutely needful claims of the civil and military departments. But the claim of the church to get back the property was secured by the beneficiary giving a Precarial letter and by the payment of an annual tax of a solidus for every farm house on the estate. The king also promised the full restoration on the death of the beneficiary, with express retention, however, of the right, if the needs of the times required it, to lease out again the vacant precariæ. Even Pepin at the Neustrian national Synod at Soissons in A.D. 744 granted similar concessions, but yet in the execution of them did not go so far as his brother. In A.D. 751 he caused a descriptio et divisio, i.e. an inventory of church property with an exact fixing of the limits of its various titles to be made.[242]—The annual tax referred to was transformed by Charlemagne into a second tithe, the so-called Nonæ. But even after the partial restitution effected by the descendants of Pepin there still remained upon the restored property the beneficial burdens that had been laid upon it, especially the obligation to supply and equip a certain number of soldiers, and this was thence transferred to the whole property of the church.—The benefice system, originating in the pressure of circumstances, continued to spread more and more, and formed the foundation of the entire social and civil organization of the Middle Ages.[243]

§ 87. ECCLESIASTICAL LEGISLATION.

The construction of ecclesiastical legislation for the German empire was at first wholly the work of the Synods. The popes exerted scarcely any influence upon it, but all the more powerfully was felt the influence of the kings. They summoned the Synods, laid down to them the subjects to be discussed, and confirmed according to their own judgment their decisions. From the time that the Frankish bishoprics were filled by native Franks the independent life of the Synods was quenched, and ecclesiastical affairs were arranged at the national assemblies in which the bishops also took part as territorial nobles. The great national Synods, too, at which Boniface’s reorganization of the church in accordance with Roman ecclesiastical law as carried (§ 78, 5) were Concilia mixta of this kind; and even under Charlemagne and Louis of France these were still prevalent. Charles, however, made their proceedings more orderly by grouping the nobles into three ranks as bishops, abbots and counts. Under the Pepin dynasty alongside of the synodal we have the royal decrees, arranged in separate chapters, and hence the ordinances are called Capitularia. Purely ecclesiastical Synods in later times again gained a footing and were particularly numerous in the times of Hincmar.

§ 87.1. Older Collections of Ecclesiastical Law.—Gregory II. furnished Boniface with a Codex canonum, undoubtedly the Dionysiaca (§ 43, 3), and Hadrian II. presented Charlemagne with one which was solemnly received at the National Synod of Aachen in A.D. 802. There was in Spain a new collection which was erroneously attributed to bishop Isidore of Seville, who to distinguish him from the Frankish Pseudo-Isidore is designated the genuine Isidore, or more correctly as Hispana. This collection in form attaches itself to Dionysiaca. In the 9th century it was introduced among the Franks, and here gave contents and name to the Pseudo-Isidorian collection. In close connection with this masterpiece of forgery stands the collection of laws by Benedictus Levita of Mainz, which was indeed called a collection of capitularies, but was gathered mainly from documents of ecclesiastical legislation, genuine and spurious. A collection of true and genuine capitularies was made in A.D. 827 by Ansegis, Abbot of Fontenelles. Benedict’s collection was included in it as 5th, 6th, and 7th books. Besides these large collections many bishops prepared epitomized collections for the use of their own dioceses, of which several are extant under the name of Capitula Episcoporum. Decidedly in the interest of the Pseudo-Isidore are the Capitula Angilramni, composed and subscribed by bishop Angilramnus of Metz (d. A.D. 791). The dates and contents of the three first-named collections were determined in the interest of the Pseudo-Isidorian, and are still a matter of controversy. Benedict, according to his own credible statement, undertook his work at the command of the archbishop Otgar, of Mainz, for the archives of Mainz, but completed and published it probably in France only after Otgar’s death, which occurred in A.D. 847. But while in earlier times it was generally believed that Benedict had used the Pseudo-Isidore, Hinschius has become convinced that the author of the capitula is identical with the Pseudo-Isidore, and from Benedict’s capitularies has unravelled first the composition of the capitula and then that of the decretals.[244]

§ 87.2. The Collection of Decretals of the Pseudo-Isidore.—In the fiftieth year of the 9th century there appeared in France under the name of Isidorus Mercator a collection of canons and decretals, which indeed completely embraced the older so-called Isidoriana, but was enlarged by the addition of a multitude of forged decretals. The surname Mercator, otherwise Peccator, is probably derived from the well known Marius Mercator (§ 47, 20), who had also occupied himself with the translation of ecclesiastical documents, which the Pseudo-Isidore used for his work. It begins with the fifty Canones Apostt., then follow fifty-nine forged decretals which are assigned to the thirty oldest popes from Clement to Melchiades (d. A.D. 314). The second part embraces, besides the original document of the Donation of Constantine, genuine synodal decrees falsified apparently only in one passage. The third part, again, contains decretals of Sylvester, the successor of Melchiades, down to Gregory II. (d. A.D. 731), of which thirty-five are not genuine. The non-genuine decretals are for the most part not altogether forgeries, but are rather based upon the literature of theology and canon law then existing, amplified or altered, and wrought up to serve the purposes of the compiler. The system of the Pseudo-Isidore is characterized by the following peculiarities: Over the Imperium is raised the Sacerdotium, ordained of Christ to be governor and judge of the world. The unity and head of the Sacerdotium is represented by the pope. Bishops are related to the pope as the other apostles were to Peter. The metropolitan is only primus inter pares. Between the pope and the bishops as an intermediate rank we have the primates or patriarchs. This rank, however, belongs only to such metropolitan sees as either were ordained to it by the apostles and their successors, or to such sees in more recently converted lands as were elevated to this position in consequence of the multitude of bishops belonging to them. Provincial Synods should be held only with the consent of the pope, their decrees become valid only after receiving his confirmation, and all causæ majores, especially all complaints against bishops, belong solely to his own judicature. Priests are the Familiares Dei, the Spirituales; the laity, on the other hand, are the Carnales. No clergyman, least of all a bishop, may be taken before a secular tribunal. A layman may not appear as an accuser against a clergyman, and the Synods are enjoined to render charges against a bishop as difficult as possible. An expelled bishop, before the charges against him can be examined, must have been fully restored (Exceptio Spolii). If the accused regards his judges as inimici or suspecti, he may appeal to be examined before the pope. For the establishing of a charge at least seventy-two witnesses are necessary, etc.

§ 87.3. The forgery originated in France, where it had been in existence for some years before it was known in Rome, as appears from the process against Rothad of Soissons (§ 83, 2). Rothad first brought it to Rome in A.D. 864. Blondel and Kunst regard Benedict Levita as its author. He first gave currency to the forgery in his Collection of Capitularies. and so arouses the suspicion that he is himself the forger. Philipps fathers it upon Rothad of Soissons; Wasserschleben ascribes it to archbishop Otgar of Mainz, who, as a prominent head of the clerical conspiracy against Louis the Pious (§ 82, 4), would have reason to defend himself against the judgment which would befall conspirators. But this doom did not in any very special manner threaten Otgar. On Louis’ restoration he was not sentenced or deposed by any synod, but was without more ado received into favour by the emperor. The Pseudo-Isidore’s hostile attitude toward the chorepiscopi (§ 84), while gaining no footing in Germany, certainly prevailed in France; and France, not Germany, was the place where this collection first appeared between A.D. 853 and 864. Since now, moreover, the prominence given by the Pseudo-Isidore to the rank of primate may be regarded as equally favourable to the see of Rheims as to that of Mainz, Weizsäcker and v. Noorden have sought the original home of the forgery in the diocese of Rheims, and point to Ebo, archbishop of Rheims, Hincmar’s predecessor, as the forger. And Ebo certainly stood in the front rank of the revolt referred to. Before him Louis had specially to humble himself. He was therefore taken prisoner immediately upon the emperor’s restoration, and deprived of his office at the Synod of Didenhofen in A.D. 835 (§ 82, 4). The emperor Lothair, indeed, restored him in A.D. 840, but his position was still very insecure, as he had before a year passed to save himself by flight on the approach of Charles the Bald, and never again saw Rheims, which till Hincmar’s elevation remained in the hands of chorepiscopi. The composition of the collection, according to v. Noorden, belongs to the period immediately preceding and lasting through his restitution. Finally Hinschius regards Rheims as undoubtedly the scene of the composition of these forgeries, but he cannot ascribe them to Ebo because, according to his demonstration, Benedict’s Pseudo-Isidore used as his authority only a collection completed after A.D. 847, and by that time Ebo could not have the shadow of a hope of restoration. But he also advances other weighty considerations. Ebo himself had never attempted to make good the claims which the Pseudo-Isidorian decretals would have afforded him. If his own affairs had first led him to think of forging decretals he must have foreseen that the extensive studies necessary for such a work would have demanded many years of laborious effort, and would be concluded much too late to serve his purpose. It would, therefore, seem to him safer to confine himself to what his immediately present circumstances urgently required; whereas the actual Pseudo-Isidore, on the contrary, puts in the mouths of the early popes, with no little zeal and emphasis, a vast array of other exhortations and decrees that seemed to him useful amid the troubles of that age for the well being of the church and its ministers. Thus the whole work assumes more of the character of a pia fraus of a somewhat high church cleric of that time than of a forgery devised in the selfish interests of an individual. This much, however, must be admitted, that the directions quoted about judicial procedure against accused bishops exactly fit the case of Ebo. As the first attempt to use the non-genuine decretals only found in Pseudo-Isidore was made at the Synod of Soissons in A.D. 853, by those clerics who had been ordained by Ebo after his deposition but rejected by Hincmar, the final redaction and publication must fall between A.D. 847 and 853. Langen fixes the date at A.D. 850, and refers its authorship to Servatus Lupus (§ 90, 5). Nobody then doubted their genuineness. Even Hincmar seems for a long time to have had no doubts. But he decidedly repudiated their legal authority in the Frankish church, and energetically opposed them when they were sought to be enforced against the independence of the church. Thus he could always refer to them where their contentions agreed with his own, or, as in the case against his nephew, where they supported his rights as primate, in order to defeat his opponents with their own weapons. Subsequently however, in A.D. 872, in a letter written in the name of his king to pope Hadrian, he characterized them in contrast with the genuine and valid decretals as secus a quoquam compilata sive conficta. The Magdeburg Centuriators were the first conclusively to prove them spurious. The Jesuit Turrianus, however, entered the lists once more on their behalf. But the reformed theologian, David Blondel, castigated so sharply and thoroughly this theological unprincipledness, that even in the Roman Catholic church their non-genuineness has been now since admitted.[245]

§ 87.4. Among the many spurious documents which the Pseudo-Isidore included in his collection of ecclesiastical laws, we find an Edictum Constantini Imperatoris. In the first part of it, the so-called Confessio, Constantine makes a confession of his faith, and relates in detail in what a wonderful way he was converted to Christianity by pope Sylvester, and cured of leprosy (§ 42, 1). Then in the second part, the so-called Donatio, he confers upon the chair of Peter, with recognition of its absolute primacy over all patriarchates of the empire, imperial power, rank, honour, and insignia, as all privileges and claims of imperial senators upon its clergy. In order that the possessor of this gift may be able to all time to maintain the dignity of his position, he gives him the Lateran palace, transfers to him independent dominion over “Romanam urbem et omnes Italiæ seu (in Frankish Latin of the 8th and 9th centuries this means ‘as well as’) occidentalium regionum provincias, loca et civitates” (therefore not merely Italy but the whole West Roman empire); he removes his own imperial residence to Byzantium, “quoniam ubi principates Sacerdotum et Christ. religionis Caput ab Imperatore cœlesti constitutum est, justum non est, ut illic Imperator terrerum habeat potestatem.” In a letter of Hadrian I. to Charlemagne in A.D. 788, in which he salutes the emperor as a second Constantine who is called upon by God not only to restore to the apostolic chair the “potestas in his Hesperiæ partibus,” which had been already assigned it by the first Constantine, but also all later legacies and donations “of various patricians and other God-fearing men,” which the godless race of the Longobards in course of time tore from it, we have the first hint at the idea of a Donatio Constantini. The same pope, too, according to the Vita Hadriani in the Romish Pontifical, on the occasion of Charles’ visit to Rome in A.D. 774 is said to have reclaimed from him an enormous grant of land (§ 82, 2). It seemed therefore an extremely probable supposition that assigned Rome as the place where this document originated, and the period of the overthrow of the Longobard empire, whether actually accomplished or on the eve of taking place, as the date of its fabrication (§ 82, 1, 2). Against this view, almost universally prevalent, quite recently Grauert has advanced a vast array of powerful arguments, e.g., the limitation of the Donatio of Constantine to Italy which is here suggested contradicts its own express statement. The words of the letter of Hadrian referred to speak not of a dominion over Italy, and which they could have read, “in has H. partes,” but of a dominion in Italy which was founded upon Constantine’s munificence and enlarged by many subsequent presents. They do not, therefore, refer like the words of the Donatio to sovereign territorial authority, but to the exceedingly wide-spread and rich property included in the Patrimonium Petri (§ 46, 10). The “potestas,” said to have been assigned by Constantine to the Roman see, does not exceed the authority which even according to the Vita Sylvestri of the Pontifical had been given by Constantine to that pope.—Thus the donation document is met with first in the Pseudo-Isidore. It was often afterwards referred to by the Frankish government. By Rome, on the other hand, although even Nicholas I. was made acquainted with the Pseudo-Isidorian decretals by Rothad, and referred to them in A.D. 865, they are never used, either against the Franks or against the Byzantines until, in A.D. 1053, we meet an allusion to them in a letter from Leo IX. to the patriarch Michael Cærularius (§ 67, 3). Grauert accounts for this by saying that there were two recensions of Pseudo-Isidore, a shorter, which had only the first part of the document, the so-called Confessio; and a longer, which had also the Donatio, and that Rothad took probably only the shorter one to Rome. From these and other data adduced by Grauert it seems more than probable that the foundry in which the document was forged was not in Rome, but rather in France among the high church party there, from which also the full-fledged forgery proceeded. It would also seem that a double purpose was served by its composition. On the one hand, over against the Greeks it represented the chair of Peter as raised above all the patriarchates of the empire, and the Western empire as a thoroughly legitimate one transferred by Constantine the Great to the pope, and then by him to the kings of the Franks. And, on the other hand, it also made it clear to the Frankish princes that all temporal power in the West essentially, and from of old, belonged to the pope, and is bestowed upon them by means of their coronation by the pope’s hands.—That from the time when they met with the document unto the 11th century the Byzantines did not contest its genuineness, need not surprise us when we consider the uncritical character of the age. They would also be the less disposed to do so as they could only thereby hope to win that perfect equality in spiritual authority as well as in secular rank with the Roman bishop which the fourth œcumenical council had assigned to their patriarchal see. But while the Byzantines may be regarded as inconsiderately incorporating this donation of Constantine into their historical and legal books, blotting out indeed the passages which seemed to them to favour the pretensions of the pope to universal sovereignty, it is a more difficult task to secure for it acceptance among Western diplomatists. Even in A.D. 999 a state paper of Otto III. describes it as a pure fiction. High church tendencies, however, raised their standard also in the West during the 11th century (§ 96, 4, 5). Indeed, even in A.D. 1152, an Arnoldist (§ 108, 7), named Wetzel, wrote to the Emperor Frederick I.: “Their lies and heretical fables are now so completely exploded that even day-labourers and cow-men could prove to scholars their emptiness, and the pope with his cardinals ventures not for shame to show himself in the city of Rome.” The victory, however, of the papacy over the Hohenstaufen gained currency for it again, and it was the treatise of Laurentius Valla, “De falso credita et ementita Constantini donatione declamatio,” which Ulrich von Hutten issued in multitude from the press, gave it the death blow (§ 120, 1). When, thereafter, even Baronius admitted the spuriousness of the document, though assigning its fabrication to the Greeks, who wished by it to prove that the Roman primacy was not of Christ but from Constantine, it found no longer a vindicator even in the Roman Catholic church.

III. THE CHURCH AND THE PEOPLE.

§ 88. PUBLIC WORSHIP AND ART.

The German Arians undoubtedly used the language of the people in their services. The adoption of Catholicism, however, led to the introduction of the Latin tongue. The last trace of acquaintance with Ulfilas’ translation of the Bible is found in the 9th century. The nations converted directly to Catholicism had from the first the Latin language in public worship. Only the Slavs still retained the use of their mother tongue (§ 79, 2). The Roman liturgy, as well as the Roman language, was adopted in all churches with the exception of those of Milan and Spain. After Pepin had entered into closer relations with the popes, he endeavoured, in A.D. 754, at their desire, to bring about a uniformity between the Frankish ritual and the Roman pattern; and Charlemagne, whom Hadrian I. presented with a Roman Sacramentarium, carried it out with relentless energy. The slightness of the liturgical contributions of the Germans is to be accounted for partly by the fact that the Roman liturgy was already presented to them in a richly developed and essentially complete form, but also partly by the exclusion of the national languages and the refusal to give the people a share in the liturgical services. Under the constraint of a foreign tongue the Germans could not put the impress of their national character on a department in which language plays so important a part.

§ 88.1. Liturgy and Preaching.—Alongside of the Roman or Gregorian Liturgy many others also were in use. The people and clergy of Milan so determinedly adhered to their old Ambrosian liturgy, that even Charlemagne could not dislodge it, and down to the present day Milan has preserved this treasure. No less energetically did the Spaniards hold by their national liturgy, the so-called Mozarabic (§ 81, 1). It has a strong resemblance to the oriental liturgies, but was further elaborated by bishops Leander and Isidore of Seville (§ 80, 2), and was recognised by the National Synod of Toledo in A.D. 633 as valid for the whole of Spain. The Gallican liturgies too of the Carolingian times betrayed a certain dependence upon the oriental rituals. Preaching, in the services of the Western churches was always subordinate to the liturgy, and the relapse into savagery occasioned by the migrations of the peoples drove it almost completely out of the field. The missionary fervour in the Western church during the 7th century was the first thing to re-awaken a sense of its importance. But then very few priests could compose a sermon. Charlemagne, therefore, about A.D. 780, had a Latin Homiliarium compiled by Paulus Diaconus [Paul Warnefrid] (§ 90, 3) from the fathers for all the Sundays and Festivals of the year, as a model for their own composition, or, where that was too much to be expected, for reading in the original or in a translation. During the whole Middle Ages and beyond the Reformation it continued to be one of the most read and most diligently used books in the Roman Catholic church. Missionaries naturally preached themselves or through interpreters in the language of the people; even in constituted churches preaching was generally conducted in the speech of the country. Charlemagne and the Synods of his time insisted at least upon German or Romanic preaching.

§ 88.2. Church Music (§ 59, 4, 5).—After Gregory’s ordinance church music continued to be restricted to the clergy. Charlemagne indeed insisted, but unsuccessfully, that all the people should take part in singing the Gloria and the Sanctus. In the 7th-9th cent. a number of Latin hymn-writers flourished, of whom the most distinguished were Bede, Paul Warnefrid, Theodulf of Orleans, Alcuin, Rabanus Maurus, and Walafrid Strabo. The beautiful Pentecost hymn Veni creator Spiritus is ascribed to Charlemagne. The old classical form and colouring were more and more lost, but all the more the essentially Christian and Germanic character of simplicity and spirituality became prominent. Toward the end of our period the composition of Latin hymns obtained a new and fruitful impetus from the adoption of the so-called Sequences or Proses in the Mass. Under the long series of notes, hitherto without words attached, which were appended to the Alleluia to express inarticulate jubilation, hence called jubilationes, were now placed appropriate rhythmical words in Latin prose, which, however, soon assumed the form of metre, rhyme and strophes. The first famous writer of Sequences was the monk Notker Balbulus of St. Gall, who died in A.D. 912. Connected in form with the Latin Sequences were the more recently introduced Old Frankish Lais (Celtic=verse, song) and the Old German Leiche (=melody, song), to simple airs that had been used for popular songs. The only one which the church allowed to the people, and that only in services outside of the church, in processions, rogations and pilgrimages, in going to the church, at translations of relics, funerals, consecrations of churches, popular religious festivals, etc., was the singing or rather reciting of the Kyrie eleison from the great Litany. The fondness of the Germans for singing and composing hymns led, in the second half of the 9th century, to the attaching to these words short rhyming sacred verses in their mother tongue, and this in such a manner that the Kyrie eleison always formed the refrain of a strophe, so that they were called Leisons. This was the beginning of German church music. Of the Leisons only one hymn to St. Peter in the Old High-German dialect has come down to our day.—The Gregorian Music, Cantus firmus or choralis, won a most complete victory over the Ambrosian (§ 59, 5). In A.D. 754 Pepin at the request of Stephen II. ordered that in France only the Roman singing should be allowed, and Charlemagne secured for it complete and exclusive ascendency in all the West by violently extirpating the already very degenerate Ambrosian music, by establishing the celebrated singing schools of Metz, Soissons, Orleans, Paris, Lyons, etc., at the head of which he placed teachers brought from Rome, and by introducing instruction in singing in all the higher and lower schools. The first Organ came to France in A.D. 757 as a present to Pepin the Short from the Greek emperor Constantinus Copronymus; the second to Aachen with an embassy from the emperor Michael I. in Charlemagne’s time. From that time they became more common. They were still as instruments very imperfect. They had only from 9 to 12 notes, and the keys were so stiff that they had to be beaten down with the fist.[246]—Continuation, § 104, 10, 11.

§ 88.3. The Sacrifice of the Mass.—As the idea of sacrifice gained place there sprang up in addition to the masses for the souls of the departed (§ 58, 3) private masses for various other purposes, for the success of some undertaking, for the recovery of a sick person, for good weather and a good harvest, etc. To some extent the multiplication of masses was limited by the ordinance that celebration should be made at the same altar and by the same priest only once in the day. From the wish to secure that as many masses as possible should be said for their souls after death, churches and monasteries were formed into fraternities with a stipulated obligation to celebrate a certain number of masses for each deceased member of the fraternity in all the churches and monasteries belonging thereto. Fraternities of this kind, into which as a special favour princes and nobles were received, were called Confederacies for the Dead.

§ 88.4. The Worship of Saints (§ 57).—This practice found a very ready response from the Germans. It afforded some compensation for the abandoned worship of their ancestors. But over all other saints towered the mother of God, the meek and gentle queen of heaven. In her the old German reverence for woman found its ideal and full satisfaction. In respect of Image Worship (§ 57, 4) the Germans lagged behind, partly from the scarcity of images, partly from national aversion to them. The Frankish church of the Carolingian age protested formally against them (§ 92, 1). But all the greater was the zeal shown in the Worship of Relics (§ 57, 5) in which the worshipper had the saint concretely and bodily. The relics of the West were innumerable. Rome was an inexhaustible storehouse; and from the successive missionaries, from the deserts and solitudes, from the monasteries and bishops’ seats, there went forth crowds of new saints whose bones were venerated with enthusiasm. The gaining of a new relic for a church or monastery was regarded as a piece of good fortune for the whole land, and amid thousands assembled from far and near the translation was carried out, accompanied with liberal gifts of money. The Frankish monastery of Centula could show in the 9th century an immensely long list of the relics which it possessed, from the grave of the Innocents, the milk of the Holy Virgin, the beard of Peter, his cloak, the Oratorium of Paul, and even from the wood of the three tabernacles that Peter wished to build on Tabor. The custom of making Pilgrimages (§ 57, 6) also found great favour among the travel-loving Germans, especially among the Anglo-Saxons. The places most frequented by pilgrims were the tomb of the chief Apostles at Rome, then the tomb of Martin of Tours, and, toward the end of our period, that of St. James of Compostella, Jacobus Apostolus the elder, the supposed founder of the Spanish church, whose bones were discovered there by Alfonso the Chaste. The immoralities consequent upon pilgrimages, about which even the ancient church complained, were also only too apparent in this later age. On account of them Boniface urges that his countrywomen should be forbidden to go on pilgrimages, since this only served to supply the cities of Gaul and Italy with prostitutes. The idea of Guardian Angels (§ 57, 3) was eagerly adopted by the Germans. They were specially drawn to the warlike Archangel Michael, the conqueror of the great dragon (Dan. xii. 1; Jude 9; Rev. xii. 7 ff.).—Continuation, § 104, 8.

§ 88.5. Times and Places for Public Worship.—The beginning of the church year was changed from Easter to Christmas. All Saints’ Day (§ 57, 1), originally a Roman local festival, was made a universal ordinance by Gregory IV. who, in A.D. 835, fixed its date at 1st Nov. The abundance of relics and the multitude of masses that were said made it necessary to increase the number of altars in the churches beyond what Charlemagne had enjoined. Afterwards they were usually limited to three. The high altar stood out by itself in the middle of the choir recess. The side altars leant on pillars or on the chief altar. A relic shrine generally from the 8th century formed the back of the altar. No trace of a chancel is found, not even of a confessional chair. In churches which had the right of baptizing (§ 84, 2) there were as a rule separate baptistries. In place of these, after the right of baptizing was conferred on all churches, the baptismal font was introduced, either on the left side of the main entrance or at the point where the transepts crossed the nave. This change required the substitution of sprinkling for immersion. Clocks and towers became always more common. The latter, at first separate from the buildings, were from Charlemagne’s time attached to the church edifice. The baptism of bells, their consecration with water, oil and chrism, with the bestowing on them of some saint’s name, was forbidden by Charlemagne, but it was nevertheless continued, and is common to this day in the Roman Catholic church.

§ 88.6. Most attention was paid to ecclesiastical architecture and painting, south of the Alps during the Ostro-gothic period, north of the Alps during the Carolingian period. The Anglo-Saxons, however, in their island home also developed a taste for art. During the 9th century it received special attention in the German monasteries of St. Gall and Fulda. The monk Tutilo of St. Gall, d. A.D. 912, was pre-eminently distinguished both as a master in architecture, painting and sculpture, and in poetry and scholarship. The old Roman basilica style still maintained the front rank in church building. Yet at Ravenna, the Byzantium of Italy, during the Gothic domination there were several beautiful churches in the Byzantine cupola style. Einhard received from Charlemagne the rank of a court architect. Of all the churches built in Charlemagne’s time the most important was the cathedral of Aachen. It was built in the cupola style after the pattern of the cathedral church of Ravenna. Intended as a royal chapel, it was connected by a pillared passage with the palace. It was therefore also of only moderate dimensions. Its being appropriated as the coronation church led subsequently to its enlargement by the addition to it in A.D. 1355 of a large choir in the Gothic style. The church afforded abundant scope for the use of the art of the statuary. Costly shrines for relics were required, crucifixes, lamps, ciboria, incense vessels, etc., on which might be lavished all the refinements of artistic skill. The church books had artistically carved covers. Church doors, episcopal thrones, reading desks, baptismal fonts, afforded room for practice in relievo work. Among the various kinds of pictorial representations miniature painting was most diligently practised upon copies of the church books.—Continuation, § 104, 12, 14.

§ 89. NATIONAL CUSTOMS, SOCIAL LIFE AND CHURCH DISCIPLINE.

The remains of Christian popular poetry of this period afford a convincing proof of the powerful and profound manner in which the truths of Christianity (§ 75, 1) had been grasped by the German races. The great mass of the people indeed had adopted the new faith in a purely historical fashion. Only gradually did it make its way into the inner spiritual life, and meanwhile out of the not fully conquered paganism there grew up a rich crop of superstitions in connection with the Christian life. It must be confessed that the state of morality among the Germans had fallen very low as compared with that which prevailed before Germany’s conversion to Christianity. A sadder contrast is scarcely conceivable than that presented by a comparison of the description in Tacitus of the old German customs and discipline and the account of Gregory of Tours of colossal criminality and brutish sensuality in the Merovingian Age. But never more than here does the fallacy: Post hoc ergo propter hoc, require to be guarded against. The moral deterioration of the German peoples was carried out independently of their contemporaneous, merely external, Christianization. The cause of it lies only in the overturning of the foundations of German life by the migration of the peoples. Severed from their original home, the most powerful guardian of ancestral customs, and set down as conquerors in the midst of rich countries with morally base surroundings, which had a poisonous effect upon them, with that eagerness and tenacity which characterize children of nature, they seized upon the seductive treasures and enjoyments, and their unfettered passion broke through all restraints of discipline and morality. The clearest proof of this view lies in the fact that the moral decay appeared in so remarkable a degree only among such peoples as settled in the corrupt Roman world and became amalgamated with it, most conspicuously among the Franks in Gaul and the Longobards in Italy, whereas among the Anglo-Saxons and the inhabitants of Germany the moral development was more normal.

§ 89.1. Superstition.—A powerful impulse was given to superstition on the one hand by the church, according to the educational method recommended by Gregory the Great (§ 75, 3), refusing recklessly to root out every element of paganism and rather endeavouring to give Christian applications to heathen institutions and views and to fill pagan forms with Christian contents, and on the other hand, by the representatives of the church not regarding belief in the existence of heathen deities as a delusion but counting the gods and goddesses as demons. The popular belief therefore saw in them a set of dethroned deities who in certain realms of nature maintain their ancient sway, whom therefore they dare not venture altogether to disoblige. The fanciful poetic view of nature prevailing among the Germans contributed also to this result, with its love of the mysterious and supernatural, its fondness for subtle enquiries and intellectual investigations. Thus, in the worship of the saints as well as in the church’s belief in angels and devils, new rich worlds opened themselves up before the Christianized Germans, which the popular belief soon improved upon. The pious man is exposed on all sides to the vexations of demons, but he is also on all sides surrounded by the protecting care of saints and angels. The popular belief made a great deal of the devil, but the relation of men to the prince of darkness and his attendant spirits seemed much too earnest and real to be as yet the subject of the humour which characterized the devil legends of the later Middle Ages, in which the cheated, “stupid” devil is represented as at last possessed only of impotent rage and sneaking off in disgrace.

§ 89.2. Popular Education.—The idea of a general system of education for the people was already present to the mind of Charlemagne. Yet as we may suppose only beginnings were made toward its realization. Bishop Theodulf of Orleans was specially active in founding schools for the people in all the villages and country towns of his diocese. The religious instruction of the youth was restricted as a rule to the teaching of the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed. Whatever grown up man or woman did not know these two was at Charles’ command to be subjected to flogging and fasting and to be made to learn them besides. As evidence of the extent of a religious consciousness among the people may be adduced the German forms of adjuration, belief, confession and prayer, of the 8th and 9th centuries which are still preserved. Further means of advancing the religious education of the people were afforded by the attempts to make the biblical and patristic books accessible to the people by translations in their own language. Among the Germans the monastery of St. Gall was famous for its zeal in originating a national literature. Among the Anglo-Saxons this effort was made and carried out by Alfred the Great, who died in A.D. 901 (§ 90, 10).

§ 89.3. Christian Popular Poetry.—It makes its first appearance at the end of the 7th century and continued far down into the 9th century. It flourished chiefly in England and Germany. Under the name of the Northumbrian Cædmon, who died in A.D. 680, there has been preserved a whole series of biblical poems of no small poetic merit, which range over the whole of the Old and New Testament history. The most important Anglo-Saxon poet after him was his countryman Cynewulf living about a century later. His poems are less homely and simple, but more elaborate than those of Cædmon, and as full of poetic enthusiasm as these. He too paints for us in his “Christ” the picture of the Redeemer as that of a manly victorious prince among his true “champions and earls” with such clear-cut features that “whoever once beholds them will never again forget them.” His poetically wrought up legends bear more of the Romish stamp with traces of saint worship and the doctrine of merit.[247] Still higher than these two Anglo-Saxon productions stands the German-Saxon epic the Heliand, of the time of Louis of France, a song of the Messiah worthy of its august subject, truly national, perfect in form, simple, lively and majestic in style, transposing into German blood and life a genuine deep Christianity. In poetic value scarcely less significant is the “Krist” of Otfried, a monk of Weissenberg about A.D. 860. Near to his heart as well as to that of the Anglo-Saxon singers lay the thought: thaz wir Kriste sungun in unsere Zungun. It is, however, no longer popular but artistic poetry, in which the old German letter rhyme or alliteration gives place to the softer and more delicate final rhyme. To this class belongs also the so-called Wessobrunner Prayer, of which the first poetical half is probably a fragment of a larger hymn of the creation, and a poem in High German on the end of the world and the last judgment, known by the name of Muspilli, extant only as a fragment which is, however, almost unsurpassable in dignity and grandeur of description.

§ 89.4. Social Condition.—From the point of view of German law the contract of betrothal had the validity of marriage and the subsequent nuptial ceremony or surrender of the bride to the bridegroom in a public legal manner by her father or legal guardian was held to be only the carrying out of that contract. The bridal ceremony with the ecclesiastical benediction of the marriage bond already legally tied, was frequently celebrated only on the day following the marriage, therefore after its consummation. The Capitulary of Charlemagne of A.D. 802 came to the support of the claims of the church (§ 61, 2), ordaining that without previous careful enquiry as to the relationship of the parties by the priest, and the elders of the people, and also without the priestly benediction, no marriage could be concluded. The Pseudo-Isidorian decretals ascribed this demand to the popes of the 4th and 5th centuries. But the right to perform marriages was not thereby committed to the church; it was only that the religious consecration of the civil ordinance of marriage was now made obligatory. It seemed best of all when sooner or later the spouses voluntarily renounced marital intercourse; but this was strictly forbidden during Lent (§ 56, 4, 5), on all festivals and on the station days of the week (Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday). Second marriages were branded with the reproach of incontinence and called forth a lengthened penance. There was on the other hand as yet no prohibition of divorce, and the marrying again of those separated was only unconditionally forbidden in particular cases. The church was not willing to tolerate mixed marriages with heathens, Jews and Arians. The Germans found it most difficult to reconcile themselves to the strict requirements of the church in regard to the prohibited degrees of relationship. National customs had regarded many such marriages, especially with a brother’s widow, as even a pious duty.[248]—Continuation, § 104, 6.—Slavery or Serfdom was an institution so closely connected among the Germans with their notions of property that the church could not think of its entire abolition; indeed the church itself, with its large landed possessions, owned quite a multitude of slaves. Yet it earnestly maintained the religious and moral equality of masters and servants, assigned to the manumission of slaves one of the first places among good works, and was always ready to give protection to bondmen against cruel masters.[249]—The church with special energy entered upon the task of Caring for the Poor; even proud and heartless bishops could not overlook it. Every well appointed church had several buildings in which the poor, the sick, widows and orphans were maintained at the church’s cost.[250]

§ 89.5. Practice of Pubic Law.—The custom of Blood Revenge was also a thoroughly German institution. It had, however, been fairly restricted by the custom of Composition or the payment of satisfaction in the form of a pecuniary fine. The church from its dislike of capital punishment decidedly favoured this system. As a means of securing judicial evidence oaths and ordeals were administered. Only the freeman, who was quite capable of acting in accordance with his own judgment, was allowed to take an Oath; the husband took the oath for his wife, the father for the children, the master for the slave. Relatives, friends and equals in rank swore along with him as sharers of his oath, Conjuratores. Although they repeated with him the oath formula, the meaning of their action simply was that they were fully satisfied as to the honour and truthfulness of him who took the oath. Where the oath of purgation was not allowed, conjuratores were not forthcoming and the other means of proof awanting, the Ordeal (Ordale from Ordâl=judgment) was introduced. Under this may be included:

1. The Duel, derived from the old popular belief: Deum adesse bellantitus. Only a freeman was allowed to enter the lists. Old men, women, children and priests were allowed to put in their place another of the same rank by birth.

2. Various fire tests; holding the bare hand a length of time in the fire; in a simple shirt walking over burning logs of wood; carrying glowing iron in the bare hand for nine paces; walking barefoot over nine or twelve glowing ploughshares.

3. Two water tests: the accused was obliged to pick up with his naked hand a ring or stone out of a kettle filled with boiling water, or with a cord round his naked body he was cast into deep water, his sinking was the proof of his innocence.

4. The cross test: he whose arms first sank with weariness from the cruciform position, was regarded as defeated.

5. The Eucharist test, applied especially to priests: it was expected that the criminal should soon die under the stroke of God’s wrath. As a substitute for this among the laity we find the test of the consecrated morsel, Judicium offæ which the accused was required to swallow during mass.

6. The bier test, Judicium feretri: if when the accused touched the wound of the murdered man blood flowed from the wound or forth from the mouth, it was regarded as proof of his guilt.

The church with its belief in miracles occupied the same ground as that on which the ordeal practice was rooted. It could therefore only combat the heathen conception of the ordeal and not the thing itself. But the church took charge of the whole procedure, and certainly did much to reduce the danger to a minimum. It was Agobard of Lyons, who died in A.D. 840, who first contended against the superstition as worthy of reprobation. Subsequently the Roman chair, first by Nicholas I., forbade ordeals of all kinds.—Among the various kinds of privileges involving the inviolability of person and goods, profession and business, the privileges of the church were regarded as next highest to those of the king. Any injury done to ecclesiastical persons or properties and any crime committed in a sacred place, required a threefold greater composition than ceteris paribus would have otherwise been required. The bishop ranked with the duke, the priest with the count.

§ 89.6. Church Discipline and Penitential Exercises (§ 61, 1).—The German State allowed the church a share in the administration of punishments, and regarded an evildoer’s atonement as complete only when he had submitted to the ecclesiastical as well as the secular judgment. Out of this grew the institution of Episcopal Synodal Judicatures, Synodus, under Charlemagne. Once a year the bishop accompanied by a royal Missus was to travel over the whole diocese, and, of every parish priest assisted by assessors sworn for the purpose, should inquire minutely into the moral and ecclesiastical condition of each of the congregations under him and punish the sins and shortcomings discovered. Directions for the conducting of Synodal judicatures were written by Regino of Prüm and Hincmar of Rheims (§ 90, 5). The state also gave authority to Ecclesiastical Excommunication by putting its civil forces at the disposal of the church. Pepin ordained that no excommunicated person should enter a church, no Christian should eat or drink with him, none should even greet him. Directions for the practice of Penitential Discipline are given in the various Penitentials or Confessional-books, which, after the pattern of forensic productions, settle the amount of penal exactions for all conceivable sins in proportion to their enormity. The Penitential erroneously ascribed to Theodore archbishop of Canterbury (§ 90, 8) is the model upon which most of these are constructed. The Confessional-books that go under the names of the Venerable Bede and Egbert of York obtained particularly high favour. All these books, even in their earliest form extremely perverse and in their later much altered forms full of contradictions, errors and arbitrary positions, reduced the whole penitential practice to the utmost depths of externalization and corruption. How confused and warped the church idea of penitence had become is seen by the rendering of the word pœnitentia by penance, i.e. satisfaction, atonement. In the Penitentials pœnitere is quite identical with jejunare. The idea of pœnitentia having been once associated with external performances, there could be no objection to substitute the customary penitential act of fasting (§ 56, 7) for other spiritual exercises, or by adoption of the German legal practice of receiving composition to accept a money tax for ecclesiastical or benevolent purposes. In this way the first traces made their appearance of the Indulgences of the later Roman Catholic church. It therefore followed from this, that, as satisfaction could be rendered for all sins by corresponding acts of penance, so these works might also be performed vicariously by others. Thus in the Penitentials there grew up a system of Penitential Redemptions which formed the most despicable mockery of all earnest penitence. For example, a direction is given as to how a rich man may be absolved from a penance of seven years in three days, without inconveniencing himself, if he produces the number of men needed to fast for him. Such deep corruption of the penitential discipline, however, aroused, in the 8th and 9th centuries, a powerful reaction against the Confessional-books and their corrupt principles. It was first brought forward at the English Synod at Clovesho in A.D. 747; in its footsteps followed the French Synods of Chalons in A.D. 813, of Paris A.D. 829, of Mainz, A.D. 847. The Council of Paris ordered that all Confessional-books should be seized and burnt. They nevertheless still continued to be used.—There did not as yet exist any universal and unconditional compulsion to make confession. The custom, however, of a yearly confession in the Easter forty days’ season was even during the 9th century so prevalent, that the omission of it was followed by a severe censure by the synodal court. The formulæ of absolution were only deprecative, not judicative.[251]

IV. THEOLOGY AND ITS BATTLES.

§ 90. SCHOLARSHIP AND THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE.[252]

With the exception of Ulfilas’ famous efforts, the Arian period of German church history is quite barren in scientific performances. Yet those few who preserved and fostered the scientific gains of earlier times were honoured and made use of by the noble-minded Ostrogoth king Theodoric, and under him Boethius [Boëthius] and Cassiodorus (§ 47, 23) performed the praiseworthy task of saving the remnants of classical and patristic learning. For Spain the same office was performed by Isidore of Seville, who died in A.D. 636, whose text-books continued for centuries, even on this side the Pyrenees, to supply the groundwork of scholarly studies. The numerous Scottish and Irish monasteries maintained their reputation down to the 9th century for eminent piety and distinguished scholarship. Among the Anglo-Saxons the learned Greek monk Theodore of Tarsus, who died in A.D. 690, and his companion Hadrian, enkindled an enthusiasm for classical studies, and the venerable Bede, who died in A.D. 735, though he never quitted his monastery, became the most famous teacher in all the West, The Danish pirates did indeed crush almost to extinction the seeds of Anglo-Saxon culture, but Alfred the Great sowed them anew, though this revival was only for a little while. In Gaul Gregory of Tours, who died in A.D. 595, was the last representative of Roman ecclesiastical learning. After him we enter upon a chaos without form and void, from which the creative spirit of Charlemagne first called a new day which spread over the whole West its enlightening beams. This light, however, was put out even by the time of the great emperor’s grandson, and then we suddenly pass into the night of the Sæculum Obscurum (§ 100).

§ 90.1. Rulers of the Carolingian Line.—Charlemagne, A.D. 768-814, may be regarded as beginning his scientific undertakings on his first entrance into Italy in A.D. 774. On this occasion he came to know the scholars Peter of Pisa, Paul Warnefrid, Paulinus of Aquileia, and Theodulf of Orleans, and brought them to his palace. From A.D. 782, however, the particularly brilliant star of his court was the Anglo-Saxon scholar Alcuin, whom Charles had met in Italy in the previous year. Scientific studies were now carried on in an exceedingly vigorous manner in the palace. The royal family, the whole court and its surroundings engaged upon them, but of them all Charles himself was the most diligent and successful of Alcuin’s students. In the royal school, Schola palatina, which was ambulatory like the royal residence itself, the sons and daughters of the king with the children of the most distinguished families of the land received a high-class education. The teaching staff was constantly recruited from England, Ireland and Italy. After such preparations Charles issued in A.D. 787 a circular to all the bishops and abbots of his kingdom which enjoined under threat of his severe royal displeasure that schools should be erected in all monasteries and cathedral churches. Meanwhile his endeavours were most successful, but were rather one-sided in the preference given to classical and patristic literature, without a proper national foundation. Charles’s great and generous nature indeed had a warm interest in national culture, but those around him, with the single exception of Paul Warnefrid, had in consequence of their Latin monkish training lost all taste for German thought, language and nationality, and fearing lest such studies might endanger Christianity and cause a relapse into paganism, they did not help but rather hindered the king’s effort to promote a national literature.—Louis the Pious, A.D. 814-840, had his weak government disturbed by the strifes of parties and of the citizens. This period, therefore, was not specially favourable to the development of scientific studies, but the seed sown by his father still bore noble fruit. His son Lothair issued an ordinance which gave a new organization to the educational system of Italy, indeed created it anew. But Italy restless and full of factions was the land where least of all such institutions could be successfully conducted. A new golden age, however, dawned for France under Charles the Bald, A.D. 840-877. His court resembled that of his great grandfather in having gathered to it the élite of scholars from all the West. The royal school gained new renown under the direction of Joannes Scotus Erigena. The cathedral and monastic schools of France vied with the most famous institutions of Germany (St. Gall, Fulda, Reichenau, etc.), and over the French episcopal sees men presided who had the most distinguished reputation for scholarship. But after Charles’s death the bloom of the Carolingian period passed away with almost inconceivable rapidity amid the commotions of the time into thick darkness, chaos and barbarism.

§ 90.2. The most distinguished Theologians of the Pre-Carolingian Age.

1. In Merovingian France flourished Gregory of Tours, sprung of a good Roman family. When in A.D. 573, in order to get cured of an illness, he made a pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Martin (§ 47, 14), he had the bishopric of Tours conferred upon him, where he continued till his death in A.D. 595. His Historia Ecclesiastica Francorum in ten Bks. affords us the only exact and trustworthy information we possess of the Merovingian age. The Ll. VII. Miraculorum are a collection of several hagiographic writings, four of them recounting some of the innumerable miracles of St. Martin.

2. Scientific studies were prosecuted more vigorously on the other side of the Pyrenees than on this. In the empire of the Suevi (§ 76, 4) archbishop Martin of Braccara, now Braga, distinguished himself in the work of Catholicising the Arian population. He was previously abbot of the monastery of Dumio, and died about A.D. 580. He was a voluminous writer on church law and also in the departments of moral and ascetical theology. His writings in the latter section have so much in common with those of Seneca that they were at one time ascribed to the Roman moralist. The treatise De Correctione Rusticorum is very important for the history of the morals, legal institutions and culture of that period.—The great star of the Spanish Visigothic kingdom was Isidorus [Isidore] Hispalensis, who died in A.D. 636. He was descended from a distinguished Gothic family, and, as successor of his brother Leander, rose to the archbishopric of Seville (Hispalis). His writings are diligent compilations, which have preserved to us many fragments and items of information otherwise unknown. Incomparably greater, however, was the service they rendered in conveying classical and patristic learning to the German world of that age. His most comprehensive work consists of xx. Bks. Originum s. Etymologiarum, an encyclopædic exhibition of the whole field of knowledge of the day. He also wrote a Chronicon reaching down to A.D. 627, and Hist. de regibus Gotorum, a shorter Hist. Vandalorum et Suevorum, and a continuation of Jerome’s Catalogus de viris illustr. Of more importance than his numerous compilations of mystico-allegorical expositions of Scripture are the iii. Bks. Sententiarum, a well-arranged system of doctrine and morals from patristic passages, especially from Augustine and Gregory the Great, and the Lb. II. de ecclest. officiis. The two last-named works were highly prized as text-books throughout the Middle Ages. The two books Contra Judæos belong to the department of apologetics. He also composed a monastic rule (comp. further § 87, 1 and 88, 1).—Isidore’s elder brother Leander of Seville, who died in A.D. 590, had a good reputation as a church leader (§ 76, 2; 88, 1), and had no insignificant rank as a theological writer. The same may be said of the two bishops of Toledo, Ildefonsus, who died in A.D. 669, and Julianus, who died in A.D. 690.

3. England’s greatest and most famous teacher was the Anglo-Saxon, the Venerable Bede. Trained in the monastery of Wearmouth, he subsequently took up his residence in the monastery of Jarrow, where he died in A.D. 735. He was a proficient in all the sciences of his time and withal a model of humility, piety and amiability. While his numerous pupils reached the highest places in the service of the church, their famous teacher continued in quiet retirement as a simple monk. He himself wished nothing else. Even on his deathbed he continued unweariedly to teach and write. Immediately before his death he dictated the last chapter of an Anglo-Saxon translation of the Gospel of John. By far his most important work for us is the Hist. ecclest. gentis Anglorum in 5 Bks. reaching down to A.D. 731 (Engl. Transl. by Giles, Lond., 1840; and by Gidley, Lond., 1871). Connected with this are his biographies of several saints of his native land, also a history of the monastery of Wearmouth, and a Chronicon de sex ætatibus mundi reaching down to A.D. 729. His commentaries ranging over almost all the books of the Old and New Testament give evidence of a wonderful knowledge of the fathers. His numerous sermons are mostly exegetical and practical, rarely doctrinal. He was distinguished too as a poet in Latin as well as in his mother tongue.

§ 90.3. The most distinguished Theologians of the Age of Charlemagne.

1. The brightest star in the theological firmament of this period was the Anglo-Saxon Alcuin (Albinus) with the Horatian surname of Flaccus, which he got for his poetical productions. He was educated in the famous school of York under Egbert and Elbert. When the latter was made archbishop in A.D. 766, Alcuin undertook the presidency of the schools. While on a visit to Rome in A.D. 781 he met Charlemagne who took him to his court, where he became the emperor’s teacher, friend and most trusted counsellor. Down to his death in A.D. 804 he was the king’s right hand in all religious ecclesiastical and educational matters. In order to allay a feeling of home-sickness, he undertook a journey in A.D. 789 to his native country as ambassador of Charlemagne, returned in A.D. 793, and did not again quit France. In A.D. 796 Charles gave him the abbacy of Tours. He soon raised its monastic school to the highest rank as a seminary of learning. His exegetical works are mere compilations. The Ll. II. de fide s. et Individuæ Trinitatis may be regarded as his dogmatic masterpiece; a compendium of dogmatics based upon Augustine’s writings. The Quæstiones de Trin. treat of the same matter in the catechetical form of question and answer. He contributed to the doctrinal controversies of his time the Libellus de processione Spiritus S. (§ 91, 2) and by several learned controversial tracts against the leaders of the Adoptionists (§ 91, 1). It is doubtful whether at all, and if so to what extent, he had to do with the composition of the Libri Carolini (§ 94, 1) which appeared during his stay in England. His numerous epistles, about 300 in number, are very important for the history of his times. In his Latin poems he sometimes very happily imitates his classical models.[253]

2. Paulus Diaconus or Paul (the son of) Warnefrid, of an honourable Longobard family, was next to Alcuin the most distinguished scholar of his age. Probably sorrow at the overthrow of his people (§ 82, 2) drove him into the monastery of Monte Cassino; but Charlemagne took him to his court in A.D. 782, where he was an object of admiration as a Homer among the Grecians, a Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, among the Latinists, and a Philo (!) among the Hebraists. Love of his native land, however, led him back to his monastery in A.D. 786, where he died at a very advanced age in A.D. 795. What was specially praiseworthy in this learned and amiable man, all the more that few then took interest in those matters, was love and enthusiasm for the language, the national legends and heroic tales, the old laws and customs of his fellow-countrymen. His most important work is the Historia s. de Gestis Langobardorum in 6 bks., reaching down to A.D. 774. The earlier Hist. Romana, composed at the wish of a daughter of king Desiderius, is, so far as its earlier periods are concerned, compiled from the classical historians, but for the later periods down to the overthrow of the Gothic rule is more independent. At the Frankish court he composed the Hist. Episcoporum Mettensium. He was also distinguished as a poet. On his Homiliarius comp. § 88, 1.[254]

3. Theodulf, bishop of Orleans, distinguished as a Christian poet and learned theologian, and especially as a promoter of popular education, stood in high repute with Charlemagne, but under Louis the Pious, being suspected of treasonable correspondence with Bernard of Italy, was deposed and banished in A.D. 818. Subsequently, however, he was pardoned and recalled, but died in A.D. 821 before he reached his diocese. His book De Spiritu S. was a contribution to the controversy about the procession of the Holy Spirit (§ 91, 2). At Charlemagne’s request he described and explained the baptismal ceremony in the book De ordine baptismi. His numerous poems have been published in 6 bks.

4. Paulinus, patriarch of Aquileia, who died in A.D. 804, and bishop Leidrad of Lyons, who died in A.D. 813, took part in Alcuin’s controversy against the Adoptionists by the publication of able treatises.

5. Of the works of Hatto, abbot of Reichenau, subsequently bishop of Basel, who died in A.D. 836, we still have the so-called Capitulare Hattonis, with prefatory directions for the official guidance of the Basel clergy, and the Visio Wettini, describing the vision of a monk of Reichenau called Wettin, who in A.D. 824 three days before his death was conducted by an angel through hell, purgatory and paradise. Hatto wrote it in prose and Walafrid Strabo rendered it into verse. It made a great impression on his contemporaries and was probably not without influence upon Dante’s Divina Comediá.

§ 90.4. The most distinguished Theologians of the Age of Louis the Pious.

1. Agobard of Lyons, a Spaniard by birth, died as archbishop of Lyons in A.D. 840. As the resolute defender of the integrity of the empire and the head of the national church party among the Frankish clergy, he was drawn into a conspiracy against Louis the Pious in A.D. 833 (§ 82, 4), which led to his deposition and banishment in A.D. 835. After two years, however, he was pardoned. He was a man of remarkable culture and extraordinary force of character, and withal a vigorous opponent of all ecclesiastical and extra-ecclesiastical superstition. On his writings referring to these matters see § 92, 2. In the book Adv. dogma Felicis he contended against Adoptionism (§ 91, 1). In connection with his battle against the insolence and pride of the numerous and wealthy Jews in his diocese he wrote and dedicated to the emperor the accusatory tract De insolentia Judæorum, followed by several similar addresses to the most influential councillors of the crown. Another series of writings from his pen was devoted to the vindication of the attitude which he had assumed in the struggle between Louis the Pious and his sons. Several treatises on the position and task, the rights and duties of the ministerial office show a reformatory tendency. He engaged in a passionate controversy with Amalarius of Metz about the necessity of a liturgical reform. Against Fredigis of Tours, Alcuin’s successor, he maintained the view regarding the prophets and apostles that the Holy Spirit non solum sensum prædicationis et modos vel argumenta dictionum inspiraverit, sed etiam ipsa corporalia verba extrinsecus in ora illorum ipse formaverit.

2. Claudius, bishop of Turin, who died in A.D. 839, was also a Spaniard by birth and a scholar of Felix of Urgel (§ 91, 1), without, however, imbibing his heretical views. He was throughout his whole career a zealous and determined reformer. His reformatory notions were set forth first of all in his exegetical works that covered almost the whole range of Scripture. Of these only the commentary on Galatians is now extant. He also vindicated his position against the attacks of his old friend the abbot Theodemir in his Apologeticus (§ 92, 2).

3. Jonas of Orleans, the successor of Theodulf, was one of the most distinguished prelates of his age, who wrought earnestly and successfully for the restoring of discipline and order in his diocese. In the struggle between Louis the Pious and his sons he resolutely took the side of the old king. He died in A.D. 844. His three books, De institutione laicali constitute a handbook of morals for married persons, which also, because it deals with the sins and vices that were then rampant, is of value as a picture of the moral condition of his age. The book De institutione regia, addressed to Louis’ son Pepin, may be regarded as an appendix to the former treatise. In opposition to the iconoclastic opinions of Claudius (§ 92, 2) he wrote Ll. III. De cultu imaginum.

4. The principal work of the priest Amalarius of Metz is his De ecclesiasticis officiis in 4 bks., a detailed description of all the ceremonies of public worship and the ecclesiastical furniture and vestments, with many arbitrary mystico-allegorical explanations, which called forth a crushing rejoinder from Agobard. On his revision of the rule of Chrodegang, see § 84, 4.

5. From the pen of the German monk Christian Druthmar of Old Corbei we have a commentary on Matthew, which is remarkable for the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper which it sets forth (§ 91, 3), as well as for the hermeneutical principle there laid down, that first and foremost the exegete must secure a thorough understanding of the historical literal sense, before he may think of developing the spiritual sense, which must have the former as its basis.

6. Rabănus [Rabanus] Magnentius Maurus, the most distinguished scholar of his age, was descended from an old Roman family but one that had long been Germanized at Mainz. His earliest education was received at the monastery of Fulda. He then became a pupil of Alcuin at Tours. In A.D. 803 he became himself a teacher at Tours, and in A.D. 822 was made abbot of Fulda. After the death of Louis the Pious he took the side of Lothair against Louis the German, and was consequently obliged to resign his position as abbot and to quit Fulda in A.D. 842. Subsequently, however, he obtained Louis’ favour, and upon Otgar’s death in A.D. 847 (§ 87, 3) was appointed his successor in the archiepiscopal see of Mainz. He died in A.D. 856. The monastic school at Fulda was raised by him to the highest eminence. His commentaries extending over almost all the Old and New Testaments are mainly occupied with the development of the so-called spiritual sense, manifest wonderful familiarity with the writings of the Latin fathers from Ambrose to Bede, and were held in the highest esteem throughout the Middle Ages. The same may be said of his numerous homilies. The encyclopædic work De universo in 22 bks., is a continuation of Isidore’s Origines. His book De institutione clericorum in 3 bks. affords a summary of all that was then to be learnt by the clergy for the practical work of the ministry. The Tractatus de diversis quæstionibus ex V. et N. T. contra Judæos is an apologetic treatise. He wrote against Gottschalk’s doctrine of predestination in a letter to bishop Noting of Verona (§ 91, 5), and another to the abbot Eigil of Prüm against Radbert’s doctrine of the Lord’s Supper (§ 91, 3). Of his many other works we may mention a Martyrologium based upon ancient authorities.

7. Walafrid Strabo received his early training in the monastery of Reichenau. He studied subsequently under Rabanus at Fulda, in which institution he became a teacher. About A.D. 842 he was made abbot of Reichenau; the seminary here he raised to high repute, although he died in his early prime in A.D. 849. Among his evangelical writings his so-called Glossæ ordinariæ, i.e. short explanations of the Latin text of the Bible, mostly culled from the commentaries of Rabanus, were extremely popular, and continued in use throughout the Middle Ages as an exegetical handbook. In the liturgical department we have his treatise De exordiis et incrementis rerum ecclesiasticarum, in which he expresses himself on the image controversy in the spirit of the old Frankish church (§ 92, 1). Walafrid was also famous as a writer of sacred and secular poems.

§ 90.5. The Most Distinguished Theologians of the Age of Charles the Bald.

1. The powerful metropolitan Hincmar of Rheims, who died in A.D. 882 (§ 82, 7; 83, 2), was not indeed strong in dogmatics, but in his writings just as well as in his life and struggle he was heart and soul a church leader and statesman. His most important work from a theological point of view is the Capitula Synodica ad presbyteros parochiæ suæ on various points of worship and discipline, a notable witness to the zeal and care which this man, so much taken up with affairs of state and ecclesiastical controversies, showed in the discharge of his ministerial duties. Of his writings in connection with the Gottschalk controversy (§ 91, 5, 6) only the prolix work De predest. Dei et libero arbitrio vindicating the decrees of Quiersy of A.D. 853 are now extant.

2. Paschasius Radbertus, who died about A.D. 865, was monk, and, from A.D. 844-851, also abbot of the monastery of Corbei in Picardy. But among the monks of that place there was a cotery which occasioned the most profound grief to the pious-minded abbot; especially the learned monk Ratramnus under the protection of court favour took delight in contesting the somewhat ultra-pietistic views of his abbot. Probably it was this that led Radbertus to resign his office in A.D. 851. Besides the two treatises controverted by Ratramnus he composed biblical commentaries, which are more independent and contain more of his own than was common at that time. He also wrote 3 bks. on faith, love and hope; besides several Hagiographies.

3. Ratramnus, the antagonist of the former, takes a very prominent place among the clear and subtle thinkers of that age. Besides his controversial treatises against Radbertus (§ 91, 3, 4) and against Hincmar (§ 91, 5, 6), he took part in the burning controversy between the Greeks and Latins (§ 67, 1) and wrote, Contra Græcorum opposita Romanam eccl. infamantium.

4. Florus Magister was a cleric of the diocese of Lyons distinguished no less for great learning than for poetic gifts. His principal work De actione Missarum, s. expositio in Canonem Missæ is, notwithstanding its title, not so much a liturgical treatise as a controversial tract against Radbertus’ doctrine of the Eucharist (§ 91, 3). In the liturgical controversy between Agobard and Amalarius, he took the side of Agobard and argued against Amalarius in several epistles. In the predestinarian controversy he published the work Contra J. Scoti Erigenæ erroneas definitiones (§ 91, 5). He also composed a Martyrologium.

5. Haymo, bishop of Halberstadt, who died in A.D. 853, won great reputation not only by his compiled exegetical works and his Homiliarium for the festival part of the year, but also as author of a Church History, which, however, is nothing more than a working up of extracts from Rufinus.

6. Servatus Lupus, scholar of Rabanus, was from A.D. 842 abbot of Ferrières. His 130 epistles are important for the history of his time, as he was in constant correspondence with the most famous men of his day. On the side of Gottschalk in the predestinarian controversy he wrote his treatise De tribus quæstionibus.

7. Remigius of Auxerre, who died about A.D. 908, was teacher of the monastic school at Rheims, and subsequently at Paris. Besides numerous commentaries on the books of the Old and New Testaments in the usual compilatory and allegorical style, he has left in his Expositio Missæ a mystico-allegorical explanation of the ceremonies of the mass.

8. Regius of Prüm, abbot of the monastery there, subsequently resigned his rank and retired into the monastery of Treves. He died in A.D. 915. His Chronicon reaching down to A.D. 906 is of great value for his own times. His 2 bks. De cantis synodalibus et disciplinis ecclesiasticis are a directory for the visitation of churches to be carried out by means of synodical judicatures.

§ 90.6.

1. Anastasius Bibliothecarius was abbot of a Roman monastery and librarian under popes Nicholas I., Hadrian II. and John VIII., and visited the Byzantine court in A.D. 869 as member of an embassy of Emperor Louis II., and was also present at the 8th œcumenical Council at Constantinople (§ 67, 1). He translated the acts of this synod into Latin, wrote the lives of several saints, and composed a Hist. ecclest. s. Chronographia tripartita drawn from three Byzantine historical works of that period. To the Liber Pontificalis s. de vitio Roman. pontificum, reaching down to the death of Stephen V. in A.D. 891, which has been ascribed to him, he can only have contributed the Vita of pope Nicholas I., and perhaps also the Vitæ of his four immediate predecessors. It is a history of the popes gathered together from various sources that had their origin at different times, the earliest of which goes back to A.D. 354. The oldest extant recension of it reaches down to Pope Conon in A.D. 687, and forms an important link in the chain of Romish fabrications and interpolations, by means of which the numerous fabricated acts of Romish martyrs, as well as already existing fables referring to particular popes and emperors (comp. e.g. § 42, 1), gained credence, more recently introduced liturgical practices had assigned to them a more remote antiquity, and the popes were represented as legislators for the whole church. The complete biographies often written by contemporaries preserved in this collection are of great historical value.

2. Eulogius of Cordova was chosen archbishop in A.D. 858, but was not received by the Moorish government, and suffered martyrdom in A.D. 859 (§ 81, 1). The most important of his writings is the historical Memoriale Sanctorum s. Ll. III. de Martyrib. Cordubens. The Apologeticus Sanctorum is a continuation of the former with violent invectives against Islam and its false prophet. Paulas [Paul] Alvarus of Cordova, from his youth closely associated with Eulogius, wrote his life and vindicated in a Judiculus luminosus the tendency to court martyrdom then frequently shown by Christians but often objected to.

§ 90.7.

1. Joannes Scotus Erigena, the miracle as well as the enigma of his age, by birth probably an Irishman, who flashed out as a brilliant meteor in the court of Charles the Bald and passed away from view, without its being known whence he came or whither he went, was the greatest scholar, the most profound, subtle and liberal thinker of his times, with a speculative power the like of which was not seen for centuries before and after. He died after A.D. 877. His extant works embrace fragments of his commentary on the Areopagite (§ 47, 11), and a Latin faithful, literal and therefore hard to understand translation of the Areopagite’s writings, also a translation of a work of Maximus Confessor on difficult passages from the writings of Gregory Nazianzen (Loca ambigua), his controversial treatise De prædestinatione (§ 91, 5), a homily on the prologue of John’s gospel, a fragment of a speculative-mystical treatise De egressu et regressu animæ ad Deum, and the Opus palmare of the author, by far the most comprehensive of his writings, the 5 bks. De divisione naturæ. Based upon the gnosis of the school of Origen, but resting mainly on the theosophical mysticism of the Areopagite and the dialectic of Maximus Confessor, he produced in this treatise a system of speculative theology of magnificent dimensions which, in spite of every effort to hold by the doctrinal position of the church, is but one piece of heterodoxy from beginning to end. He starts from the principle that true theology and true philosophy are only formally different, but essentially identical. The Fides have to express the truth as Theologia affirmativa (καταφατική) in the biblically revealed and ecclesiastically communicated shell, accommodating itself to the finite understanding by figurative and metaphorical expressions. But the task of the Ratio is to strip off this shell (Theologia negativa, ἀποφατική), and by means of speculation raise the faith to knowledge. The title of this book is to be explained from its fundamental thought that nature, i.e. the sum of all being and non-being, by which he understands everything the existence of which is yet unknown, or merely potential, or necessarily belonging to things past, comprises four forms of existence:—Natura creatrix non creata, i.e. God as the potential sum of all being, Natura creatrix creata, i.e. the eternal thoughts of God regarding the world as the eternal primal types of all creation, Natura creata non creans, i.e. the world in time as the visible product and sensible realization of the eternal invisible world of ideas, and Natura nee creata nee creans, i.e. God as the final end of all created being, to whom all creation when all contradictions have been overcome returns in the ἀποκατάστασις τῶν πάντων. The Aristotelian threefold division into the unmoved and moving, the moved and moving, and the moved and not moving, seems to have afforded him the starting-point for his fourfold division; while the divergent conception of them, their enlargement and development may be traced to Platonic and Neo-Platonic influences.—That such a system must essentially tend to pantheism soon became evident, but on the other hand Erigena’s own Christian consciousness strongly reacted against the pantheistic current of his thought, and he was anxiously concerned to preserve the fundamental truths of Christian Theism. By the fundamental fourfold division of his system he could not give to the doctrine of the Trinity a necessary and controlling but only an accidental and occasional position. Only the presence of this doctrine in Scripture and tradition obliged him to maintain it. He speaks indeed of three persons in God, but he uses the expression only in an improper sense, and has no intention of explaining Father, Son and Spirit as mere names of divine relations (habitudines, relationes): Pater vult, Filius facit, Spir. S. perficit. In the Son as the creative Word of God are all original causes of things, undistinguished, unordered; by the Spirit are they differentiated into the various phenomena and effects in the kingdom of nature as well as of grace. On his doctrine of evil, comp. § 91, 5. As Origen has in himself the germs of all orthodoxy and heterodoxy of the ancient church undeveloped and uncontrasted, so also in Erigena are there the germs of the contradictions of later scholasticism and mysticism. Had he lived three centuries later he would probably have set the whole learned world astir, but now he passed unhonoured, misunderstood, scarcely regarded worth dealing with for heresy (§ 91, 5), and apparently leaving little trace behind him. His great work De divisione naturæ was first condemned by a provincial Council at Sens, and this judgment was confirmed by Honorius III. in A.D. 1225. The book was characterized as Scatens vermibus hæreticæ pravitatis; orders were given that it should be sought out everywhere and burnt.[255]

§ 90.8. The Monastic and Cathedral Schools had as their main task the training of capable servants for the church. The handbooks mainly in use were those of Cassiodorus, Isidore, Bede, Alcuin and Rabanus. Great diligence was shown, especially in the monasteries, in founding libraries and multiplying books by means of good copies. Alcuin made a threefold division of all sciences; ethics, physics and theology. Ethics corresponded to what was afterwards called the Trivium (Grammar, Rhetoric and Dialectic); Physics to the Quadrivium (Arithmetic, Geometry, Music and Astronomy). These two together comprehended the whole range of the seven free arts, i.e. worthy of the study of a free man, liberal studies. Latin was the language of intercourse and instruction. Greek, which was spread by Theodore of Tarsus, a Greek monk, who, after being long a teacher in Rome, was in A.D. 669 made archbishop of Canterbury, and by his pupils was also taught in the more important schools. Acquaintance with Hebrew was much more rare, and was often obtained by means of intercourse with learned Jews. Boethius [Boëthius] was the vehicle of instruction in philosophy. In the 9th century the works ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite (§ 47, 11) were sent to France as a present from the Byzantine emperor Michael to Louis of France. He was identified with the founder of the church of Paris of the same name, and patriotic feeling gave an immense impulse to the study of his writings. The abbot Hildmin of St. Denys, and subsequently Joannes Erigena, translated them into Latin. Encyclopædic works, giving compendiums of the whole range of the sciences then known, were produced by Isidore and Rabanus.[256]—Continuation, § 99, 3.

§ 90.9. Various Branches of Theological Science.—The labours of the German church in the department of scientific theology was directed to the church’s immediate needs, and hence the character of its theology was biblical and practical, and the reputation of the fathers so extravagantly high, that wherever it was possible, teaching, preaching, proving and refuting were all carried on in their very words. Charlemagne’s powerful efforts in the direction of reform gave even in the department of theology abundant occasion and encouragement to scholars round about him to a more independent procedure, and the theological controversies of the 9th century afforded sufficient scope to independent thinking.

1. Exegesis on the basis of the Vulgate was most diligently prosecuted. Charlemagne set Alcuin to produce a critical revision of its very corrupt text. Agobard combated the mechanical theory of inspiration by the assertion that the holy prophets were something better than Balaam’s ass. Only one out of the very numerous exegetes, Christian Druthmar, recognised it as a first principle, most essential and necessary, if not the only task of the exegete, to bring out the grammatical and historical sense of the words of Scripture. The literal sense was and continued to be regarded as the scullion of interpretation, while it was thought that the most precious treasures of Divine wisdom were to be found in the allegorical sense, i.e. with application to the mysteries of the faith, the tropological or moral, and the anagogical, which aimed at the elevation of the mind.

2. In Systematic Theology Apologetics was most feebly represented. The humble form of the paganism to be controverted did not require elaborate defences of the Christian faith, but the advance of Mohammedanism and the great number of Jews established in France, especially under Louis of France, by means of their wealth and bribes, developed an incredible arrogance. While Jewish and pagan slaves were not allowed to have baptism, Christian slaves on the other hand were compelled to observe the Sabbath, to work on Sunday, to eat flesh on fast days; they openly blasphemed Christ, insulted the church and sold Christian slaves to the Saracens. Agobard fought against them energetically by word, Scripture and action, but the needy court protected them. Isidore and Rabanus in their apologetical writings proved the nullity of the Jewish beliefs. From the time of Charlemagne theologians were much more eagerly engaged in polemics (§§ 91, 92). Isidore in his Ll. III. Sententiarum collected from patristic passages a system of doctrine and morals, which continued a favourite text-book for centuries. Alcuin’s Ll. III. De fide Trinitatis form a compendium of dogmatics. The introduction of the Pseudo-Areopagita into the West prepared the way for speculative mysticism, which had its first representative in Joannes Scotus Erigena.

3. In Practical Theology homiletical literature was but poorly represented. Besides the Homiliarius of Paul Warnefrid (§ 88, 1), we meet with Bede, Walafrid, Rabanus and Haymo as authors of sermons. On the other hand great and constant interest was shown in developing a theory of worship, in describing it and giving a mystical explanation of it. Isidore with De officiis ecclesiasticis was the first in this department. Charlemagne set to all his theologians the task of explaining the baptismal ceremony. In the time of Louis the Pious, Agobard appears as a reformer of the liturgy, in connection with which he passionately contended against Amalarius, against whom also Florus Magister entered the lists. Important works in this department were also written by Rabanus, Walafrid and Remigius. On works treating of church law and church discipline, see § 87 and § 89, 5.

4. Finally, as to the department of Historical Theology all knowledge of earlier church history was derived from Rufinus and Cassiodorus. Even Haymo’s Church History is made up simply of extracts from Rufinus. All the greater diligence was shown throughout the Middle Ages in chronicling the ecclesiastical and political events of the immediate present and also keeping the past in memory. This endeavour shows itself in a threefold direction. (a) The writing of National Chronicles. The Visigoths had their Isidore, the Ostrogoths their Cassiodorus,[257] the Longobards their Paul Warnefrid, the Franks their Gregory of Tours, the Britons their Gildas[258] and Nennius,[259] the Anglo-Saxons their Bede.—(b) Then we have the clumsy compilations of Annals and Chronicles which most monasteries produced, and which were continued from year to year.—(c) And further, Biographies, both of distinguished statesmen and distinguished churchmen. The Vitæ Sanctorum are innumerable, mostly quite uncritical, composed purely for the glorification of some local saint. To this category belong the numerous Martyrologies, arranged in the order of the Calendar. Among the most famous were those prepared by Bede, Ado of Vienne, Usuardus, Rabanus, Notker Balbulus, Wandelbert, etc. In the department of historical biography proper may be included the portion of the Liber pontificalis belonging to this period, the Hist. Mettensium Episcoporum of Paul Warnefrid, and Isidore’s continuation of Jerome’s Catalogus, which was further continued by Ildefonsus of Toledo.

§ 90.10. Anglo-Saxon Culture under Alfred the Great, A.D. 871-901.—Alfred the Great, the greatest and noblest of all the kings that England has ever had, was the grandson of Egbert who had united in A.D. 827 the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. When five years old he received papal anointing at Rome and two years later in company with his pious father he travelled thence, made a considerable stay at the brilliant court of Charlemagne where he received the impress of its superior culture, and began his reign in A.D. 871 in his 22nd year when the kingdom was sorely oppressed by Danish invasions. He applied all the energy of his mind to the difficult problems of government, to the emancipation and civilization of his country and people by driving out the Danish robbers, and then improving the internal condition of the land by attention to agriculture, industry and trade, by a wise organization, legislation and administration, by the founding of churches, monasteries and schools, and by furthering every scientific endeavour from a thoroughly national point of view. When already thirty-six years of age he learnt the Latin language and used this acquirement for the enriching of Anglo-Saxon literature by translations from his own hand, with many important additions of his own, of Boëthius’ Consolatio philosophiæ, the Universal History of Orosius, Bede’s History of the Church of England and the Regula pastoralis of Gregory the Great. He also began a translation of the Psalms. He stimulated his learned friends to a like activity, among whom bishop Asser of Sherborne in his Vita Alfredi (Engl. transl. in “Six Old English Chronicles”) has reared a worthy memorial of his master.[260]—Continuation, § 100, 1.

§ 91. DOCTRINAL CONTROVERSIES.

The first important heresy that grew up independently on German soil was Adoptionism. This heresy took its rise at that point in the development of Christology that was reached by the 6th œcumenical Council of Constantinople in A.D. 680 (§ 52, 8), for it recognises the double nature and the double will while denying the double sonship. Frankish orthodoxy, however, saw in it not a further development of doctrine, but a relapse into Nestorianism, and so condemned the new doctrine. During the same period the dogma of the procession of the Holy Spirit was the subject of lively controversy, and the Frankish church came forward as defender of Western orthodoxy against the Greeks. In the Eucharistic controversy the most eminent Frankish theologians opposed the Transubstantiation doctrine of Balbutus [Balbulus]. A further controversy as to the conception of the Blessed Virgin was closely connected with the one just referred to. Neither of them was made the subject of any synodal decision. On the other hand very definite synodal decisions were passed in reference to the predestination controversy, without, however, bringing that controversy by any means to a conclusion. Of subordinate importance was the dispute over the expression Trina Deitas.

§ 91.1. The Adoptionist Controversy, A.D. 782-799.—Of all Christian dogmas none were so offensive to the Moslems as that of the Trinity which to their barren monotheism necessarily appeared as Tritheism, and none were the subject of so much scorn as the idea that God should have a son. It need not, therefore, surprise us to find that Spanish theologians endeavoured to put this doctrine in a form as little offensive as possible to the Moslems. One Migetius went so far as to adopt a very crude form of Sabellianism, for he, undoubtedly approaching the Mohammedan view of the prophetic order, represented the Trinitarian development of the one Divine Being as a threefold historical manipulation of God: in David the person of the Father is revealed, in Christ as son of David that of the Son, and finally, in the Apostle Paul that of the Holy Spirit. At a Spanish synod of A.D. 782 he was successfully opposed by the archbishop Elipandus of Toledo, who took the opportunity of attempting a further development of the Christological dogma. This also was more fully elaborated by Felix of Urgel in the Spanish Mark. Both taught: That Christ is properly Son of God only according to His divine nature (Filius Dei Naturâ); according to His human nature He is properly, like all of us, a servant of God, and only by the decision of the Divine will is He adopted as the Son of God (Filius Dei Adoptivus), just as all of us may by Him and after His example be raised from the condition of servant into the family of God. According to His Divine nature therefore He is the Only Begotten, according to His human nature the First Begotten Son of God. The adoption of the human nature into Divine Sonship began with its conception by the Holy Ghost, but was more definitely determined in His baptism, and perfected in His resurrection. The first scene of the controversy called forth by this doctrine was enacted on Spanish soil. Two representatives of the Asturian clergy, the presbyter Beatus of Libana and bishop Etherius of Osma, contended by word and writing against the heresy of Elipandus (A.D. 785). This was done perhaps with the view of emancipating the Asturian church from the see of Toledo then under Saracen domination. The Asturians applied to Hadrian I., who in an epistle to the bishops of Spain in A.D. 786 condemned Adoptionism as a heresy. The controversy entered upon a second stage through the interference of Charlemagne. The absence of Adoptionism in Frankish Spain afforded him an excuse for interfering, and he readily seized upon this, because it gave him an opportunity of posing as the defender of orthodoxy in the West, i.e. as Emperor in esse. Before a Synod at Regensburg in A.D. 792, Felix was compelled to renounce this heresy, and was sent to Rome to pope Hadrian I. There he had to make a second recantation, but escaped from prison and fled to Saracenic territory. In the meantime Alcuin had returned from his travels in England, and immediately engaged in controversy by addressing an affectionate exhortation to Felix. The Spaniards gave a very firm reply and Charlemagne then convened the famous œcumenical German Synod of Frankfort in A.D. 794. After further investigation Adoptionism was again condemned, and the judgment of the synod, in order that it might have an œcumenical character, was sent to Spain accompanied by four complete reports as representing the various national churches and authorities. But on the Spaniards this made little impression. Just as little effect had a learned controversial tract of Alcuin’s, to which Felix made a smart rejoinder. Meanwhile Charlemagne sent a clerical commission under Leidrad of Lyons and Benedict of Aniane (§ 85, 2) into the Spanish Mark, in order to root out the weeds of heresy that were growing there. Felix declared himself ready for further enquiry. At the national Synod of Aachen in A.D. 792 he disputed for six days with Alcuin, and declared himself at last thoroughly convinced. Alcuin and Paulinus of Aquileia published new controversial tracts, and Leidrad went a second time into the Spanish Mark where he succeeded in rooting out the heresy. But all the more determined were the bishops of Saracenic Spain in maintaining their doctrine, and Elipandus answered a conciliatory letter of Alcuin in a passionate and angry tone. Felix remained until the end of his life in A.D. 818 under the guardianship of the bishop of Lyons. Leidrad’s successor, Agobard, found among his papers undoubted evidence that to the end he was at heart an Adoptionist, and from this took occasion to publish another controversial tract. This was the very last of these productions. But in Spain Adoptionism seems to have maintained its hold down to the second half of the 9th century. At last about that time Paulus Alvarus of Cordova (§ 90, 6) contended with a certain Joannes Spalensis on account of his Adoptionist views. In the 12th century the controversy again broke out on German soil (§ 102, 6).[261]

§ 91.2. Controversy about the Procession of the Holy Spirit.—At a Synod at Gentiliacum in A.D. 767, held for the purpose of meeting a Byzantine embassy about the iconoclast controversy, the addition to the creed of the Filioque was spoken about (§ 67, 1). The result of the discussion is unknown. In Charlemagne’s time Alcuin and Theodulf defended the Latin doctrine in special treatises, and at a Synod at Friaul in A.D. 791 Paulinus of Aquileia justified its adoption into the creed and the Carolingian books (§ 92, 1). The discussion was renewed when the Latin monks of Mount Olivet, blamed by the Greeks because of the addition, appealed to the usage of the Frankish church. Pope Leo III. communicated in regard to this with Charlemagne, and a Council at Aachen in A.D. 809 defended the addition. But the pope, although not contesting the correctness of the doctrine, disallowed the change in the creed, and had two silver tablets erected in St. Peter’s in Rome with the creed wanting the addition. This was evidently a damper upon the ecclesiastico-political movements of the emperor.

§ 91.3. The Eucharistic Controversy, A.D. 844.—Vacillations about the doctrine of the Supper (§ 58, 2) lasted down to the 9th century. Paschasius Radbertus, monk at Corbie, undertook in A.D. 831, in his treatise De Sanguine et corpore Domini, theologically to justify, and on all sides to develop the doctrine of the Supper, which had long ago struck its roots in the practice of the church and the faith of the people. The air of genuine piety which meets us in this work impresses us favourably, and it cannot be denied that he had a profound perception of fulness, power, and depth of the Sacrament. It was, therefore, quite in accordance with popular belief. He could, also, refer to facts from the Vitæ Sanctorum, where the inner Veritas had come to outer manifestation. He thinks that the fact that this did not always happen is to be accounted for partly by this, that the Supper in its very nature is a Mysterium for faith and not a Miraculum for unbelief, partly by the divine condescendence which takes into account the natural horror at flesh and blood, and would take away from the heathen all occasion for blasphemy. At this time, A.D. 831, the Scriptures were not appealed to. Meantime Radbertus was made abbot of Corbie, and in this important position he revised his work, and presented it to Charles the Bald in A.D. 844. The king called upon the learned monk, Ratramnus of Corbie, to express his opinion on the subject, and he was only too ready to do an injury to his abbot. Without naming him, he contested his doctrine in his treatise, De corp. et sang. Domini ad Carolum Calvum, with bitter criticism, and subtly developed his own view, according to which the body and blood of Christ are enjoyed only spiritualiter et secundum potentiam. Rabanus Maurus, Scotus Erigena, and Florus of Lyons also opposed the magical transformation doctrine of Radbertus in favour of a merely spiritual enjoyment. Hincmar and Haymo, on the other hand, took the side of Radbertus, while Walafrid Strabo, and the able, energetic Christian Druthmar, found in the idea of impanation and consubstantiation a more fitting expression for the solemn mystery. But Radbertus had spoken the word which gave clear utterance to the ecclesiastical feeling of the age; the protest of so many great authorities might delay, but could not destroy its effects. Continuation, § 101, 2.

§ 91.4. Controversy about the Conception of the Virgin.—This notion of the magical operation of the Divine prevailed with Radbertus when soon afterwards he undertook in his own way, and also in accordance with Ps. xxii. 10 and Jer. xxxi. 22, in the tract, De partu virginali, to establish the opinion already expressed by Ambrose and Jerome (§ 57, 2), that Mary brought forth utero clauso, and without pain. Ratramnus also has left a treatise on this theme: De eo quod Christus ex Virigine natus est. He maintains equally with Radbertus that during conception as well as in bearing, the Virgin did not lose her virginity. But while Radbertus contended against those who taught less than this, i.e., that though Mary conceived as a virgin, she bore after the manner of all women, Ratramnus directed his attack against those who affirmed more than that, i.e., that Christ at His birth did not leave His mother’s womb in the usual, natural manner, by His mother bearing Him. Further, while the former was angry at the profaning of the mystery of the birth of Christ, by ranking it under the laws of nature, the latter emphasized the fact that in no case should it be regarded as in itself ignominious to be placed under the laws of nature. Finally, while Radbertus unconditionally repudiated the position, Vulvam aperuit, Ratramnus felt compelled by Luke ii. 23 to admit it in a certain sense. C. v. “Utique vulvam aperuit, non et clausam corrumperet, sed et per eam suæ nativitatis ostium aperiret, sicut et in Ezech. xliv. 3 porta et clausa describitur et tamen narratur Domino aperta; non quod liminis sui fores dimoverit ad ejus egressum, sed quod sic clausa patuerit dominanti,” and c. viii. “Exivit clauso sepulchro (?) et ingressus foribus obseratis (Jo. xx. 9) ... ut et clausam relinqueret et per eam transiret ... nec haureundo patefecit.” The polemic, therefore, was most probably occasioned not by anything in the writings, but rather in their oral utterances. Neither understood the other’s view, and the one drew consequences from the other’s statements that were not warrantable. But when Ratramnus pretends to be debating, not with his abbot but with an unnamed German opponent, this can only be regarded as a literary artifice.

§ 91.5. The Predestinarian Controversy A.D. 847-868.—The earlier predestinarian controversy (§ 53, 5), was, so far from being brought to a conclusion, that all the gradations of doctrinal views, from that of Semi-Pelagianism to a doctrine of predestination to condemnation that went far beyond Augustine, could find representatives among the teachers of the church. In the 9th century the controversy broke out in a passionate form. Gottschalk, the son of Berno, a Saxon count, had been placed by his parents when a child in the monastery of Fulda. A Synod at Mainz in A.D. 829 allowed him to go forth, but the abbot of Fulda at that time, Rabanus Maurus, got Louis the Pious to annul this dispensation. Transferred to the monastery of Orbais, in the diocese of Soissons, Gottschalk sought comfort in the study of the writings of Augustine, and was an enthusiastic defender of the doctrine of absolute predestination. In one point he even went beyond Augustine himself, for he taught a two-fold predestination (Gemina prædestinatio), a predestination to salvation and a predestination to condemnation, while Augustine had spoken of the latter mostly as a giving over to deserved condemnation. He took advantage of two journeys into Italy in A.D. 840 and A.D. 847 for spreading his doctrine. Impelled with a vehement desire to make converts, he made an attempt upon bishop Noting of Verona. Through him Rabanus, from A.D. 847 archbishop of Mainz, obtained information thereof, and issued to Noting, as well as to Count Eberhard of Friaul, with whom Gottschalk was living, threatening letters which distorted Gottschalk’s doctrine in many particulars, and drew from it unfair consequences, making the Prædestinatio ad damnationem a Prædestinatio ad peccatum. Rabanus’s own doctrine distinguished prescience and predestination, and placed the condemnation of the wicked under the former point of view. At the same time, in A.D. 848, he convened a Synod at Mainz, before which Gottschalk stated his doctrine without reserve, in the joyous conviction that it was in accordance with the doctrine of the church. But the Council excommunicated him, and assigned him for punishment to his metropolitan Hincmar of Rheims. Hincmar had him anew condemned at the Synod of Quiersy in A.D. 849, then, because he steadily refused to recant, had him savagely scourged and consigned to imprisonment for life in the monastery of Hautvilliers. Gottschalk offered to prove the justice of his cause by submitting to an ordeal; but Hincmar, though in other instances a defender of the ordeal, denounced this as the proposal of a second Simon Magus. The inhuman treatment of the poor monk, and the rejection of the doctrine of Augustine by two church leaders, occasioned a mighty commotion in the Frankish church, which was mainly directed against Hincmar. At first, bishop Prudentius of Troyes took the condemned monk’s part. Then Charles the Bald asked the opinions of Ratramnus of Corbie and the abbot Servatus Lupus of Ferrières. Both of these took the side of Gottschalk. Hincmar’s position threatened to become very serious. He looked out for supporters, and succeeded in finding champions in the deacon Florus of Lyons, the priest Amalarius of Metz, and the learned Joannes Scotus Erigena. But the latter’s advocacy was almost more dangerous to the metropolitan than the charges of his accusers. For the speculative Irishman founded his objections to the doctrine of predestination on the position, unheard of before in the West, that evil is only a μὴ ὄν, and condemnation therefore not a positive punishment of God, but consisting only in the consciousness of a defect. Hincmar’s position was now worse than ever, for his opponents made him responsible for the heresies of Scotus. And not only an old objector, Prudentius of Troyes in his De prædest. c. Joh. Scotu, but even archbishop Wessilo of Sens and the deacon Florus of Lyons, who had hitherto supported him, now put on their armour against him. But Charles the Bald took the part of the sorely-beset metropolitan, and summoned the national Synod of Quiersy of A.D. 853, where in four articles (Capitula Carisiaca), a modified Augustinianism, rejecting the gemina prædestinatio, was set forth as the orthodox faith. The Neustrian objectors were now compelled to keep silence, but archbishop Remigius of Lyons set a Lothringian national Synod of Valence of A.D. 855 over against the Neustrian Synod. This Synod expressly condemned the decisions of the Synod of Quiersy, together with the Scottish mixture (pultus Scotorum), and laid down six conflicting articles as the standard of orthodoxy. Finally the rulers of the West Franks combined their forces and called an Imperial Synod at Savonnières, a suburb of Toul, in A.D. 859. But harmony was not yet secured, and they were likely to part with bitter feelings, when Remigius made the proposal to reserve decision for a subsequent assembly to be convened in a less agitated time, and meanwhile to maintain the peace. This was agreed upon, and so the controversy put out of view, for the proposed assembly was never brought about. Gottschalk, left in the lurch by his former friends, now turned for help to the powerful pope Nicholas I. The pope ordered Hincmar to answer before the papal plenipotentiaries for his proceedings against the monk at the Synod of Metz in A.D. 863 (§ 82, 7). Hincmar preferred not to comply to this demand, and to his delight the pope himself annulled the decisions of the Synod because his legates had been bribed. Moreover the metropolitan succeeded by intercession and well-planned letters in winning over the pope. Thus then Gottschalk was cheated out of his last hope. For twenty years he languished in prison, but with his latest breath he rejected every proposal of recantation. He died in A.D. 868, and by Hincmar’s orders was buried in unconsecrated earth.

§ 91.6. The Trinitarian Controversy, A.D. 857.—From his prison Gottschalk had accused his metropolitan of a second heresy. Hincmar had removed from a church hymn, Te trina Deitas unaque poscimus, the expression, trina Deltas, as favouring Arianism, and substituted the words, sancta Deitas. His opponents therefore charged him with Sabellianism, and Ratramnus made this accusation in a controversial tract no longer extant. Ratramnus, on the other hand, to whom Hincmar applied, supported the change, but would not commit himself to a written approval of it, whereupon Hincmar himself undertook a defence of the expression substituted in his treatise, De una et non trini Deitate.[262]

§ 92. ENDEAVOURS AFTER REFORMATION.

The independence which Charlemagne gave to the German church first awakened in it the consciousness of its vocation as a reformer. This consciousness was maintained throughout the Middle Ages, though hampered indeed by much narrowness, one-sidedness, and error. Charlemagne himself stood first in the series of reformers with his energetic protest against image worship. Louis the Pious too persevered in this same direction, and encouraged Agobard of Lyons and Claudius of Turin when they contested similar forms of ecclesiastical superstition.

§ 92.1. The Carolingian Opposition to Image Worship, A.D. 790-825.—On the occasion of an embassy of the emperor Constantinus Copronymus (§ 66, 2) Pepin the Short convened a Synod at Gentiliacum in A.D. 767 (§ 91, 2) where the question of image worship was dealt with. We have no further information, as the acts of this Synod have been lost. Then in A.D. 790 Hadrian I. sent to Charlemagne the acts of the 7th occasional Synod of Nicæa (§ 66, 3). Charles, as emperor-elect, regarded himself as grievously wronged by the assumption of the Greeks, who, without consulting the German court, sought to enact laws that were wholly antagonistic to the Frankish practice. He published under his own name a state paper in 4 bks., the so-called Libri Carolini, in which the Byzantine proceedings were censured in strong terms, the synodal acts refuted one by one, every form of image worship denounced as idolatry, while at the same time the position of the iconoclasts was repudiated and, with reference to Gregory the Great (§ 57, 4), the usefulness of images in quickening devotion, instructing the people and providing suitable decoration for sacred places was admitted. Veneration of saints, relics, and the cross is, on the other hand, permitted. Charlemagne sent this writing to the pope, who in the most courteous language wrote a refutation, which, however, made no impression upon Charlemagne. On the contrary he now hastened preparations for calling a great œcumenical Synod of all German churches that would outdo the Synod of the Byzantine court. Alcuin utilized his visit to England for securing a representation at this Synod of the Anglo-Saxon church. The Synod met at Frankfort in A.D. 794 and confirmed the positions of the Caroline books. The pope found it prudent to yield to the times and the people. Under Louis the Pious the matter was brought forward anew on the occasion of an embassy from the iconoclast emperor Michael Balbus. A national Synod at Paris in A.D. 825 condemned image worship sharply, in opposition to Hadrian I., and affirmed the positions of the Caroline books. Pope Eugenius II. kept silent on this subject. In the Frankish empire down to the 10th century no recognition was given to the 2nd Nicene Council, and official opposition was continued against image worship.

§ 92.2. Soon after the Parisian council of A.D. 825, Agobard of Lyons made his appearance with a powerful polemic: Contra superstitionem eorum, qui picturis et imaginibus sanctorum adorationis obsequiem deferendum putant. He goes much further than the Caroline books, for not only does he regard it as advisable, on account of the inevitable misuse on the part of the people, to banish images entirely, but with image worship he also rejects all adoration of saints, relics, and angels. Man should put his trust in the omnipotent God alone, and worship and reverence only the one Mediator, Christ. He comes forward also as a reformer of the liturgy. He finds fault with all sensuous additions to Divine service, would banish from it all non-Biblical hymns, urges to earnest study of Scripture, contends against the folly of the ordeal (De Divinis Sententiis), the popular superstitions about witchcraft and weather omens (Contra insulsam vulgi opinionem de grandine et tonitruis), and the idea that by presents to churches a stop can be put to epidemics and pestilences. Also on inspiration he entertained very liberal opinions (§ 90, 9). No one thought on account of these views to charge him with heresy. Claudius of Turin went still further than Agobard. By the help of Augustine he was able to grasp more profoundly than any of his contemporaries the essential core of saving truth, that man without any merit of works is justified and saved by the grace of God in Christ alone. Louis the Pious appointed him to the bishopric of Turin with the express injunction that he should contend against image worship in his Italian diocese. He found there image worship along with an extravagant devotion to relics, crosses and pilgrimages carried on to such a degree that he felt himself constrained reluctantly because of the condition of affairs to cast images and crosses out of the churches altogether. The popular excitement over this proceeding rose to the utmost pitch, and his life was saved and his office retained only through dread of the Frankish arms. When pope Paschalis intimated to him his displeasure, he said the pope is only to be honoured as apostolic, when he does the works of an apostle, otherwise Matt. xxiii. 2-4 applies to him. Against the views of his early scholar and friend the abbot Theodemir, regarding monastic psalmody, he vindicated himself in A.D. 825 in his controversial tract Apologeticus, which is now known only from the replies of his opponents. A Scotchman, Dungal, teacher at Pavia, entered the lists against him and accused him before the emperor, who, however, contented himself with calling upon bishop Jonas of Orleans to refute the apologetical treatise. This refutation appeared only after the death of Claudius. It assumed the position of the Frankish church on the question of image worship, as also Dungal had done.

SECOND SECTION.

HISTORY OF THE GERMANO-ROMANIC CHURCH, FROM THE 10TH TO THE 13TH CENTURY.

A.D. 911-1294.

I. The Spread of Christianity.

§ 93. MISSIONARY ENTERPRISES.

During this period the Christianizing of Europe was well nigh finished. Only Lapland and Lithuania were reserved for the following period. The method used in conversion was still the same. Besides missionaries, warriors also extended the faith. Monasteries and castles were the centres of the newly founded Christianity. Political considerations and Christian princesses converted pagan princes; their subjects followed either under violent pressure or with quiet resignation, carrying with them, however, under the cover of a Christian profession, much of their old heathen superstition. It was the policy of the German emperors to make every effort to unite the converted races under the German metropolitans, and to establish this union. Thus the metropolitanate of Hamburg-Bremen was founded for the Scandinavians and those of the Baltic provinces, that of Magdeburg for the Poles and the Northern Slavs, that of Mainz for the Bohemians, that of Passau and Salzburg for the Hungarians. But it was Rome’s desire to emancipate them from the German clergy and the German state, and to set them up as independent metropolitanates of a great family of Christian nationalities recognising the pope as their spiritual father (§ 82, 9). The Western church did now indeed make a beginning of missionary enterprise, which extended in its range beyond Europe to the Mongols of Asia and the Saracens of Africa, but throughout this period it remained without any, or at least without any important, result.

§ 93.1. The Scandinavian Mission Field.—The work of Ansgar and Rimbert (§ 80) had extended only to the frontier provinces of Jutland and to the trading ports of Sweden, and even the churches founded there had in the meantime become almost extinct. A renewal of the mission could not be thought of, owing to the robber raids of Normans or Vikings, who during the ninth and tenth centuries had devastated all the coasts. But it was just those Viking raids that in another way opened a door again for the entrance of missionaries into those lands. Many of the home-going Vikings, who had been resident for a while abroad, had there been converted to the Christian faith, and carried back the knowledge of it to their homes. In France the Norwegians under Rollo founded Normandy in A.D. 912. In the tenth century the entire northern half of England fell into the hands of the Danes, and finally, in A.D. 1013, the Danish King Sweyn conquered the whole country. Both in France and in England the incomers adopted the profession of Christianity, and this, owing to the close connection maintained with their earlier homes, led to the conversion of Norway and Denmark.

§ 93.2. In Denmark, Gorm the Old, the founder of the regular Danish monarchy, makes his appearance toward the end of the ninth century as the bitter foe of Christianity. He destroyed all Christian institutions, drove away all the priests, and ravaged the neighbouring German coasts. Then, in A.D. 934, the German king Henry I. undertook a war against Denmark, and obliged Gorm to pay tribute and to grant toleration to the Christian faith. Archbishop Unni of Bremen then immediately began again the mission work. With a great part of his clergy he entered Danish territory, restored the churches of Jutland, and died in Sweden in A.D. 936. Gorm’s son, Harald Blaatand, being defeated in battle by Otto I. in A.D. 965, submitted to baptism. But his son Sweyn Gabelbart, although he too had been baptized, headed the reactionary heathen party. Harald fell in battle against him in A.D. 986, and Sweyn now began his career as a bitter persecutor of the Christians. Eric of Sweden, however, formerly a heathen and an enemy of Christianity, drove him out in A.D. 980, and at the entreaty of a German embassage tolerated the Christian religion. After Eric’s death in A.D. 998, Sweyn returned. In exile his opinions had changed, and now he as actively befriended the Christians as before he had persecuted them. In A.D. 1013 he conquered all England, and died there in A.D. 1014. His son Canute the Great, who died in A.D. 1036, united both kingdoms under his sceptre, and made every effort to find in the profession of a common Christian faith a bond of union between the two countries over which he ruled. In place of the German mission issuing from Bremen, he set on foot an English mission that had great success. In A.D. 1026 by means of a pilgrimage to Rome, prompted also by far-reaching political views, he joined the Danish church in the closest bonds with the ecclesiastical centre of Western Christendom. Denmark from this time onwards ranks as a thoroughly Christianized land.

§ 93.3. In Sweden, too, Archbishop Unni of Bremen resumed mission work and died there in A.D. 936. From this time the German mission was prosecuted uninterruptedly. It was, however, only in the beginning of the eleventh century, when English missionaries came to Sweden from Norway with Sigurd at their head, that real progress was made. By them the king Olaf Skötkonung, who died in A.D. 1024, was baptized. Olaf and his successor used every effort to further the interests of the mission, which had made considerable progress in Gothland, while in Swealand, with its national pagan sanctuary of Upsala, heathenism still continued dominant. King Inge, when he refused in A.D. 1080 to renounce Christianity, was pursued with stones by a crowd of people at Upsala. His son-in-law Blot-Sweyn led the pagan reaction, and sorely persecuted those who professed the Christian faith. After reigning for three years, he was slain, and Inge restored Christianity in all parts. It was, however, only under St. Eric, who died in A.D. 1160, that the Christian faith became dominant in Upper Sweden.[263]

§ 93.4. The Norwegians had, at a very early period, by means of the adventurous raids of their seafaring youth, by means of Christian prisoners, and also by means of intercourse with the Norse colonies in England and Normandy, gained some knowledge of Christianity. The first Christian king of Norway was Haco the Good (A.D. 934-961), who had received a Christian education at the English court. Only after he had won the fervent love of his people by his able government, did he venture to ask for the legal establishment of the Christian religion. The people, however, compelled him to take part in heathen sacrifices; and when he made the sign of the cross over the sacrificial cup before he drank of it, they were appeased only by his associating the action with Thor’s hammer. Haco could never forgive himself this weakness and died broken-hearted, regarding himself as unworthy even of Christian burial. Olaf Trygvesen (A.D. 995-1000), at first the ideal of a Norse Viking, then of a Norse king, was baptized during his last visit to England, and used all the powerful influences at his command, the charm and fascination of his personality, flattery, favour, craft, intimidation and cruelty, to secure the forcible introduction of Christianity. No foreigner was ever allowed to quit Norway without being persuaded or compelled by him to receive baptism. Those who refused, whether natives or foreigners, suffered severe imprisonment and in many cases were put to death. He fell in battle with the Danes. Olaf Haraldson the Fat, subsequently known as St. Olaf (A.D. 1014-1030), followed in Trygvesen’s steps. Without his predecessor’s fascinating manners and magnanimity, but prosecuting his ecclesiastical and political ends with greater recklessness, severity, and cruelty, he soon forfeited the love of his subjects. The alienated chiefs conspired with the Danish Canute; the whole country rose against him; he himself fell in battle, and Norway became a Danish province. The crushing yoke of the Danes, however, caused a sudden rebound of public feeling in regard to Olaf. The king, who was before universally hated, was now looked on as the martyr of national liberty and independence. Innumerable miracles were wrought by his bones, and even so early as A.D. 1031 the country unanimously proclaimed him a national saint. The enthusiasm over the veneration of the new saint increased from day to day, and with it the enthusiasm for the emancipation of their native country. Borne along by the mighty agitation, Olaf’s son, Magnus the Good, drove out the Danes in A.D. 1035. Olaf’s canonization, though originating in purely political schemes, had put the final stamp of Christianity upon the land. The German national privileges, however, were insisted upon in Norway over against the canon law down to the 13th century.[264]

§ 93.5. In the North-Western Group of Islands, the Hebrides, the Orkneys, Shetlands, and Faröe Isles, the sparse Celtic population professing Christianity was, during the ninth century, expelled by the pagan Norse Vikings, and among these Christianity was first introduced by the two Norwegian Olafs. The first missionary attempt in Iceland was made in A.D. 981 by the Icelander Thorwald, who having been baptized in Saxony by a Bishop (?) Frederick, persuaded this ecclesiastic to accompany him to Iceland, that they might there work together for the conversion of his heathen fellow countrymen. During a five years’ ministry several individuals were won, but by a decision of the National Council the missionaries were forced to leave the island in A.D. 958. Olaf Trygvesen did not readily allow an Icelander visiting Norway to return without having been baptized, and twice he sent formal expeditions for the conversion of Iceland. The first, sent out in A.D. 996, with Stefnin, a native of Iceland, at its head, had little success. The second, A.D. 997-999, was led by Olaf’s court chaplain Dankbrand, a Saxon. This man, at once warrior and priest, who when his sermons failed shrank not from buckling on the sword, converted many of the most powerful chiefs. In A.D. 1000 the Icelandic State was saved at the last hour from a civil war between pagans and Christians which threatened its very existence, by the adoption of a compromise, according to which all Icelanders were baptized and only Christian worship was publicly recognised, but idol worship in the homes, exposure of children, and eating of horses’ flesh was tolerated. But in A.D. 1016, as the result of an embassage of the Norwegian king Olaf Haraldson, even these last vestiges of paganism were wiped out.—Greenland, too, which had been discovered by a distinguished Icelander, Eric the Red, and had then been colonized in A.D. 985, owed its Christianity to Olaf Trygvesen, who in A.D. 1000 sent the son of the discoverer, Leif the Fortunate, with an expedition for its conversion. The inhabitants accepted baptism without resistance. The church continued to flourish there uninterruptedly for 400 years, and the coast districts became rich through agriculture and trade. But when in A.D. 1408 the newly elected bishop Andrew wished to take possession of his see, he found the country surrounded by enormous masses of ice, and could not effect a landing. This catastrophe, and the subsequent incursions of the Eskimos, seem to have led to the overthrow of the colony.—Continuation, § 167, 9.—Leif discovered on his expeditions a rich fertile land in the West, which on account of the vines growing wild there he called Vineland, and this region was subsequently colonized from Iceland. In the twelfth century, in order to confirm the colonists in the faith, a Greenland bishop Eric undertook a journey to that country. It lay on the east coast of North America, and is probably to be identified with the present Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

§ 93.6. The Slavo-Magyar Mission-field.—Even in the previous period a beginning had been made of the Christianizing of Bohemia (§ 79, 3). After Wratislaw’s death his heathen widow Drahomira administered the government in the name of her younger son Boleslaw. Ludmilla, with the help of the clergy and the Germans, wished to promote St. Wenzeslaw, the elder son, educated by her, but she was strangled by order of Drahomira in A.D. 927. Wenzeslaw, too, fell by the hand of his brother. Boleslaw now thought completely to root out Christianity, but was obliged, in consequence of the victory of Otho [Otto] I. in A.D. 950, to agree to the restoration of the church. His son Boleslas [Boleslaw] II., A.D. 967-999, contributed to its establishment by founding the bishopric of Prague. The pope seized the opportunity on the occasion of this founding of the bishopric to introduce the Roman ritual (A.D. 973).[265]

§ 93.7. From Bohemia the Christian faith was carried to the Poles. In A.D. 966 the Duke Micislas was persuaded by his wife Dubrawka, a Bohemian princess, daughter of Boleslaw I., to receive baptism. His subjects were induced to follow his example, and the bishopric of Posen was founded. The church obtained a firm footing under his son, the powerful Boleslaw Chrobry, A.D. 992-1025, who with the consent of Otto III. freed the Polish church from the metropolitanate of Magdeburg, and gave it an archiepiscopal see of its own at Gnesen (A.D. 1000). He also separated the Poles from German imperial federation and had himself crowned king shortly before his death in A.D. 1025. A state of anarchy, which lasted for a year and threatened the overthrow of Christianity in the land, was put an end to by his grandson Casimir in A.D. 1039. Casimir’s grandson Boleslaw II. gave to the Poles a national saint by the murder in A.D. 1079 of Bishop Stanislas [Stanislaus] of Cracow, which led to his excommunication and exile.

§ 93.8. Christianity was introduced into Hungary from Constantinople. A Hungarian prince Gylas received baptism there about A.D. 950, and returned home with a monk Hierotheus, consecrated bishop of the Hungarians. Connection with the Eastern church, however, was soon broken off, and an alliance formed with the Western church. After Henry I. in A.D. 933 defeated the Hungarians at Keuschberg, and still more decidedly after Otto I. in A.D. 955 had completely humbled them by the terrible slaughter at Lechfelde, German influence won the upper hand. The missionary labours of Bishop Piligrim of Passau, as well as the introduction of Christian foreigners, especially Germans, soon gave to Christianity a preponderance throughout the country over paganism. The mission was directly favoured by the Duke Geysa, A.D. 972-997, and his vigorous wife Sarolta, a daughter of the above-named Gylas. The Christianizing of Hungary was completed by Geysa’s son St. Stephen, A.D. 997-1038, who upon his marriage with Gisela, the sister of the Emperor Henry II., was baptized, a pagan reaction was put down, a constitution and laws were given to the country, an archbishopric was founded at Gran with ten suffragan bishops, the crown was put upon his head in A.D. 1000 by Pope Sylvester II., and Hungary was enrolled as an important member of the federation of European Christian States. Under his successors indeed paganism once more rose in a formidable revolt, but was finally stamped out. St. Ladislaw [Ladislaus], A.D. 1077-1095, rooted out its last vestiges.

§ 93.9. Among the numerous Wendish Races in Northern and North-Eastern Germany the chief tribes were the Obotrites in what is now Holstein and Mecklenburg, the Lutitians or Wilzians, between the Elbe and the Oder, the Pomeranians, from the Oder to the Vistula, and the Sorbi, farther south in Saxony and Lusatia. Henry I., A.D. 919-936, and his son Otto I., A.D. 936-973, in several campaigns subjected them to the German yoke, and the latter founded among them in A.D. 968 the archbishopric of Magdeburg besides several bishoprics. The passion for national freedom, as well as the proud contempt, illtreatment, and oppression of the German margraves, rendered Christianity peculiarly hateful to the Wends, and it was only after their freedom and nationality had been completely destroyed and the Slavic population had been outnumbered by German or Germanized colonists, that the Church obtained a firm footing in their land. A revolt of the Obotrites under Mistewoi in A.D. 983, who with the German yoke abjured also the Christian faith, led to the destruction of all Christian institutions. His grandson Gottschalk, educated as a Christian in a German monastery, but roused to fury by the murder of his father Udo, escaped from the monastery in A.D. 1032, renounced Christianity, and set on foot a terrible persecution of Christians and Germans. But he soon bitterly repented this outburst of senseless rage. Taken prisoner by the Germans, he escaped and took refuge in Denmark, but subsequently he returned and founded in A.D. 1045 a great Wendish empire which extended from the North Sea to the Oder. He now enthusiastically applied all his energy to the establishment of the church in his land upon a national basis, for which purpose Adalbert of Bremen sent him missionaries. He was himself frequently their interpreter and expositor. He was eminently successful, but the national party hated him as the friend of the Saxons and the church. He fell by the sword of the assassin in A.D. 1066, and thereupon began a terrible persecution of the Christians. His son Henry having been set aside, the powerful Ranian chief Cruco from the island of Rügen, a fanatical enemy of Christianity, was chosen ruler. At the instigation of Henry he was murdered in his own house in A.D. 1115. Henry died in A.D. 1127. A Danish prince Canute bought the Wendish crown from Lothair duke of Saxony, but was murdered in A.D. 1131. This brought the Wendish empire to an end. The Obotrite chief Niklot, who died in A.D. 1161, held his ground only in the territory of the Obotrites. His son Pribizlaw, the ancestor of the present ruling family of Mecklenburg, by adopting Christianity in A.D. 1164, saved to himself a part of the inheritance of his fathers as a vassal under the Saxon princes. All the rest of the land was divided by Henry the Lion among his German warriors, and the depopulated districts were peopled with German colonists.—In A.D. 1157 Albert the Bear, the founder of the Margravate of Brandenburg, overthrew the dominion of the Lutitians after protracted struggles and endless revolts. He, too, drafted numerous German colonists into the devastated regions.—The Christianizing of the Sorbi was an easier task. After their first defeat by Henry I. in A.D. 922 and 927, they were never again able to regain their old freedom. Alongside of the mission of the sword among the Wends there was always carried on, more or less vigorously, the mission of the Cross. Among the Sorbi bishop Benno of Meissen, who died in A.D. 1107, wrought with special vigour, and among the Obotrites the greatest zeal was displayed by St. Vicelinus. He died bishop of Oldenburg in A.D. 1154.

§ 93.10. Pomerania submitted in A.D. 1121 to the duke of Poland, Boleslaw III., and he compelled them solemnly to promise that they would adopt the Christian faith. The work of conversion, however, appeared to be so unpromising that Boleslaw found none among all his clergy willing to undertake the task. At last in A.D. 1122, a Spanish monk Bernard offered himself. But the Pomeranians drove him away as a beggar who looked only to his own gain, for they thought, if the Christians’ God be really the Lord of heaven and earth He would have sent them a servant in keeping with His glorious majesty. Boleslaw was then convinced that only a man who had strong faith and a martyr’s spirit, united with an imposing figure, rank, and wealth, was fit for the work, and these qualifications he found in bishop Otto of Bamberg. Otto accepted the call, and during two missionary journeys in A.D. 1124-1128 founded the Pomeranian church. Following Bernard’s advice, he went through Pomerania on both occasions with all the pomp of episcopal dignity, with a great retinue and abundant stores of provisions, money, ecclesiastical ornaments, and presents of all kinds. He had unparalleled success, yet he was repeatedly well nigh obtaining the crown of martyrdom which he longed for. The whole Middle Ages furnishes scarcely an equally noble, pure, and successful example of missionary enterprise. None of all the missionaries of that age presents so harmonious a picture of firmness without obstinacy, earnestness without harshness, gentleness without weakness, enthusiasm without fanaticism. And never have the German and Slavic nationalities so nobly, successfully, and faithfully practised mutual forbearance as did the Pomeranians and their apostle.—The last stronghold of Wendish paganism was the island of Rügen. It fell when in A.D. 1168 the Danish king Waldemar I. with the Christian Pomeranian and Obotrite chiefs conquered the island and destroyed its heathen sanctuaries.

§ 93.11. Mission Work among the Finns and Lithuanians.—St. Eric of Sweden in A.D. 1157 introduced Christianity into Finland by conquest and compulsion. Bishop Henry of Upsala, the apostle of the Finns, who accompanied him, suffered a martyr’s death in the following year. The Finns detested Christianity as heartily as they did the rule of the conquering Swedes, who introduced it, and it was only after the third campaign which Thorkel Canutson undertook in A.D. 1293 against Finland, that the Swedish rule and the Christian faith were established, and under a vigorous yet moderate and wise government the Finns were reconciled to both.—Lapland came under the rule of Sweden in A.D. 1279, and thereafter Christianity gradually found entrance. In A.D. 1335 bishop Hemming of Upsala consecrated the first church at Tornea.

§ 93.12. Esthonia, Livonia, and Courland were inhabited by peoples belonging to the Finnic stem. Yet even in early times people from the south and east belonging to the Lithuanian stem had settled in Livonia and Courland, Letts and Lettgalls in Livonia, and Semgalls and Wends in Courland. The first attempts to introduce Christianity into these regions were made by Swedes and Danes, and even under the Danish king Sweyn III., Eric’s son, about A.D. 1048 a church was erected in Courland by Christian merchants, and in Esthonia the Danes not long after built the fortress of Lindanissa. The elevation of the bishopric of Lund into a metropolitanate in A.D. 1098 was projected with a regard to these lands. In A.D. 1171 Pope Alexander III. sent a monk, Fulco, to Lund to convert the heathen and to be bishop of Finland and Esthonia, but he seems never to have entered on his duties or his dignity. Abiding results were first won by German preaching and the German sword. In the middle of the 12th century merchants of Bremen and Lübeck carried on traffic with towns on the banks of the Dwina. A pious priest from the monastery of Segeberg in Holstein, called Meinhart, undertook in their company under the auspices of the archbishop of Bremen, Hartwig II., a missionary journey to those regions in A.D. 1184. He built a church at Üxküll on the Dwina, was recognised as bishop of the place in A.D. 1186, but died in A.D. 1196. His assistant Dietrich carried on the work of the mission in the district from Freiden down to Esthonia. Meinhart’s successor in the bishopric was the Cistercian abbot, Berthold of Loccum in Hanover. Having been driven away soon after his arrival, he returned with an army of German crusaders, and was killed in battle in A.D. 1198. His successor was a canon of Bremen, Albert of Buxhöwden. He transferred the bishop’s seat to Riga, which was built by him in A.D. 1201, founded in A.D. 1202, for the protection of the mission, the Order of the Brethren of the Sword (§ 98, 13), amid constant battles with Russians, Esthonians, Courlanders and Lithuanians erected new bishoprics in Esthonia (Dorpat), Oesel, and Semgallen, and effected the Christianization of nearly all these lands. He died in A.D. 1229. After A.D. 1219 the Danes, whom Albert had called in to his aid, vied with him in the conquest and conversion of the Esthonians. Waldemar II. founded Revel in A.D. 1219, made it an episcopal see, and did all in his power to restrict the advances of the Germans. In this he did not succeed. The Danes, indeed, were obliged to quit Esthonia in A.D. 1257. After Albert’s death, however, the difficulties of the situation became so great that Volquin, the Master of the Order of the Sword, could see no hope of success save in the union of his order with that of the Teutonic Knights, shortly before established in Prussia. The union, retarded by Danish intrigues, was not effected until A.D. 1237, when a fearful slaughter of Germans by the Lithuanians had endangered not only the existence of the Order of the Sword but even the church of Livonia. Then, too, for the first time was Courland finally subdued and converted. It had, indeed, nominally adopted Christianity in A.D. 1230, but had soon after relapsed into paganism. Finally in A.D. 1255 Riga was raised to the rank of a metropolitanate, and Suerbeer, formerly archbishop of Armagh in Ireland, was appointed by Innocent IV. archbishop of Prussia, Livonia, and Esthonia, with his residence at Riga.

§ 93.13. The Old Prussians and Lithuanians also belonged to the Lettish stem. Adalbert, bishop of Prague, first brought the message of salvation to the Prussians between the Vistula and Memel, but on the very first entrance into Sameland [Samland] in A.D. 997 he won the martyr’s crown. This, too, was the fate twelve years later of the zealous Saxon monk Bruno and eighteen companions on the Lithuanian coast. Two hundred years passed before another missionary was seen in Prussia. The first was the Abbot Gothfried from the Polish monastery of Lukina; but in his case also an end was soon put to his hopefully begun work, as well as to that of his companion Philip, both suffering martyrdom in A.D. 1207. More successful and enduring was the mission work three years later of the Cistercian monk Christian from the Pomeranian monastery of Oliva, in A.D. 1209, the real apostle of the Prussians. He was raised to the rank of bishop in A.D. 1215, and died in A.D. 1245. On the model of the Livonian Order of the Brethren of the Sword he founded in A.D. 1225 the Order of the Knights of Dobrin (Milites Christi). In the very first year of their existence, however, they were reduced to the number of five men. In union with Conrad, Duke of Moravia, whose land had suffered fearfully from the inroads of the pagan Prussians, Christian then called in the aid of the Teutonic Knights, whose order had won great renown in Germany. A branch of this order had settled in A.D. 1228 in Culm, and so laid the foundation of the establishment of the order in Prussia. With the appearance of this order began a sixty years’ bloody conflict directed to the overthrow of Prussian paganism, which can be said to have been effected only in A.D. 1283, when the greater part of the Prussians had been slain after innumerable conflicts with the order and with crusaders from Germany, Poland, Bohemia, etc. Among the crowds of preachers of the gospel, mostly Dominicans, besides Bishop Christian and the noble papal legate William, bishop of Modena, the Polish Dominican Hyacinth, who died in A.D. 1257, a vigorous preacher of faith and repentance, deserves special mention. So early as A.D. 1243, William of Modena had sketched an ecclesiastical organization for the country, which divided Prussia into four dioceses, which were placed in A.D. 1255 under the metropolitanate of Riga.

§ 93.14. The introduction of Christianity into Lithuania was longest delayed. After Ringold had founded in A.D. 1230 a Grand Duchy of Lithuania, his son Mindowe endeavoured to enlarge his dominions by conquest. The army of the Prussian-Livonian Order, however, so humbled him that he sued for peace and was compelled to receive baptism in A.D. 1252. But no sooner had he in some measure regained strength than he threw off the hypocritical mask, and in A.D. 1260 appeared as the foe of his Christian neighbours. His son Wolstinik, who had remained true to the Christian faith, dying in A.D. 1266, reigned too short a time to secure an influence over his people. With him every trace of Christianity disappeared from Lithuania. Christians were again tolerated in his territories by the Grand Duke Gedimin (A.D. 1315-1340). Romish Dominicans and Russian priests vied with one another under his successor Olgerd in endeavours to convert the inhabitants. Olgerd himself was baptized according to the Greek rite, but apostatised. His son Jagello, born of a Christian mother, and married to the young Polish queen Hedwig, whose hand and crown seemed not too dearly purchased by submitting to baptism and undertaking to introduce Christianity among his people, made at last an end to heathenism in Lithuania in A.D. 1386. His subjects, each of whom received a woollen coat as a christening gift, flocked in crowds to receive baptism. The bishop’s residence was fixed at Wilna.

§ 93.15. The Mongolian Mission Field.—From the time of Genghis Khan, who died in A.D. 1227, the princes of the Mongols, in consistency with their principles as deists with little trace of religion, showed themselves equally tolerant and favourable to Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. The Nestorians were very numerous in this empire, but also very much deteriorated. In A.D. 1240-1241 the Mongols, pressing westward with irresistible force, threatened to overflow and devastate all Europe. Russia and Poland, Silesia, Moravia, and Hungary had been already dreadfully wasted by them, when suddenly and unexpectedly the savage hordes withdrew. Innocent IV. sent an embassage of Dominicans under Nicolas Ascelinus to the Commander Batschu in Persia, and an embassage of Franciscans under John of Piano-Carpini to the Grand Khan Oktaï, Genghis Khan’s successor, to his capital Karakorum, with a view to their conversion and to dissuade them from repeating their inroads. Both missions were unsuccessful. Certain adventurers pretending to be bearers of a message from Mongolia, told Louis IX. of France fabulous stories of the readiness of the Grand Khan Gajuk and his princes to receive Christianity, and their intention to conquer the Holy Land for the Christians. He accordingly sent out two missions to the Mongols. The first, in A.D. 1249 was utterly unsuccessful, for the Mongols regarded the presents given as a regular tribute and as a symbol of voluntary submission. The second mission in A.D. 1253, to the Grand Khan Mangu, although under a brave and accomplished leader, William of Ruysbroek, yielded no fruit; for Mangu, instead of allowing free entrance into the land for the preaching of the gospel, at the close of a disputation with Mohammedans and Buddhists sent the missionaries back to Louis with the threatening demand to tender his submission. After Mangu’s death in A.D. 1257, the Mongolian empire was divided into Eastern and Western, corresponding to China and Persia. The former was governed by Kublai Khan, the latter by Hulagu Khan.—Kublai Khan, the Emperor of China, a genuine type of the religious mongrelism of the Mongolians, showed himself very favourable to Christians, but also patronised the Mohammedans, and in A.D. 1260 gave a hierarchical constitution and consolidated form to Buddhism by the establishment of the first Dalai Lama. The travels of two Venetians of the family of Polo led to the founding of a Latin Christian mission in China. They returned from their Mongolian travels in A.D. 1269. Gregory X. in A.D. 1272 sent two Dominicans to Mongolia along with the two brothers, and the son of one of them, Marco Polo, then seventeen years old. The latter won the unreserved confidence of the Grand Khan, and was entrusted by him with an honourable post in the government. On his return in A.D. 1295 he published an account of his travels, which made an enormous sensation, and afforded for the first time to Western Europe a proper conception of the condition of Eastern Asia.[266] A regular Christian missionary enterprise, however, was first undertaken by the Franciscan Joh. de Monte-Corvino, A.D. 1291-1328, one of the noblest, most intelligent, and most faithful of the missionaries of the Middle Ages. After he had succeeded in overcoming the intrigues of the numerous Nestorians, he won the high esteem of the Grand Khan. In the royal city of Cembalu or Pekin he built two churches, baptized about 6,000 Mongols, and translated the Psalter and the New Testament into Mongolian. He wrought absolutely alone till A.D. 1303. Afterwards, however, other brethren of his order came repeatedly to his aid. Clement V. appointed him archbishop of Cembalu in A.D. 1307. Every year saw new churches established. But internal disturbances, under Kublai’s successor, weakened the power of the Mongolian dynasty, so that in A.D. 1370 it was overthrown by the national Ming dynasty. By the new rulers the Christian missionaries were driven out along with the Mongols, and thus all that they had done was utterly destroyed.—The ruler of Persia, Hulagu Khan, son of a Christian mother and married to a Christian wife, put an end in A.D. 1258 to the khalifate of Bagdad, but was so pressed by the sultan of Egypt, that he entered on a long series of negotiations with the popes and the kings of France and England, who gave him the most encouraging promises of joining their forces with his against the Saracens. His successors, of whom several even formally embraced Christianity, continued these negotiations, but obtained nothing more than empty promises and protestations of friendship. The time of the crusades was over, and the popes, even the most powerful of them, were not able to reawaken the crusading spirit. The Persian khans, vacillating between Christianity and Islam, became more and more powerless, until at last, in A.D. 1387, Tamerlane (Timur) undertook to found on the ruins of the old government a new universal Mongolian empire under the standard of the Crescent. But with his death in A.D. 1405 the dominion of the Mongols in Persia was overthrown, and fell into the hands of the Turkomans. Henceforth amid all changes of dynasties Islam continued the dominant religion.

§ 93.16. The Mission Field of Islam.—The crusader princes and soldiers wished only to wrest the Holy Land from the infidels, but, with the exception perhaps of Louis IX., had no idea of bringing to them the blessings of the gospel. And most of the crusaders, by their licentiousness, covetousness, cruelty, faithlessness, and dissensions among themselves, did much to cause the Saracens to scorn the Christian faith as represented by their lives and example. It was not until the 13th century that the two newly founded mendicant orders of Franciscans and Dominicans began an energetic but fruitless mission among the Moslems of Africa, Sicily, and Spain. St. Francis himself started this work in A.D. 1219, when during the siege of Damietta by the crusaders he entered the camp of the Sultan Camel and bade him kindle a fire and cause that he himself with one of the Moslem priests should be cast into it. When the imam present shrank away at these words, Francis offered to go alone into the fire if the sultan would promise to accept Christianity along with his people should he pass out of the fire uninjured. The sultan refused to promise and sent the saint away unhurt with presents, which, however, he returned. Afterwards several Franciscan missions were sent to the Moslems, but resulted only in giving a crowd of martyrs to the order. The Dominicans, too, at a very early period took part in the mission to the Mohammedans, but were also unsuccessful. The Dominican general Raimund de Pennaforti [Pennaforte], who died in A.D. 1273, devoted himself with special zeal to this task. For the training of the brethren of his order in the oriental languages he founded institutions at Tunis and Murcia. The most important of all these missionary enterprises was that of the talented Raimund Lullus of Majorca, who after his own conversion from a worldly life and after careful study of the language, made three voyages to North Africa and sought in disputations with the Saracen scholars to convince them of the truth of Christianity. But his Ars Magna (§ 103, 7), which with great ingenuity and enormous labour he had wrought out mainly for this purpose, had no effect. Imprisonment and ill-treatment were on all occasions his only reward. He died in A.D. 1315 in consequence of the ill-usage which he had been subjected.

§ 94. THE CRUSADES.[267]

The Arabian rulers had for their own interest protected the Christian pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre. But even under the rule of the Fatimide dynasty, early in the 10th century, the oppression of pilgrims began. Khalif Hakim, in order that he might blot out the disgrace of being born of a Christian mother, committed ruthless cruelties upon resident Christians as well as upon the pilgrims, and prohibited under severe penalties all meetings for Christian worship. Under the barbarous Seljuk dynasty, which held sway in Palestine from about A.D. 1070, the oppression reached its height. The West became all the more concerned about this, since during the 10th century the idea that the end of the world was approaching had given a new impulse to pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Pope Sylvester II. had in A.D. 999 ex persona devastatæ Hierosolymæ summoned Christendom to help in this emergency. Gregory VII. seized anew upon the idea of wresting the Holy Land from the infidels. He had even resolved himself to lead a Christian army, but the outbreak of contentions with Henry IV. hindered the execution of this plan. Meanwhile complaints by returning pilgrims of intolerable ill-usage increased. An urgent appeal from the Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus gave the spark that lit the combustible material that had been gathered throughout the West. The imperial ambassadors accompanied Pope Urban II. to the Council of Clermont in A.D. 1095, where the pope himself, in a spirited speech, called for a holy war under the standard of the cross. The shout was raised as from one mouth, “It is God’s will.” On that very day thousands enlisted, with Adhemar, bishop of Puy, papal legate, at their head, and had the red cross marked on their right shoulders. The bishops returning home preached the crusade as they went, and in a few weeks a glowing enthusiasm had spread throughout France down to the provinces of the Rhine. Then began a movement which, soon extending over all the West, like a second migration of nations, lasted for two centuries. The crusades cost Europe between five and six millions of men, and yet in the end that which had been striven after was not attained. Its consequences, however, to Europe itself were all the more important. In all departments of life, ecclesiastical and political, moral and intellectual, civil and industrial, new views, needs, developments, and tendencies were introduced. Mediæval culture now reached the highest point of its attainment, and its failure to transcend the past opened the way for the conditions of modern society. And while on the other hand they afforded new and extravagantly abundant nourishment for clerical and popular superstition, in all directions, but specially in giving opportunity to roguish traffic in relics (§ 104, 8; 115, 9), on the other hand they had no small share in producing religious indifference and frivolous free-thinking (§ 96, 19), as well as the terribly dangerous growth of mediæval sects, which threatened the overthrow of church and State, religion and morality (§ 108, 1, 4; 116, 5). The former was chiefly the result of the sad conclusion of an undertaking of unexampled magnitude, entered upon with the most glowing enthusiasm for Christianity and the church; the latter was in great measure occasioned by intercourse with sectaries of a like kind in the East (§ 71).

§ 94.1. The First Crusade, A.D. 1096.—In the spring of A.D. 1096 vast crowds of people gathered together, impatient of the delays of the princes, and put themselves under the leadership of Walter the Penniless. They were soon followed by Peter of Amiens with 40,000 men. A legend, unworthy of belief, credits him with the origin of the whole movement. According to this story, the hermit returning from a pilgrimage described to the holy father in vivid colours the sufferings of their Christian brethren, and related how that Christ Himself had appeared to him in a dream, giving him the command for the pope to summon all Christendom to rescue the Holy Sepulchre. The legend proceeds to say that, by order of the pope, Peter the Hermit then went through all Italy and France, arousing the enthusiasm of the people. The hordes led by him, however, after committing deeds of horrid violence on every side, while no farther than Bulgaria, were reduced to about one half, and the remnant, after Peter had already left them because of their insubordination, was annihilated by the Turks at Nicæa. Successive new crusades, the last of them an undisciplined mob of 200,000 men, were cut down in Hungary or on the Hungarian frontier. In August a regular crusading army, 80,000 strong, under the leadership of Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lorraine, passing through Germany and Hungary, reached Constantinople. There several French and Norman princes joined the army, till its strength was increased to 600,000. After considerable squabbling with the Byzantine government, they passed over into Asia. With great labour and heavy loss Nicæa, Edessa, and Antioch were taken. At last, on 15th July, 1099, amid shouts of, It is God’s will, they stormed the walls of Jerusalem; lighted by torches and wading in blood, they entered with singing of psalms into the Church of the Resurrection. Godfrey was elected king. With pious humility he declined to wear a king’s crown where Christ had worn a crown of thorns. He died a year after, and his brother Baldwin was crowned at Bethlehem. By numerous impropriations crowds of greater and lesser vassals were gathered about the throne. In Jerusalem itself a Latin patriarchate was erected, and under it were placed four archbishoprics, with a corresponding number of bishoprics. The story of these proceedings enkindled new enthusiasm in the West. In A.D. 1101 three new crusades of 260,000 men were fitted out in Germany, under Welf, duke of Bavaria, and in Italy and in France. They marched against Bagdad, in order to strike terror into the hearts of Moslems by the terrible onslaught; the undisciplined horde, however, did not reach its destination, but found a grave in Asia Minor.

§ 94.2. The Second Crusade, A.D. 1147.—The fall of Edessa in A.D. 1146, as the frontier fortress of the kingdom, summoned the West to a new effort. Pope Eugenius III. called the nations to arms. Bernard of Clairvaux, the prophet of the age, preached the crusade, and prophesied victory. Louis VII. of France took the sign of the cross, in order to atone for the crime of having burnt a church filled with men; and Conrad III. of Germany, moved by the preaching of Bernard, with some hesitation followed his example. But their stately army fell before the sword of the Saracens, the malice of the Greeks, and internal disorders caused by famine, disease, and hardships. Damascus remained unconquered, and the princes returned humbled with the miserable remnant of their army.

§ 94.3. The Third Crusade, A.D. 1189.—The kingdom of Jerusalem before a century had past was in utter decay. Greeks or Syrians and Latins had a deadly hatred for one another: the vassals intrigued against each other and against the crown. Licentiousness, luxury, and recklessness prevailed among the people; the clergy and the nobles of the kingdom, but especially the so called Pulleni,[268] descendants of the crusaders born in the Holy Land itself, were a miserable, cowardly and treacherous race. The pretenders to the crown also continued their intrigues and cabals. Such being the corrupt condition of affairs, it was an easy thing for the Sultan Saladin, the Moslem knight “without fear and without reproach,” who had overthrown the Fatimide dynasty in Egypt, to bring down upon the Christian rule in Syria, after the bloody battle of Tiberias, the same fate. Jerusalem fell into his hands in October, A.D. 1187. When this terrible piece of news reached the West, the Christian powers were summoned by Gregory VIII. to combine their forces in order to make one more vigorous effort, Philip Augustus of France and Henry II. of England forgot for a moment their mutual jealousies, and took the cross from the hands of Archbishop William of Tyre, the historian of the crusade. Next the Emperor Frederick I. joined them, with all the heroic valour of youth, though in years and experience an old man. He entered on the undertaking with an energy, considerateness, and circumspection which seemed to deserve glorious success. After piloting his way through Byzantine intrigues and the indescribable fatigues of a waterless desert, he led his soldiers against the well-equipped army of the sultan at Iconium, which he utterly routed, and took the city. But in A.D. 1190 the heroic warrior was drowned in an attempt to ford the river Calycadnus. A great part of his army was now scattered, and the remnant was led by his son Frederick of Swabia against Ptolemais. At that point soon after landed Philip Augustus and Richard Cœur de Lion of England, who after his father’s death put himself at the head of an English crusading army and had conquered Cyprus on the way. Ptolemais (Acre) was taken in A.D. 1191. But the jealousies of the princes interfered with their success. Frederick had already fallen, and Philip Augustus under pretence of sickness returned to France; Richard gained a brilliant victory over Saladin, took Joppa and Ascalon, and was on the eve of marching against Jerusalem when news reached him that his brother John had assumed the throne of England, and that Philip Augustus also was entertaining schemes of conquest. Once again Richard won a great victory before Joppa, and Saladin, admiring his unexampled bravery, concluded with him now, in A.D. 1192, a three years’ truce, giving most favourable terms to the pilgrims. The strip along the coast from Joppa to Acre continued under the rule of Richard’s nephew, Henry of Champagne. But Richard was seized on his return journey and cast into prison by Leopold of Austria, whose standard he had grossly insulted before Ptolemais, and for two years he remained a prisoner. After his release he was prevented from thinking of a renewal of the crusade by a war with France, in which he met his death in A.D. 1199.[269]

§ 94.4. The Fourth Crusade, A.D. 1217.—Innocent III. summoned Christendom anew to a holy war. The kings, engaged in their own affairs, gave no heed to the call. But the violent penitential preacher, Fulco of Neuilly, prevailed upon the French nobles to collect a considerable crusading army, which, however, instead of proceeding against the Saracens, was used by the Venetian Doge, Dandolo, in payment of transport, for conquering Zaras in Dalmatia, and then by a Byzantine prince for a campaign against Constantinople, where Baldwin of Flanders founded a Latin Empire, A.D. 1204-1261. The pope put the doge and the crusaders under excommunication on account of the taking of Zaras, and the campaign against Constantinople was most decidedly disapproved. Their unexpected success, however, turned away his anger. He boasted that at last Israel, after destroying the golden calves at Dan and Bethel, was again united to Judah, and in Rome bestowed the pallium upon the first Latin patriarch of Constantinople.—The Children’s Crusade, which in A.D. 1212 snatched from their parents in France and Germany 30,000 boys and girls, had a most tragic end. Many died before passing from Europe of famine and fatigue; the rest fell into the hands of unprincipled men, who sold them as slaves in Egypt.—King Andrew II. of Hungary, urged by Honorius III., led a new crusading army to the Holy Land in A.D. 1217, and won some successes; but finding himself betrayed and deserted by the Palestinian barons, he returned home in the following year. But the Germans under Leopold VII. of Austria, who had accompanied him remained, and, supported by a Cologne and Dutch fleet, undertook in A.D. 1218, along with the titular king John of Jerusalem, a crusade against Egypt. Damietta was taken, but the overflow of the Nile reservoirs placed them in such peril that they owed their escape in A.D. 1221 only to the generosity of the Sultan Camel.

§ 94.5. The Fifth Crusade, A.D. 1228.—The Emperor Frederick II. had promised to undertake a crusade, but continued to make so many excuses for delay that Gregory IX. (§ 96, 19) at last thundered against him the long threatened excommunication. Frederick now brought out a comparatively small crusading force. The Sultan Camel of Egypt, engaged in war with his nephew, and fearing that Frederick might attach himself to the enemy, freely granted him a large tract of the Holy Land. At the Holy Sepulchre Frederick placed the crown of Jerusalem, the inheritance of his new wife Iolanthe, with his own hands on his head, since no bishop would perform the coronation nor even a priest read the mass service for the excommunicated king. He then returned home in A.D. 1229 to arrange his differences with the pope. The crusading armies which Theobald, king of Navarre, in A.D. 1239, and Richard Earl of Cornwall, in A.D. 1240, led against Palestine, owing to disunion among themselves and quarrels among the Syrian Christians, could accomplish nothing.

§ 94.6. The Sixth, A.D. 1248, and Seventh, A.D. 1270, Crusades.—The zeal for crusading had by this time considerably cooled. St. Louis of France, however, the ninth of that name, had during a serious illness in A.D. 1244, taken the cross. At this time Jerusalem had been conquered and subjected to the most dreadful horrors at the hands of the Chowaresmians, driven from their home by the Mongols, and now in the pay of Egyptian sultan Ayoub. Down to A.D. 1247 the rule of the Christians in the Holy Land was again restricted to Acre and some coast towns. Louis could no longer think of delay. He started in A.D. 1248 with a considerable force, wintered in Cyprus, and landed in Egypt in A.D. 1249. He soon conquered Damietta, but, after his army had been in great part destroyed by famine, disease and slaughter, was taken prisoner at Cairo by the sultan. After the murder of the sultan by the Mamelukes, who overthrew Saladin’s dynasty, he fell into their hands. The king was obliged to deliver over Damietta and to purchase his own release by payment of 800,000 byzantines. He sailed with the remnant of his army to Acre in A.D. 1250, whence his mother’s death called him home in A.D. 1254. But as his vow had not yet been fully paid, he sailed in A.D. 1270 with a new crusading force to Tunis in order to carry on operations from that centre. But the half of his army was cut off by a pestilence, and he himself was carried away in that same year. All subsequent endeavours of the popes to reawaken an interest in the crusades were unavailing. Acre or Ptolemais, the last stronghold of the Christians in the Holy Land, fell in A.D. 1291.

§ 95. ISLAM AND THE JEWS IN EUROPE.

The Saracens (§ 81, 2) were overthrown in the 11th century by the Normans. The reign of Islam in Spain too (§ 81, 1) came to an end. The frequent change of dynasties, as well as the splitting up of the empire into small principalities, weakened the power of the Moors; the growth of luxurious habits in the rich and fertile districts robbed them of martial energy and prowess. The Christian power also was indeed considerably split up and disturbed by many internal feuds, but the national and religious enthusiasm with which it was every day being more and more inspired, made it invincible. Rodrigo Diaz, the Castilian hero, called by the Moors the Cid, i.e. Lord, by the Christians Campeador, i.e. champion, who died in A.D. 1099, was the most perfect representative of Spanish Christian knighthood, although he dealt with the infidels in a manner neither Christian nor knightly. Also the Almoravides of Morocco, whose aid was called in in A.D. 1086, and the Almohades, who had driven out these from Barbary in A.D. 1146, were not able to stop the progress of the Christian arms. On the other hand, neither the unceasing persecutions of the civil power, nor innumerable atrocities committed on Jews by infuriated mobs, nor even Christian theologians’ zeal for the instruction and conversion of the Israelites, succeeded in destroying Judaism in Europe.

§ 95.1. Islam in Sicily.—The robber raids upon Italy perpetrated by the Sicilian Saracens were put an end to by the Normans who settled there in A.D. 1017. Robert Guiscard destroyed the remnant of Greek rule in southern Italy, conquered the small Longobard duchies there, and founded a Norman duchy of Apulia and Calabria in A.D. 1059. His brother Roger, who died in A.D. 1101, after a thirty years’ struggle drove the Saracens completely out of Sicily, and ruled over it as a vassal of his brother under the title of Count of Sicily. His son Roger II., who died in A.D. 1154, united the government of Sicily and of Apulia and Calabria, had himself crowned in A.D. 1130 king of Sicily and Italy, and finally in A.D. 1139 conquered also Naples. In consequence of the marriage of his daughter Constance with Henry VI. the whole kingdom passed over in A.D. 1194 to the Hohenstaufens, from whom it passed in A.D. 1266 to Charles of Anjou; and from him finally, in consequence of the Sicilian Vespers in A.D. 1282, the island of Sicily passed to Peter of Arragon, the son-in-law of Manfred, the last king of the Hohenstaufen line. The Normans and the Hohenstaufens granted to the subject Saracens for the most part full religious liberty, the Emperor Frederick recruiting from among them his bodyguard, and they supplied the bravest soldiers for the Italian Ghibelline war. For this purpose he was constantly drafting new detachments from the African coast, as Manfred also had done. The endeavours made by monks of the mendicant orders for the conversion of the Saracens proved quite fruitless. It was only under the Spanish rule that conversions were made by force, or persecution and annihilation followed persistent refusal.

§ 95.2. Islam in Spain.—The times of Abderrhaman III., A.D. 912-961, and Hacem II., A.D. 961-976, were the most brilliant and fortunate of the Ommaiadean khalifate. After the death of the latter the chamberlain Almansor, who died in A.D. 1002, reigned in the name of Khalif Hescham II., who was little more than a puppet of the seraglio, and his rule was glorious, powerful and wise. But interminable civil contentions were the result of this disarrangement of government, and in A.D. 1031, in consequence of a popular tumult, Abderrhaman IV., the last of the Ommaiades, took to flight, and voluntarily resigned the crown. The khalifate was now broken up into as many little principalities or emirships as there had been governors before. Amid such confusions the Christian princes continued to develop and increase their resources. Sancho the Great, king of Navarre, A.D. 970-1035, by marriage and conquest united almost all Christian Spain under his rule, but this was split up again by being partitioned among his sons. Of these Ferdinand I., who died in A.D. 1065, inherited Castile, and in A.D. 1037 added to it Leon by conquest. With him begins the heroic age of Spanish knighthood. His son Alfonso IV., who died in A.D. 1109, succeeded in A.D. 1085 in taking from the Moors Toledo and a great part of Andalusia. The powerful leader of the Almoravides, Jussuf from Morocco, was now called to their aid by the Moors. On the plain of Salacca the Christians were beaten in A.D. 1086, but soon the victor turned his arms against his allies, and within six years all Moslem Spain was under his government. His son Ali, in a fearfully bloody battle at Ucles in A.D. 1107, cut down the flower of the Castilian nobility; this marked the summit of power reached by the Almoravides, and now their star began slowly to pale. Alfonso I. of Arragon, A.D. 1105-1134, conquered Saragossa in A.D. 1118, and other cities. Alfonso VII. of Castile, A.D. 1126-1157, whose power rose so high that most of the Christian princes in Spain acknowledged him as sovereign, and that he had himself formally crowned emperor of Spain in A.D. 1135, conducted a successful campaign against Andalusia, and in A.D. 1144 forced his way down to the south coast of Granada. Alfonso I. of Portugal, drove the Moors out of Lisbon; Raimard, count of Barcelona, conquered Tortosa, etc. At the same time too the government of the Almoravides was being undermined in Africa. In A.D. 1146 Morocco fell, and with it North-western Africa, into the hands of the Almohades under Abdelmoumen, while his lieutenant Abu Amram at the same time conquered Moslem Spain and Andalusia. Abdelmoumen’s son Jussuf himself crossed over into Spain with an enormous force in order to extinguish the Christian rule there, but fell in a battle at Santarem against Alfonso I. of Portugal. His son Jacob avenged the disaster by the bloody battle of Alarcos in A.D. 1195, where 30,000 Castilians were left upon the field. When, notwithstanding the overthrow, the Christians a few years later endeavoured to retrieve their loss, Jacob’s successor Mohammed descended upon Spain with half a million fanatical followers. The critical hour for Spain had now arrived. The Christians had won time to come to agreement among themselves. They fought with unexampled heroism on the plain of Tolosa in A.D. 1212 under Alfonso VIII. of Castile. The battlefield was strewn with more than 200,000 bodies of the African fanatics. It was the death-knell of the rule of the Almohad in Spain. Notwithstanding the dissensions and hostilities that immediately broke out among the Christian princes, they conquered within twenty-five years the whole of Andalusia. The work of conquest was carried out mostly by Ferdinand III., the saint of Castile, A.D. 1217-1254, and Jacob I., the conqueror of Arragon, A.D. 1213-1276. Only in the southernmost district of Spain a remnant of the Moslem rule survived in the kingdom of Granada, founded in A.D. 1238 by the emir Mohammed Aben Alamar. Here for a time the glories of Arabic culture were revived in such a way as seemed like a magical restoration of the day of the Ommaiades. In consequence of the marriage in A.D. 1469 of Ferdinand of Arragon, who died in A.D. 1516, with Isabella of Castile, these two most important Christian empires were united. Soon afterwards the empire of Granada came to an end. On 2nd January, A.D. 1492, after an ignominious capitulation, the last khalif, Abu Abdilehi Boabdil, was driven out of the fair (Granada), and a few moments later the Castilian banner waved from the highest tower of the proud Alhambra. The pope bestowed upon the royal pair the title of Catholic monarchs. The Moors who refused to submit to baptism were expelled, but even the baptized, the so-called Moriscoes, proved so dangerous an element in the state that Philip III., in A.D. 1609, ordered them to be all banished from his realm. They sought refuge mostly in Africa, and there went over openly again to Mohammedanism, which they had never at heart rejected.[270]

§ 95.3. The Jews in Europe.—By trade, money lending and usury the Jews succeeded in obtaining almost sole possession of ready money, which brought them often great influence with the needy princes and nobles, but was also often the occasion of sore oppression and robbery, as well as the cause of popular hatred and violence. Whenever a country was desolated by a plague the notion of well-poisoning by the Jews was renewed. It was told of them that they had stolen the consecrated sacramental bread in order to stick it through with needles, and Christian children, that they might slaughter them at their passover festival. From time to time this popular rage exploded, and then thousands of Jews were ruthlessly murdered. The crusaders too often began their feats of valour on Christian soil by the slaughter of Jews. From the 13th century in almost all lands they were compelled to wear an insulting badge, the so called Jews’ hat, a yellow, funnel-shaped covering of the head, and a ring of red cloth on the breast, etc. They were also compelled to herd together in the cities in the so called Jewish quarter (Italian=Ghetto), which was often surrounded by a special wall. St. Bernard and several popes, Gregory VII., Alexander III., Innocent III., etc., interested themselves in them, refused to allow them to be violently persecuted, and pointed to their position as an incontrovertible proof of the truth of the gospel to all times. The German emperors also took the Jews under their special protection, for they classed them, after the example of Vespasian and Titus, among the special servants of the imperial chamber, (Servi camera nostræ speciales).[271] In England and France they were treated as the mancipium of the crown. In Spain under the Moorish rule they had vastly increased in numbers, culture and wealth; also under the Christian kings they enjoyed for a long time special privileges, their own tribunals, freedom in the possession of land, etc., and obtained great influence as ministers of finance and administration, and also as astrologers, physicians, apothecaries, etc.; but by their usury and merciless greed drew forth more and more the bitter hatred of the people. Hence in the 14th century in Spain also there arose times of sore oppression and persecution, and attempts at conversion by force. And finally, in A.D. 1492, Ferdinand the Catholic drove more than 400,000 Jews out of Spain, and in the following year 100,000 out of Sicily. But even the baptized Jews, the so-called “New Christians,” who were prohibited from removing, fell under the suspicion of secret attachment to the old religion, and many thousands of them became victims of the Inquisition.—Many apologetic and polemical treatises were composed for the purpose of discussion with the Jews and for their instruction, but like so many other formal disputations they did not succeed in securing any good result, for the Jewish teachers were superior in learning, acuteness, and acquaintance with the exposition of Old Testament Scriptures, upon which in this discussion everything turned. But an interesting example of a Jew earnestly striving after a knowledge of the truth and working himself up to a full conviction of the divinity of Christianity and the church doctrine of that age, somewhere about A.D. 1150, is presented by the story told by himself of the conversion of Hermann afterwards a Premonstratensian monk in the monastery of Kappenberg in Westphalia.[272] But on the other hand there are also isolated examples of a passing over to Judaism as the result, it would seem, of genuine conviction. The first known example of this kind appears in A.D. 839, in the case of a deacon Boso, who after being circumcised received the name Eleazar, married a Jewess, and settled in Saracen Spain, where he manifested extraordinary zeal in making converts to his new religion. A second case of this sort is met with in the times of the Emperor Henry II., in the perversion of a priest Wecelinus. The narrator of this story gives expression to his horror in the words, Totus contremisco et horrentibus pilis capitis terrore concutior. Also the Judaising sects of the Pasagians in Lombardy during the 11th century (§ 108, 3) and the Russian Jewish sects of the 15th century (§ 73, 5) were probably composed for the most part of proselytes to Judaism.[273]

II.—The Hierarchy, the Clergy, and the Monks.

§ 96. THE PAPACY AND THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE GERMAN NATIONALITIES.[274]

The history of the papacy during this period represents it in its deepest shame and degradation. But after this state of matters was put an end to by the founding of the Holy Roman Empire of German nationalities, it sprang up again from its deep debasement, and reached the highest point of power and influence. With the German empire, to which it owed its salvation, it now carried on a life and death conflict; for it seemed that it was possible to escape enslavement under the temporal power of the emperor only by putting the emperor under its spiritual power. In the conflict with the Hohenstaufens the struggle reached its climax. The papacy won a complete victory, but soon found that it could as little dispense with as endure the presence of a powerful empire. For as the destruction of the Carolingian empire had left it at the mercy of the factions of Italian nobles at the time when this period opens, so its victory over the German empire brought the papacy under the still more degrading bondage of French politics, as is seen in the beginning of the next period. It had during this transition time its most powerful props and advisers in the orders of Clugny and Camaldoli (§ 98, 1). It had a standing army in the mendicant orders, and the crusaders, besides the enthusiasm, which greatly strengthened the papal institution, did the further service of occupying and engrossing the attention of the princes.

§ 96.1. The Romish Pornocracy and the Emperor Otto I., † A.D. 973.—Among the wild struggles of the Italian nobles which broke out after the Emperor Arnulf’s departure (§ 82, 8), the party of the Margrave Adalbert of Tuscany gained the upperhand. His mistress Theodora, a well born and beautiful, ambitious and voluptuous Roman, wife of a Roman senator, as well as her like-minded daughters Marozia and Theodora, filled for half a century the chair of St. Peter with their paramours, sons and grandsons. These constituted the base and corrupt line of popes known as the pornocracy. Sergius III., A.D. 904-911, Marozia’s paramour, starts this disgraceful series. After the short pontificates of the two immediately following popes, Theodora, because Ravenna was inconveniently distant for the gratification of her lust, called John, the archbishop of that place, to the papal chair under the title of John X., A.D. 914-928. By means of a successful crusade which he led in person, he destroyed the remnant of Saracen robbers in Garigliano (§ 81, 2), and crowned the Lombard king Bernard I., A.D. 916-924, as emperor. But when he attempted to break off his disgraceful relations with the woman who had advanced him, Marozia had him cast into prison and smothered with a pillow. The two following popes on whom she bestowed the tiara enjoyed it only a short time, for in A.D. 931 she raised her own son to the papal throne in the twentieth year of his age. His father was Pope Sergius, and he assumed the name of John XI. But her other son Alberich, who inherited the temporal kingdom from A.D. 932, restricted this pope’s jurisdiction and that of his four successors to the ecclesiastical domain. After Alberich’s death his son Octavianus, an arch-profligate and blasphemer, though only in his sixteenth year, united the papacy and the temporal power, and called himself by the name of John XII. A.D. 955-963—the first instance of a change of name on assuming the papal chair. He would sell anything for money. He made a boy of ten years a bishop; he consecrated a deacon in a stable; in hunting and dice playing he would invoke the favour of Jupiter and Venus; in his orgies he would drink the devil’s health, etc. Meantime things had reached a terrible pass in Germany. After the death of Louis the Child, the last of the German Carolingians, in A.D. 911, the Frankish duke Conrad I., A.D. 911-918, was elected king of the Germans. Although vigorously supported by the superior clergy, the Synod of Hohenaltheim in A.D. 915 threatening the rebels with all the pains of hell, the struggle with the other dukes prevented the founding of a united German empire. His successor, the Saxon Henry I., A.D. 919-936, was the first to free himself from the faction of the clergy, and to grant to the dukes independent administration of internal affairs within their own domains. His greater son, Otto I., A.D. 936-973, by limiting the power of the dukes, by fighting and converting heathen Danes, Wends, Bohemians and Hungarians, by decided action in the French troubles, by gathering around him a virtuous German clergy, who proved true to him and the empire, secured after long continued civil wars a power and reputation such as no ruler in the West since Charlemagne had enjoyed. Called to the help of the Lombard nobles and the pope John XII. against the oppression and tyranny of Berengarius [Berengar] II., he conquered the kingdom of Italy, and was at Candlemas A.D. 962 crowned emperor by the pope in St. Peter’s, after having really held this rank for thirty years. Thus was the Holy Roman Empire of German Nationalities founded, which continued for centuries to be the centre around which the history of the church and the world revolved. The new emperor confirmed to the pope all donations of previous emperors with the addition of certain cities, without detriment, however, to the imperial suzerainty over the patrimony of St. Peter, and without lessening in any degree the imperial privileges maintained by Charlemagne. The Privilegium Ottonis, still preserved in the papal archives, and claiming to be an authentic document, was till quite recently kept secret from all impartial and capable investigators, so that the suspicion of its spuriousness had come to be regarded as almost a certainty. Under Leo XIII., however, permission was given to a capable Protestant scholar, Prof. Sickel of Vienna, to make a photographic facsimile of the document, the result of which was that he became convinced that the document was not the original but a contemporary official duplicate, a literally faithful transcript on purple parchment with letters of gold for solemn deposition in the grave of St. Peter. Its first part describes the donations of the emperor, the second the obligations of the pope in accordance with the Constitutio Romana, § 82, 4.—But scarcely had Otto left Rome than the pope, breaking his oath, conspired with his enemies, endeavoured to rouse the Byzantines and heathen Hungarians against him, and opened the gates of Rome to Adalbert the son of Berengarius [Berengar]. Otto hastened back, deposed the pope at the synod of Rome in A.D. 963, on charges of incest, perjury, murder, blasphemy, etc., and made the Romans swear by the bones of Peter never again to elect and consecrate a pope, without having the emperor’s permission and confirmation. Soon after the emperor’s departure, however, the newly elected pope Leo VIII., A.D. 963-965, had to betake himself to flight. John XII. returned again to Rome, excommunicated his rival pope, and took cruel vengeance upon the partisans of the emperor. On his death soon afterwards, in A.D. 964, the Romans elected Benedict V. as his successor; but he, when the emperor conquered Rome after a stubborn resistance, was obliged to submit to humiliating terms. Leo VIII. had in John XIII., A.D. 965-972, a virtuous and worthy successor. A new revolt of the Romans led soon after his election to his imprisonment; but he succeeded in making his escape in A.D. 966. Otto now for the third time crossed the Alps, passed relentlessly severe sentences upon the guilty, and had his son, now thirteen years of age, crowned in Rome as Otto II., A.D. 967.

§ 96.2. The Times of Otto II., III., A.D. 973-1002.—After the death of Otto I., since Otto II., A.D. 973-983, was restrained from a Roman campaign in consequence of Cisalpine troubles, the nobles’ faction under Crescentius, son of Pope John X. and the younger Theodora, again won the upperhand. This party had in A.D. 974 overthrown Pope Benedict VI., A.D. 972-974, appointed by Otto I., and cast him into prison. But their own anti-pope Boniface VII. could not maintain his position, and fled with the treasures of St. Peter to Constantinople. By means of a compromise of parties Benedict VII., A.D. 974-983, was now raised to the papal chair and held possession in spite of manifold opposition, till the arrival of the young emperor in Italy in A.D. 980 obtained for him greater security. Otto II. again restored the imperial prestige in Rome in A.D. 981, but in A.D. 982 he suffered a complete defeat at the hand of the Saracens. He died in the following year at Rome, after he had in John XIV., A.D. 983-984, secured the appointment of a pope faithful to the empire. His son Otto III., three years old, was at the council of state, held at Verona, by the princes of Germany and Italy, there gathered together, elected king of both kingdoms. During the German civil wars under the regency of the Queen-mother Theophania, a Byzantine princess, and the able Archbishop Willigis, of Mainz, who, through his firmness and penetration saved the crown for the royal child Otto III., A.D. 983-1002, and maintained the existence and integrity of the German empire, Rome and the papacy fell again under the domination of the nobles, at whose head now stood the younger Crescentius, a son of the above mentioned chief of the same name. In A.D. 984 the anti-pope Boniface VII., who had fled to Constantinople, made his appearance in Rome, won a following by Greek gold, got possession of John XIV. and had him cast into prison, but was himself soon afterwards murdered. The new pope John XV., A.D. 985-996, who was thoroughly venal, was an obedient tool of the tyranny of Crescentius, which, however, soon became so intolerable to him, that he yearned for the restoration of imperial rule under Otto III. At this same time great danger threatened the imperial authority from France. Hugh Capet had, after the death of the last Carolingian, Louis V., in A.D. 987, taken possession for himself of the French crown. He insisted upon John XV. deposing the archbishop Arnulf of Rheims, who had opened the gates of Rheims to his uncle Charles of Lorraine, the brother of Louis V.’s father. The pope, who was then dependent upon German power, hesitated. Hugh then had Arnulf deposed at a synod at Rheims in A.D. 921, and put in his place Gerbert, the greatest scholar (§ 100, 2) and statesman of that age. The council quite openly declared the whole French church to be free from Rome, whose bishops for a hundred years had been steeped in the most profound moral corruption, and had fallen into the most disgraceful servitude, and Gerbert issued a confession of faith in which celibacy and fasting were repudiated, and only the first four œcumenical councils were acknowledged. But the plan was shattered, not so much through the apparently fruitless opposition of the pope as through the reaction of the high church party of Clugny and the popular esteem in which that party was held. Gerbert could not maintain his position, and was heartily glad when he could shake the dust of Rheims off his feet by accepting an honourable call of the young emperor, Otto III., who in A.D. 997 opened new paths for his ambition by inviting the celebrated scholar to be with him as his classical tutor. Hugh’s successor Robert reinstated Arnulf in the see of Rheims. John XV. called in Otto III. to his help against the intolerable oppression of the younger Crescentius, but died before his arrival in A.D. 996. Otto directed the choice of his cousin Bruno, twenty-four years of age, the first German pope, who assumed the name of Gregory V., A.D. 996-999, and by him he was crowned emperor in Rome. Gregory was a man of an energetic, almost obstinate character, thoroughly in sympathy with the views of the monks of Clugny. The emperor having soon returned home, Crescentius violated his oath and made himself again master of Rome. Gregory fled to Pavia, where he held a synod in A.D. 997, which thundered an anathema against the disturber of the Roman church. Meanwhile Crescentius raised to the papal throne the archbishop John of Piacenza, formerly Greek tutor to Otto III., under the title of John XVI. It was not till late in autumn of that year that the emperor could hasten to the help of his injured cousin. He then executed a fearfully severe sentence upon the tyrant and his pope. The former was beheaded, and his corpse dragged by the feet through the streets and then hung upon a gallows; the latter, whom the soldiers had cruelly deprived of his ears, tongue, and nose, was led through the streets seated backward on an ass, with the tail tied in his hands for reins.—From Pavia Gregory had issued a command to Robert, the French king, to put away his queen Bertha, who was related to him in the fourth degree, on pain of excommunication. But he died a suspiciously sudden death before he could bring down the pride of this king, which, however, his successor accomplished.

§ 96.3. Otto III. now raised to the papal chair his teacher Gerbert, whom he had previously made Archbishop of Ravenna, under the title of Sylvester II., A.D. 999-1003. Already in Ravenna had Gerbert’s ecclesiastical policy been changed for the high church views of his former opponents, and as pope he developed an activity which marks him out as the worthy follower of his predecessor and the precursor of a yet greater Gregory (VII.). He energetically contended against simony, that special canker of the church, and by sending the ring and staff to his former opponent, Arnulf, made the first effort to assert the papal claim to the exclusive investiture of bishops. But he had previously, as tutor of Otto, by flattering his vanity, inspired the imaginative, high-spirited youth with the ideal of a restoration of the ancient glory of Rome and its emperors exercising universal sway. And just with this view had Otto raised him to the papal chair in order that he might have his help. The pope did not venture openly to withdraw from this understanding, for in the condition of Italy at that time in a struggle with the emperor, the victory would be his in the first instance, and that would be the destruction of the papal chair. So there was nothing for it but by clever tacking in spite of contrary winds of imperial policy, to make the ship of the church hold on as far as possible in the high church course and surround the emperor by a network of craft. The phantom of a Renovatio imperii Romani with the mummified form of the Byzantine court ceremonial and the vain parade of a title was called into being. On a pilgrimage to the grave of his saintly friend Adalbert in Gnesen (§ 93, 13) the emperor emancipated the Polish church from the German metropolitanate by raising its see into an archbishopric. He also, in A.D. 1000, released the Polish duke Boleslaw Chrobry (§ 93, 7), the most dangerous enemy of Germany, who schemed the formation of a great Slavic empire, from his fealty as a vassal of the German empire, enlisting him instead as a “friend and confederate of the Roman people” in his new fantastic universal empire. In the same year, however, Sylvester, in the exercise of papal sovereignty, conferred the royal crown on Stephen the saint of Hungary (§ 93, 8), appointed the payment by him of a yearly tribute to the papal vicar with ecclesiastical authority over his country, and made that land ecclesiastically independent of Passau and Salzburg by founding a separate metropolitanate at Gran. Though Otto let himself be led in the hierarchical leading strings by his papal friend, he yet made it abundantly evident by bestowing upon his favourite pope eight counties of the States of the Church, that he regarded these as merely a free gift of imperial favour. He also lashed violently the extravagances as well as the greed of the popes, and declared that the donation of Constantine was a pure fabrication (§ 87, 4). The emperor, however, had meanwhile thoroughly estranged his German subjects and the German clergy by his un-German temperament. The German princes denounced him as a traitor to the German empire. Soon all Italy, even the much fondled Rome, rose in open revolt. Only an early death A.D. 1002 saved the unhappy youth of twenty-two years of age from the most terrible humiliation. With him, too, the star of the pope’s fortunes went down. He died not long after in A.D. 1003, and left in the popular mind the reputation of a dealer in the black art, who owed his learning and the success of his hierarchical career to a compact with the devil.

§ 96.4. From Henry II. to the Synod at Sutri, A.D. 1002-1046.—After the death of Otto III., Henry II., A.D. 1002-1024, previously duke of Bavaria, a great-grandson of Henry I. and as such the last scion of the Saxon line, obtained the German crown—a ruler who proved one of the ablest that ever occupied that throne. A bigoted pietist and under the power of the priests, although pious-hearted according to the spirit of the times and strongly attached to the church, and seeking in the bishops supports of the empire against the relaxing influence of the temporal princes, yet no other German emperor ruled over the church to the same extent that he did, and no one ventured so far as he did to impress strongly upon the church, by the most extensive appropriation of ecclesiastical property, especially of rich monasteries, that this was the shortest and surest way of bringing about a much needed reformation. Meanwhile in Rome, after the death of Otto III., Joannes Crescentius, the son of Crescentius II., who was beheaded by order of Otto, assumed the government, and set upon the chair of Peter creatures of his own, John XVII., XVIII., and Sergius IV. But as he and his last elected pope died soon after one another in A.D. 1012, the long subjected faction of the Tusculan counts, successors of Alberich, came to the front again, and chose as pope a scion of one of their own families, Benedict VIII., A.D. 1012-1024. The anti-pope Gregory, chosen by the Crescentians, was obliged to retire from the field. He sought protection from Henry II. But this monarch came to an understanding with the incomparably nobler and abler Benedict, received from him for himself and his Queen Cunigunda, subsequently canonized by Innocent III., the imperial crown, in A.D. 1014, and continued ever after to maintain excellent relations with him. These two, the emperor and the pope, were on friendly terms with the monks of Clugny. They both acknowledged the need of a thorough reformation of the church, and both carried it out so far as this could be done by the influence and example of their own personal conduct, disposition, and character. But the pope had so much to do fighting the Crescentians, then the Greeks and Saracens in Italy, and the emperor in quelling internal troubles in his empire and repelling foreign invasions, that it was only toward the close of their lives that they could take any very decided action. The pope made the first move, for at the Synod of Pavia in A.D. 1018, he excommunicated all married priests and those living in concubinage, and sentenced their children to slavery. The emperor entertained a yet more ambitious scheme. He wished to summon a Western œcumenical council at Pavia, and there to engage upon the reformation of the whole church of the West. But the death of the pope in A.D. 1024, which was followed in a few months by the death of the emperor, prevented the carrying out of this plan. After the death of the childless Henry II., Conrad II., A.D. 1024-1039, the founder of the Franconian or Salic dynasty, ascended the German throne. To him the empire was indebted for great internal reforms and a great extension of power, but he gave no attention to the carrying out of his predecessor’s plans of ecclesiastical reformation. Still less, however, was anything of the kind to be looked for from the popes of that period. Benedict VIII. was succeeded by his brother Romanus, under the name of John XIX., A.D. 1024-1033, as void of character and noble sentiments (§ 67, 2) as his predecessor had been distinguished. When he died, Count Alberich of Tusculum was able by means of presents and promises to get the Romans to elect his son Theophylact, who, though only twelve years old, was already practised in the basest vice. He took the name of Benedict IX., A.D. 1033-1048, and disgraced the papal chair with the most shameless profligacy. The state of matters became better under Conrad’s son, Henry III., A.D. 1039-1056, who strove after the founding of a universal monarchy in the sense of Charlemagne, and by a powerful and able government he came nearer reaching this end than any of the German emperors. He was at the same time inspired with a zeal for the reformation of the church such as none of his predecessors or successors, with the exception of Henry II., ever showed. Benedict IX. was, in A.D. 1044, for the second time driven out by the Romans. They now sold the tiara to Sylvester III., who three months after was driven out by Benedict. This pope now fell in love with his beautiful cousin, daughter of a Tusculan count, and formed the bold resolve to marry her. But the father of the lady refused his consent so long as he was pope. Benedict now sold the papal chair for a thousand pounds of silver to the archdeacon Joannes Gratian. This man, a pious simple individual, in order to save the chair of St. Peter from utter overthrow, took upon himself the disgrace of simony at the bidding of his friends of Clugny, among whom a young Roman monk called Hildebrand, son of poor parents of Soana, in Tuscany, was already most conspicuous. The new pope assumed the name of Gregory VI., A.D. 1044-1046. He wanted the talents necessary for the hard task he had undertaken. Benedict having failed in carrying out his matrimonial plans, again claimed to be pope, as did also Sylvester. Thus Rome had at one and the same time, three popes, and all three were publicly known to be simonists. The Clugny party cast off their protégé Gregory, and called in the German emperor as saviour of the church. Henry came and had all the the three popes deposed at the Synod at Sutri, A.D. 1046. The Romans gave to him the right of making a new appointment. It fell upon Suidger, bishop of Bamberg, who took the name of Clement II., and crowned the king emperor on Christmas, A.D. 1046. The Romans were so delighted at having order restored in the city, that they gave over to the emperor with the rank of patrician the government of Rome and the right of papal election for all time, and swore never to consecrate a pope without the emperor’s concurrence. Henry took the ex-pope Gregory along with him, back to Germany, where he died in exile, at Cologne. Hildebrand, his chaplain, had accompanied him thither, and after his death retired into the monastery of Clugny.

§ 96.5. Henry III. and his German Popes, A.D. 1046-1057.—With Clement III., 1046-1047, begins a whole series of able German popes, who, elected by Henry III., wrought under his protection powerfully and successfully for the reform of the church. All interested in the reformation, the brethren of Clugny, as well as the disciples of Romuald and the settlers in Vallombrosa (§ 98, 1), agreed that at the root of all the corruption of the church of that age were simony, or obtaining spiritual offices by purchase or bribery (Acts viii. 19), and Nicolaitanism (§ 27, 8), under which name were included all fleshly lusts of the clergy, marriage as well as concubinage and unnatural vices. These two were, especially in Italy, so widely spread, that scarcely a priest was to be found who had not been guilty of both. Clement II., in the emperor’s presence, at a synod in Rome in A.D. 1047, began the battle against simony. But he died before the end of the year, probably by poison. While Roman envoys presented themselves at the German court about the election of a new pope, Benedict IX., supported by the Tusculan party, again laid claim to the papal chair, and the emperor had to utter the severest threats before the man of his choice, Poppo, bishop of Brixen, was allowed to occupy the papal chair as Damasus II. Twenty-three days afterwards, however, he was a corpse. This cooled the ardour of German bishops for election to so dangerous a position, and only after long persuasion Bishop Bruno of Toul, the emperor’s cousin and a zealous friend of Clugny, accepted the appointment, on the condition that it should have the approval of the people and clergy of Rome, which, as was to be expected, was given with acclamation. He ascended the papal throne as Leo IX., A.D. 1049-1054. According to a later story conceived in the interests of Hildebrandism, Bruno is said not only to have made his definite acceptance of the imperial call dependent upon the supplementary free election of people and clergy of Rome, but also to have been prevailed upon by Hildebrand, who by his own request accompanied him, to lay aside his papal ornaments, to continue his journey in pilgrim garb, and to make his entrance into the eternal city barefoot, so that the necessary sanction of a formal canonical election might be given to the imperial nomination. Leo found the papal treasures emptied to the last coin and robbed of all its territorial revenues by the nobles. But Hildebrand was his minister of finance, and soon improved the condition of his exchequer. Leo now displayed an unexampled activity in church reform and the purifying of the papacy. No pope travelled about so much as he, none held as many synods in the most distant places and various lands. The uprooting of simony was in all cases the main point in their decrees. By bonds of gratitude and relationship, but above all of common interests, he was attached to the German emperor. He could not therefore think of emancipating the papacy from the imperial suzerainty. Practically Leo succeeded in clearing the Augean stable of the Roman clergy, and filled vacancies with virtuous men brought from far and near. In order to chastise the Normans, put by him under ban because of their rapacity, he himself took the field in A.D. 1053, when the emperor refused to do so, but was taken prisoner after his army had been annihilated, and only succeeded, after he had removed the excommunication, in getting them to kiss his feet with the most profound devotion. He demanded from the Greek emperor full restitution of the donation of Constantine, so far as this was still in the possession of the Byzantines, and his envoys at Constantinople rendered the split between the Eastern and Western churches irreparable (§ 67, 3). Leo died in A.D. 1054, the only pope for centuries whom the church honours as a saint. A Roman embassy called upon the emperor to nominate a new pope. He fixed upon Gebhardt, bishop of Eichstädt [Eichstadt], who now ascended the papal throne as Victor II., A.D. 1055-1057. Here again monkish tales have transformed a single matter of fact into a romance in the interests of their own party. The Romans wished Hildebrand himself for their pope, but he was unwilling yet to assume such a responsibility. He put himself, however, at the head of an embassy which convinced the emperor of the sinfulness of his former interferences in the papal elections, and persuaded him to set aside the tyrannical power of his patrician’s rank and to resign to the clergy and people their old electoral rights. As candidate for this election, Hildebrand himself chose bishop Gebhardt, the most trusted counsellor of the emperor. After long opposition Henry’s consent was won to this candidature, he even urged the bishop to accept it, who at last submitted with the words: “Now so do I surrender myself to St. Peter, soul and body, but only on the condition that you also yield to him what belongs to him.” The latter, however, seems not mere beating of the air, for the emperor restored to the newly elected pope the patrimony of Peter in the widest extent, and bestowed on him besides the governorship of all Italy.—Henry died in A.D. 1056, after he had appointed his queen Agnes to the regency, and had recommended her to the counsel and good offices of the pope. But the pope’s days were already numbered. He died in A.D. 1057. Hildebrand could not boast of having dominated him, but the position of the powerful monk of Clugny under him had become one of great importance.

§ 96.6. The Papacy under the Control of Hildebrand, A.D. 1057-1078.—After Victor’s death the cardinals without paying any regard to the imperial right, immediately elected Cardinal Frederick of Lorraine, at that time abbot of Monte Cassino, and Hildebrand travelled to Germany in order to obtain the post factum approval of the empress. Stephen IX., A.D. 1057-1058, for so Frederick styled himself, died before Hildebrand’s return. The Tusculan party took advantage of his absence to put forward as pope a partisan of their own, Benedict X., A.D. 1058. But an embassy of Hildebrand’s to the empress secured the succession to bishop Gerhard of Florence. Benedict was obliged to withdraw, and Gerhard ascended the papal throne as Nicholas II., A.D. 1058-1061. With him begins the full development of Hildebrand’s greatness, and from this time, A.D. 1059, when he became archdeacon of Rome, till he himself mounted the papal chair, he was the moving spirit of the Romish hierarchy. By his powerful genius in spite of all hindrances he raised the papacy and the church to a height of power and glory never attained unto before. He thus wrought on, systematically, firmly, and irresistibly advancing toward a complete reformation in ecclesiastical polity. Absolute freedom of the church from the power and influence of the state, and in order to attain this and make it sure, the dominion of the church over the state, papal elections independent of any sort of temporal influence, the complete uprooting of all simoniacal practices, unrelenting strictness in dealing with the immorality of the clergy, invariable enforcement of the law of celibacy, as the most powerful means of emancipating the clergy from the world and the state, filling the sacred offices with the most virtuous and capable men, were some of the noble aims and achievements of this reformation. Hildebrand sought the necessary secular protection and aid for the carrying out of his plans among the Normans. Nicholas II., on the basis of the donation of Constantine, gave as a fief to their leader, Robert Guiscard (§ 95, 1), the lordship of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, out of which the Saracens had yet to be expelled, and exacted from him the oath of a vassal, by which he bound himself to pay a yearly tribute, to protect the papal chair against all encroachments of its privileges, and above all to maintain the right of papal elections by the “meliores cardinales.” Yet again, Nicholas, when, at a later period, by the help of the Normans, he had broken the power of the Tusculan nobles, issued a decree at a Lateran synod at Rome, in A.D. 1059, by which papal elections (§ 82, 4) were regulated anew. Of the two extant recensions of this decree, which are distinguished as the papal and the imperial, the former is now universally acknowledged to be the more authentic form. According to it the election lies exclusively with the Roman cardinal priests (§ 97, 1); to the rest of the clergy as to the people there is left only the right of acclamation, that brought no advantage, and to the emperor, according to Boichorst, the right of concurrence after the election and investiture, according to Granert, the right of veto before the election. This decree, and not less the league with the Normans, were open slights to the imperial claims upon Italy and the papal chair. The empress therefore convened about Easter, A.D. 1061, a council of German bishops, at which Nicholas was deposed, and all his decisions were annulled. Soon after the pope died. The Tusculan party, now joined with the Germans under the Lombard chancellor Wibert, asked a new pope from the empress. At the Council of Basel in A.D. 1061, bishop Cadalus of Parma was appointed. He assumed the name of Honorius II., A.D. 1061-1072. But Hildebrand had already five weeks earlier in concert with the Margravine Beatrice of Canossa, wholly on his own responsibility, chosen bishop Anselm of Lucca, and had him consecrated as Alexander II. A.D. 1061-1073. Honorius advanced to Rome, accompanied by Wibert, and frequently in bloody conflicts conquered the party of his opponent. Duke Godfrey the Bearded of Lorraine, the husband of Beatrice, now appeared as mediator. He made both popes retire to their dioceses and gave to the empress the decision of the controversy. But meanwhile a catastrophe occurred in Germany that led to the most important results. Archbishop Anno of Cologne, standing at the head of a rising of the princes, decoyed the young king of twelve years of age on board a ship at Kaiserswerth on the Rhine, and took him to Cologne. The regency and the conduct of government were now transferred to the German bishops collectively, but lay practically in the hands of Anno, who meanwhile, however, since A.D. 1063, found himself obliged to share the power with Archbishop Adalbert of Bremen. At a council held at Augsburg in A.D. 1062, Alexander was acknowledged as the true pope, but Honorius by no means resigned his claims. With a small army he advanced upon Rome in A.D. 1064, seized fort Leo, which had been built and fortified by Leo IV. for defence against the Saracens, entrenched himself in the castle of St. Angelo, and repeatedly routed his opponent’s forces. But Hildebrand reminded the Normans of their oath of fealty. At a council held at Mantua in A.D. 1064 (or 1067?) Alexander was once again acknowledged, and Honorius, whose party the council sought in vain to break up by force of arms, was again deposed. The proud, ambitious and self-seeking priest of Cologne had meanwhile been obliged to transfer to his northern colleague, Adalbert of Bremen, the further education and training of the young king, who, though only fifteen years old was now proclaimed of age in A.D. 1065, as Henry IV., A.D. 1056-1106. If the bishop of Cologne injured the disposition of the royal youth by his excessive harshness and severity, the bishop of Bremen did him irreparable damage by allowing him unrestrained indulgence in his evil passions.

§ 96.7. Gregory VII., A.D. 1073-1085.—Hildebrand had at last brought the papacy to such a height of power that he was able now to put the finishing stroke to his own work in his own name, and so now he mounted the chair of the chief of the apostles, as Gregory VII., elected and enthroned by a disorderly mob. The Lombard and German bishops appealed to the emperor to have the election declared invalid. But he being on all sides threatened with wars and revolution, thought it advisable to forego the assertion of his rights and to win the favour of the pope by a letter full of devotion and humility. At the Roman Fast Synod of A.D. 1074, Gregory renewed the old law of celibacy and rendered it more strict, deposed all married priests or those who got office through simony, and pronounced their priestly acts invalid. The lower clergy, who were generally married, violently opposed the measure, but Gregory’s stronger will prevailed. Papal legates visited all lands, and, supported by the people, insisted upon the strict observance of the papal decree. At the next fast synod in A.D. 1075, the pope began the contest against the usual investiture of the higher clergy by the temporal princes, with ring and staff as symbols of episcopal office. Whoever should accept ecclesiastical office from the hand of a layman was to be deposed, and any potentate who should give investiture should be put under the ban of the church. Here too he thundered his anathema against the counsellors of Henry who should meanwhile prove guilty of the sale of ecclesiastical offices. Henry, whose hands were fully occupied with the rebellious Saxons, at first dismissed his counsellors, but after the close of the wars he reinstated them, and quite ignored the papal prohibition of investiture. Gregory had for a while quite enough to do in Italy. Cencius, the head of the nobles opposed to reform, fell upon him on Christmas, A.D. 1075, during Divine service, and made him prisoner, but the Romans rescued him, and Cencius had to take to flight. On New Year’s Day, A.D. 1076, there appeared at the royal residence at Goslar a papal embassy which threatened the king with excommunication and deposition should he not immediately break off all relations with the counsellors under the ban, and reform his own infamous life. The king burst out in furious rage. He heaped insults upon the legates, and at the Synod of Worms, on 24th January, had the pope formally deposed as a perjured usurper of the papal chair, a tyrant, an adulterer and a sorcerer. The Lombard bishops, too, gave their consent to this decree (§ 97, 5). At the next Roman Fast Synod on 22nd February, the pope placed all bishops who had taken part in these proceedings under ban, and at the same time solemnly excommunicated and deposed the king, and released all his subjects from the obligation of their oaths of allegiance. Moreover he had the king’s ambassadors, whose life he had preserved from the fury of those present at the meeting of synod by his personal interference, cast into prison, and then in the most contemptuous manner led through the streets. The papal ban made a deep impression upon the German people and princes. One bishop after another gave in, the Saxons raised a new revolt, and at the princes’ conference at Tribur, in October, A.D. 1076, the pope was invited to come personally to Augsburg on 2nd February, to meet and confer with the princes about the affairs of the king. It was resolved that if Henry did not succeed by 22nd February, the first anniversary of the ban, to get it removed, he should for ever forfeit the crown, but that meanwhile he should reside at Spires and continue in the exercise of all royal prerogatives.

§ 96.8. It was for the pope’s advantage to have the business settled upon German soil with the greatest possible publicity. Therefore he scornfully refused the humble petition of the king to send him absolution from Rome, and hastened his preparations for travelling to Augsburg. But Henry went forth to meet him on the way. Shortly before Christmas he escaped from Spires with his wife and child, and in spite of a severe winter crossed Mount Cenis. The Lombards protected him in defying the pretensions of the pope. But Henry’s whole attention was now directed to overturning the machinations of the hostile German princes. So he suddenly appeared at Canossa, where Gregory was staying with the Margravine Matilda, daughter of Beatrice, a princess enthusiastically attached to him and his ideal. This meeting was unexpected and undesired by the pope. There during the cold winter days, from 25th to 27th January, A.D. 1077, stood the son of Henry III. barefoot in the courtyard of the castle of Canossa, wearing a sackcloth shirt, fasting all day and supplicating access to the proud monk. With inflexible severity the pope refused, until at last the tears, entreaties, and reproaches of the margravine overcame his obduracy. Henry promised to submit himself to the future judgment of the pope in regard to his reconciliation with the German princes, and was absolved. Nevertheless the princes at the Assembly at Forcheim in March, with the concurrence of the papal legate, elected a new king in the person of Rudolph of Swabia, Henry’s brother-in-law. Roused to fury, Henry now hastened back to Germany, where soon he gathered round him a great army. Notwithstanding all pressure brought to bear upon him, Gregory maintained for three years a position of neutrality, but at last, in A.D. 1080, at the Roman Fast Synod, where the envoys of the contending kings presented their complaints, he renewed the excommunication and deposition of Henry. Then the bishops of Henry’s party immediately met at Brixen, and hurled the anathema and pronounced sentence of deposition against Gregory, and elected as anti-pope Wibert, formerly chancellor, then archbishop of Ravenna, who assumed the title of Clement III., A.D. 1080-1100. After the death of Rudolph in battle, at Merseburg, in A.D. 1080, Henry marched across the Alps and appeared at Pentecost before the gates of Rome, which were opened to him after a three years’ siege. Clement III. then at Easter, A.D. 1084, set upon him and his queen the imperial crown. Gregory had withdrawn to the Castle of St. Angelo. Henry, however, was compelled by the appearance of a new rival for the crown, Henry, Count of Luxemburg, to return to Germany, and Robert Guiscard, the Norman duke, hastened from the south to deliver the pope, which he accomplished only after Rome had been fearfully devastated. Gregory died in the following year, A.D. 1085, at Salerno. Gregory VII. also took the field against the dissolute and prodigal king of France, Philip I., and threatened him, because of simony, with interdict and deposition. His success here, however, was comparatively small. Philip avowedly submitted to the papal decree, but did not in the least alter his conduct, and Gregory felt that it was not prudent to push matters to an extremity. He showed himself more indulgent toward the powerful William the Conqueror of England, although this prince ruled the church of his dominions with an iron hand, pronounced all church property to be freehold, and was scarcely less guilty of simony than the kings of Germany and France. Yet the pope himself, who hoped to secure the aid of his arms against Henry IV., and sought therefore to dazzle him with the prospect of the imperial throne, winked at his delinquencies, and loaded him with expressions of his good-will. The primate of England, too, the powerful Conqueror’s right-hand supporter, Lanfranc of Canterbury, who bore a grudge against Gregory because of his patronage of the heretic Berengarius [Berengar] (§ 101, 2), showed no special zeal for the reforms advocated by the pope. At a synod held at Winchester in A.D. 1076, the law of celibacy was enforced, with this limitation, however, that those of the secular clergy who were already married should not be required to put away their wives, but no further marriages among them were to be permitted.[275]

§ 96.9. The Central Idea in Gregory’s Policy was the establishment of a universal theocracy, with the pope as its one visible head, the representative of Christ upon earth, who as such stands over the powers of the world. Alongside of it, indeed, the royal authority was to stand independently as one ordained of God, but it was to confine itself strictly to temporal affairs, and to be directed by the pope in regard to whatever might be partly within and partly without these lines. All states bearing the Christian name were to be bound together as members of one body in the great papal theocracy which had superior to it only God and His law. The princes must receive consecration and Divine sanction from the spiritual power; they are “by the grace of God,” not immediately, however, but only mediately, the church as the middle term stands between them and God. The pope is their arbiter and highest liege lord, whose decisions they are under obligation unconditionally to obey. Royalty stands related to the papacy as the moon to the sun, from which she receives her light and warmth. The church, which lends to the power of the world her Divine authority, can also withdraw it again when it is being misused. When this is done, the obligation of subjects to obey also ceases. Gregory began this gigantic work, not so much to raise himself personally to the utmost pinnacle of power, but rather to save the church from destruction. He certainly was not free from ambition and the lust of ruling, but with him higher than all personal interests was the idea of the high vocation of the church, and to the realizing of it he enthusiastically devoted all the energies of his life. On the other hand, he cannot escape the reproach of having striven with carnal weapons for what he called a spiritual victory, of having meted out unequal measures, where his interests demanded it, in the exercise of his assumed function as judge of kings and princes, and of having occupied himself more with political schemes and intrigues than with the ministry of the church of Christ. His whole career shows him to have been a man of great self reliance, yet, on the other hand, he was able to preserve the consciousness of the poor sinner who seeks and finds salvation only in the mercy of Christ. The strict morality of his life has been admitted even by his bitterest foes. Not infrequently too did he show himself in advance of his time in humanity and liberality of sentiment, as e.g. in the Berengarian controversy (§ 101, 2), and in his decided disapproval of the prosecution of witches and sorcerers.[276]

§ 96.10. Victor III. and Urban II., A.D. 1086-1099.—Gregory VII. was succeeded by the talented abbot of Monte Cassino, Desiderius, under the title of Victor III., A.D. 1086-1087. Only after great pressure was brought to bear upon him did he consent to leave the cloister, which under his rule had flourished in a remarkable manner; but now aged and sickly, he only enjoyed the pontificate for sixteen months. His successor was bishop Odo, of Ostia, a Frenchman by birth, and a member of the Clugny brotherhood, who took the name of Urban II., A.D. 1088-1099. For a long time he was obliged to give up Rome to the party of the imperial anti-pope. But the enthusiasm with which the idea of rescuing the Holy Sepulchre was taken up, which he proposed to Western Christendom at the Council of Clermont, in A.D. 1095 (§ 94), secured for him the highest position in his time, and made him strong enough to withstand the opposition of Philip I., king of France, whom he had put under ban at Clermont, on account of his adulterous connection with Bertrada. Returning to Italy from his victorious campaign through France, he was able to celebrate Christmas once again in the Lateran at Rome in A.D. 1096. His main supporters in the conflict against the emperor were the powerful Margravine Matilda, and the emperor’s most dangerous opponent in Germany, duke Welf of Bavaria, whose son of the same name, then in his seventeenth year, was married by the pope to the widowed Matilda, who was now forty years of age, whence arose the first of the anti-imperial and strongly papistical Welf or Guelph party in Germany and Italy. On the other side the margravine succeeded in stirring up Conrad, the son of Henry IV., to rebel against his father, and had him crowned king in A.D. 1087. At Cremona this prince held the pope’s stirrup, and took the oath of obedience to him. The emperor had him deposed in A.D. 1098, and had his second son elected and crowned as Henry V. Urban, who received on his death-bed the news of the destruction of Jerusalem, died in A.D. 1099, and his anti-pope Clement III., who had withdrawn to Ravenna, died in the following year.

§ 96.11. Paschalis II., Gelasius II., and Calixtus II., A.D. 1099-1124.—Urban’s successor, Paschalis II., A.D. 1099-1118, also a member of the Clugny brotherhood, at once stirred up the fire of rebellion against the excommunicated emperor, and favoured a conspiracy of the princes. The young king, at the head of the insurgents, took his father prisoner, and obliged him to abdicate in A.D. 1106. Six months afterwards the emperor died. The church’s curse pursued even his corpse. Twice interred in holy ground, first in the cathedral of Liège, then in the cathedral of Spires, his bones were exhumed and thrown into unconsecrated ground, until at last, in A.D. 1111, his son obtained the withdrawal of the ban. At the Council of Guastalla in A.D. 1106, Paschalis renewed the prohibition of Investiture. But Henry V., A.D. 1106-1125, concerned himself as little about this prohibition as his father had done. No sooner had he seated himself upon the throne in Germany than he crossed the Alps to compel the pope to crown him emperor and concede to him the right of investiture. The pope, who was willing that the church should be poor if only she retained her freedom, being now without counsel or help (for Matilda was old and her warlike spirit was broken, and from the Normans no assistance could be looked for), was driven in A.D. 1111, in his perplexity to offer a compromise, whereby the emperor should surrender investiture to the church, but on the other hand the clergy should return to him all landed property and privileges given them by the state since the times of Charlemagne, while the Patrimony of Peter should continue the property of the pope himself. On the basis of this agreement the coronation of the emperor was to be celebrated in St. Peter’s on 12th Feb., A.D. 1111. But when after the celebration had begun the document which set forth the compact was read, the prelates present in the cathedral raised loud cries of dissent and demanded that it should immediately be cancelled. The coronation was not proceeded with, the pope and his cardinals were thrown into prison, and a revolt of the Romans was suppressed. The pope was then compelled to rescind the synodal decrees and formally to grant to the king the right of investiture; he had also, after solemnly promising never again to put the emperor under ban, to proceed with the coronation. But Hildebrand’s party called the pope to account for this betrayal of the church. A synod at Rome in A.D. 1112 declared the concessions wrung from him invalid, and pronounced the ban against the emperor. The pope, however, remembering his oaths, refused to confirm it, but it was nevertheless proclaimed by his legate in the French and German synods. Matilda’s death in A.D. 1115 called the emperor again to Italy. She had even in the time of Gregory VII. made over all her goods and possessions to the Roman Church; but she had the right of free disposal only in regard to allodial property, not in regard to her feudal territories. Henry, however, now laid claim to all her belongings. At the Fast Synod of A.D. 1116 Paschalis asked pardon of God and man for his sin of weakness, renewed and made more strict the prohibition of investiture, but still stoutly refused to confirm the ban of the emperor. In consequence of a rebellion of the Romans he was obliged to take to flight, and he died in exile in A.D. 1118. The high church party now chose Gelasius II., A.D. 1118-1119, but immediately after the election he was seized by a second Cencius (see § 96, 7) on account of a private grudge, fearfully maltreated and confined in chains within his castle. The Romans indeed rescued him, but the emperor’s sudden arrival in Rome led him, in order to avoid making inconvenient terms of peace, to seek his own and the church’s safety in flight. The people and nobles in concert with the emperor set up Gregory VIII. as anti-pope. So soon as the emperor left Rome, Gelasius returned. But Cencius fell upon him during Divine service, and only with difficulty he escaped further maltreatment by flight into France, where he died in the monastery of Clugny after a pontificate of scarcely twelve months. The few cardinals present at Clugny elected archbishop Guido of Vienne. He assumed the title of Calixtus II., A.D. 1119-1124. Pope and emperor met together expressing desires for peace. But the auspiciously begun negotiations never got beyond the statement of the terms of contract, and ended in the pope renewing at the Council of Rheims, in A.D. 1119, the anathema against the emperor and anti-pope. Next year Calixtus crossed the Alps. He received a hearty greeting in Rome. He laid siege to the anti-pope in Sutri, took him prisoner, and after the most contumelious treatment before the Roman mob, cast him into a monastic prison. The investiture question, now better understood through learned discussions on civil and ecclesiastical law, was at last definitely settled in the Worms Concordat, as the result of mutual concessions made at the National Assembly at Worms, A.D. 1122. The arrangement come to was this: canonical election of bishops and abbots of the empire by the diocesan clergy and the secular nobles should be restored, and under imperial inspection made free from all coercion, but in disputed elections decisions should be given in accordance with the judgment of the metropolitan and the rest of the bishops, the investing of the elected with the sceptre in Germany before, in other parts of the empire after, consecration, should belong to the emperor, and investiture with ring and staff at the consecration should belong to the pope. This agreement was solemnly ratified at the First Œcumenical Lateran Synod in A.D. 1123.

§ 96.12. The contemporary English Investiture Controversy was brought earlier to a conclusion. William the Conqueror had unopposed put Norman prelates in the place of the English bishops, and had homage rendered him by them, while they received from him investiture with the ring and the staff. William Rufus, the Conqueror’s son and successor, A.D. 1087-1100, a domineering and greedy prince, after Lanfranc’s death in A.D. 1089 (§ 101, 1) allowed the archbishopric of Canterbury to remain vacant for four years, in order that he might himself enjoy the undisturbed possession of the revenues. It was not till A.D. 1093, during a severe illness and under fear of death, that he agreed to bestow it upon Anselm, the celebrated Abbot of Bec (§ 101, 1, 3), with the promise to abstain ever afterwards from simony. No sooner had he recovered than he repented him of his promise. He resumed his old practices, and even demanded of Anselm a large sum for his appointment. For peace sake Anselm gave him a voluntary present of money, but it did not satisfy the king. When, in A.D. 1097, the archbishop asked permission to make a journey to Rome in order to have the conflict settled there, the king banished him. In Rome Anselm was honourably received and his conduct was highly approved; but neither Urban II. nor Paschalis II. could venture upon a complete breach with the king. William the Conqueror’s third son, Henry I. Beauclerk, A.D. 1100-1135, who, having also snatched Normandy from his eldest brother Robert, needed the support of the clergy to secure his position, agreed to the return of the exiled primate, and promised to put a stop to every kind of simony; but he demanded the maintenance of investiture and the oath of fealty which Anselm now, in consequence of the decrees of a Roman synod which he had himself agreed to, felt obliged to refuse. Thus again the conflict was renewed. The king now confiscated the goods and revenues of the see, and the archbishop was on the point of issuing an excommunication against him, when at last an understanding was come to in A.D. 1106, through the mediation of the pope, according to which the crown gave up the investiture with ring and staff, and the archbishop agreed to take the oath of fealty.—In France, too, from the end of the 11th century, owing to the pressure used by the high church reforming party, the secular power was satisfied with securing the oath of fealty from the higher clergy, without making further claim to investiture.[277]

§ 96.13. The Times of Lothair III. and Conrad III., A.D. 1125-1152.—After the death of Henry V. without issue, the Saxon Lothair, A.D. 1125-1137, was elected, and the Hohenstaufen grandson of Henry IV. descended in the female line was passed over. Honorius II., A.D. 1124-1130, successor of Calixtus II., hastened to confer the papal sanction upon the newly elected emperor, who already upon his election had, by accepting spiritual investiture before temporal investiture, and a minimising of the oath of fealty by ecclesiastical reservations, showed himself ready to support the claims of the clergy. But neither ban nor the preaching of a crusade against Count Roger II. of Sicily (§ 95, 1) could prevent him from building up a powerful kingdom comprehending all Southern Italy. The next election of the cardinals gives us two popes: Innocent II., A.D. 1130-1143, and Anacletus II., A.D. 1130-1138. The latter, although not the pope of the majority, secured a powerful support in the friendship of Roger II., whom he had crowned king by his legate at Palermo. Innocent, on the other hand, fled to France. There the two oracles of the age, the abbot Peter of Clugny and Bernard of Clairvaux, took his side and won for him the favour of all Cisalpine Europe. Both popes fished for Lothair’s favour with the bait of the promise of imperial coronation. A second edition of the Synod of Sutri would probably have enabled a more powerful king to attain the elevation of Henry III. But Lothair was not the man to seize the opportunity. He decided in favour of the protégé of Bernard, led him back in A.D. 1133 to the eternal city, had himself crowned emperor by him in the Lateran and invested with Matilda’s inheritance, which was declared by the curialists a fief of the empire. But Lothair’s repeated demands, that what had been acquired by the Concordat of Worms should be renounced, were set aside, through the opposition not so much of the pope as of St. Bernard and St. Norbert (§ 98, 2). At the prayer of the pope, who immediately after Lothair’s departure had been driven out by Roger, and moved by the prophetic exhortations of Bernard, the emperor prepared for a second Roman campaign in A.D. 1136. Leaving the conquest of Rome to the eloquence of the prophet of Clairvaux, he advanced from one victory to another until he brought all Southern Italy under the imperial sway, and died on his return homeward in an Alpine hut in the Tyrol. Fuming with rage Roger now crossed over from Sicily and in a short time he reconquered his southern provinces of Italy. The appointment, however, of a new pope after the death of Anacletus miscarried, and Innocent was able at the Second Œcumenical Lateran Synod in A.D. 1139 to declare the schism at an end. The pope then renewed the excommunication of Roger and pronounced an anathema against the teachings of Arnold of Brescia (§ 108, 7), a young enthusiastic priest of the school of Abælard, who traced all ecclesiastical corruption back to the wealth of the church and the secular power of the clergy. He next prepared himself for war with Roger. That prince, however, waylaid him and had him brought into his tent, where he and his sons cast themselves at the holy father’s feet and begged for mercy and peace. The pope could do nothing else than play the rôle of the magnanimous given him in this comedy. He had therefore to confirm the hated Norman in the possession of the conquered provinces as a hereditary monarchy with the ecclesiastical privilege of a native legate, and, as some set off to comfort himself with, the prince was to regard the territory as a fief of the papal see. But still greater calamities befell this pope. The republican freedom, which the cities of Tuscany and Lombardy won during the 12th century, awakened also among the Romans a love of liberty. They refused to render obedience in temporal matters to the pope and established in the Capitol a popular senate, which undertook the civil government in the name of the Roman Commune. Innocent died during the revolution. His successor Cœlestine II. held the pontificate for only five months, and Lucius II., after vainly opposing the Commune for seven months, was killed by a stone thrown in a tumult. Eugenius III., A.D. 1145-1153, a scholar and friend of St. Bernard, was obliged immediately after his election to seek safety in flight. An agreement, however, was come to in that same year: the pope acknowledged the government of the Commune as legitimate, while it recognised his superiority and granted to him the investiture of the senators. Yet, though taken back three times to Rome, he could never remain there for more than a few months. He visited France and Germany (Treves) in A.D. 1147. In France he heard of the fall of Edessa. Supported by the fiery zeal of Bernard, the summons to a second crusade (§ 94, 2) aroused a burning enthusiasm throughout all the West. But in Rome he was unable to offer any effectual resistance to the demagogical preaching by which Arnold of Brescia from A.D. 1146 had inflamed the people and the inferior clergy with an ardent enthusiasm for his ideal constitution of an apostolic church and a democratic state. Since this change of feeling had taken place in Rome, both parties, that of the Capitol as well as that of the Lateran, had repeatedly endeavoured to win to their side the first Hohenstaufen on the German throne, Conrad III., A.D. 1138-1152, by promise of bestowing the imperial crown. But Conrad, meanwhile otherwise occupied, refrained from all intermeddling, and when at last he actually started upon a journey to Rome death overtook him on the way.

§ 96.14. The Times of Frederick I. and Henry VI., A.D. 1152-1190.—The nephew and successor of Conrad III., Frederick I. Barbarossa, A.D. 1152-1190, began his reign with the firm determination to realize fully the ideas of Charlemagne (§ 82, 3) by his pope Paschalis III., whom at a later period, in A.D. 1165, he had canonized. With profound contempt at heart for the Roman democracy of his time, he concluded a compact in A.D. 1153 with the papal see, which confirmed him in the possession of the imperial crown and gave to the pope the Dominium temporale in the Church States. After the death of Eugenius which soon followed, the aged Anastasius IV. occupied the papal chair for a year and a half, a time of peace and progress. He was succeeded by the powerful Hadrian IV., A.D. 1154-1159. He was an Englishman, Nicholas Breakspear, son of a poor English priest, the first and, down to the present time, the only one of that nation who attained the papal dignity. He pronounced an interdict upon the Romans who had refused him entrance into the inner part of the city and had treacherously slain a cardinal. Rome endured this spiritual famine only for a few weeks, and then purchased deliverance by the expulsion of Arnold of Brescia, who soon thereafter fell into the hands of a cardinal. He was indeed again rescued by force, but Frederick I., who had meanwhile in A.D. 1154 begun his first journey to Rome, and on his way thither had humbled the proud Lombard cities struggling for freedom, urged by the pope, insisted that he should be surrendered up again, and subsequently gave him over to the Roman city prefect, who, in A.D. 1155, without trial or show of justice condemned him to be burnt and had his ashes strewn upon the Tiber. In the camp at Sutri the pope personally greeted the king who, after refusing for several days, at length agreed to show him the customary honour of holding his stirrup, doing it however with a very bad grace. Soon too the senatorial ambassadors of the Roman people, who indulged in bombastic, turgid declamation, presented themselves professing their readiness on consideration of a solemn undertaking to protect the Roman republic, and on payment of five thousand pounds, to proclaim the German king from the Capitol Roman emperor and ruler of the world. With a furious burst of anger Frederick silenced them, and with scathing words showed them how the witness of history pointed the contrast between their miserable condition and the glory and dignity of the German name. Yet on the day of the coronation, which they were not able to prevent, the Romans took revenge for the insults he had heaped upon them by an attack upon the papal residence in the castle of Leo, and upon the imperial camp in front of the city, but were repelled with sore loss. Soon thereafter, in A.D. 1155, the emperor made preparations for returning home, leaving everything else to the pope. The relations between the two became more and more strained from day to day. The Lombards, too, once again rebelled. Frederick therefore in A.D. 1158 made his second expedition to Rome. On the Roncalian plains he held a great assembly which laid down to the Lombards as well as to the pope the imperial prerogatives. Hadrian would have given utterance to his wrath by thundering an anathema, but he was restrained by the hand of death.

§ 96.15. The cardinals of the hierarchical party elected Alexander III., A.D. 1159-1181, those of the imperial party, Victor IV. A synod convened by the emperor at Pavia in A.D. 1160 decided in favour of Victor, who was now formally recognised. Meanwhile Milan threw off the yoke that had been laid upon her. After an almost two years’ siege the emperor took the city in A.D. 1162 and razed it to the ground. From France whither he had fled, Alexander, in A.D. 1163, launched his anathema against the emperor and his pope. The latter died in A.D. 1164, and Frederick had Paschalis III. († A.D. 1168) chosen his successor; but in A.D. 1165, Alexander returning from France, pressed on in advance of him and was acknowledged by the Roman senate. Now for the third time in A.D. 1166, Frederick crossed the Alps. A small detachment of troops that had been sent in advance to accompany the imperial pope to Rome under the leadership of the archbishops of Cologne and Mainz, in a bloody battle at Monte Porzio in A.D. 1167 utterly destroyed a Roman army of twenty times its size. Frederick then himself hasted forward. After an eight days’ furious assault the fortress of Leo surrendered, and Paschalis was able to perform the Te Deum in St. Peter’s. The Transtiberines, too, after Alexander had sought safety in flight, soon took the oath of fealty to the emperor upon a guarantee of imperial protection of their republic. But at the very climax of his success “the fate of Sennacherib” befell him. The Roman malaria during the hot August became a deadly fever plague, thinned the lines of his army and forced him to withdraw. So weakened was he that he could not even assert his authority in Lombardy, but had to return to Germany in A.D. 1168. The emperor’s disaster told also unfavourably upon the fortunes of his pope, whose successor Calixtus III. was quite disregarded. In A.D. 1174 Frederick again went down into Italy and engaged upon a decisive battle with the confederate cities of Lombardy, but in A.D. 1176 at Legnano he suffered a complete defeat, in consequence of which he agreed at the Congress of Venice, in A.D. 1177, to acknowledge the freedom of the Lombard cities, abandoned the imperial claims upon Rome, and recognised Alexander III., who was also present there, as the rightful pope, kissing his feet and holding his stirrup according to custom. Rome, which he had not seen for nearly eleven years, would no longer shut her gates against the pope. Welcomed by senate and people, he made his public entrance into the Lateran in March A.D. 1178, where in the following year he gathered together 300 bishops in the Third Lateran Council (the 11th œcumenical), in order by their advice to heal the wounds which the schism of the church had made. Here also, in order to prevent double elections in time to come, it was resolved that for a valid papal election two-thirds of the whole college of cardinals must be agreed. The right of concurrence assigned by the decree of Nicholas II. in A.D. 1059 to the people and emperor was treated as antiquated and forgotten, and was not even alluded to.

§ 96.16. Even before his victory over the powerful Hohenstaufen, Alexander III. during his exile won a yet more brilliant success in England. King Henry II., A.D. 1154-1189, wished to establish again the supremacy of the state over church and clergy, and thought that he would have a pliant tool in carrying out his plans in Thomas à Becket, whom he made archbishop of Canterbury, in A.D. 1162. But as primate of the English church, Thomas proved a vigorous upholder of hierarchical principles. Instead of the accommodating courtier, the king found the archbishop immediately upon his consecration the bold asserter of the claims of the church. The jovial man of the world became at once the saintly ascetic. At a council at Tours in A.D. 1163, he returned into the pope’s own hand the pallium with which an English prince had invested him in name of the king, resigning also his archiepiscopal dignity, that he might receive these directly as a papal gift. Straightway began the conflict between the king and his former favourite. Henry summoned a diet at Clarendon, where he obtained the approval of the superior clergy for his anti-hierarchical propositions; Thomas also for a time withstood, promising at last, when urged on all sides, to assent to the constitutions, but refusing to sign the document when it was placed before him. The king now ordered a process of deposition to be executed against him, and Thomas then fled to France, where the pope was at that time residing. The pope released him from his promise, condemned the Constitutions of Clarendon, and threatened the king with anathema and interdict. At last, after protracted negotiations, in A.D. 1170 by means of a personal interview on the frontiers of Normandy, a reconciliation was effected; by which, however, neither the king nor the archbishop renounced their claims. Thomas now returned to England and threatened with excommunication all bishops who should agree to the Constitutions of Clarendon. Four knights seized upon an unguarded word of the king which he had uttered in passion, and murdered the archbishop at the altar in A.D. 1170. Alexander canonized the martyr to Hildebrandism, and the king was so sorely pressed by the pope, his own people and his rebellious sons, that he consented to do penance humbly at the tomb of his deadly sainted foe, and submitted to be scourged by the monks. Becket’s bones, for which a special chapel was reared at Canterbury, were visited by crowds of pilgrims until Henry VIII., when he had broken with Rome (§ 139, 4), formally arraigned the saint as a traitor, had his name struck out of the calendar and his ashes scattered to the winds.[278]—Thus by A.D. 1178 Alexander III. had risen to the summit of ecclesiastical power; but in Rome itself as well as in the Church States, he remained as powerless politically as before. Soon, therefore, after the great council he again quitted the city for a voluntary exile, and never saw it more. His three immediate successors, too, Lucius III. († A.D. 1185), Urban III. († A.D. 1187), and Gregory VIII. († A.D. 1187), were elected, consecrated and buried outside of Rome. Clement III. († A.D. 1191) was the first to enter the Lateran again in A.D. 1188, on the basis of a compromise which acknowledged the republican constitution under the papal superiority. Meanwhile Frederick I., without regarding the protest of the pope as liege lord of the Sicilian crown, had in A.D. 1186 consummated the fateful marriage of his son Henry with Constance, the posthumous daughter of king Roger, and aunt of his childless grandson William II. († A.D. 1194), and thus the heiress of the great Norman kingdom of Italy. From the crusade which he then undertook in A.D. 1189 Frederick never returned (§ 94, 3). His successor, Henry VI., A.D. 1190-1197, compelled the new pope Cœlestine III., A.D. 1191-1198, to crown him emperor in A.D. 1191, conquered the inheritance of his wife, pushed back the boundaries of the Church States to the very gates of Rome, and asserted his imperial rights even over the city of Rome itself. He pressed on to the realizing of the scheme for making the German crown together with the imperial dignity for ever hereditary in his house. The princes of the empire in A.D. 1196 elected his son Frederick II., when scarcely two years old, as king of the Romans. He then thought under the pretext of a crusade to conquer Greece, to which he had laid groundless claims of succession, but while upon the way his plans were overthrown by his sudden death at Messina.

§ 96.17. Innocent III., A.D. 1198-1216.—After the death of Alexander III. the power and reputation of the Holy See had fallen into the lowest degradation. Then the cardinal deacon, Lothair Count of Segni in Anagni, succeeded in A.D. 1198 in his 37th year, under the name of Innocent III., and raised the papacy again to a height of power and glory never reached before. In point of intellect and power of will he was not a whit behind Gregory VII., while in culture (§ 102, 9), scholarship, subtlety and adroitness he far excelled him. His piety, too, his moral earnestness, his enthusiasm and devotion to the church and the theocratical interest of the chair of St. Peter, were at least as powerful and decidedly purer, deeper and more spiritual than Gregory’s. And in addition to all these great endowments he enjoyed an invariable good fortune which never forsook him. His first task was the restoration of the Church States and his political prestige in Rome. In both these directions he was favoured by the sudden death of Henry VI. and the internal disorders of the Capitoline government of that time. On the very day of his enthronement the imperial prefect tendered him the oath of fealty and the Capitol did homage to him as the superior. And also before the second year had passed the Church States in their fullest extent were restored by the expulsion of the greater and smaller feudal lords who had been settled there by Henry VI. Rome was indeed once more the scene of wild party conflicts which forced the pope in A.D. 1203 to fly to Anagni. He was able, however, to return in A.D. 1204 and to conclude a definite and decisive peace with the Commune in A.D. 1205, according to the terms of which the many-headed senate resigned, and a single senator or podestà nominated by the pope was entrusted with the executive authority. Meanwhile Innocent had been gaining brilliant successes beyond the limits of the States of the Church. These were won first of all in Sicily. The widow of Henry VI. had her son Frederick of four years old, after his father’s death, crowned king in Palermo. Unadvised and helpless, pressed upon all sides, she sought protection from Innocent, which he granted upon her renouncing the ecclesiastical privileges previously claimed by the king and making acknowledgment of the papal suzerainty. Dying in A.D. 1198, Constance transferred to him the guardianship of her son, and the pope justified the confidence placed in him by the excellent and liberal education which he secured for his ward, as well as by the zeal and success with which he restored rest and peace to the land. In Germany, Philip of Swabia, Frederick’s uncle, was appointed to carry on the government in the name of his Sicilian nephew during his minority. The condition of Germany, however, demanded the direct control of a firm and vigorous ruler. The princes, therefore, insisted upon a new election, for which Philip also now appeared as candidate. The votes were split between two rivals; the Ghibellines voting for Philip, A.D. 1198-1208, and the Guelph party for Otto IV. of Brunswick, A.D. 1198-1218. The party of the latter referred the decision to the pope. For three years he delayed giving judgment, then he decided in favour of the Guelph, who paid for the preference by granting all the demands of the pope, and calling himself king by the grace of God and the pope. The States of the Church were thus represented as including the Duchy of Spoleto, and in the election of bishops the church was freed from the influence of the state. By A.D. 1204, however, Philip’s power and repute had risen to such a pitch that even the pope found himself obliged to take into account the altered position of matters. A papal court of arbitration at Rome to which both claimants had agreed to submit, was on the point of giving its decision unequivocally in favour of the Hohenstaufen, when the murder of Philip by Otto of Wittelsbach, in A.D. 1208, rendered it void. Otto IV. was now acknowledged by all, and in A.D. 1209 he was crowned by the pope after new concessions had been made. But as Roman emperor he either would not or could not perform what he had promised before and at his coronation. He took to himself the possessions of Matilda as well as other parts of the States of the Church, and was not prevented from pursuing his victorious campaign in Southern Italy by the anathema which Innocent thundered against him in A.D. 1210. Then Innocent called to mind the old rights of his former pupil to the German crown, and insisted that they should be given effect to. In A.D. 1212, Frederick II., now in his eighteenth year, accepted the call, was received in Germany with open arms, and was crowned in A.D. 1215 at Aachen. Otto could not maintain his position against him, and so withdrew to his hereditary possessions, and died in A.D. 1218.

§ 96.18. King Philip Augustus II. of France, had in A.D. 1193 married the Danish princess Ingeborg, but divorced her in A.D. 1196, and married the beautiful Duchess Agnes of Meran. Innocent compelled him in A.D. 1200 to put her away by issuing against him an interdict, but it was only in A.D. 1213 that he again took back Ingeborg as his legitimate wife.—From far off Spain the young king Peter of Arragon went in A.D. 1204 to Rome, laid down his crown as a sacred gift upon the tomb of the chief of the apostles, and voluntarily undertook the payment of a yearly tribute to the Holy See. In the same year a crusading army, by founding a Latin empire in Constantinople, brought the schismatical East to the feet of the pope (§ 94, 4). In England, when the archbishopric of Canterbury became vacant, the chapter filled it by electing their own superior Reginald. This choice they had soon cause to rue. They therefore annulled their election, and at the wish of the usurping king John Lackland made choice of John, bishop of Norwich. Innocent refused to confirm their action, and persuaded certain members of the chapter staying in Rome to choose the cardinal priest Stephen Langton, whose election he immediately confirmed.[279] When the king refused to recognise this appointment, and on an interdict being threatened swore that he would drive all priests who should obey it out of the country, the pope issued it in A.D. 1208 against all England, excommunicated the king, and finally, in A.D. 1212, released all his subjects from their oath of allegiance and deposed the monarch, while he commissioned Philip Augustus of France to carry the sentence into effect. John, now as cringing and terrified as before he had been proud and despotic, humbled himself in the dust, and at Dover, in A.D. 1213, placed kingdom and crown at the feet of the papal legate Pandulf, and received it from his hands as a papal fief, undertaking to pay twice a year the tribute imposed. But in A.D. 1214 the English nobles extorted from their cowardly tyrant as a safeguard against lordly wilfulness and despotism the famous Magna Charta, against which the pope protested, threatening excommunication and promising legitimate redress of their grievances, though in consequence of confusion caused by the breaking out again of the civil wars he was unable to enforce his protest. And now his days were drawing to an end. At the famous Fourth Lateran Council of A.D. 1215, more than 1,500 prelates from all the countries of Christendom, along with the ambassadors of almost all Christian kings, princes and free cities, gave him homage as the representative of God on earth, as visible Head of the Church, and supreme lord and judge of all princes and peoples. A few months later he died.—As in Italy and Germany, in France and England, he had also in all other states of the Christian world, in Spain and Portugal, in Poland, Livonia and Sweden, in Constantinople and Bulgaria, shown himself capable of controlling political as well as ecclesiastical movements, arranging and smoothing down differences, organizing and putting into shape what was tending to disorder. Some conception of his activity may be formed from the 5,316 extant decretals of the eighteen years of his pontificate.

§ 96.19. The Times of Frederick II. and his Successors, A.D. 1215-1268.—Frederick II.,[280] A.D. 1215-1250, contrary to the Hohenstaufen custom, had not only agreed to the partition of Sicily from the empire in favour of his son Henry, but also renewed the agreements previously entered into with the pope by Otto IV. He even increased the papal possessions by ceding Ancona, and still further at his coronation at Aachen he showed his goodwill by undertaking a crusade. He also allowed this same Henry who became king of Sicily as a vassal of the pope, to be elected king of the Romans in A.D. 1220, and then began his journey to Rome to receive imperial coronation. The new pope Honorius III., A.D. 1216-1227, formerly Frederick’s tutor and even still entertaining for him a fatherly affection, exacted from him a solemn renewal of his earlier promises. But instead of returning to Germany, Frederick started for Sicily in order to make it the basis of operations for the future carrying out of the ideas of his father and grandfather. The peace-loving pope constantly urged him to fulfil his promise of fitting out a crusade. But it was only after his successor Gregory IX., A.D. 1227-1241, a high churchman of the stamp of Gregory VII. and Innocent III., urged the matter with greater determination, that Frederick actually embarked. He turned back, however, as soon as an epidemic broke out in the ships, but he did not himself escape the contagion, and died three days after. In A.D. 1227 the pope had in a senseless passion hurled an anathema against him, and, in an encyclical to all the bishops, painted the emperor’s ingratitude and breach of faith in the darkest colours. The emperor on his part, in a manifesto justifying himself addressed to the princes and people of Europe, had quite as unsparingly lashed the worldliness of the church, the corruption, presumption and self-seeking of the papacy, and then in A.D. 1228 he again undertook the postponed crusade (§ 94, 5). The pope’s curse followed “the pirate” to the very threshold of the Holy Sepulchre, and a papal crusading force made a raid upon Southern Italy. Frederick therefore hastened his return, landed in A.D. 1229 in Apulia, and entered into negotiations for peace, to which, however, the pope agreed only in A.D. 1230, when the emperor’s victoriously advancing troops threatened him with the loss of the States of the Church. In consequence of the pope’s continued difficulties with his Romans, who drove him three times out of the city, Frederick had frequent opportunities of showing himself serviceable to the pope by giving direct aid or mediating in his favour. Nevertheless he continually conspired with the rebellious Lombards, and in A.D. 1239 renewed the ban against the emperor. The pope who had hitherto only charged Frederick with a tendency to freethinking, as well as an inclination to favour the Saracens (§ 95, 1), and to maintain friendly intercourse with the Syrian sultans, now accused him of flippant infidelity. The emperor, it was said, had among other things declared that the birth of the Saviour by a virgin was a fable, and that Jesus, Moses and Mohammed were the three greatest impostors the world had ever seen,—a form of unbelief which spread very widely in consequence of the crusades. Manifestoes and counter-manifestoes sought to outdo one another in their violence. And while the wild hordes of the Mongols were overspreading unopposed the whole of Eastern Europe, the emperor’s troops were victoriously pressing forward to the gates of Rome, and his ships were preventing the meeting of the council summoned against him by catching the prelates who in spite of his prohibition were hastening to it. The pope died in A.D. 1241, and was followed in seventeen days by his successor Cœlestine IV.

§ 96.20. For almost two years the papal chair remained vacant. Then this position was won by Innocent IV., A.D. 1243-1254, who as cardinal had been friendly to the emperor, but as pope was a most bitter enemy to him and to his house. The negotiations about the removal of the ban were broken off, and Innocent escaped to France, where at the First Lyonese or 13th Œcumenical Council of A.D. 1245, attended by scarcely any but Frenchmen and Spaniards, he renewed the excommunication of the emperor, and declared him as a blasphemer and robber of the church deprived of his throne. Once again with the most abject humility Frederick sued for reconciliation with the church. The pope, however, wished not for reconciliation, but the destruction of the whole “viper brood” of the Hohenstaufens. But the rival king, Henry Raspe of Thuringia, set up by the papal party in Germany, and William of Holland, who was put forward after his death in A.D. 1247, could not maintain their position against Frederick’s son, Conrad IV., who as early as A.D. 1235 had been elected in place of his rebel brother Henry as king of the Romans. Even in Italy the fortune of war favoured at first the imperial arms. At the siege of Parma, which was disloyal, the tide began to turn. The sorely pressed citizens made a sally in A.D. 1248, while Frederick was away at a hunt, and roused to courage by despair, put his army to flight. His brave son, Enzio, king of Sardinia and governor of Northern Italy, fell in A.D. 1249 into the hands of the Bolognese, and was subjected to a life-long imprisonment. Frederick himself in A.D. 1250 closed his active life in the south in the arms of his son Manfred. The pope then returned to Italy, in order to take possession of the Sicilian kingdom, which he claimed as a papal fief. But in A.D. 1251 Conrad IV., summoned by Manfred, hasted thither from Germany, subdued Apulia, conquered Naples, and was resolved to lay hands on the person of the pope himself, who had also excommunicated him, when his career was stopped by death in A.D. 1254, in his twenty-sixth year. On behalf of Conrad’s two-year-old son, Conradin, who had been born in Germany after his father’s departure, Manfred undertook the regency in Southern Italy, but found himself obliged to acknowledge the pope’s suzerainty. Nevertheless the pope was determined to have him also overthrown. Manfred, however, escaped in time to the Saracenic colony of Luceria, and with its help utterly defeated the papal troops sent out against him. Five days after Innocent IV. died, Alexander IV., A.D. 1254-1261, although without his predecessor’s ability, sought still to continue his work. He could not, however, either by ban or by war prevent Manfred, who on the report of Conradin’s death had had himself crowned, from extending the power and prestige of his kingdom farther and farther into the north. Urban IV., A.D. 1261-1264, a Frenchman by birth, son of a shoemaker of Troyes, took up with all his heart the heritage of hate against the Hohenstaufens, and in A.D. 1263 invited Charles of Anjou, the youngest brother of Louis IX. of France, to win by conquest the Sicilian crown. While the prince was preparing for the campaign Urban died. His successor, Clement IV., A.D. 1265-1268, also a Frenchman, could not but carry out what his predecessor had begun. Charles, whom the Romans without the knowledge of the pope had elected their senator, proceeded in A.D. 1265 into Italy, took the vassal oath of fealty, and was crowned as Charles I., A.D. 1265-1285, king of the two Sicilies. Treachery opened up his way into Naples. Manfred fell in A.D. 1266 in the battle of Benevento; and Conradin, whom the Ghibellines had called in as a deliverer of Italy, after the disastrous battle of Tagliacozzo in A.D. 1268, died on the scaffold in his sixteenth year.

§ 96.21. The Times of the House of Anjou down to Boniface VIII., A.D. 1288-1294.—The papacy had emerged triumphantly from its hundred years’ struggle with the Hohenstaufens, and by the overthrow of this powerful house Germany was thrown into the utmost confusion and anarchy. But Italy, too, was now in a condition of extreme disorder, and the unconscionable tyrants of Naples subjected it to a much more intolerable bondage than those had done from whom they pretended to have delivered it. After the death of Clement IV. the Holy See remained vacant for three years. The cardinals would not elect such a pope as would be agreeable to Charles I. During this papal vacancy Louis IX. of France, A.D. 1226-1270, fitted out the seventh and last crusade (§ 94, 6), from which he was not to return. As previously he had reformed the administration of justice, he now before his departure introduced drastic reforms in the ecclesiastical institutions of his kingdom, which laid the first foundations of the celebrated “Gallican Liberties.” Clement IV. gave occasion for such procedure on the part of the monarch who was a model of piety after the standard of those times, by claiming in A.D. 1266 for the papal chair the plenaria dispositio of all prebends and benefices. In opposition to this assumption the king secured by a Pragmatic Sanction of A.D. 1269 to all churches and monasteries of his realm unconditional freedom of all elections and presentations according to old existing rights, confirmed to them anew all privileges and immunities previously granted them, forbade every form of simony as a heinous crime, and prohibited all extraordinary taxation of church property on the part of the Roman curia.—At last the cardinals took courage and elected Gregory X., A.D. 1271-1276, an Italian of the noble house of Visconti. The desolating interregnum in Germany was also put an end to by the election of Count Rudolf of Hapsburg, A.D. 1273-1291, as king of the Germans. At the Second Lyonese or 14th Œcumenical Council of A.D. 1274, the worthy pope continued his endeavours without avail to rouse the flagging enthusiasm of the princes so as to get them to undertake another crusade. The union with the Greek church did not prove of an enduring kind (§ 67, 4). The constitution, too, sanctioned at the council, which provided, in order to prevent prolonged vacancies in the papal see, that the election of pope should not only be proceeded with in immured conclaves in the place where the deceased pope last resided with the curia, but also (though this was again abrogated in A.D. 1351 by a decree of Clement VI.) should be expedited by limiting the supply of food after three days to one dish, after other five days to water, wine, and bread. Yet this completely failed to secure the object desired. More successful, however, were the negotiations carried on at Lyons with the ambassadors of the new German king. Rudolf, in entering upon his government, renewed all the concessions made by Otto IV. and Frederick II., renounced all imperial claims upon Rome and the States of the Church, with the exception of the possessions of Matilda, and abandoned all pretension to Sicily. The pope on his part acknowledged him as king of the Romans and undertook to crown him emperor in Rome, where this agreement was to be formally ratified and signed. But Gregory died before arrangements had been completed.

§ 96.22. The three following popes, Innocent V., Hadrian V., and John XXI., died soon after one another. The last named, previously known as Petrus [Peter] Hispanus, had distinguished himself by his medical and philosophical writings. He was properly the twentieth Pope John, but as there was a slight element of uncertainty (§ 82, 6) he designated himself the twenty-first. After a six months’ vacancy Nicholas III., A.D. 1277-1280, mounted the papal throne. By diplomacy he secured the ratification of the still undecided concordat with the German kingdom, and Rudolf, who had enough to do in Germany, immediately withdrew from Italian affairs, even abandoning his claims to imperial coronation. The powerful pope, whose pontificate was marked by rapacity and nepotism, and who is therefore put by Dante in hell, did not live long enough to carry out his plans for the overthrow of the French yoke in Italy. But he obliged Charles I. to resign his Roman senatorship, and secretly encouraged a conspiracy of the Sicilians, which under his successor Martin IV., A.D. 1281-1285, a Frenchman and a pliable tool of Charles, broke out in the terrible “Sicilian Vespers” of A.D. 1282. The island of Sicily was thereby rent from the French rule and papal vassalage, and in a roundabout way the Hohenstaufens by the female line regained the government of this part of their old inheritance (§ 95, 1). Rome now again in A.D. 1284 shook off the senatorial rule which Charles I. had meanwhile again assumed, and after his death and that of Martin, which speedily followed, they transferred this dignity to the new pope Honorius IV., A.D. 1285-1287, whose short but vigorous reign was followed by a vacancy of eleven months. The Franciscan general then mounted the papal throne as Nicholas IV., A.D. 1288-1292. He filled up the period of his pontificate with vain endeavours to revive the spirit of the crusades and secure the suppression of heresy. Violent party feuds of cardinals of the Orsini and Colonna factions delayed the election of a pope after his death for two years. They united at last in electing the most unfit conceivable, Peter of Murrone (§ 98, 2), who, as Cœlestine V. changed the monk’s cowl for the papal tiara, but was persuaded after four months by the sly and ambitious Cardinal Cajetan to resign. Cajetan now himself succeeded in A.D. 1294 as Boniface VIII. The poor monk was confined by him in a tower, where he died. He was afterwards canonized by Pope John XXII.

§ 96.23. Temporal Power of the Popes.—During the 12th and 13th centuries, when the spiritual power of the papacy had reached its highest point, the pope came to be regarded as the absolute head of the church. Gregory VII. arrogated the right of confirming all episcopal elections. The papal recommendations to vacant sees (Preces, whence those so recommended were called Precistæ) were from the time of Innocent III. transformed into mandates (Mandata), and Clement IV. claimed for the papal chair the right of a plenario dispositio of all ecclesiastical benefices. Even in the 12th century the theory was put forth as in accordance with the canon law that all ecclesiastical possessions were the property not of the particular churches concerned but of God or Christ, and so of the pope as His representative, who in administering them was responsible to Him alone. Hence the popes, in special cases when the ordinary revenues of the curia were insufficient, had no hesitation in exercising the right of levying a tax upon ecclesiastical property. They heard appeals from all tribunals and could give dispensations from existing church laws. The right of canonization (§ 104, 8), which was previously in the power of each bishop with application simply to his own diocese, was for the first time exercised with a claim for recognition over the whole church by John XV., in A.D. 993, without, however, any word of withdrawing their privilege from the bishops. Alexander III. was the first to declare in A.D. 1170 that canonization was exclusively the right of the papal chair. The system of Gregory VII. made no claim of doctrinal infallibility for the Holy See, though his ignorance of history led him to suppose that no heretic had ever presided over the Roman church, and his understanding of Luke xxii. 32 made him confidently expect that none ever would. Innocent III., indeed, publicly acknowledged that even the pope might err in matters of faith, and then, but only then, become amenable to the judgment of the church. And Innocent IV., fifty years later, taught that the pope might err. It is therefore wrong to say, “I believe what the pope believes;” for one should believe only what the church teaches. Thomas Aquinas was the first who expressly maintained the doctrine of papal infallibility. He says that the pope alone can decide finally upon matters of faith, and that even the decrees of councils only become valid and authoritative when confirmed by him. Thomas, however, never went the length of maintaining that the pope can by himself affirm any dogma without the advice and previous deliberations of a council.—Kissing the feet sprang from an Italian custom, and even an emperor like Frederick Barbarossa humbled himself to hold the pope’s stirrup. According to the Donation of Constantine document (§ 87, 4), Constantine the Great had himself performed this office of equerry to Pope Sylvester. When the coronation of the pope was introduced is still a disputed point. Nicholas I. was, according to the Liber pontificalis, formally crowned on his accession. Previously the successors of the apostles were satisfied with a simple episcopal mitre (§ 84, 1), which on the head of the crowned pope was developed into the tiara (§ 110, 15). At the Lateran Council of A.D. 1059 Hildebrand is said to have set upon the head of the new pope Nicholas II. a double crown to indicate the council’s recognition of his temporal and spiritual sovereignty. The papal granting of a golden rose consecrated by prayer, incense, balsam and holy water to princes of exemplary piety or even to prominent monasteries, churches, or cities, conveying an obligation to make acknowledgment by a large money gift, dates as far back as the 12th century. So far as is known, Louis VII. was the first to receive it from Alexander III. in A.D. 1163.—The popes appointed legates to represent them abroad, as they had done even earlier at the synods held in the East. Afterwards, when the institution came to be more fully elaborated, a distinction was made between Legati missi or nuntios and Legati nati. The former were appointed as required for diplomatic negotiations, visitation and organization of churches, as well as for the holding of provincial synods, at which they presided. They were called Legati a latere, if the special importance of the business demanded a representation from among the nearest and most trusted councillors of the pope, i.e. one of the cardinals, as Pontifices collaterales. The rank of born legate, Legatus natus, on the other hand, was a prelatic dignity of the highest order conferred once for all by papal privilege, sometimes even upon temporal princes, who had specially served the Holy See, as for example the king of Hungary and the Norman princes of Italy (§ 96, 3, 13), which made them permanently representatives of the pope invested with certain ecclesiastical prerogatives.—Among the numerous literary and documentary fictions and forgeries with which the Gregorian papal system sought to support its ever-advancing pretensions to authority over the whole church, is one which may be regarded as the contemporary supplement to the work of the Pseudo-Isidore. It is the production of a Latin theologian residing in the East, otherwise unknown, who, at the time of the controversies waged at the Lyonese Council of A.D. 1274 between the Greeks and Latins (§ 67, 4), brought forth what professed to be an unbroken chain of traditions from alleged decrees and canons of the most famous Greek Councils, e.g. Nicæa, Chalcedon, etc., and church fathers, most frequently from Cyril of Alexandria, the so-called Pseudo-Cyril, in which the controverted questions were settled in favour of the Roman pretensions, and especially the most extreme claims to the primacy of the pope were asserted. It was presented in A.D. 1261 to Urban IV., who immediately guaranteed its genuineness in a letter to the emperor Michael Palæologus. On its adoption by Thomas Aquinas, who diligently employed its contents in his controversies against the Greeks as well as in his dogmatic works, it won respect and authority throughout all the countries of the West.

§ 97. THE CLERGY.

By tithes, legacies, donations, impropriations, and the rising value of landed estates, the wealth of churches and monasteries grew from year to year. In this way benefit was secured not only to the clergy and the monks, but also in many ways to the poor and needy. The law of celibacy strictly enforced by Gregory VII. saved the church from the impoverishment with which it was beginning to be threatened by the dividing or squandering of the property of the church upon the children of the clergy. But while an absolute stop was put to the marriage of the clergy, it tended greatly to foster concubinage, and yet more shameful vices. Yet notwithstanding all the corruption that prevailed among the clerical order it cannot be denied that the superior as well as the inferior clergy embraced a great number of worthy and strictly moral men, and that the sacerdotal office which the people could quite well distinguish from the individuals occupying it, still continued to be highly respected in spite of the immoral lives of many priests. Even more hurtful to the exercise of their pastoral work than the immorality of individual clergymen was the widespread illiteracy and gross ignorance of Christian truth of those who should have been teachers.

§ 97.1. The Roman College of Cardinals.—All the clergy attached to one particular church were called Clerici cardinales down to the 11th century. But after Leo IX. had reformed and re-organized the Roman clergy, and especially after Nicholas II. in A.D. 1059 had transferred the right of papal election to the Roman cardinals, i.e. the seven bishops of the Roman metropolitan dioceses and to the presbyters and deacons of the principal churches of Rome, the title of cardinal was given to them at first by way of eminence and very soon exclusively. It was not till the 13th century that it became usual to give to foreign prelates the rank of Roman cardinal priests as a mark of distinction. Under the name of the holy college the cardinals, as the spiritual dignitaries most nearly associated with the pope, formed his ecclesiastical and civil council, and were also as such entrusted with the highest offices of state in the papal domains. Innocent IV. at Lyons in A.D. 1245 gave to them as a distinction the red hat; Boniface VIII. in A.D. 1297 gave them the purple mantle that indicated princely rank. To these Paul II. in A.D. 1464 added the right of riding the white palfrey with red cloth and golden bridle; and finally, Urban VIII. in A.D. 1630 gave them the title “Eminence.” Sixtus V. in A.D. 1586 fixed their number at seventy, after the pattern of the elders of Israel, Exod. xxiv. 1, and the seventy disciples of Jesus, Luke x. 1. The popes, however, took care to keep a greater or less number of places vacant, so that they might have opportunities of showing favour and bestowing gifts when necessary. The cardinals were chosen in accordance with the arbitrary will of the individual pope, who nominated them by presenting them with the red hat, and installed them into their high position by the ceremony of closing and opening the mantle. From the time of Eugenius IV., A.D. 1431, the college of cardinals put every newly elected pope under a solemn oath to maintain the rights and privileges of the cardinals and not to come to any serious and important resolution without their advice and approval.

§ 97.2. The Political Importance of the Superior Clergy (§ 84) reached its highest point during this period. This was carried furthest in Germany, especially under the Saxon imperial dynasty. On more than one occasion did the wise and firm policy of the German clergy, splendidly organized under the leadership of the primate of Mainz, save the German nation from overthrow or dismemberment threatened by ambitious princes. This power consisted not merely in influence over men’s minds, but also in their position as members of the states of the empire and territorial lords. Whether or not a warlike expedition was to be undertaken depended often only on the consent or refusal of the league of lords spiritual. It was the policy of the clergy to secure a united, strong, well-organized Germany. The surrounding countries wished to be included in the German league of churches and states; not, however, as the emperor wished, as crown lands, but as portions of the empire. Against expeditions to Rome, which took the attention of German princes away from German affairs and ruined Germany, the German clergy protested in the most decided manner. They wished the chair of St. Peter to be free and independent as a European, not a German, institution, with the emperor as its supporter not its oppressor, but they manfully resisted all the assumptions and encroachments of the popes. One of the most celebrated of the German dignitaries of any age was Bruno the Great, brother of the Emperor Otto I., equally distinguished as a statesman and as a reformer of the church, and the unwearied promoter of liberal studies. Chancellor under his imperial brother from A.D. 940, he was his most trusted counsellor, and was appointed by him in A.D. 953 Archbishop of Cologne, and was soon after made Duke of Lorraine. He died in A.D. 965. Another example of a German prelate of the true sort is seen in Willigis of Mainz, who died in A.D. 1011, under the two last Ottos and Henry II., whom he raised to the throne. The good understanding that was brought about between this monarch and the clergy of Germany was in great measure owing to the wise policy of this prelate. Under Henry IV. the German clergy got split up into three parties,—the papal party of Clugny under Gebhard [Gebhardt] of Salzburg, including almost all the Saxon bishops; an imperial party under Adalbert of Bremen, who endeavoured with the emperor’s help to found a northern patriarchate, which undoubtedly tended to become a northern papacy; and an independent German party under St. Anno II. of Cologne (§ 96, 6), in which notwithstanding much violence, ambition, and self-seeking, there still survived much of the spirit that had characterized the policy of the old German bishops. Henry V., too, as well as the first Hohenstaufens, had sturdy supporters in the German clergy; but Frederick II. by his ill treatment of the bishops alienated their clergy from the interest of the crown. The rise of the imperial dignitaries after the time of Otto I., and the transference to them under Otto IV. of the election of emperor raised the archbishops of Mainz, Treves, and Cologne to the rank of spiritual electoral princes as arch-chaplains or archchancellors. The Golden Bull of Charles IV., in A.D. 1356 (§ 110, 4), confirmed and tabulated their rights and duties.

§ 97.3. The Bishops and the Cathedral Chapter.—The bishops exercised jurisdiction over all the clergy of their diocese, and punished by deprivation of office and imprisonment in monasteries. Especially questions of marriage, wills, oaths, were brought before their tribunal. The German synodal judicatures soon gave way before the Roman judiciary system. The archdeacons emancipated themselves more and more from episcopal authority and abused their power in so arbitrary a way that in the 12th century the entire institution was set aside. For the discharge of business episcopal officials and vicars were then introduced. The Chorepiscopi (§ 84) had passed out of view in the 10th century. But during the crusades many Catholic bishoprics had been founded in the East. The occupants of these when driven away clung to their titles in hopes of better times, and found employment as assistants or suffragans of Western bishops. Thus arose the order of Episcopi in partibus (sc. infidelium) which has continued to this day, as a witness of inalienable rights, and as affording a constant opportunity to the popes of showing favour and giving rewards. For the exercise of the archiepiscopal office, the Fourth Lateran Council of A.D. 1215 made the receiving from the pope the pallium (§ 59, 7) an absolutely essential condition, and those elected were obliged to pay to the curia an arbitrary tax of a large amount called the pallium fee. The canonical life (§ 84, 4) from the 10th century began more and more to lose its moral weight and importance. Out of attempts at reform in the 11th century arose the distinction of Canonici seculares and regulares. The latter lived in cloisters according to monkish rules, and were zealous for the good old discipline and order, but sooner or later gave way to worldliness. The rich revenues of cathedral chapters made the reversion of prebendal stalls the almost exclusive privilege of the higher nobility, notwithstanding the earnest opposition of the popes. In the course of the 13th century the cathedral clergy, with the help of the popes, arrogated to themselves the sole right of episcopal elections, ignoring altogether the claims of the diocesan clergy and the people or nobles. The cathedral clergy also made themselves independent of episcopal control. They lived mostly outside of the cathedral diocese, and had their canonical duties performed by vicars. The chapter filled up vacancies by co-optation.

§ 97.4. Endeavours to Reform the Clergy.—As a reformer of the English clergy, who had sunk very low in ignorance, rudeness and immorality, the most conspicuous figure during the 10th century was St. Dunstan. He became Archbishop of Canterbury in A.D. 959 and died in A.D. 988. He sought at once to advance the standard of education among the clergy and to inspire the Church with a higher moral and religious spirit. For these ends he laboured on with an energy and force of will and an inflexible consistency and strictness in the pursuit of his hierarchical ideals, which mark him out as a Hildebrand before Hildebrand. Even as abbot of the monastery of Glastonbury he had given a forecast of his life work by restoring and making more severe the rule of St. Benedict, and forming a brotherhood thoroughly disciplined in science and in ascetical exercises, from the membership of which, after he had become bishop of Worcester, then of London, and finally primate of England and the most influential councillor of four successive kings, he could fill the places of the secular priests and canons whom he expelled from their cures. As the primary condition of all clerical reformation he insisted upon the unrelentingly consistent putting down of marriage and concubinage among the priests.[281]—In the 11th century St. Peter Damiani distinguished himself as a zealous supporter of the reform party of Clugny in the struggle against simony, clerical immorality, and the marriage of priests. This obtained for him not only his position as cardinal-bishop of Ostia, but also his frequent employment, as papal legate in serious negotiations. In A.D. 1061 he resigned his bishopric and retired into a monastery, where he died in A.D. 1072. His friend Hildebrand, who repeatedly called him forth from his retreat to occupy a conspicuous place among the contenders for his hierarchical ideal, was therefore called by him his “holy Satan.” He had indeed little interest in pressing hierarchical and political claims, and was inclined rather to urge moral reforms within the church itself. In his Liber Gomorrhianus he drew a fearful picture of the clerical depravity of his times, and that with a nakedness of detail which gave to Pope Alexander II. a colourable excuse for the suppression of the book. For himself, however, Damiani sought no other pleasure than that of scourging himself till the blood flowed in his lonely cell (§ 106, 4). His collected works, consisting of epistles, addresses, tracts and monkish biographies, were published at Rome in A.D. 1602 in 4 vols. by Cardinal Cajetan.—In the 12th century St. Hildegard (§ 107, 1) and the abbot Joachim of Floris, (§ 108, 5) raised their voices against the moral degradation of the clergy, and among the men who contributed largely to the restoring of clerical discipline, the noble provost Geroch of Reichersberg in Bavaria, who died in A.D. 1169 (§ 102, 5) and the canon Norbert, subsequently archbishop of Magdeburg (§ 98, 2), are deserving of special mention.—In the 13th century in England Robert Grosseteste distinguished himself as a prelate of great nobility and force of character. After being chancellor of Oxford he became bishop of Lincoln, energetically reforming many abuses in his diocese, and persistently contending against any form of papal encroachment. He died in A.D. 1253.[282]

§ 97.5. The Pataria of Milan.—Nowhere during the 11th century were simony, concubinage and priests’ marriages more general than among the Lombard clergy, and in no other place was such determined opposition offered to Hildebrand’s reforms. At the head of this opposition stood Guido, archbishop of Milan, whom Henry III. deposed in A.D. 1046. Against the papal demands, he pressed the old claims of his chair to autonomy (§ 46, 1) and renounced allegiance to Rome. The nobles and the clergy supported Guido. But two deacons, Ariald and Landulf, about A.D. 1057 formed a conspiracy among the common people, against “the Nicolaitan sect” (§ 27, 8). To this party its opponents gave the opprobrious name of Pataria, Paterini, from patalia, meaning rabble, riffraff, or from Pattarea, a back street of ill fame in Milan, the quarter of the rabble, where the Arialdists held their secret meetings. They took the name given in reproach as a title of honour, and after receiving military organization from Erlembald, Landulf’s brother, they opened a campaign against the married priests. For thirty years this struggle continued to deluge city and country with blood.

§ 98. MONASTIC ORDERS AND INSTITUTIONS.

In spite of the great and constantly increasing corruption the monastic idea during this period had a wonderfully rapid development, and more persistently and successfully than ever before or since the monks urged their claims to be regarded as “the knighthood of asceticism.” A vast number of monkish orders arose, taking the place for the most part of existing orders which had relaxed their rules. These were partly reformed off-shoots of the Benedictine order, partly new organizations reared on an independent basis. New monasteries were being built almost every day, often even within the cities. The reformed Benedictine monasteries clustered in a group around the parent monastery whose reformed rule they adopted, forming an organized society with a common centre. These groups were therefore called Congregations. The oldest and, for two centuries, the most important, of these congregations was that of the Brethren of Clugny, whose ardent zeal for reform in the hierarchical direction was mainly instrumental in raising again the church and the papacy out of that degradation and corruption into which they had fallen during the 10th and 11th centuries. The otherwise less important order of the Camaldolites was also a vigorous promoter of these movements. But Clugny had in Clairvaux a rival which shared with it on almost equal terms the respect and reverence of that age. The unreformed monasteries of the Benedictines, on the other hand, still continued their easy, luxurious style of living. They were commonly called the Black Monks to distinguish them from the Cistercians who were known as the White Monks. In order to prevent a constant splitting up of the monkish fraternities, Innocent III. at the Lateran Council of A.D. 1215 forbade the founding of new orders. Yet he himself took part in the formation of the two great mendicant orders, and also the following popes issued no prohibition.—The papacy had in the monkish orders its standing army. It was to them, in a special manner, that Gregory’s system owed its success. But they were also by far the most important promoters and fosterers of learning, science, and art. The pope in various ways favoured the emancipation of the monasteries from episcopal control, their so-called Exemption; and conferred upon the abbots of famous monasteries what was practically episcopal rank, with liberty to wear the bishop’s mitre, so that they were called Mitred Abbots (§ 84, 1). The princes too classed the abbots in respect of dignity and order next to the bishops; and the people, who saw the popular idea of the church more and more represented in the monasteries, honoured them with unmeasured reverence. From the 10th century the monks came to be considered a distinct religious order (Ordo religiosorum). Lay brethren, Fratres conversi, were now taken in to discharge the worldly business of the monastery. They were designated Fratres, while the others who received clerical ordination were addressed as Patres. The monks rarely lived on good terms with the secular clergy; for the former as confessors and mass priests often seriously interfered with the rights and revenues of the latter.—Besides the many monkish orders, with their strict seclusion, perpetual vows and ecclesiastically sanctioned rule, we meet with organizations of a freer type such as the Humiliati of Milan, consisting of whole families. Of a similar type were the Beguines and Beghards of the Netherlands, the former composed of women, the latter of men. These people abandoned their handicraft and their domestic and civic duties for a monastic-like mode of life retired from the world. The crusading enthusiasm also occasioned a combination of the monastic idea with that of knighthood, and led to the formation of the so-called Orders of Knights, which with a Grandmaster and several Commanders, were divided into Knights, Priests, and Serving Brethren.—Continuation, § 112.

§ 98.1. Offshoots of the Benedictines.

1. The Brethren of Clugny. Among the Benedictines, since their reformation by the second Benedict (§ 85, 2) many serious abuses had crept in. After the Burgundian Count Berno, who died in A.D. 927, had done useful service by restoring discipline and order in two monasteries of which he was abbot, the Duke William of Aquitaine founded for him a new institution. Thus arose in A.D. 910 the celebrated monastery of Clugny, Cluniacum, in Burgundy, which the founder placed under immediate papal control. Berno’s successor Odo, who died in A.D. 942, abandoning the life of a courtier on his recovery from a severe illness, made it the head and heart of a separate Clugny-Congregation as a branch of the Benedictine order. Strict asceticism, a beautiful and artistic service, zealous prosecution of science and the education of the young, with yet greater energy in the promotion of a hierarchical reform of the church as a whole, as well as an entire series of able abbots, among whom Odilo († A.D. 1048), the friend of Hildebrand, and Peter the Venerable († A.D. 1156) are specially prominent, gave to this congregation, which in the 12th century had 2,000 monasteries in France, an influence quite unparalleled in this whole period. The abbot of Clugny stood at the head, and appointed the priors for all the other monasteries. Under the licentious Abbot Pontius, who on account of his base conduct was deposed in A.D. 1122, the order fell into decay, but rose again under Peter the Venerable. Continuation, § 164, 2.

2. The Congregation of the Camaldolites was founded in A.D. 1018 by the Benedictine Romuald, descended from the Duke of Ravenna, at Camaldoli (Campus Maldoli), a wild district in the Apennines. In A.D. 1086 a nunnery was placed alongside of the monastery. The president of the parent monastery at Camaldoli stood at the head of the whole order as Major. The order carried out enthusiastically the high church ideal of Clugny, and won great influence in its time, although it by no means attained the importance of the French order.

3. Twenty years later, in A.D. 1038, the Florentine Gualbertus founded the Order of Vallombrosa, in a romantically situated shady valley of the Apennines (Vallis umbrosa), according to the rule of Benedict. This was the first of all the orders to appoint lay brethren for the management of worldly business, in order that the monks might observe their vow of silence and strict seclusion. The parent monastery attained to great wealth and reputation, but it never had a great number of affiliated institutions.

4. The Cistercians. In A.D. 1098 the Benedictine abbot Robert founded the monastery of Citeaux (Cistercium) near Dijon, which as the parent monastery of the Congregation of the Cistercians became the most formidable rival of Clugny. The Cistercians were distinguished from the Brethren of Clugny by voluntary submission to the jurisdiction of the bishops, avoidance of all interference with the pastorates of others, and the banishing of all ornaments from their churches and monasteries. The order continued obscure for a while, till St. Bernard (§ 102, 3), from A.D. 1115 abbot of the monastery of Clairvaux (Claravallis), an offshoot of Citeaux, by his ability and spirituality raised it far above all other orders in the esteem of the age. In honour of him the French Cistercians took the name of Bernardines. The hostility between them and the Brethren of Clugny was overcome by the personal friendship of Bernard and Peter the Venerable. By the statutory constitution, the so-called Charta charitatis, drawn up in A.D. 1119, the administration of all the affairs of the order was assigned to a general of the order, appointed by the abbot of Citeaux, the abbots of the four chief affiliated monasteries, and twenty other elected representatives forming a high council. This council, however, was answerable to the general assembly of all the abbots and priors, which met at first yearly, but afterwards every third year. The affiliated monasteries had a yearly visitation of the abbot of Citeaux, but Citeaux itself was to be visited by the four abbots just referred to. In the 13th century this order had 2,000 monasteries and 6,000 nunneries.

5. The Congregation of Scottish Monasteries in Germany owed its origin to the persistent love of travel on the part of Irish and Scottish monks, which during the 10th century received a new impulse from the Danish invasions (§ 93, 1). The first monastery erected in Germany for the reception exclusively of Irish monks was that of St. Martin at Cologne, built in the 10th century. Much more important, however, was the Scottish monastery of St. James at Regensburg, founded in A.D. 1067 by Marianus Scotus and two companions. It was the parent monastery of eleven other Scottish cloisters in South Germany. Old Celtic sympathies (§ 77, 8), which may have originally bound them together, could not assert themselves in the new home during this period as they did in earlier days; and when Innocent III., at the Lateran Council of A.D. 1215, sanctioned them as a separate congregation bound by the Benedictine rule, there certainly remained no longer any trace of Celtic peculiarities. They were distinguished at first for strict asceticism, severe discipline and scientific activity, but subsequently they fell lower than all the rest in immorality and self-indulgence (§ 112).

§ 98.2. New Monkish Orders.—Reserving the great mendicant orders, the following are the most celebrated among the vast array of new orders, not bound by the Benedictine rule:

1. The Order of Grammont in France, founded by Stephen of Ligerno in A.D. 1070. It took simply the gospel as its rule, cultivated a quiet, humble and peaceable temper, and so by the 12th century it had its very life crushed out of it by the bold assumptions of its lay brethren.

2. The Order of St. Anthony, founded in A.D. 1095 by a French nobleman of Dauphiny [Dauphiné], called Guaston, in gratitude for the recovery of his son Guérin from the so-called St. Anthony’s fire on his invoking St. Anthony. He expended his whole property upon the restoring of a hospital beside the church of St. Didier la Mothe, in a chapel of which it was supposed the bones of Anthony lay, and devoted himself, together with his son and some other companions, to the nursing of the sick. At first merely a lay fraternity, the members took in A.D. 1218 the monk’s vow. Boniface VIII. made them canons under the rule of St. Augustine (§ 45, 1). They were now called Antonians, and devoted themselves to contemplation. The order spread greatly, especially in France. They wore a black cloak with a T-formed cross of blue upon the breast (Ezek. ix. 9) and a little bell round the neck while engaged in collecting alms.

3. The Order of Fontevraux was founded in A.D. 1094 by Robert of Arbrissel in Fontevraux (Fons Ebraldi) in Poitou. Preaching repentance, he went through the country, and founded convents for virgins, widows and fallen women. Their abbesses, as representatives of the Mother of God, to whom the order was dedicated, were set over the priests who did their bidding.

4. The Order of the Gilbertines had its name from its founder Gilbert, an English priest of noble birth. Here too the women formed the main stem of the order. They were the owners of the cloister property, and the men were only its administrators. The monasteries of this order were mostly both for men and women. It did not spread much beyond England, and had at the time of the suppression of the monasteries twenty-one well endowed convents, with orphanages and houses for the poor and sick.

5. The Carthusian Order was founded in A.D. 1086 by Bruno of Cologne, rector of the High School at Rheims. Disgusted with the immoral conduct of Archbishop Manasseh, he retired with several companions into a wild mountain gorge near Grenoble, called Chartreuse. He enjoined upon his monks strict asceticism, rigid silence, earnest study, prayer, and a contemplative life, clothed them in a great coarse cowl, and allowed them for their support only vegetables and bran bread. Written statutes, Consuetudines Cartusiæ, which soon spread over several houses of the Carthusians, were first given them in A.D. 1134 by Guido, the fifth prior of the parent monastery. A steward had management of the affairs of the convent. Each ate in his own cell; only on feast days had they a common meal. At least once a week they fasted on salt, water and bread. Breaking silence, permitted only on high festivals, and for two hours on Thursdays, was punished with severe flagellation. Even the lay brethren were treated with great severity, and were not allowed either to sit or to cover their heads in the presence of the brothers of the order. Carthusian nuns were added to the order in the 13th century with a modified rule.

6. The Premonstratensian Order was founded in A.D. 1121 by Norbert, the only German founder of orders besides and after Bruno. A rich, worldly-minded canon of Xanthen in the diocese of Cologne, he was brought to another mind by the fall of a thunderbolt beside him. He retired along with several other like-minded companions into the rough valley of Prémontré in the bishopric of Laon (Præmonstratum, because pointed out to him in a vision). In his rule he joined together the canonical duties with an extremely strict monastic life. He appeared in A.D. 1126 as a preacher of repentance at the Diet of Spires, was there elected archbishop of Magdeburg, and made a most impressive entrance into his metropolis dressed in his mendicant garb. His order spread and established many convents both for monks and for nuns.

7. The Trinitarian Order, ordo s. Trinitatis de redemptione captivorum, was called into existence by Innocent III., and had for its work the redemption of Christian captives.

8. The Cœlestine Order was founded by Peter of Murrone, afterwards Pope Cœlestine V. (§ 96, 22). Living in a cave of Mount Murrone in Apulia, under strict penitential discipline and engaged in mystic contemplation, the fame of his sanctity attracted to him many companions, with whom in A.D. 1254 he established a monastery on Mount Majella. Gregory X., in whose presence Peter, according to his biographer, hung up his monkish cowl in empty space, upon a sunbeam which he took for a cord stretching across, instituted the order as Brethren of the Holy Spirit. But when in A.D. 1294 their founder ascended the papal throne, they took his papal name. This order, which gave itself up entirely to extravagant mystic contemplation, spread over Italy, France and the Netherlands.

§ 98.3. The Beginnings of the Franciscan Order down to A.D. 1219.—The founder of this order was St. Francis, born in A.D. 1182, son of a rich merchant of Assisi in Umbria. His proper name was Giovanni Bernardone. The name of Francis is said to have been given him on account of his early proficiency in the French language; “Francesco”—the little Frenchman. As a wealthy merchant’s son, he gave himself to worldly pleasures, but was withdrawn from these, in A.D. 1207, by means of a severe illness. A dream, in which he saw a multitude with the sign of the cross, bearing weapons designed for him and his companions, led him to resolve upon a military career. But a new vision taught him that he was called to build up the fallen house of God. He understood this of a ruined chapel of St. Damiani at Assisi, and began to apply the proceeds of valuable cloth fabrics from his father’s factory to its restoration. Banished for such conduct from his father’s house, he lived for a time as a hermit, until the gospel passage read in church of the sending forth of the disciples without gold or silver, without staff or scrip (Matt. x.), fell upon his soul like a thunderbolt. Divesting himself of all his property, supplying the necessaries of life by the meanest forms of labour, even begging when need be, he went about the country from A.D. 1209, sneered at by some as an imbecile, revered by others as a saint, preaching repentance and peace. In the unexampled power of his self-denial and renunciation of the world, in the pure simplicity of his heart, in the warmth of his love to God and man, in the blessed riches of his poverty, St. Francis was like a heavenly stranger in a selfish world. Wonderful, too, and powerful in its influence was the depth of his natural feeling. With the birds of the forest, with the beasts of the field, he held intercourse in childlike simplicity as with brothers and sisters, exhorting them to praise their Creator. The paradisiacal relation of man to the animal world seemed to be restored in the presence of this saint.—Very soon he gathered around him a number of like-minded men, who under his direction had decided to devote themselves to a similar vocation. For the society of “Viri pœnitentiales de civitate Assisii oriundi” thus formed Francis issued, in A.D. 1209, a rule, at the basis of which lay a literal acceptance of the precepts of Christ to His disciples, sent forth to preach the kingdom of God (Matt. x.; Luke x.), along with similar gospel injunctions (Matt. xix. 21, 29; Luke vi. 29; ix. 23; xiv. 26), and then he went to Rome to get for it the papal confirmation. The pope was, indeed, unwilling; but through the pious man’s simplicity and humility he was prevailed upon to grant his request. In later times this incident was in popular tradition transformed into a legend, representing the pope as at first bidding him go to attend the swine, which the holy man literally obeyed. Innocent III. was the more inclined to yield, owing to the painful experiences through which the church had passed in consequence of its unwise treatment of similar proposals made by the Waldensians thirty years before. He therefore gave at least verbal permission to Francis and his companions to live and teach according to this rule. At the same time also Francis heartily responded to the demand to place at the head of his rule the obligation to obey and reverence the pope, and to conclude with a vow of the most rigid avoidance of every kind of addition, abatement, or change. There was no thought of founding a new monkish order, but only of a free union and a wandering life, amid apostolic poverty, for preaching repentance and salvation by word and example. On entering the society the brothers were required to distribute all their possessions among the poor, and dress in the poor clothing of the order, consisting of a coarse cloak bound with a cord and a capouch, to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God wherever their master sent them, and to earn their livelihood by their usual occupation, or any other servile work. In case of need they were even to beg the necessaries of life. Thus mendicancy, though only allowed in case of necessity, soon came to be transformed by the lustre of the example of the poverty of Jesus and His disciples and mother, who all had lived upon alms, and by the idea of a twofold merit attaching to self-abnegation, inasmuch as not only the receiver, by voluntarily submitting to the disgrace which it involved in the eyes of the world, but also the giver of alms, obtained before the judgment seat of God a great reward. But neither as wages for work nor as alms were the brothers permitted to accept money, but only the indispensable means of life, while that which remained after their own wants had been supplied was divided among the poor. From time to time they withdrew, either singly or in little groups, for prayer, contemplation, and spiritual exercises into deserts, caves, or deserted huts; and annually at Pentecost they assembled for mutual edification and counsel in the small chapel at Assisi, dedicated to “Mary of the Angel,” given to St. Francis by the Benedictines. This church, under the name of the Portiuncula, became the main centre of the order, and all who visited it on the day of its consecration received from the pope a plenary indulgence. The number of the brothers meanwhile increased from day to day. When representatives of all ranks in society and of all the various degrees of culture sought admission, it soon became evident that the obligation to preach, hitherto enjoined upon all the members of the order, should be restricted to those who were specially qualified for the work, and that the rest should take care to carry out in their personal lives the ideal of poverty, joined with loving service in institutions for the poor, the sick, and the lepers. A further move in the development of the order, tending to secure for it an independent ecclesiastical position, was the admission into it of ordained priests. Their missionary activity among Christian people was restricted at first to Umbria and the neighbouring districts of central Italy. But soon the thought of a missionary vocation among the unbelievers got possession of the mind of the founder. Even in A.D. 1212 he himself undertook for this purpose a journey to the East, to Syria, and afterwards to Morocco; in neither case, however, were his efforts attended with any very signal success. In A.D. 1218, Elias of Cortona, with some companions, again took up the mission to Syria, with equally little success; and in A.D. 1219 five brethren were again sent to Morocco, and there won the crown of martyrdom. In that same year, A.D. 1219, the Pentecost assembly at Assisi passed the resolution to include within the range of their call as itinerants the sending of missions, with a “minister” at the head of each, into all the Christian countries of Europe. They began immediately, privileged with a papal letter of recommendation to the higher secular clergy and heads of orders in France, to carry out the resolution in France, Spain, Portugal, and Germany; while at the same time Francis himself, accompanied by twelve brethren, again turned his steps toward the East.

§ 98.4. The Franciscans from A.D. 1219 to A.D. 1223.—Soon after the departure of St. Francis the report of his death spread through Italy, and loosened the bonds which, by reason of the obligation to render him obedience hitherto operative, had secured harmony among the brethren. Francis had, on the basis of Luke x. 7, 8, laid upon his companions only the commonly accepted rules of fasting, but the observance of a more rigorous fast required his own special permission. Now, however, some rigorists, at a convention of the elders, gave expression to the opinion, that the brethren should be enjoined to fast not as hitherto, like all the rest of Christendom, only on two, but on four, days of the week, a resolution which not only removed the rule altogether from its basis in Luke x. 7, 8, but also broke the solemn promise to observe the wish of Innocent III., incorporated in it, that in no particular should it be altered. And while the rule forbade any intercourse with women, brother Philip obtained a papal bull which appointed him representative of the order of “poor women,” afterwards the Nuns of St. Clara, founded in A.D. 1212 on the model of the Franciscan ideal of poverty. Another brother, John of Capella, sought to put himself at the head of an independent order of poor men and women. Many such projects were being planned. So soon as news reached Francis of these vagaries, he returned to Italy, accompanied by his favourite pupil, the energetic, wise, and politic Elias of Cortona, whose organizing and governing talent was kept within bounds down to the founder’s death. Perceiving that all these confusions had arisen from the want of a strictly defined organization, legitimized by the pope and under papal protection, Francis now endeavoured to secure such privileges for his order. He therefore entreated Honorius III. to appoint Cardinal Ugolino of Ostia, afterwards Pope Gregory IX., previously a zealous promoter of his endeavours, as protector and governor of his brotherhood; and he soon with a strong hand put a stop to all secessionist movements in the community. A vigorous effort was now made by the brotherhood, suggested and encouraged by the papal chair, to carry out a scheme of transformation, by means of which the order, which had hitherto confined itself to simple religious and ascetic duties, should become an independent and powerful monkish order, to place it “with the whole force of its religious enthusiasm, with its extraordinary flexibility and its mighty influences over the masses, at the service of the papacy, and to turn it into a standing army of the pope, ever ready to obey his will in the great movements convulsing the church and the world of that time.” Honorius III. took the first step in this direction by a bull addressed, in Sept., A.D. 1220, to Francis himself and the superiors of his order, there styled “Ordo fratrum minorum,” by which a novitiate of one year and an irrevocable vow of admission were prescribed, the wearing of the official dress made its exclusive privilege, and jurisdiction given to its own tribunal to deal with all its members. Francis was now also obliged, willing or unwilling, to agree to a revision of his rule. This new rule was probably confirmed or at least approved at the famous Pentecost chapter held at the Portiuncula chapel in A.D. 1221, called the “Mat Chapter” (C. storearum), because the brethren assembled there lived in tents made of rush-mats.[283] It is, as Carl Müller has incontestably proved, this same rule which was formerly regarded by all as the first rule composed in A.D. 1209. The older rule, however, formed in every particular its basis, and the enlargements and modifications rendered necessary by the adoption of the new ideas appear so evidently as additions, that the two different constituents can even yet with tolerable certainty be distinguished from one another, and so the older rule can be reconstructed. But the development and modification of the order necessarily proceeding in the direction indicated soon led to a gradual reformation of the rule, which in this new form was solemnly and formally ratified by Honorius III. in November, A.D. 1223, as possessing henceforth definite validity. In it the requirement of the literal acceptance of the commands of Jesus on sending out His disciples in Matthew x. and Luke x. is no longer made the basis and pattern, as in the two earlier rules, but all the stress is laid rather upon the imitation of the lives of poverty led by Jesus and His apostles; as an offset to the renunciation of all property, the obligation to earn their own support by work was now set aside, and the practice of mendicancy was made their proper object in life, came indeed to be regarded as constituting the special ideal and sanctity of the order, which in consequence was now for the first time entitled to be called a mendicant or begging order. At its head stood a general-minister, and all communications between the order and the holy see were conducted through a cardinal-protector. The mission field of the order, comprising the whole world, was divided into provinces with a provincial-minister, and the provinces into custodies with a custos at its head.—Every third year at Pentecost the general called together the provincials and custodes to a general chapter, and the custodes assembled the brethren of their dioceses as required in provincial and custodial chapters. The dress of the order remained the same. The usual requirement to go barefoot, however, was modified by the permission in cases of necessity, on journeys and in cold climates, to wear shoes or sandals.

§ 98.5. The Franciscans from A.D. 1223.—There was no mention in the rule of A.D. 1223 of any sort of fixed place of abode either in cloisters or in houses of their own. The life of the order was thus conceived of as a homeless and possessionless pilgrimage; and as for the means of life they were dependent on what they got by begging, so also it was considered that for the shelter of a roof they should depend upon the hospitable. The gradual transition from a purely itinerant life had already begun by the securing of fixed residences at definite points in the transalpine district and first of all in Germany. After the first sending forth of disciples in A.D. 1219, without much attention to rule and without much plan, had run its course there with scarcely any success, a more thoroughly organized mission, under the direction of brother Cæsarius of Spires, consisting of twelve clerical and thirteen lay brethren, including John v. Piano Cupini, Thomas v. Celano, Giordano v. Giano, was sent by the “Mat Chapter” of A.D. 1221 to Germany, which, strengthened by oft-repeated reinforcements, carried on from A.D. 1228 a vigorous propaganda in Bohemia, Hungary, Poland, Denmark, and Norway. In accordance with the rule of A.D. 1223 Germany as forming one province was divided into five custodies, but in A.D. 1230 into two distinct provinces, the Rhineland and Saxony, with a corresponding number of custodies. Even more brilliant was the success attending the mission to England in A.D. 1224. On their missionary tours the brethren took up their residence temporarily in hospitals and leper houses, or in hospitable parsonages and private houses, and preached by preference in the open air, where the people flocked around them in crowds, occasionally at the invitation of a bishop or priest in the churches. Presents of lands gave them the opportunity of erecting convents of their own, with churches and burying-grounds for themselves, which, placed under the charge of a guardian, soon increased in number and importance. The begging, which was now made the basis of the whole institution, was regulated by the principle, that, besides the benefactions voluntarily paid into the cloister, monks sent forth at particular terms, hence called Terminants[284] with a beggar’s bag, should beg about for the necessaries of life. With agriculture and industrial work, and generally all bodily labour, the brothers had nothing to do. On the contrary, what was altogether foreign to the intention of the founder and their rules, and so originating not from within the order itself, but from without, first of all by the admission of scientifically cultured priests, a strong current set in in favour of scientific studies, stimulated by their own personal ambition as well as by rivalry with the Dominicans. These scholarly pursuits soon yielded abundant fruit, which raised the reputation, power, and influence of the order to such a height, that it has been enabled to carry out in all details the task assigned it in the papal polity. Architecture, painting, and poetry also found among the members of the order distinguished cultivators and ornaments.—Supported by accumulating papal privileges, which, for example, gave immunity from all episcopal jurisdiction and supervision, and allowed its clergy the right in all parts, not only of preaching, but also of reading mass and hearing confessions, and aided in its course of secularization by papal modifications and alterations of its rule, which permitted the obtaining and possessing rich cloister property, the order of Minor Brothers or Minorites soon could boast of an extension embracing several thousands of cloisters.—Francis, wasted by long-continued sickness and by increasing infirmities, was found dead, in A.D. 1226, stretched on the floor of the Portiuncula chapel. Two years afterwards he was canonized by Gregory IX., and in A.D. 1230 there was a solemn translation of his relics to the beautiful basilica built in his honour at Assisi. The legend, that a seraph during his last years had imprinted upon him the bloody wound-prints or stigmata of the Saviour was also turned to account for the glorification of the whole order, which now assumed the epithet “seraphic.”—The one who possessed most spiritual affinity to his master of all the disciples of St. Francis, and after him most famous among his contemporaries and posterity, was St. Anthony of Padua. Born in A.D. 1195 at Lisbon, when an Augustinian canon at Coimbra he was, in A.D. 1220, received into the communion of the Minorites, when the relics of the five martyrs of Morocco were deposited there, and thereupon he undertook a mission to Africa. But a severe sickness obliged him to return home, and driven out of his course by a storm, he landed at Messina, from whence he made a pilgrimage to Assisi. The order now turned his learning to account by appointing him teacher of theology, first at Bologna, then at Montpellier. For three years he continued as custos in the south of France, going up and down through the land as a powerful preacher of repentance, till the death of the founder and the choice of a successor called him back to Italy. He died at Padua in A.D. 1231. The pope canonized him in A.D. 1232, and in A.D. 1263 his relics were enshrined in the newly built beautiful church at Padua dedicated to him. Among the numerous tales of prodigies, which are said to have accompanied his goings wherever he went, the best known and most popular is, that when he could obtain no ready hearing for his doctrine among men, he preached on a lonely sea-shore to shoals of fishes that crowded around to listen. His writings, sermons, and a biblical concordance, under the title Concordantiæ Morales SS. Bibliorum, are often printed along with the Letters, Hymns, Testament, etc., ascribed to St. Francis.—Among the legends of the order still extant about the life of St. Francis is the Vita I. of Thomas of Celano, written in A.D. 1229, the oldest and relatively the most impartial. On the other hand, the later biographies, especially that of the so-called Tres socii and the Vita II. of Thomas, which has been made accessible by the Roman edition of Amoni of 1880, written contemporaneously somewhere about A.D. 1245, as well as that of St. Bonaventura of A.D. 1263, recognised by the chapter of the order as the only authoritative form of the legends, are all more or less influenced by the party strifes that had arisen within its ranks, while all are equally overladen with reports of miracles. In A.D. 1399, by authority of the general chapter at Assisi, the “Liber Conformitatum” of Bartholomew of Pisa pointed out forty resemblances between Christ and St. Francis, in which the saint has generally the advantage over the Saviour. In the Reformation times an anonymous German version of this book was published by Erasmus Alber with a preface by Luther, under the title, Der Barfüssermönche Eulenspiegel und Alkoran, Wittenberg, 1542. The most trustworthy contemporary source of information has been only recently again rendered accessible to us in the Memorabilia de Primitiv. Fratrum in Teutoniam Missorum Conversatione et Vita of the above-named Giordano of Giano, embracing the years 1207-1238, which G. Voigt discovered among his father’s papers, and has published with a full and comprehensive introduction. The Franciscans of Quaracchi near Florence have re-edited it “after the unique Berlin manuscript,” as well as the supplementary document, the De Adventu Fratrum Minorum in Anglia, in the first volume of their Analecta Franciscana, Quar., 1885.—Thode, in his Fr. v. A. und die Anfänge d. Kunst d. Renaissance in Ital. (Berl., 1885), has described in a thorough and brilliant style the mighty influence which St. Francis and his order exerted upon the development of art in Italy, especially of painting and architecture, as well as of poetry in the vernacular; for he has shown how the peculiar and close relation in which the saint stood to nature gave the first effective impulse to the emancipation of art from the trammels of formalism, and how the new artistic tendency, inspired by his spirit, was first given expression to in the building and adorning of the basilica at Assisi dedicated to him.[285]

§ 98.6. Party Divisions within the Franciscan Order.—That the founder was by no means wholly in sympathy with the tendency which prevailed in his order from A.D. 1221, and only tolerated what he was no longer in a position to prevent, might have been guessed from the fact that from that time he withdrew himself more and more from the supreme direction of the order, and made it over to Elias of Cortona, as his general-vicar, who in existing circumstances was better fitted for the task. But from his Testament it appears quite evident that he strictly adhered to the views of his early days, and even attempted a last but fruitless reaction against the tendency to worldly conformity that had set in. Thus, for example, it still puts all the brethren under obligation to perform honourable labour, and will allow them to beg only in case of necessity, but especially forbids them most distinctly by their sacred vow of obedience from asking any privilege from the papal chair, or altering the simple literal meaning of the rule of the order, and of this his last will and testament by addition, abatement, or change. After his death, on 4th October, 1226, Elias retained in his hand the regency till the next meeting of the Pentecost chapter; but then he was deprived of office by the election of John Pareus as general-minister, a member of the stricter party. Meanwhile the increasing number and wealth of their cloisters and churches, with their appurtenances, made it absolutely necessary that the brethren should face the question how the holding of such possessions was to be reconciled with the strict injunction of poverty in the sixth chapter of their rule, according to which “the brothers are to possess nothing of their own, neither a house, nor an estate, nor anything whatsoever, but are to go about for alms as strangers and pilgrims in this world.” At the next general chapter, in A.D. 1230, this question came up for discussion, along with that of the validity of the testament above referred to. When they could not agree among themselves, it was decided, in spite of all the protestations of the general, to request by a deputation the advice of the pope, Gregory IX., on this and certain other disputed questions. With reference to the testament, the pope declared that its demands, because issued without the consent and approval of the general chapter, could not be binding upon the order. With reference to the property question, he repudiated the rendering of the rule in such a way as if in this, just as in all other orders, only the possession of property on the part of individual brothers was forbidden; but the membership of the order as a whole could not be prevented from holding property, as directly contrary to the literal statements of the rule, without, however, entering upon the question as to whose property the movables and immovables standing really at the call of the order were to be considered. And as he had at an earlier date, on the occasion of sending a new Minorite mission to Morocco, granted as a privilege to the order to take alms in money, which was allowed by the rule only for the support of sick brethren, for the reason that without money they would not be able there to procure the necessaries of life, so he now extended this permission for other purposes essential to the good of the order, e.g. building and furnishing of cloisters and churches, as not contrary to the rule, if the collecting and spending of the money is carried on, not by members of the order, but by procurators chosen for the work. It was probably to this victory of the lax party that Elias owed his elevation at the next election, in A.D. 1332, to the office of general. It also enabled him to maintain his position for seven years, during which he showed himself particularly active and efficient, not only as general of the order, but also in political negotiations with the princes of Italy, especially as mediator between the pope and the emperor, Gregory IX. and Frederick II. But his government of the order in a despotic and lordly manner, and his reckless endeavours to conform to worldly customs, intensified the bitterness of his pious opponents, and his growing friendliness with the emperor lost him the favour of the pope. And so it came about that his overthrow was accomplished at the general chapter in Rome, in A.D. 1239. He now openly passed over into the service of the emperor, against whom the ban had anew been issued, accompanied him on his military campaigns, and inveighed unsparingly against the pope in public speeches. As partisan of the banned emperor, already de jure excommunicated, the ban was pronounced against him personally in A.D. 1244, and he was expelled from the order. He died in A.D. 1253, reconciled with the church after a penitential recantation and apology. His four immediate successors in the generalship all belonged to the strict party; but the growing estrangement of the order from the interests and purposes of the curia, especially too its relations to the Evangelium æternum, pronounced heretical in A.D. 1254 (§ 108, 5), produced a reaction, in consequence of which the general, John of Parma, was deprived of office in A.D. 1257. With his successor, St. Bonaventura, the opposition succeeded to the undisputed control of the order. The difficult question, how the really pre-eminently rich cloister property was to be reconciled with the rule of the order requiring absolute abandonment of all possessions, found now among the preponderating lax party, the so-called Fratres de communitate, its solution in the assertion, that the goods in their hands had been bestowed upon them by the donors only in usufruct, or even that they were presented not so much to the order, as rather to the Romish Church, yet with the object of supporting the order. Nicholas III., in A.D. 1279, legitimated the theory, for he decided the question in dispute in his bull Exiit qui seminat, by saying that it is allowed to the disciples of St. Francis to hold earthly goods in usufruct, but not in absolute possession, as this is demanded by the example of Christ and His apostles. But now arose a new controversy, over the form and measure of using with a distinction of a usus moderatus and a usus tenuis or pauper, the latter permitting no store even of the indispensable necessaries of life beyond what is absolutely required to satisfy present needs. Those, on the other hand, who were dissatisfied with the principles affirmed in the papal bull, the Spirituales or Zelatores, with Peter John de Oliva and Ubertino de Casale at their head, assumed an attitude of open, fanatical opposition to the papacy, identifying it with antichrist (§ 108, 6). A section of them, which, besides the points about poverty, took offence at the lax party also over questions of clothing reform, obtained permission from Cœlestine V., in A.D. 1294, to separate from the main body of the order, and, under the name of Cœlestine Eremites, to form an independent communion with a general of their own. They settled for the most part in Greece and on the islands of the Archipelago. Boniface VIII., in A.D. 1302, peremptorily insisted upon their return to the West and to the present order. But as he died soon after, even those who had returned continued their separate existence and their distinctive dress.—Continuation, § 112, 2.

§ 98.7. The Dominican or Preaching Order.—St. Dominic, to whom this order owes its origin, was born, in A.D. 1170, at Calaruega, in Old Castile, of a distinguished family (De Guzman?). As a learned Augustinian canon at Osma, he had already wrought zealously for the conversion of Mohammedans and heretics, when Bishop Diego of Osma, entrusted in A.D. 1204, by King Alphonso VIII. with obtaining a bride for his son Ferdinand, took him as one of his travelling retinue. The sudden death of the bride, a Danish princess, rendered the undertaking nugatory. On their homeward journey they met at Montpellier with the Cistercian mission, sent out for the conversion of the Albigensians (§ 109, 1), the utter failure of which had become already quite apparent. Dominic, inflamed with holy zeal, prevailed upon his bishop to enter along with himself upon the work already almost abandoned in despair; and after the bishop’s early death, in A.D. 1206, he carried on the enterprise at his own hand. For Albigensian women, converted by him, he founded a sort of conventual asylum at Prouille, and a house at Toulouse, which was soon afterwards gifted to him, became the first centre where his disciples gathered around him, whence by-and-by they removed into the cloister of St. Romanus, assigned to them by Bishop Fulco. During the Albigensian crusade, the thought ripened in his mind that he might secure a firmer basis and more powerful support for his enterprise by founding a new, independent order, whose proper and exclusive task should be the combating and preventing of heresy by instruction, preaching, and disputation. In order to obtain for this proposal ecclesiastical sanction, he accompanied his patron, Bishop Fulco of Toulouse, in A.D. 1215, to the Fourth Lateran Council at Rome. But pope and council seemed little disposed to favour his idea. The former, indeed, sought rather to persuade him to join some existing ecclesiastical institution, and carry out his scheme under its organization. Consequently Dominic, with his sixteen companions, resolved to adopt the rule of St. Augustine, augmented by several Præmonstratensian articles. When, however, Honorius III. had ascended the papal chair, Dominic hastened again to Rome, and in A.D. 1216 obtained from this pope without difficulty what Innocent III. had refused him, namely, permission to found a new, independent order, with the privilege of preaching and hearing confession everywhere. Then, and also subsequently, he preached frequently with great acceptance to those living in the papal palace, and thus an opportunity was afforded of establishing the office of a magister sacri palatii, or papal court preacher, which was immediately occupied, and has ever since continued to be held, by a Dominican. At a later period the supreme censorship of books was also assigned to this same official. The first general chapter of the order met at Bologna in A.D. 1220. There the vow of poverty, which was hitherto insisted upon only in the sense of all the earlier orders as a mere abandonment of property on the part of individuals, was put in a severer form, so that even the order as such kept itself free from every kind of possession of earthly goods and revenues, except the bare cloister buildings, and exhorted all its adherents to live only on begged alms. Thus the Dominicans, even earlier than the Franciscans, whose rule then permitted begging only in case of need, constituted themselves into a regular mendicant order. Dominic, however, chose voluntary poverty for himself and his disciples, not like St. Francis simply for the purpose of securing personal holiness, but rather only to obtain a perfectly free course for his work in the salvation of others. The official designation, “Ordo fratrum Prædicatum,” was also fixed at this chapter.[286] At the second general chapter, in A.D. 1221, there were already representatives from sixty cloisters out of eight provinces. Dominic died soon after, at Bologna, on 6th August, 1221, uttering anathemas against any one who should corrupt his order by bestowing earthly goods upon it. He was canonized by Gregory IX. in A.D. 1233. His immediate successor, Jordanus, wrote his first biography, adorned, as we might expect, with endless miracles.

§ 98.8. According to the constitutional rules of the order, collected and revised by the third general of the order, Raimund de Pennaforte, about A.D. 1238, the general who stands at the head of the whole order, residing at Rome, magister generalis, is elected to office for life at the general chapter held annually at Pentecost, and he nominates his own socii as advisory assistants. The government of the provinces is conducted by a provincial chosen every four years by the provincial chapter, assisted by four advisory definitores, and each cloister elects its own prior. The mode of life was determined by strict rules, severe fasts were enjoined, involving strict abstinence from the use of flesh, and during particular hours of the day absolute silence had to be observed. In the matter of clothing, only woollen garments were allowed. The dress consisted of a white frock with white scapular and a small peaked capouch; but outside of the cloister a black cloak with capouch was worn over it. From the favourite play upon the name Dominican, Domini canes, in contrast to the dumb dogs of Isaiah lvi. 10, the order adopted as its coat of arms a dog with the torch of truth in its mouth. The special vocation of the order as preachers and opponents of heresy required a thorough scientific training. Every province of the order was therefore expected to have a seminary capable of giving a superior theological education to the members of the order, to which they gave the name of a studium generale, borrowed from the universities, although the predicate was here used in a sense much more restricted (comp. § 99, 3). But ambitious desires for scientific reputation incited them to obtain authority for instituting theological chairs in the University of Paris, the most celebrated theological seminary of that age. The endeavour was favoured by a conflict of Queen Blanca with the Parisian doctors, in consequence of which they left the city and for a time gathered their students around them partly at Rheims, partly at Angers, while the Dominicans, encouraged by the bishop, established their first chair in the vacant places in A.D. 1230. The Franciscans too accomplished the same end about this time. The old professors on their return used every means in their power to drive out the intruders, but were completely beaten after almost thirty years of passionate conflict, and the nurture of scholastic theology was henceforth all but a monopoly of the two mendicant orders (§ 103, 3). The art of ecclesiastical architecture and painting, which during this age reached a hitherto unattained degree of perfection, found many of its most distinguished ornaments and masters in the preaching order. And in zeal for missions to the Mohammedans and the heathen the Franciscans alone could be compared with them. But the order reached the very climax of its reputation, influence, and power when Gregory IX., in A.D. 1232, assigned to it exclusive control of the inquisition of heretics (§ 109, 2).—The veneration of the devout masses of the people, who preferred to confide their secret confessions to the itinerant monks, roused against both orders the hatred of the secular clergy, the preference shown them by the popes awakened the envy of the other orders, and their success in scientific pursuits brought down upon them the ill-will of the learned. Circumstances thus rendered it necessary for a long time that the two orders should stand well together for united combat and defence. But after all those hindrances had been successfully overcome, the rivalry that had been suppressed owing to temporary community of interests broke out all the more bitterly in the endeavour to secure world-wide influence, intensified by opposing philosophico-dogmatic theories (§ 113, 2), as well as by the difference in the interpretation and explanation of the doctrine of poverty, in regard to which they strove with one another in the most violent and passionate manner (§ 112, 2). From having in their hands the administration of the Inquisition the preaching order obtained an important advantage over the Minorites; while these, on the other hand, were far more popular among the common people than the proud, ambitious Dominicans, who occupied themselves with high civil and ecclesiastical politics as counsellors and confessors of the princes and the nobles.—Continuation, § 112, 4.

§ 98.9. To each of the two mendicant orders there was at an early date attached a female branch, which was furnished by the saint who founded the original order with a rule adapting his order’s ideal of poverty to the female vocation, and therefore designated and regarded as his “second order.”

1. The female conventual asylum, founded in A.D. 1206 at Prouille, may be considered the first cloister of Dominican nuns. The principal cloister and another institution, however, was the convent of San Sisto in Rome, given to St. Dominic for this purpose by Honorius III. In all parts of Christendom where the preaching order settled there now appeared female cloisters under the supervision and jurisdiction of its provincial superior, with seclusion, strict asceticism, passing their time in contemplation, and conforming as closely as possible to the mode of life and style of clothing prescribed for the male cloisters. This institution was presided over by a prioress.

2. The order of the Nuns of St. Clara, as “the second order of St. Francis,” was founded by St. Clara of Assisi. Born of a distinguished family, endowed with great physical beauty, and destined to an early marriage, in her eighteenth year, in A.D. 1212, she was powerfully impressed by the teaching of St. Francis, so that she resolved completely to abandon the world and its vanities. She proved the earnestness of her resolve by obeying the trying requirement of the saint to go through the streets of the city clad in a penitent’s cloak, begging alms for the poor. On Palm Sunday at the Portiuncula chapel she took at the hand of her chosen spiritual father the three vows. Her younger sister Agnes, along with other maidens, followed her example. Francis assigned to this union of “poor women” as a conventual residence the church of St. Damiani restored by him, from which they were sometimes called the Nuns of St. Damiani. When in A.D. 1219 St. Francis undertook his journey to the east, he commended them to the care of Cardinal Ugolino, who prescribed for them the rule of the Benedictine nuns; but after the saint’s return they so incessantly entreated him to draw up a rule for themselves, that he at last, in A.D. 1224, prepared one for them and obtained for it the approval of the pope. Clara died in A.D. 1253, and was canonized by Innocent IV. in A.D. 1255. Her order spread very widely in more than 2,000 cloisters, and can boast not only of having received 150 daughters of kings and princes, but also of having enriched heaven with an immense number of beatified and canonized virgins.

§ 98.10. The other Mendicant Orders.—The brilliant success of the Franciscans and Dominicans led other societies, either previously existing, or only now called into being, to adopt the character of mendicants. Only three of them succeeded, though in a much less degree than their models, in gaining position, name and extension throughout the West. The first of these was the Carmelite Order. It owed its origin to the crusader Berthold, Count of Limoges, who in A.D. 1156 founded a monastery at the brook of Elias on Mount Carmel, to which in A.D. 1209 the patriarch of Jerusalem prescribed the rule of St. Basil (§ 44, 3). Hard pressed by the Saracens, the Carmelites emigrated in A.D. 1238 to the West, where as a mendicant order, under the name of Frates Mariæ de Monte Carmelo, with unexampled hardihood they repudiated their founder Berthold, and maintained that the prophet Elias had been himself their founder, and that the Virgin Mary had been a sister of their order. What they most prided themselves on was the sacred scapular which the Mother of God herself had bestowed upon Simon Stock, the general of the order in A.D. 1251, with the promise that whosoever should die wearing it should be sure of eternal blessedness. Seventy years later, according to the legends of the order, the Virgin appeared to Pope John XXII. and told him she descended every Saturday into purgatory, in order to take such souls to herself into heaven. In the 17th century, when violent controversies on this point had arisen, Paul V. authenticated the miraculous qualities of this scapular, always supposing that the prescribed fasts and prayers were not neglected. Among the Carmelites, just as among the Franciscans, laxer principles soon became current, causing controversies and splits which continued down to the 16th century (§ 149, 6).—The Order of Augustinians arose out of the combination of several Italian monkish societies. Innocent IV. in A.D. 1243 prescribed to them the rule of St. Augustine (§ 45, 1) as the directory of their common life. It was only under Alexander IV. in A.D. 1256 that they were welded together into one order as Ordo Fratrum Eremitarum S. Augustini, with the duties and privileges of mendicant monks. Their order spread over the whole West, and enjoyed the special favour of the papal chair, which conferred upon its members the permanent distinction of the office of sacristan to the papal chapel and of chaplain to the Holy Father (Continuation, § 112, 5).—Finally, as the fifth in the series of mendicant orders, we meet with the Order of Servites, Servi b. Virg., devoted to the Virgin, and founded in A.D. 1233 by seven pious Florentines. It was, however, first recognised as a mendicant order by Martin V., and had equal rank with the four others granted it only in A.D. 1567 by Pius V.

§ 98.11. Penitential Brotherhoods and Tertiaries of the Mendicant Orders.—Carl Müller was the first to throw light upon this obscure period in the history of the Franciscans. The results of his investigations are essentially the following: In consequence of the appearance of St. Francis as a preacher of repentance and of the kingdom of God there arose a religious movement which, not merely had as its result the securing of numerous adherents to the association of Minor Brethren directed by himself, as well as to the society of “poor women” attaching itself to St. Clara, but also awakened in many, who by marriage and family duties were debarred from entering these orders, the desire to lead a life of penitence and asceticism removed from the noisy turmoil of the world in the quiet of their own homes while continuing their industrial employments and the discharge of civil duties. As originating in the movement inaugurated by St. Francis, these “Fratres pœnitentiæ” designated themselves “the third order of St. Francis,” and as such made the claim that they should not be disturbed in their retired penitential life to engage upon services for the State, military duty, and so forth. In this way they frequently came into conflict with the civil courts. Although in this direction powerfully supported by the papal curia, the brotherhoods were just so much the less able to press their claim to immunity in proportion as they spread and became more numerous throughout the cities of Italy, and the greater the rush into their ranks became from day to day from all classes, men and women, married and unmarried. The right of spiritual direction and visitation of them was assigned in A.D. 1234 by Gregory IX. to the bishops; but in A.D. 1247 Innocent IV., at the request of the Minorites, issued an ordinance according to which this right was to be given to them, but they were not able in any case to carry it out. Not only the secular clergy were opposed, but they were vigorously aided in their resistance by the Dominicans.—In A.D. 1209, at the beginning of the Albigensian crusade, St. Dominic had founded, at Toulouse, an association of married men and women under the name of Militia Christi, which, recognisable by the wearing of a common style of dress, undertook to vindicate the faith of the church against heretics, to restore again any goods that had wrongfully been appropriated by them, to protect widows and orphans, etc. This Militia migrated from France to Italy. Although originally founded for quite different purposes than the Penitential brotherhoods, it had the same privileges as these enjoyed conferred upon it by the popes, and assimilated itself largely to these in respect of mode of life and ascetic practices, and practically became amalgamated with them. But still the Penitential brotherhoods always formed a neutral territory, upon which, according to circumstances, sometimes the secular clergy, and sometimes one or other of the two mendicant orders, but much more frequently the Minorite clergy, exercised visitation rights. The first attempt at effecting a definite separation arose from the Dominicans, whose seventh general, Murione de Zamorra, prescribed a rule to those Penitential brotherhoods which were more closely related to his order. Upon their adopting it they were loosed from the general society as “Fratres de Pœnitentia” S. Dominici, and described as exclusively attached to the preaching order. In A.D. 1288, however, Jerome of Arcoli, the former general of the Franciscans, ascended the papal throne as Nicholas IV., and now used all means in his power to secure to his own order the supremacy in every department. In the following year, A.D. 1289, he issued the bill Supra montem, in which he prescribed (statuimus) a rule of his own for all Penitential brotherhoods; and then, since on this point, out of regard for the powerful Dominican order, he did not venture to do more than simply recommend, added the advice (consulimus), that the visitation and instruction of these should be assigned to the Minorite superiors, giving as a reason that all these institutions owed their origin to St. Francis. Against both the prescription and the advice, however, the bishops, as well in the interest of their own prerogatives as for the protection of their clergy, threatened in vocation and income, raised a vigorous and persistent protest, which at last, however, succumbed before the supreme power of the pope and the marked preference on the part of the people for the clergy of the orders. Those brotherhoods which adopted the rule thus obtruded on them stood now in the position of rivals, alongside of those of St. Dominic, as “Fratres de pœnitentia” S. Francisci. The Dominican Penitentials afterwards adopted the name and character of a “third order of St. Dominic” or “Tertiaries.” In the Franciscan legends, however, the rule drawn up by Nicholas IV. soon came to be represented as the one prescribed to the Penitentials on their first appearance in A.D. 1221 by St. Francis himself, only ratified anew by the pope, and has been generally regarded as such down to our own day.—The rapid growth in power and influence which the two older mendicant orders owe to the Tertiary Societies, induced also the later mendicant orders to produce an imitation of them within the range of their activity. Crossing the Alps the Penitential brotherhoods found among these orders, on this side, an open door,—the Franciscan brothers being especially numerous,—and entered into peculiarly intimate relations with the Beghard societies which had sprung up there, forming, like them, associations of a monastic type.

§ 98.12. Working Guilds of a Monkish Order.—(1) During the 11th century, midway between the strictly monastic and secular modes of life, a number of pious artisan families in Milan, mostly weavers, under the name of Humiliati, adopted a communal life with spiritual exercises, and community of handicraft and of goods. Whatever profit came from their work was devoted to the poor. The married continued their marriage relations after entering the community. In the 12th century, however, a party arose among them who bound themselves by vows of celibacy, and to them were afterwards attached a congregation of priests. Their society was first acknowledged by Innocent III. in A.D. 1021. But meanwhile many of them had come under the influence of Arnold (§ 108, 6), and so had become estranged from the Catholic church. At a later period these formed a connection with the French Waldensians, the Pauperes de Lugduno, adopted their characteristic views, and for the sake of distinction took the name of Pauperes Italici (§ 108, 12).—Related in every respect to the Lombard Humiliati, but distinguished from them by the separation of the sexes and a universal obligation of celibacy, were the communities of the Beguines and Beghards. Priority of origin belongs to the Beguines. They took the three monkish vows, but only for so long as they belonged to the society. Hence they could at any time withdraw, and enter upon marriage and other relations of social life. They lived under the direction of a lady superior and a priest in a so-called Beguine-house, Curtis Beguinarum, which generally consisted of a number of small houses connected together by one surrounding wall. Each had her own household, although on entrance she had surrendered her goods over to the community and on withdrawing she received them back. They busied themselves with handiwork and the education of girls, the spiritual training of females, and sewing, washing and nursing the poor in the houses of the city. The surplus of income over expenditure was applied to works of benevolence. Every Beguine house had its own costume and colour. These institutions soon spread over all Belgium, Germany, and France. The first Beguine house known to us was founded about 1180 at Liège, by the famous priest and popular preacher, Lambert la Bèghe, i.e. the Stammerer. Hallmann thinks that the name of the society may have been derived from that of the preacher. Earlier writers, without anything to support them but a vague similarity of sound, were wont to derive it from Begga, daughter of Pepin of Landen in the 7th century. Most likely of all, however, is Mosheim’s derivation of it from “beggan,” which means not to pray, “beten,” a praying sister, but to beg, as the modern English, and so proves that the institute originally consisted of a collection of poor helpless women. We may compare with this the designation “Lollards,” § 116, 3.—After the pattern of the Beguine communities there soon arose communities of men, Beghards, with similar tendencies. They supported themselves by handicraft, mostly by weaving. But even in the 13th century corruption and immorality made their appearance in both. Brothers and sisters of the New (§ 108, 4) and of the Free Spirit (§ 116, 5), Fratricelli (§ 112, 2) and other heretics, persecuted by the church, took refuge in their unions and infected them with their heresies. The Inquisition (§ 109, 2) kept a sharp eye on them, and many were executed, especially in France. The 15th General Council at Vienna, in A.D. 1312, condemned eight of their positions as heretical. There was now a multitude of Beguine and Beghard houses overthrown. Others maintained their existence only by passing over to the Tertiaries of the Franciscans. Later popes took the communities that were free from suspicion under their protection. But even among these many forms of immorality broke out, concubinage between Beguines and Beghards, and worldliness, thus obliging the civil and ecclesiastical authorities again to step in. The unions still remaining in the time of the Reformation were mostly secularized. Only in Belgium have a few Beguine houses continued to exist to the present day as institutions for the maintenance of unmarried women of the citizen class.[287]

§ 98.13. The Spiritual Order of Knights.—The peculiarity of the Order of Knights consists in the combination of the three monkish vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience with the vow to maintain a constant struggle with the infidels. The most important of these orders were the following.

1. The Templars, founded in A.D. 1118 by Hugo de Payens and Godfrey de St. Omer for the protection of pilgrims in the Holy Land. The costume of the order was a white mantle with a red cross. Its rule was drawn up by St. Bernard, whose warm interest in the order secured for it papal patronage and the unanimous approbation of the whole West. When Acre fell in A.D. 1291 the Templars settled in Cyprus, but soon most of them returned to the West, making France their headquarters. They had their name probably from a palace built on the site of Solomon’s temple, which king Baldwin II. of Jerusalem assigned them as their first residence.[288]—Continuation, § 112, 7.

2. The Knights of St. John or Hospitallers, founded by merchants from Amalfi as early as the middle of the 11th century, residing at first in a cloister at the Holy Sepulchre, were engaged in showing hospitality to the pilgrims and nursing the sick. The head of the order Raimund du Puy, who occupied this position from A.D. 1118, added to these duties, in imitation of the Templars, that of fighting against the infidels. They carried a white cross on their breast, and a red cross on their standard. Driven out by the Saracens, they settled in Rhodes in A.D. 1310, and in A.D. 1530 took possession of Malta.[289]

3. The Order of Teutonic Knights had its origin from a hospital founded by citizens of Bremen and Lübeck during the siege of Acre in A.D. 1120. The costume of the knights was a white mantle with a black cross. Subsequently the order settled in Prussia (§ 93, 13), and in A.D. 1237 united with the order of the Brothers of the Sword, which had been founded in Livonia in A.D. 1202 (§ 93, 12). Under its fourth Grandmaster, the prudent as well as vigorous Hermann v. Salza, A.D. 1210-1239, it reached the summit of its power and influence.

4. The Knights of the Cross arose originally in Palestine under the name of the Order of Bethlehem, but at a later period settled in Austria, Bohemia, Moravia and Poland. There they adopted the life of regular canons (§ 97, 5) and devoted themselves to hospital work and pastoral duties. They are still to be found in Bohemia as holders of valuable livings, with the badge of a cross of red satin.

In Spain, too, various orders of spiritual knights arose under vows to fight with the Moors (§ 95, 2). The two most important were the Order of Calatrava, founded in A.D. 1158 by the Cistercian monk Velasquez for the defence of the frontier city Calatrava, and the Order of Alcantara, founded in A.D. 1156 for a similar purpose. Both orders were confirmed by Alexander III. and gained great fame and still greater wealth in the wars against the Moors. Under Ferdinand the Catholic the rank of Grandmaster of both orders passed over to the crown. Paul III. in A.D. 1540 released the knights from the vow of celibacy, but obliged them to become champions of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin. Both orders still exist, but only as military orders of merit.

§ 98.14. Bridge-Brothers and Mercedarians.—The name of Bridge Brothers, Frères Pontifex, Fratres Pontifices, was given to a union founded under Clement III., in Southern France, in A.D. 1189, for the building of hospices and bridges at points where pilgrims crossed the large rivers, or for the ferrying of pilgrims over the streams. As a badge they wore a pick upon their breast. Their constitution was modelled upon that of the Knights of St. John, and upon their gradual dissolution in the 13th century most of their number went over to that order.—Petrus [Peter] Nolescens, born in Languedoc, of noble parents and military tutor of a Spanish prince, moved by what he had seen of the sufferings of Christian slaves at the hand of their Moorish masters, and strengthened in his resolve by an appearance of the Queen of Heaven, founded in A.D. 1228 the knightly order of the Mercedarians, Mariæ Virg. de mercede pro redemptione Captivorum. They devoted all their property to the purchase of Christian captives, and where such a one was in danger of apostatising to Islam and the money for redemption was not procurable, they would even give themselves into slavery in his place. When in A.D. 1317 the Grand Commandership passed over into the hands of the priests, the order was gradually transformed into a monkish order. After A.D. 1600, in consequence of a reform after the pattern of the rule of the Barefoots, it became a mendicant order, receiving the privileges of other begging fraternities from Benedict XIII. in A.D. 1725. The order proved a useful institution of its time in Spain, France and Italy, and at a later period also in Spanish America.

III. Theological Science and its Controversies.

§ 99. SCHOLASTICISM IN GENERAL.[290]

The scientific activity of the Middle Ages received the name of Scholasticism from the cathedral and cloister schools in which it originated (§ 90, 8). The Schoolmen, with their enthusiasm and devotion, their fidelity and perseverance, their courage and love of combat, may be called the knights of theology. Instead of sword and spear they used logic, dialectic and speculation; and profound scholarship was their breastplate and helmet. Ecclesiastical orthodoxy was their glory and pride. Aristotle, and also to some extent Plato, afforded them their philosophical basis and method. The Fathers in their utterances, sententiæ, the Councils in their dogmas and canons, the popes in their decretals, yielded to this Dialectic Scholasticism theological material which it could use for the systematising, demonstrating, and illustrating of the Church doctrine. If we follow another intellectual current, we find the Mystical Scholasticism taking up, as the highest task of theology, the investigating and describing of the hidden life of the pious thinker in and with God according to its nature, course, and results by means of spiritual contemplation on the basis of one’s individual experience. Dogmatics (including Ethics) and the Canon Law constituted the peculiar field of the Dialectic Theology of the Schoolmen. The standard of dogmatic theology during the 12th century was the Book of the Sentences of the Lombard (§ 102, 5); that of the Canon Law the Decree of Gratian. Biblical Exegesis as an independent department of scientific study stood, indeed, far behind these two, but was diligently prosecuted by the leading representatives of Scholasticism. The examination of the simple literal sense, however, was always regarded as a secondary consideration; while it was esteemed of primary importance to determine the allegorical, tropological, and anagogical signification of the text (§ 90, 9).

§ 99.1. Dialectic and Mysticism.—With the exception of the speculative Scotus Erigena, the Schoolmen of the Carlovingian Age were of a practical turn. This was changed on the introduction of Dialectic in the 11th century. Practical interests gave way to pure love of science, and it was now the aim of scholars to give scientific shape and perfect logical form to the doctrines of the church. The method of this Dialectic Scholasticism consisted in resolving all church doctrines into their elementary ideas, in the arranging and demonstrating of them under all possible categories and in the repelling of all possible objections of the sceptical reason. The end aimed at was the proof of the reasonableness of the doctrine. This Dialectic, therefore, was not concerned with exegetical investigations or Scripture proof, but rather with rational demonstration. Generally speaking, theological Dialectic attached itself to the ecclesiastical system of the day as positivism or dogmatism; for, appropriating Augustine’s Credo ut intelligam, it made faith the principal starting point of its theological thinking and the raising of faith to knowledge the end toward which it laboured. On the other hand, however, scepticism often made its appearance, taking not faith but doubt as the starting point for its inquiries, with the avowed intention, indeed, of raising faith to knowledge, but only acknowledging as worthy of belief what survived the purifying fire of doubt.—Alongside of this double-edged Dialectic, sometimes in conflict, sometimes in alliance with it, we meet with the Mystical Scholasticism, which appealed not to the reason but to the heart, and sought by spiritual contemplation rather than by Dialectic to advance at once theological science and the Christian life. Its object is not Dogmatics as such, not the development of Fides quæ creditur, but life in fellowship with God, the development of Fides qua creditur. By contemplative absorption of the soul into the depth of the Divine life it seeks an immediate vision, experience and enjoyment of the Divine, and as an indispensable condition thereto requires purity of heart, the love of God in the soul and thorough abnegation of self. What is gained by contemplation is made the subject of scientific statement, and thus it rises to speculative mysticism. Both contemplation and speculative mysticism in so far as their scientific procedure is concerned are embraced under the name of scholastic mysticism. The practical endeavour, however, after a deepening and enhancing of the Christian life in the direction of a real and personal fellowship with God was found more important and soon out-distanced the scientific attempt at tabulating and formulating the facts of inner experience. Practical mysticism thus gained the ascendency during the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries, and formed the favourite pursuit of the numerous inmates of the nunneries (§ 107).

§ 99.2. The Philosophical Basis of Dialectic Scholasticism was obtained mainly from the Aristotelian philosophy, which, down to the end of the 12th century, was known at first only from Latin renderings of Arabic and even Hebrew translations, and afterwards from Latin renderings of the Greek originals (§ 103, 1). Besides Aristotle, however, Plato also had his enthusiastic admirers during the Middle Ages. The study of the writings of Augustine and the Areopagite (§ 90, 7) led back again to him, and the speculative mystics vigorously opposed the supremacy of Aristotle.—At the outset of the philosophical career of scholasticism in the 11th century we meet with the controversy of Anselm and Roscellinus [Roscelin] about the relations of thinking and being or of the idea and the substance of things (§ 101, 3). The Nominalists, following the principles of the Stoics, maintained that General Notions, Universalia, are mere abstractions of the understanding, Nomina, which as such have no reality outside the human mind, Universalia post res. The Realists, on the contrary, affirmed the reality of General Notions, regarding them as objective existences before and apart from human thinking. But there were two kinds of realism. The one, based on the Platonic doctrine of ideas, taught that General Notions are really existent before the origin of the several things as archetypes in the Divine reason, and then also in the human mind before the contemplation of the things empirically given, Universalia ante res. The other, resting on Aristotle’s doctrine, considered them as lying in the things themselves and as first getting entrance into the human mind through experience, Universalia in rebus. The Platonic Realism thought to reach a knowledge of things by pure thought from the ideas latent in the human mind; the Aristotelian, on the other hand, thought to gain a knowledge of things only through experience and thinking upon the things themselves.—Continuation, § 103, 1.

§ 99.3. The Nurseries of Scholasticism.—The work previously done in cathedrals and cloister schools was, from about the 12th century, taken up in a more comprehensive and thorough way by the Universities. They were, as to their origin, independent of church and state, emperor and pope. Here and there famous teachers arose in the larger cities or in connection with some celebrated cloister or cathedral school. Youths from all countries gathered around them. Around the teacher who first attracted attention others gradually grouped themselves. Teachers and scholars organized themselves into a corporation, and thus arose the University. By this, however, we are to understand nothing less than a Universitas litterarum, where attention was given to the whole circle of the sciences. For a long time there was no thought of a distribution into faculties. When the multitude of teachers and students demanded a distribution into several corporations, this was done according to nations. The name signifies the Universitas magistrorum et scholarium rather than an articulated whole. The study here pursued was called Studium generale or universale, because the entrance thereto stood open to every one. At first each university pursued exclusively and in later times chiefly some special department of science. Thus, e.g. theology was prosecuted in Paris and Oxford and subsequently also in Cologne, jurisprudence in Bologna, Medicine in Salerno. The first university that expressly made provision for teaching all sciences was founded at Naples in A.D. 1224 with imperial munificence by Frederick II. The earliest attempt at a distribution of the sciences among distinct faculties was occasioned by the struggle between the university of Paris and the mendicant monks (§ 103, 1), who separated themselves from the other theological teachers and as members of a guild formed themselves in A.D. 1259 into a theological faculty. The number of the students, among whom were many of ripe years, was immensely great, and in some of the most celebrated universities reached often to ten or even twenty thousand. There was a ten years’ course prescribed for the training of the monks of Clugny: two years’ Logicalia, three years’ Literæ naturales et philosophicæ, and five years’ Theology. The Council at Tours in A.D. 1236 insisted that every priest should have passed through a five years’ course of study.[291]

§ 99.4. The Epochs of Scholasticism.—The intellectual work of the theologians of the Middle Ages during our period ran its course in four epochs, the boundaries of which nearly coincide with the boundaries of the four centuries which make up that period.

1. From the 10th century, almost completely destitute of any scientific movement, the so-called Sæculum obscurum, there sprang forth the first buds of scholarship, without, however, any distinct impress upon them of scholasticism.

2. In the 11th century scholasticism began to show itself, and that in the form of dialectic, both sceptical and dogmatic.

3. In the 12th century mysticism assumed an independent place alongside of dialectic, carried on a war of extermination against the sceptical dialectic, and finally appeared in a more peaceful aspect, contributing material to the positive dogmatic dialectic.

4. In the 13th century dialectic scholasticism gained the complete ascendency, and reached its highest glory in the form of dogmatism in league with mysticism, and never, in the persons of its greatest representatives, in opposition to it.

§ 99.5. The Canon Law.—After the Pseudo-Isidore (§ 87, 2) many collections of church laws appeared. They sought to render the material more complete, intentionally or unintentionally enlarging the forgeries and massing together the most contradictory statements without any attempt at comparison or sifting. The most celebrated of these were the collections of bishops Burchard of Worms about A.D. 1020, Anselm of Lucca, who died in A.D. 1086, nephew of the pope of the same name, Alexander II., and Ivo of Chartres, who died in A.D. 1116. Then the Camaldolite monk Gratian of Bologna undertook not only to gather together the material in a more complete form than had hitherto been done, but also to reconcile contradictory statements by scholastic argumentation. His work appeared about A.D. 1150 under the title Concordantia discordantium canonum, and is commonly called Decretum Gratiani. A great impulse was given to the study of canon law by means of this work, especially at Bologna and Paris. Besides the Legists, who taught the Roman law, there now arose numerous Decretists teaching the canon law and writing commentaries on Gratian’s work. Gregory IX. had a new collection of Decrees of Councils and Decretals in five books, the so-called Liber extra Decretum, or shortly Extra or Decretum Gregorii, drawn up by his confessor and Grand-Penitentiary, the learned Dominican Raimundus [Raimund] de Pennaforti [Pennaforte], and sent it in A.D. 1234 to the University of Bologna. Boniface VIII. in A.D. 1298 added to this collection in five parts his Liber Sextus, and Clement V. in A.D. 1314 added what are called after him the Clementinæ. From that time down to A.D. 1483 the decretals of later popes were added as an appendix under the name Extravagantes, and with these the Corpus juris canonici was concluded. An official edition was begun in A.D. 1566 by the so-called Correctores Romani, which in A.D. 1580 received papal sanction as authoritative for all time to come.[292]

§ 99.6. The Schoolmen as such contributed nothing to Historical Literature. Histories were written not in the halls of the universities but in the cells of the monasteries. Of these there were three kinds as we have already seen in § 90, 9. For workers in the department of Biblical History, see § 105, 5; and of Legends of the Saints, § 104, 8. For ancient Church History Rufinus and Cassiodorus were the authorities and the common text books (§ 5, 1). An interesting example of the manner in which universal history was treated when mediæval culture had reached its highest point, is afforded by the Speculum magnum s. quadruplex of the Dominican Vincent of Beauvais (Bellovacensis). This treatise was composed about the middle of the 13th century at the command of Louis IX. of France as a hand-book for the instruction of the royal princes. It forms an encyclopædic exposition of all the sciences of that day in four parts, Speculum historiale, naturale, doctrinale, and morale. The Speculum doctrinale breaks off just at the point where it should have passed over to theology proper, and the Speculum morale is a later compilation by an unknown hand.[293]

§ 100. THE SÆCULUM OBSCURUM: THE 10TH CENTURY.[294]

In contrast to the brilliant theological scholarship and the activity of religious life in the 9th century, as well as to the remarkable culture and scientific attainments of the Spanish Moors with their world-renowned school at Cordova, the darkness of the 10th century seems all the more conspicuous, especially its first half, when the papacy reached its lowest depths, the clergy gave way to unblushing worldliness and the church was consumed by the foulest corruption. During this age, indeed, there were gleams of light even in Italy, but only like a will o’ the wisp rising from swampy meadows, a fanatical outburst on behalf of ancient classic paganism. The literature of this period stood in direct and avowed antagonism to Christian theology and the Christian church, and commended a godless frivolity and the most undisguised sensuality. A grammarian Wilgard of Ravenna taught openly that Virgil, Horace, and Juvenal were better and nobler than Paul, Peter, and John. The church had still so much authority as to secure his death as a heretic, but in almost all the towns of Italy he had sympathisers, and that among the clergy as well as among laymen. It was only by the influence of the monks of Clugny, the reformatory ascetic efforts of Romuald (§ 98, 1) and St. Nilus the Younger, a very famous Greek recluse of Gaeta, who died in A.D. 1005, aided by the reformatory measures for the purification of the church taken by the Saxon emperors, that this unclean spirit was gradually driven out. The famous endeavours of Alfred the Great and their temporary success were borne to the grave along with himself. From A.D. 959 however, Dunstan’s reformation awakened anew in England appreciation of a desire for theological and national culture. The connection of the imperial house of Otto with Byzantium also aroused outside of Italy a longing after old classical learning. The imperial chapel founded by the brother of Otto I., Bruno the Great (§ 97, 2), became the training school of a High-German clergy, who were there carefully trained as far as the means at the disposal of that age permitted, not only in politics, but also in theological and classical studies.

§ 100.1. The degree to which Classical Studies were pursued in Germany during the period of the Saxon imperial house is shown by the works of the learned nun Roswitha of Gandersheim, north of Göttingen, who died about A.D. 984. The first edition of her works, which comprise six dramas on biblical and ecclesiastical themes in the style of Terence, in prose interspersed with rhymes, also eight legends, a history of Otto I., and a history of the founding of her cloister in leonine hexameters, was issued by the humanist Conrad Celtes, with woodcuts by Dürer in A.D. 1501.—Notker Labeo, president of the cloister school of St. Gall, who died in A.D. 1022, enriched the old German literature by translations of the Psalms, of Aristotle’s Organon, the Moralia of Gregory the Great, and various writings of Boethius [Boëthius].—In England the educational efforts of St. Dunstan (§ 97, 4) were powerfully supported by Bishop Ethelwold of Winchester, who quite in the spirit of Alfred the Great (§ 90, 10) wrought incessantly with his pupils for the extension and enrichment of the Anglo-Saxon literature. Of his scholars by far the most famous was Aelfric, surnamed Grammaticus, who flourished about A.D. 990. He wrote an Anglo-Saxon Grammar, prepared a collection of homilies for all the Sundays and festivals and a free translation from sermons of the Latin Fathers, translated also the Old Testament heptateuch, and wrote treatises on other portions of Scripture and on biblical questions.[295]

§ 100.2. Italy produced during the second half of the century many theologians eminent and important in their day. Atto, bishop of Vercelli, who died about A.D. 960, distinguished himself by his exegetical compilations on Paul’s epistles, and as a homilist and a vigorous opponent of the oppressors of the church during these rough times. Still more important was his younger contemporary Ratherius, bishop of Verona, afterwards of Liège, but repeatedly driven away from both, who died A.D. 974. A strict and zealous reformer of clerical morals, he insisted upon careful study of the Bible, and wrought earnestly against the unblushing paganism of the Italian scholars of his age as well as against all kinds of hypocrisy, superstition, and ecclesiastical corruptions. This, and also his attachment to the political interests of the German court, exposed him to much persecution. Among his writings may be named De contemptu canonum, Meditationes cordis, Apologia sui ipsius, De discordia inter ipsum et clericos.—In France we meet with Odo of Clugny, who died in A.D. 942, famed as a hymn writer and homilist, and, in his Collationum Ll. iii., as a zealous reprover of the corrupt morals of his age. In England and France, Abbo of Fleury taught toward the end of the century. From England, where he had been induced to go by St. Dunstan, he returned after some years to his own cloister of Fleury, and by his academic gifts raised its school to great renown. He wrote on astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, and history. He also composed a treatise on dialectics, in which he makes his appearance as the first and most eminent precursor of the Schoolmen. Chosen abbot of his monastery and exercising strict discipline over his monks, he suffered a martyr’s death by the hand of a murderer in A.D. 1004.—Gerbert of Rheims, afterwards Pope Sylvester II. (§ 96, 3, 4), during his active career lived partly in France, partly in Italy. Distinguished both for classical and Arabic scholarship, he shone in the firmament of this dark century as it was passing away († A.D. 1003) like a star of the first magnitude in theology, mathematics, astronomy, and natural science, while by the common people he was regarded as a magician. Under him the school of Rheims reached the summit of its fame.

§ 101. THE ELEVENTH CENTURY.

During the 11th century, with the moral and spiritual elevation of the church, eager attention was again given to theological science. It was at first mainly prosecuted in the monasteries of the Cistercians and among the monks of Clugny, but afterwards at the seminaries which arose toward the end of the century. The dialectic method won more and more the upper hand in theology, and in the Eucharist controversy between Lanfranc and Berengar, as well as in the controversy between Anselm and Gaunilo about the existence of God, and between Anselm and Roscelin about the Trinity, Dogmatism obtained its first victory over Scepticism.

§ 101.1. The Most Celebrated Schoolmen of this Century.

1. Fulbert opens the list, a pupil of Gerbert, and from A.D. 1007 Bishop of Chartres Before entering on his episcopate he had founded at Chartres a theological seminary. His fame spread over all the West, so that pupils poured in upon him from every side.

2. The most important of these was Berengar of Tours, afterwards a canon and teacher of the cathedral school of his native city, and then again archdeacon at Angers. He died in A.D. 1088. The school of Tours rose to great eminence under him.

3. Lanfranc, the celebrated opponent of the last-named, was abbot of the monastery of Bec in Normandy, and from A.D. 1070 Archbishop of Canterbury (§ 96, 8). He died in A.D. 1089. He wrote against Berengar Liber de corpore et sanguine Domini.

4. Bishop Hildebert of Tours, who died in A.D. 1134, famous as a writer of spiritual songs, was a pupil of Berengar. But he avoided the sceptical tendencies of his teacher, and, warned of the danger of dialectic and following the mystical bent of his mind, he applied himself to the cultivation of a life of faith, so that St. Bernard praised him as tantam columnam ecclesiæ.

5. The monastic school of Bec, which Lanfranc had rendered celebrated, reached the summit of its fame under his pupil Anselm of Canterbury, who far excelled his teacher in genius as well as in importance for theological science. He was born in A.D. 1033 at Aosta in Italy, educated in the monastery of Bec, became teacher and abbot there, was raised in A.D. 1093 to the archiepiscopal chair of Canterbury, and died in A.D. 1109. As a churchman he courageously defended the independence of the church according to the principles of Hildebrand (§ 96, 12). As a theologian he may be ranked in respect of acuteness and profundity, speculative talent and Christian earnestness, as a second Augustine, and on the theological positions of that Father he based his own. Though carrying dialectic even into his own private devotions, there was yet present in him a vein of religious mysticism. According to him faith is the condition of true knowledge, Fides præcedit intellectum; but it is also with him a sacred duty to raise faith to knowledge, Credo ut intelligam. Only he who in respect of endowment and culture is not capable of this intellectual activity should content himself with simple Veneratio. His Monologium contains discussions on the nature of God, his Proslogium proves the being of God; his three books, De fide Trinitatis et de incarnatione Verbi, develop and elaborate the doctrine of the Trinity and Christology; while the three dialogues De veritate, De libero arbitrio, and De casu diaboli treat of the object, and the tract Cur Deus homo? treats of the subject, of soteriology. The most able, profound, and impressive of all his writings is the last-named, which proves the necessity of the incarnation of God in Christ for the reconciliation of man with God. It was an epoch-making treatise in the historical development of the church doctrine of satisfaction on Pauline foundations.[296] Anselm took part in the controversy of the Greeks by his work De processione Spiritus (§ 67, 4). He discussed the question of predestination in a moderate Augustinian form in the book, De concordia præscientæ et prædest. et gratiæ Dei cum libero arbitrio. In his Meditationes and Orationes he gives expression to the ardent piety of his soul, as also in the voluminous collection (426) of his letters.[297]

6. Anselm of Laon, surnamed Scholasticus, was the pupil of Anselm of Canterbury. From A.D. 1076 he taught with brilliant success at Paris, and thus laid the first foundation of its university. Subsequently he returned to his native city Laon, was made there archdeacon and Scholasticus, and founded in that place a famous theological school. He died in A.D. 1117. He composed the Glossa interlinearis, a short exposition of the Vulgate between the lines, which with Walafrid’s Glossa ordinaria (§ 90, 4), became the favourite exegetical handbook of the Middle Ages.

7. William of Champeaux, the proper founder of the University of Paris, had already taught rhetoric and dialectic for some time with great success in the cathedral school, when the fame of the theological school of Laon led him to the feet of Anselm. In A.D. 1108 he returned to Paris, and had immense crowds listening to his theological lectures. Chagrined on account of a defeat in argument at the hand of Abælard, one of his own pupils, he retired from public life into the old chapel of St. Victor near Paris, and there founded a monastery under the same name for canons of the rule of St. Augustine. He died in A.D. 1121 as Bishop of Chalons.

8. The abbot Guibert of Nogent, in the diocese of Laon, who died about A.D. 1124, a scholar of Anselm at Bec, was a voluminous writer and, with all his own love of the marvellous, a vigorous opponent of all the grosser absurdities of relic and saint worship. He wrote a useful history of the first crusade, and a work important in its day entitled, Liber quo ordine sermo fieri debeat. His great work was one in four books, De pignoribus Sanctorum, against the abuses of saint and relic worship, the exhibition of pretended parts of the Saviour’s body, e.g. teeth, pieces of the foreskin, navel cord, etc., against the translation or distribution of the bodies of saints, against the fraud of introducing new saints, relics, and legends.

§ 101.2. Berengar’s Eucharist Controversy, A.D. 1050-1079.—Berengar of Tours elaborated a theory of the eucharist which is directly antagonistic to the now generally prevalent theory of Radbert (§ 91, 3). He taught that while the elements are changed and Christ’s body is really present, neither the change nor the presence is substantial. The presence of His body is rather the existence of His power in the elements, and the change of the bread is the actual manifestation of this power in the form of bread. The condition however of this power-presence is not merely the consecration but also the faith of the receiver. Without this faith the bread is an empty and impotent sign. Such views were publicly expressed by him and his numerous followers for a long while without causing any offence. But when he formally stated them in a letter to his friend Lanfranc of Bec, this churchman became Berengar’s accuser at the Synod of Rome in A.D. 1050. The synod condemned him unheard. A second synod of the same year held at Vercelli, before which Berengar was to have appeared but could not because he had meanwhile been imprisoned in France, in an outburst of fanatical fury had the treatise of Ratramnus on the eucharist, wrongly ascribed to Erigena, torn up and burnt, while Berengar’s doctrine was again condemned. Meanwhile Berengar was by the intervention of influential friends set at liberty and made the acquaintance of the powerful papal legate Hildebrand, who, holding by the simple Scripture doctrine that the bread and wine of the sacrament was the body and blood of Christ, occupied probably a position intermediate between Radbert’s grossly material and Berengar’s dynamic hypothesis. Disinclined to favour the fanaticism of Berengar’s opponents, Hildebrand contented himself with exacting from him at the Synod of Tours in A.D. 1054 a solemn declaration that he did not deny the presence of Christ in the Supper, but regarded the consecrated elements as the body and blood of Christ. Emboldened by this decision and still always persecuted by his opponents as a heretic, Berengar undertook in A.D. 1059 a journey to Rome, in order, as he hoped, by Hildebrand’s influence to secure a distinct papal verdict in his favour. But there he found a powerful opposition headed by the passionate and pugnacious Cardinal Humbert (§ 67, 3). This party at the Lateran Council in Rome in A.D. 1059, compelled Berengar, who was really very deficient in strength of character, to cast his writings into the fire and to swear to a confession composed by Humbert which went beyond even Radbert’s theory in the gross corporeality of its expressions. But in France he immediately again repudiated this confession with bitter invectives against Rome, and vindicated anew against Lanfranc and others his earlier views. The bitterness of the controversy now reached its height. Hildebrand had meanwhile, in A.D. 1073, himself become pope. He vainly endeavoured to bring the controversy to an end by getting Berengar to accept a confession couched in moderate terms admitting the real presence of the body and blood in the Supper. The opposite party did not shrink from casting suspicion on the pope’s own orthodoxy, and so Hildebrand was obliged, in order to avoid the loss of his great life work in a mass of minor controversies, to insist at a second synod in Rome in A.D. 1079 upon an unequivocal and decided confession of the substantial change of the bread. Berengar was indiscreet enough to refer to his private conversations with the pope; but now Gregory commanded him at once to acknowledge and abjure his error. With fear and trembling Berengar obeyed, and the pope dismissed him with a safe conduct, distinctly prohibiting all further disputation. Bowed down under age and calamities, Berengar withdrew to the island of St. Come, near Tours, where he lived as a solitary penitent in the practice of strict asceticism, and died at a great age in peace with the church in A.D. 1088. His chief work is De Cœna S. adv. Lanfr.—Continuation, § 102, 5.

§ 101.3. Anselm’s Controversies.

1. On the basis of his Platonic realism, Anselm of Canterbury constructed the ontological proof of the being of God, that there is given in man’s reason the idea of the most perfect being to whose perfection existence also belongs. When he laid this proof before the learned world in his Monologium and Proslogium, the monk Gaunilo of Marmoutiers, who was a supporter of Aristotelian realism, opposed him, and acutely pointed out the defects of this proof in his Liber pro insipiente. He so named it in reference to a remark of Anselm, who had said that even the insipiens who, according to Psalm xiv. 1, declares in his heart that there is no God, affords thereby a witness for the existence of the idea, and consequently also for the existence of God. Anselm replied in his Apologeticus c. Gaunilonem. And there the controversy ended without any definite result.

2. Of more importance was Anselm’s controversy with Roscelin, the Nominalist, canon of Compiègne. He in a purely nominalistic fashion understood the idea of the Godhead as a mere abstraction, and thought that the three persons of the Godhead could not be una res, οὐσία, as then they must all at once have been incarnate in Christ. A synod at Soissons in A.D. 1092 condemned him as a tritheist. He retracted, but afterwards reiterated his earlier views. Anselm then, in his tract De fide Trinitatis et de incarnatione Verbi contra blasphemias Rucelini, proved that the drift of his argumentation tended toward tritheism, and vindicated the trinitarian doctrine of the church. For more than two centuries Nominalism was branded with a suspicion of heterodoxy, until in the 14th century a reaction set in (§ 113, 3), which restored it again to honour.

§ 102. THE TWELFTH CENTURY.

In the 12th century dialectic and mysticism are seen contending for the mastery in the department of theology. On the one side stands Abælard, in whom the sceptical dialectic had its most eminent representative. Over against him stands St. Bernard as his most resolute opponent. Theological dialectic afterwards assumed a pre-eminently dogmatic and ecclesiastical character, entering into close relationship with mysticism. While this movement was mainly carried on in France, where the University of Paris attracted teachers and scholars from all lands, it passed over from thence into Germany, where Provost Gerhoch and his brother Arno gave it their active support in opposition to that destructive sort of dialectic that was then spreading around them. Although the combination of dogmatic dialectic and mysticism had for a long time no formal recognition, it ultimately secured the approval of the highest ecclesiastical authorities.

§ 102.1. The Contest on French Soil.

1. The Dialectic Side of the Gulf.—Peter Abælard, superior to all his contemporaries in acuteness, learning, dialectic power, and bold freethinking, but proud and disputatious, was born at Palais in Brittany in A.D. 1079. His first teacher in philosophy was Roscelin. Afterwards he entered the school of William of Champeaux at Paris, the most celebrated dialectician of his times. Having defeated his master in a public disputation, he founded a school at Melun near Paris, where thousands of pupils flocked to him. In order to be nearer Paris, he moved his school to Corbeil; then to the very walls of Paris on Mount St. Genoveva; and ceased not to overwhelm William with humiliations, until his old teacher retreated from the field. In order to secure still more brilliant success, he began to study theology under the Schoolman Anselm of Laon. But very soon the ambitious scholar thought himself superior also to this master. Relying upon his dialectical endowments, he took a bet without further preparation to expound the difficult prophet Ezekiel. He did it indeed to the satisfaction of scholars, but Anselm refused to allow him to continue his lectures. Abælard now returned to Paris, where he gathered around him a great number of enthusiastic pupils. Canon Fulbert appointed him teacher of his beautiful and talented niece Heloise. He won her love, and they were secretly married. She then denied the marriage in order that he might not be debarred from the highest offices of the church. Persisting in this denial, her relatives dealt severely with her, and Abælard had her placed in the nunnery of Argenteuil. Fulbert in his fury had Abælard seized during the night and emasculated, so that he might be disqualified for ecclesiastical preferment. Overwhelmed with shame, he fled to the monastery of St. Denys, and there in A.D. 1119 took the monastic vow. Heloise took the veil at Argenteuil. But even at St. Denys Abælard was obliged by the eager entreaties of former scholars to resume his lectures. His free and easy treatment of the church doctrine and his haughty spirit aroused many enemies against him, who at the Synod of Soissons in A.D. 1121 compelled him before the papal legate to cast into the fire his treatise De Unitate et Trinitate divina, and had him committed to a monastic prison. By the intercession of some friends he was soon again set free, and returned to St. Denys. But when he made the discovery that Dionysius at Paris was not the Areopagite the persecution of the monks drove him into a forest near Troyes. There too his scholars followed him and made him resume his lectures. His colony grew up under his hands into the famous abbey of the Paraclete. Finding even there no rest, he made over the abbey of the Paraclete to Heloise, who had not been able to come to terms with her insubordinate nuns at Argenteuil. He himself now became abbot of the monastery of St. Gildasius at Ruys in Brittany, and, after in vain endeavouring for eight years to restore the monastic discipline, he again in A.D. 1136 resumed his office of teacher and lectured at St. Genoveva near Paris with great success. He wrote an ethical treatise, “Scito te ipsum,” issued a new and enlarged edition of his Theologia christiana, now extant as the incomplete Introductio ad theologiam in three books, and composed a Dialogus inter Philosophum, Judæum et Christianum, in which the heathen philosophers and poets of antiquity are ranked almost as high as the prophets and apostles. In Sic et Non, “Yes and No,” a collection of extracts from the Fathers under the various heads of doctrine contradictory of one another, the traditional theology was held up to contempt.

§ 102.2.

Abælard maintained, in opposition to the Augustinian-Anselmian theory, that faith preceded knowledge, that only what we comprehend is to be believed. He did indeed intend that his dialectic should be used not for the overthrow but for the establishment of the church doctrine. He proceeded, however, from doubt as the principle of all knowledge, regarding all church dogmas as problems which must be proved before they can be believed: Dubitando enim ad inquisitionem venimus, inquirendo veritatem percipimus. He thus reduced faith to a mere probability and measured the content of faith by the rule of subjective reason. This was most glaring in the case of the trinitarian doctrine, which with him approached Sabellian modalism. God as omnipotent is to be called Father, as all wise the Son, as loving and gracious the Spirit; and so the incarnation becomes a merely temporal and dynamic immanence of the Logos in the man Jesus. The significance of the ethical element in Christianity quite overshadowed that of the dogmatic. He taught that all fundamental truths of Christianity had been previously proclaimed by philosophers and poets of Greece and Rome, who were scarcely less inspired than the prophets and apostles, the special service of the latter consisting in giving currency to these truths among the uncultured. He turns with satisfaction from the theology of the Fathers to that of the apostles, and from that again to the religion of Jesus, whom he represents rather as a reformer introducing a pure morality than as a founder of a religious system. Setting aside Anselm’s theory of satisfaction, he regards the redemption and reconciliation of man as consisting in the awakening in sinful man, by means of the infinite love displayed by Christ’s teaching and example, by His life, sufferings and death upon the cross, a responding love of such fulness and power, that he is thereby freed from the dominion of sin and brought into the glorious liberty of the children of God.[298]—Abælard’s fame and following grew in a wonderful manner from day to day; but also powerful opponents dragged his heresies into light and vigorously combated them. The most important of these were the Cistercian monk William of Thierry and St. Bernard, who called attention to the dangerous tendency of his teaching. St. Bernard dealt personally with the heretic, but when he failed in converting him, he appeared in A.D. 1141 at the Synod of Sens as his accuser. The synod condemned as heretical a series of statements culled from his writings by Bernard. Abælard appealed to the pope, but even his friends at Rome, among whom was Card. Guido de Castella, afterwards Pope Cœlestine II., could not close their eyes to his manifest heterodoxies. His friendship for Arnold of Brescia also told against him at Rome (§ 108, 7). Innocent II. therefore excommunicated Abælard and his supporters, condemned his writings to be burnt and himself to be confined in a monastery. Abælard found an asylum with the abbot Peter the Venerable of Clugny, who not only effected his reconciliation with Bernard, but also, on the ground of his Apologia s. Confessio fidei, in which he submitted to the judgment of the church, obtained permission from the pope to pass his last days in peace at Clugny. During this time he composed his Hist. calamitatum Abælardi, an epistolary autobiography, which, though not free from vanity and bitterness, is yet worthy to be ranked with Augustine’s “Confessions” for its unreserved self-accusation and for the depth of self-knowledge which it reveals. He died in A.D. 1142, in the monastery of St. Marcellus at Chalons, where he had gone in quest of health. He was buried in the abbey of the Paraclete, where Heloise laid on his coffin the letter of absolution of Peter of Clugny. Twenty-two years later Heloise herself was laid in the same quiet resting place.[299]

§ 102.3.

1. The Mystic Side of the Gulf.—Abælard’s most famous opponent was St. Bernard of Clairvaux (§ 98, 1), born in A.D. 1091 at Fontaines near Dijon in Burgundy, died in A.D. 1153, a man of such extraordinary influence on his generation as the world seldom sees. Venerated as a miracle worker, gifted with an eloquence that carried everything before it (doctor mellifluus), he was the protector and reprover of the Vicar of God, the peacemaker among the princes, the avenger of every wrong. His genuine humility made him refuse all high places. His enthusiasm for the hierarchy did not hinder him from severely lashing clerical abuses. It was his word that roused the hearts of men throughout all Europe to undertake the second crusade, and that won many heretics and schismatics back to the bosom of the church. Having his conversation in heaven, leading a life of study, meditation, prayer, and ecstatic contemplation, he had also dominion over the earth, and by counsel, exhortation, and exercise of discipline exerted a quickening and healthful influence on all the relations of life. His theological tendency was in the direction of contemplative mysticism, with hearty submission to the doctrine of the church. Like Abælard, but from the opposite side, he came into conflict with the theory of Anselm; for the ideal of theology with him was not the development of faith into knowledge by means of thought, but rather the enlightenment of faith in the way of holiness. Bernard was not at all an enemy of science, but he rather saw in the dialectical hair-splitting of Abælard, which grudged not to cut down the main props of saving truth for the glorification of its own art, the overthrow of all true theology and the destruction of all the saving efficacy of faith. Heart theology founded on heart piety, nourished and strengthened by prayer, meditation, spiritual illumination and holiness, was for him the only true theology. Tantum Deus cognoscitur, quantum diligitur. Orando facilius quam disputando et dignius Deus quæritur et invenitur. The Bible was his favourite reading, and in the recesses of the forest he spent much time in prayer and study of the Scriptures. But in ecstasy (excessus) which consists in withdrawal from sensible phenomena and becoming temporarily dead to all earthly relations, the soul of the pious Christian is able to rise into the immediate presence of God, so that “more angelorum” it reaches a blessed vision and enjoyment of the Divine glory and that perfect love which loves itself and all creatures only in God. Yet even he confesses that this highest stage of abstraction was only attained unto by him occasionally and partially through God’s special grace. Bernard’s mysticism is most fully set forth in his eighty-six Sermons on the first two chapters of the Song of Solomon and in the tract De diligendo Deo. In his controversy with Abælard he wrote his Tractatus de erroribus Petri Abælardi. To the department of dogmatics belongs De gratia et libero arbitrio; and to that of history, the biography of his friend Malachias (§ 149, 5). The most important of his works is De Consideratione, in 5 bks., in which with the affection of a friend, the earnestness of a teacher, and the authority of a prophet, he sets before Pope Eugenius III. the duties and dangers of his high position. He was also one of the most brilliant hymn writers of the Middle Ages. Alexander III. canonized him in A.D. 1173, and Pius VIII. in A.D. 1830 enrolled him among the doctores ecclesiæ (§ 47, 22 c).—Soon after the controversy with Abælard had been brought to a close by the condemnation of the church, Bernard was again called upon to resist the pretensions of dialectic. Gilbert de la Porrée (Porretanus), teacher of theology at Paris, who became Bishop of Poitiers in A.D. 1142 and died in A.D. 1154, in his commentary on the theological writings of Boëthius (§ 47, 23) ascribed reality to the universal term “God” in such a way that instead of a Trinity we seemed to have a Quaternity. At the Synod of Rheims, A.D. 1148, under the presidency of Pope Eugenius III., Bernard appeared as accuser of Porretanus. Gilbert’s doctrine was condemned, but he himself was left unmolested.[300]

§ 102.4.

1. Bridging the Gulf from the Side of Mysticism.—At the school of the monastery of St. Victor in Paris, founded by William of Champeaux after his defeat at the hands of Abælard, an attempt was made during the first half of the 12th century to combine mysticism and dialectic in the treatment of theology. The peaceable heads of this school would indeed have nothing to do with the speculations of Abælard and his followers which tended to overthrow the mysteries of the faith. But the mystics of St. Victor made an important concession to the dialecticians by entering with as much energy upon the scientific study and construction of dogmatics as they did upon the devout examination of Scripture and mystical theology. They exhibited a speculative power and a profundity of thought that won the hearty admiration of the subtlest of the dialecticians. By far the most celebrated of this school was Hugo of St. Victor. Descended from the family of the Count of Halberstadt, born in A.D. 1097, nearly related to St. Bernard, honoured by his contemporaries as Alter Augustinus or Lingua Augustini, Hugo was one of the most profound thinkers of the Middle Ages. Having enjoyed a remarkably complete course of training, he was enthusiastically devoted to the pursuit of science, and, endowed with rich and deep spirituality, he exerted a most healthful and powerful influence upon his own and succeeding ages, although church and science had to mourn their loss by his early death in A.D. 1141. In his Eruditio didascalica we have in 3 bks. an encyclopædic sketch of all human knowledge as a preparation to the study of theology, and in other 3 bks. an introduction to the Bible and church history.[301] His Summa sententiarum is an exposition of dogmatics on patristic lines, an ecclesiastical counterpart of Abælard’s Sic et Non. The ripest and most influential of all his works, and the most independent, is his De sacramentis christ. fidei, in 2 bks., in which he treats of the whole contents of dogmatics from the point of view of the Sacraments (§ 104, 2). His exegetical works are less important and less original. His mysticism is set forth ex professo in his Soliloquium de arrha animæ and in the series of three tracts, De arca morali, De arca mystica, and De vanitate mundi. He makes Noah’s ark the symbol of the church as well as of the individual soul which journeys over the billows of the world to God, and, by the successive stages of lectio, cogitatio, meditatio, oratio, and operatio reaches to contemplatio or the vision of God.—Hugo’s pupil, and from A.D. 1162 the prior of his convent, was the Scotchman Richard St. Victor, who died in A.D. 1173. With less of the dialectic faculty than his master—though this too is shown in his 6 bks. De trinitate, a scholastic exposition of the Cognitio or Fides quæ creditur—he mainly devoted his energies to the development on the mystico-contemplative side of the “Affectus” or Fides qua creditur, which aims at the vision and enjoyment of God. This he represents as reached by the three stages of contemplation, distinguished as mentis dilatatio, sublevatio, and alienatio. Among his mystical tracts, mostly mystical expositions of Scripture passages, the most important are, De præparatione animæ ad contemplationem, s. de xii. patriarchis, and the 4 bks. De gratia contemplationis s. de arca mystica. These are also known as Benjamin minor and B. major. In Richard there appears the first indications of a misunderstanding with the dialecticians which, among the late Victorines, and especially in the case of Walter of St. Victor, took the form of vehement hostility.

§ 102.5.

1. Bridging the Gulf from the Side of Dialectics.—After Abælard’s condemnation theological dialectics came more and more to be associated with the church doctrine and to approach more or less nearly to a friendly alliance with mysticism. Hugo’s writings did much to bring this about. The following are the most important Schoolmen of this tendency.

1. The Englishman Robert Pulleyn, teacher at Oxford and Paris, afterwards cardinal and papal chancellor at Rome, who died about A.D. 1150. His chief work is Sententiarum Ll. VIII. Though very famous in its day, it was soon cast into the shade by the Lombard’s work.

2. Petrus [Peter] Lombardus [Lombard], born at Novara in Lombardy, a scholar of Abælard, but powerfully influenced by St. Bernard and Hugo St. Victor, was Bishop of Paris from A.D. 1159 till his death in A.D. 1164. He published a dogmatic treatise under the title of Sententiarum Ll. IV.; of which Bk. 1 treated of God, Bk. 2 of Creatures, Bk. 3 of Redemption, Bk. 4 of the Sacraments and the Last Things. For centuries this was the textbook in theological seminaries and won for its author the designation of Magister Sententiarum. He himself compared this gift laid on the altar of the church to the widow’s mite, but the book attained a place of supreme importance in mediæval theology, had innumerable commentaries written on it and was officially authorized as the theological textbook by the Lateran Council of A.D. 1215. It is indeed a well arranged collection of the doctrinal deliverances of the Fathers, in which apparent contradictions are dialectically resolved, with great skill, and wrought up together into an articulate system, but from want of independence and occasional indecision or withholding of any definite opinion, it falls behind Hugo’s Summa and Robert’s Sentences. It had this advantage, however, that it gave freer scope to scholars and teachers, and so was more stimulating as a textbook for academic use. The Lombard’s works include a commentary on the Psalms and Catenæ on the Pauline Epistles.

3. The Frenchman Peter of Poitiers (Pictaviensis), one of the ablest followers of the Lombard, was chancellor of the University of Paris toward the end of the century. He wrote 5 bks. of Sentences or Distinctions, which in form and matter are closely modelled on the work of his master.

4. The most gifted of all the Summists of the 12th century was the German Alanus ab Insulis, born at Lille or Ryssel, lat. Insulæ. After teaching long at Paris, he entered the Cistercian order, and died at an advanced age at Clairvaux in A.D. 1203. A man of extensive erudition and a voluminous writer, he was called Doctor universalis. He wrote an allegorical poem Anticlaudianus, which describes how reason and faith in union with all the virtues restore human nature to perfection. His Regulæ de s. theologia give a short outline of theology and morals in 125 paradoxical sentences which are tersely expounded. A short but able summary of the Christian faith is given in the 5 bks. De arte catholicæ fidei. This work is characterized by the use of a mathematical style of demonstration, like that of the later school of Wolf, and an avoidance of references to patristic authorities, which would have little weight with Mohammedans and heretics. He is thus rather an opponent than a representative of dialectic scholasticism. The Summa quadripartita c. Hæreticos sui temporis ascribed to him was written by another Alanus.

§ 102.6. The Controversy on German Soil.—The provost Gerhoch and his brother, the dean Arno of Reichersberg in Bavaria, were representatives of the school of St. Victor as mediators between dialectics and mysticism. In A.D. 1150 Gerhoch addressed a memorial to Eugenius III., De corrupto ecclesiæ statu, and afterwards he published De investigatione Antichristi. He found the antichrist in the papal schisms of his times, in the ambition and covetousness of popes, in the corruptibility of the curia, in the manifold corruptions of the church, and especially in the spread of a dialectic destructive of all the mysteries of the faith. The controversy in which both of these brothers took most interest was that occasioned by the revival of Adoptionism in consequence of the teaching of French dialecticians, especially Abælard and Gilbert. It led to the formulating of the Christological doctrine in such a form as prepared the way for the later Lutheran theories of the Communicatio idiomatum and the Ubiquitas corporis Christi (§ 141, 9).—In South Germany, conspicuously in the schools of Bamberg, Freisingen, and Salzburg, the dialectic of Abælard, Gilbert, and the Lombard was predominant. Its chief representatives were Folmar of Triefenstein in Franconia and Bishop Eberhard of Bamberg. The controversy arose over the doctrine of the eucharist. Folmar had maintained like Berengar that not the actually glorified body of Christ is present in the sacrament, but only the spiritual substance of His flesh and blood, without muscles, sinews and bones. Against this gross Capernaitic view (John vi. 52, 59) Gerhoch maintained that the eucharistic body is the very resurrection body of Christ, the substance of which is a glorified corporeity without flesh and blood in a carnal sense, without sinews and bones. The bishop of Bamberg took offence at his friend’s bold rejection of the doctrine approved by the church, and so Folmar modified his position to the extent of admitting that there was on the altar not only the true, but also the whole body in the perfection of its human substance, under the form of bread and wine. But nevertheless both he and Abælard adhered to their radical error, a dialectical dismemberment of the two natures of Christ, according to which the divinity and humanity, the Son of God and the Son of man, were two strictly separate existences. Christ, they taught, is according to His humanity Son of God in no other way than a pious man is, i.e. by adoption; but according to His Divine nature He is like the Father omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. In respect of His human nature it must still be said by Him, “My Father is greater than I.” He dwells, however, bodily in heaven, and is shut in by and confined to it. Only His Divine nature can claim Latria or adoratio, worship. Only Dulia, cultus, reverence, such as is due to saints, images, and relics, should be given to His body and blood upon the altar. Gerhoch’s doctrine of the Supper, on the other hand, is summed up in the proposition: He who receives the flesh of the Logos (Caro Verbi) receives also therewith the Logos in His flesh (Verbum carnis). Folmar and Eberhard denounced this as Eutychian heresy. A conference at Bamberg in A.D. 1158, where Gerhoch stood alone as representative of his views, ended by his opponents declaring that he had been convicted of heresy. In A.D. 1162 a Council at Friesach in Carinthia, under the presidency of Archbishop Eberhard of Salzburg, reached the same conclusion.

§ 102.7. Theologians of a Pre-eminently Biblical and Ecclesiastico-Practical Tendency.

1. Alger of Liège, teacher of the cathedral school there, was one of the most important German theologians in the beginning of the 12th century. He resigned his appointment in A.D. 1121, to spend his last years in the monastery of Clugny, in order to enjoy the company and friendship of its abbot, Peter the Venerable; and there he died about A.D. 1130. The school of Liège, in which he had himself been trained up in the high church Cluniac doctrine there prevalent, flourished greatly during his rule of twenty years. His chief works are De Sacramentis corporis et sanguinis Domini in 3 bks., distinguished by acuteness and lucidity, and a controversial tract on the lines of Radbert against Berengar’s doctrine condemned by the church. In his De misericordia et justitia he treats of church discipline with circumspection, clearness, and decision.

2. Rupert of Deutz, more than any mediæval scholar before or after, created an enthusiasm for the study of Scripture as the people’s book for all times, the field in which the precious treasure is hid, to be found by any one whose eyes are made sharp by faith. He was a contemporary and fellow countryman of Alger, and died in A.D. 1135. Though he refers to the Hebrew and Greek texts, he cares less for the literal than for the speculative-dogmatic and mystical sense discovered by allegorical exegesis. In his principal work, De trinitate et operilus ejus, he sets forth in 3 bks. the creation work of the Father, in 30 bks. the revealing and redeeming work of the Son, from the fall to the death of Christ, and in the remaining 9 books the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, from the resurrection of Christ to the general resurrection. He maintains in opposition to Anselm (who was afterwards followed by Thomas Aquinas) that Christ would have become incarnate even if men had not sinned (a view which appears in Irenæus, and afterwards in Alexander Hales, Duns Scotus, John Wessel, and others). In regard to the Lord’s Supper he maintained the doctrine of consubstantiation, and he taught like pope Gelasius (§ 58, 2) that the relation of the heavenly and earthly in the eucharist is quite analogous to that of the two natures in Christ.[302]

3. The Benedictine Hervæus in the cloister of Bourg-Dieu, who died about A.D. 1150, was distinguished for deep piety and zealous study of Scripture and the fathers. He wrote commentaries on Isaiah and on the Pauline Epistles, the latter of which was ascribed to Anselm and so published among his works.

§ 102.8.

1. John of Salisbury, Johannes Parvus Sarisberiensis, was a theologian of a thoroughly practical tendency, though a diligent student of Abælard and an able classical scholar, specially familiar with the writings of Cicero. As the trusted friend of Hadrian IV. he was often sent from England on embassies to the pope. In Becket’s struggle against the encroachments of the Crown upon the rights of the church (§ 96, 16) he stood by the primate’s side as his faithful counsellor and fellow soldier, wrote an account of his life and martyrdom, and laboured diligently to secure his canonization. He was made Bishop of Chartres in A.D. 1176, and died there in A.D. 1180. His works, distinguished by singularly wide reading and a pleasing style, are pre-eminently practical. In his Policraticus s. de nugis Curialium et vestigiis Philosophorum he combats the nugæ of the hangers on at court with theological and philosophical weapons in a well balanced system of ecclesiastico-political and philosophico-theological ethics. His Metalogicus in 4 bks. is a polemic against the prostitution of science by the empty formalism of the schoolmen. His 329 Epistles are of immense importance for the literary and scientific history of his times.

2. Walter of St. Victor, Richard’s successor as prior of that monastery, makes his appearance about A.D. 1130, as the author of a vigorous polemic against dialectic scholasticism, in which he combats especially Christological heresies and spares the idolized Lombard just as little as the condemned Abælard.[303] He combats with special eagerness a new heresy springing from Abælard and developed by the Lombard which he styles “Nihilism,” because by denying the independence of the human nature of Christ it teaches that Christ in so far as He is man is not an Aliquid, i.e. an individual.

3. Innocent III. is deserving of a place here both on account of his rich theological learning and on account of the earnestness and depth of the moral and religious view of life which he presents in his writings. The most celebrated of these are De contemtu mundi and 6 bks. Mysteria evang. legis ac sacramenti Eucharistitæ, and during his pontificate, his epistles and sermons.

§ 102.9. Humanist Philosophers.—While Abælard was striving to prove Christianity the religion of reason, and for this was condemned by the church, his contemporary Bernard Sylvester, teacher of the school of Chartres, a famous nursery of classical studies, was seeking to shake himself free of any reference to theology and the church. Satisfied with Platonism as a genuinely spiritual religion, and feeling therefore no personal need of the church and its consolations, he carefully avoided any allusion to its dogmas, and so remained in high repute as a teacher and writer. His treatise, De mundi universitates. Megacosmus et Microcosmus, in dialogue form discussing in a dilettante, philosophizing style natural phenomena, half poetry, half prose, was highly popular in its day. It fared very differently with his accomplished and like-minded scholar William of Conches. The vehemence with which he declared himself a Catholic Christian and not a heathen Academic aroused suspicion. Though in his Philosophia mundi, sometimes erroneously attributed to Honorius of Autun, he studiously sought to avoid any contradiction of the biblical and ecclesiastical theory of the world, he could not help in his discussion of the origin of man characterizing the literal interpretation of the Scripture history of creation as peasant faith. The book fell into the hands of the abbot William of Thierry, who accused its author to St. Bernard. The opposition soon attained to such dimensions that he was obliged to publish a formal recantation and in a new edition to remove everything objectionable.

§ 103. THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.

Scholasticism took a new departure in the beginning of the 13th century, and by the middle of the century it reached its climax. Material for its development was found in the works of Aristotle and his Moslem expositors, and this was skilfully used by highly gifted members of the Franciscan and Dominican orders so that all opposition to the scholastic philosophy was successfully overborne. The Franciscans Alexander of Hales and Bonaventura stand side by side with the brilliant Dominican teachers Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas. As reformers of the scholastic philosophy from different points of view we meet with Raimund Lull and Roger Bacon. There were also numerous representatives of this simple biblical and practical tendency devoted to Scripture study and the pursuit of the Christian life; and during this period we find the first developments of German mysticism properly so called.

§ 103.1. The Writings of Aristotle and his Arabic Interpreters.—Till the end of the 12th century Aristotle was known in the Christian West only through Porphyry and Boëthius. This philosophy, however, from the 9th century was diligently studied in Arabic translations of the original text (§ 72) by Moslem scholars of Bagdad and Cordova, who wrote expositions and made original contributions to science. The most distinguished of these, besides the logicians Alkindi in the 9th, and Alfarabi in the 10th century, were the supernaturalistic Avicenna of Bokhara, † A.D. 1037 Algazel of Bagdad, inclined to mysticism or sufism, † A.D. 1111, and the pantheistic-naturalistic Averroes of Cordova, † A.D. 1198. The Moors and Spanish Jews were also devoted students of the peripatetic philosophy. The most famous of these was Maimonides, † A.D. 1204, who wrote the rationalistic work More Nebochim. On the decay of Arabic philosophy in Spain, Spanish Jews introduced the study of Aristotle into France. Dissatisfied with Latin translations from the Arabic, they began in A.D. 1220 to make translations directly from the Greek. Suspicions were now aroused against the new gospel of philosophy. At a Synod in Paris A.D. 1209 (§ 108, 4) the physical writings of Aristotle were condemned and lecturing on them forbidden. This prohibition was renewed in A.D. 1215 by the papal legate and the metaphysics included. But no prohibition of the church could arrest the scientific ardour of that age. In A.D. 1231 the definitive prohibition was reduced to a measure determining the time to be devoted to such studies, and in A.D. 1254 we find the university prescribing the number of hours during which Aristotle’s physics and metaphysics should be taught. Some decades later the church itself declared that no one should obtain the degree of master who was not familiar with Aristotle, “the precursor of Christ in natural things as John Baptist was in the things of grace.” This change was brought about by the belief that not Aristotle but Erigena was the author of all the pantheistic heresies of the age (§§ 90, 7; 108, 4), and also by the need felt by the Franciscans and Dominicans for using Aristotelian methods of proof in defence of the doctrine of the church. Philosophy, however, was now regarded by all theologians as only the handmaid of theology. Even in the 11th century Petrus [Peter] Damiani had indicated the mutual relation of the sciences thus: Debet velut ancilla dominæ quodam famulatus obsequio subservire, ne si præcedit, oberret.[304]

§ 103.2. On account of their characteristic tendencies Avicenna was most popular with the Schoolmen and after him Algazel, while Averroes, though carefully studied and secretly followed by some, was generally regarded with suspicion and aversion. Among his secret admirers was Simon of Tournay, about A.D. 1200, who boasted of being able with equal ease to prove the falseness and the truth of the church doctrines, and declared that Moses, Christ, and Mohammed were the three greatest deceivers the world had ever seen. The Parisian scholars ascribed to Averroes the Theory of a twofold Truth. A positive religion was required to meet the religious needs of the multitude, but the philosopher might reach and maintain the truth independently of any revealed religion. In the Christian West he put this doctrine in a less offensive form by saying that one and the same affirmation might be theologically true and philosophically false, and vice versa. Behind this, philosophical scepticism as well as theological unbelief sought shelter. Its chief opponents were Thomas Aquinas and Raimund Lull, while at a later time Duns Scotus and the Scotists were inclined more or less to favour it.

§ 103.3. The Appearance of the Mendicant Orders.—The Dominican and Franciscan orders competed with one another in a show of zeal for the maintenance of the orthodox doctrine, and each endeavoured to secure the theological chairs in the University of Paris, the principal seat of learning in those days. They were vigorously opposed by the university corporation, and especially by the Parisian doctor William of St. Amour, who characterized them in his tract De periculis novissimorum temporum of A.D. 1255 as the precursors of antichrist. But he was answered by learned members of the orders, Albert the Great, Aquinas, and Bonaventura, and finally, in A.D. 1257, all opposition on the part of the university was checked by papal authority and royal command. The Augustinians, too, won a seat in the University of Paris in A.D. 1261.—The learned monks gave themselves with enthusiasm to the new science and applied all their scientific gains to polemical and apologetical purposes. They diligently conserved all that the earlier Fathers down to Gregory the Great had written in exposition of the doctrine and all that the later Fathers down to Hugo St. Victor and Peter the Lombard had written in its defence. But what had been simply expressed before was now arranged under elaborate scientific categories. The Summists of the previous century supplied abundant material for the work. Their Summæ sententiarum, especially that of the Lombard, became the theme of innumerable commentaries, but besides these, comprehensive original works were written. These were no longer to be described as Summæ sententiarum, but assumed with right the title of Summæ theologiæ or theologicæ.

§ 103.4. Distinguished Franciscan Schoolmen.—Alexander of Hales, trained in the English cloister of Hales, doctor irrefragabilis, was the most famous teacher of theology in Paris, where in A.D. 1222 he entered the Seraphic Order. He died in A.D. 1245. As the first church theologian who, without the excessive hair-splitting of later scholastics, applied the forms of the peripatetic philosophy to the scientific elaboration of the doctrinal system of the church, he was honoured by his grateful order with the title of Monarcha theologorum, and is still regarded as the first scholastic in the strict sense of the word. His Summa theologica, published at Nuremberg in A.D. 1482 in 4 folio vols. was accepted by his successors as the model of scientific method and arrangement. The first two vols. treat of God and His Work, the Creature; the third, of the Redeemer and His Work; the fourth, of the Sacraments of the O. and N.T. The conclusion, which is not extant, treated of Præmia salutis per futuram gloriam. Each of these divisions was subdivided into a great number of Quæstiones, these again into Membra, and these often into Articuli. The question at the head of the section was followed by several answers affirmative and negative, some of which were entitled Auctoritates (quotations from Scripture, the Fathers, and the teachers of the church), some Rationes (dictates of the Greek, Arabian, and Jewish philosophers), and finally, his own conclusion. Among the authorities of later times, Hugo’s dogmatic works (§ 102, 4) occupy with him the highest place, but he seems to have had no appreciation of his mystical speculations.—His most celebrated disciple John Fidanza, better known as Bonaventura, had a strong tendency to mysticism. Born at Bagnarea in the district of Florence in A.D. 1221, he became teacher of theology in Paris in A.D. 1253, general of his order in A.D. 1257, was made Cardinal-bishop of Ostia by Gregory X. in A.D. 1273, and in the following year was a member of the Lyons Council, at which the question of the reunion of the churches was discussed (§ 67, 4). He took an active part in the proceedings of that council, but died before its close in A.D. 1274. His aged teacher Alexander had named him a Verus Israelita, in quo Adam non peccasse videtur. Later Franciscans regarded him as the noblest embodiment of the idea of the Seraphic Order next to its founder, and celebrated the angelic purity of his personality by the title doctor seraphicus. Sixtus IV. canonized him in A.D. 1482, and Sixtus V. edited his works in 8 fol. vols. in A.D. 1588, and gave him in A.D. 1587 the sixth place in the rank of Doctores ecclesiæ as the greatest church teacher of the West. Like Hugo, he combined the mystical and doctrinal sides of theology, but like Richard St. Victor inclined more to the mystical. His greatest dogmatic work is his commentary in 2 vols. fol. on the Lombard. His able treatise, De reductione artium ad theologiam, shows how theology holds the highest place among all the sciences. In his Breviloquium he seeks briefly but with great expenditure of learning to prove that the church doctrine is in accordance with the teachings of reason. In the Centiloquium, consisting of 100 sections, he treats summarily of the doctrines of Sin, Grace, and Salvation. In the Pharetra he gives a collection of the chief authorities for the conclusions reached in the two previously named works. The most celebrated of his mystical treatises are the Diætæ salutis, describing the nine days’ journey (diætæ) in which the soul passes from the abyss of sin to the blessedness of heaven, and the Itinerarium mentis in Deum, in which he describes as a threefold way to the knowledge of God a theologia symbolica (=extra nos), propria (=intra nos) and mystica (=supra nos), the last and highest of which alone leads to the beatific vision of God.

§ 103.5. Distinguished Dominican Schoolmen.—(1)Albert the Great, the oldest son of a knight of Bollstadt, born in A.D. 1193, at Laningen in Swabia, sent in A.D. 1212, because too weak for a military career, to the University of Padua, where he devoted himself for ten years to the diligent study of Aristotle, entered then the Dominican order, and at Bologna pursued with equal diligence the study of theology in a six years’ course. He afterwards taught the regular curriculum of the liberal arts at Cologne and in the cloisters of his order in other German cities; and after taking his doctor’s degree at Paris, he taught theology at Cologne with such success that the Cologne school, owing to the crowds attracted to his lectures, grew to the dimensions of a university. In A.D. 1254 he became provincial of his order in Germany, was compelled in A.D. 1260 by papal command to accept the bishopric of Regensburg, but returned to Cologne in A.D. 1262 to resume teaching, and died there in A.D. 1280, in his 87th year. His amazing acquirements in philosophical, theological, cabalistic, and natural science won for him the surname of the Great, and the title of doctor universalis. Since the time of Aristotle and Theophrastus there had been no investigator in natural science like him. Traces of mysticism may be discovered in his treatise Paradisus animæ, and in his commentary on the Areopagite. Indeed from his school proceeded the greatest master of speculative mysticism (§ 114, 1). His chief work in natural science is the Summa de Creaturis, the fantastic and superstitious character of which may be seen from the titles of its several books: De virtutibus herbarum, lapidum, et animalium, De mirabilibus mundi, and De secretis mulierum. He wrote three books of commentaries on the Lombard, and two books of an independent system of dogmatics, the Summa theologica. The latter treatise, which closely follows the work of Alexander of Hales, is incomplete.[305]

§ 103.6. The greatest and most influential of all the Schoolmen was the Doctor angelicus, Thomas Aquinas. Born in A.D. 1227, son of a count of Aquino, at his father’s castle of Roccasicca, in Calabria, he entered against his parents’ will as a novice into the Dominican monastery at Naples. Removed for safety to France, he was followed by his brothers and taken back, but two years later he effected his escape with the aid of the order, and was placed under Albert at Cologne. Afterwards he taught for two years at Cologne, and was then sent to win his doctor’s degree at Paris in A.D. 1252. There he began along with his intimate friend Bonaventura his brilliant career. It was not until A.D. 1257, after the opposition of the university to the mendicant orders had been overcome, that the two friends obtained the degree of doctor. Urban IV. recalled him to Italy in A.D. 1261, where he taught successively in Rome, Bologna, Pisa, and Naples. Ordered by Gregory to take part in the discussions on union at the Lyons Council, he died suddenly in A.D. 1274, soon after his return to Naples, probably from poison at the hand of his countryman Charles of Anjou, in order that he might not appear at the council to accuse him of tyranny. John XXII. canonized him in A.D. 1323, and Pius V. gave him the fifth place among the Latin doctores ecclesiæ.—Thomas was probably the most profound thinker of the century, and was at the same time admired as a popular preacher. He had an intense veneration for Augustine, an enthusiastic appreciation of the church doctrine and the philosophy which are approved and enjoined by this great Father. He had also a vein of genuine mysticism, and was distinguished for warm and deep piety. He was the first to give the papal hierarchical system of Gregory and Innocent a regular place in dogmatics. His Summa philosophiæ contra Gentiles, is a Christian philosophy of religion, of which the first three books treat of those religious truths which human reason of itself may recognise, while the fourth book treats of those which, because transcending reason though not contrary to it, i.e. doctrines of the incarnation and the trinity, can be known only by Divine revelation. He wrote two books of commentaries on the Lombard. By far the most important work of the Middle Ages is his Summa theologica, in three vols., in which he gives ample space to ethical questions. His polemic against the Greeks is found in the section in which he defines and proves the primacy of the pope, basing his arguments on ancient and modern fictions and forgeries (§ 96, 23), which he, ignorant of Greek and deriving his knowledge of antiquity wholly from Gratian’s decree, accepted bona fide as genuine. His chief exegetical work is the Catena aurea on the Gospels and Pauline Epistles, translated into English by Dr. Pusey, in 8 vols., Oxf., 1841, ff. In commenting on Aristotle Thomas, unlike Albert, neglected the treatises on natural science in favour of those on politics.—The Dominican order, proud of having in it the greatest philosopher and theologian of the age, made the doctrine of Thomas in respect of form and matter the authorized standard among all its members (§ 113, 2), and branded every departure from it as a betrayal not only of the order but also of the church and Christianity. The other monkish orders, too, especially the Augustinians, Cistercians, and Carmelites, recognised the authority of the Angelical doctor. Only the Franciscans, moved by envy and jealousy, ignored him and kept to Alexander and Bonaventura, until the close of the century, when, in Duns Scotus (§ 113, 1), they obtained a brilliant teacher within their own ranks, whom they proudly thought would prove a fair rival in fame to the great Dominican teacher.[306]

§ 103.7. Reformers of the Scholastic Method.—Raimund Lull, a Catalonian nobleman of Majorca, born in A.D. 1234, roused from a worldly life by visions, gave himself to fight for Christ against the infidels with the weapons of the Spirit. Learning Arabic from a Saracen slave, he passed through a full course of scholastic training in theology and entered the Franciscan order. Constrained in the prosecution of his mission to seek a simpler method of proof than that afforded by scholasticism, he succeeded by the help of visions in discovering one by which as he and his followers, the Lullists, thought, the deepest truths of all human sciences could be made plain to the untutored human reason. He called it the Ars Magna, and devoted his whole life to its elaboration in theory and practice. Representing fundamental ideas and their relations to the objects of thought by letters and figures, he drew conclusions from their various combinations. In his missionary travels in North Africa (§ 93, 16) he used his art in his disputations with the Saracen scholars, and died in A.D. 1315 in consequence of ill treatment received there, in his 81st year. Of his writings in Latin, Catalonian, and Arabic, numbering it is said more than a thousand, 282 were known in A.D. 1721 to Salzinger of Mainz, but only 45 were included in his edition of the collected works.

§ 103.8. Roger Bacon, an English monk, contemporary with Lull, worked out his reform in a sounder manner by going back to the original sources and thus obtaining deliverance from the accumulated errors of later times. He appealed on matters of natural science not to corrupt translations but to the original works of Aristotle, and on matters of theology, not to the Lombard but to the Greek New Testament. He prosecuted his studies laboriously in mathematics and the Greek language. Roger was called by his friends Doctor mirabilis or profundus. He was a prodigy of learning for his age, more in the department of physics than in those of philosophy and theology. He was regarded, however, by his own order as a heretic, and imprisoned as a trafficker in the black arts. Born in A.D. 1214 at Ilchester, he took his degree of doctor of theology at Paris, entered the Franciscan order, and became a resident at Oxford. Besides diligent study of languages, which secured him perfect command of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic, he busied himself with researches and experiments in physics (especially optics), chemistry, and astronomy. He made several important discoveries, e.g. the principle of refraction, magnifying glasses, the defects of the calendar, etc., while he also succeeded in making a combustible material which may be regarded as the precursor of gunpowder. He maintained the possibility of ships and land vehicles being propelled most rapidly without sails, and without the labour of men or animals. Yet he was a child of his age, and believed in the philosopher’s stone, in astrology, and alchemy. Thoroughly convinced of the defects of scholasticism, he spoke of Albert the Great and Aquinas as boys who taught before they learnt, and especially reproached them with their ignorance of Greek. With an amount of brag that smacks of the empiric he professed to be able to teach Hebrew in three days and Greek in the same time, and to give a full course of geometry in seven days. With fearless severity he lashed the corruptions of the clergy and the monks. Only one among his companions seems to have regarded Roger, notwithstanding all his faults, as a truly great man. That was Clement IV. who, as papal legate in England, had made his acquaintance, and as pope liberated him from prison. To him Roger dedicated his Opus majus s. de emendandis scientiis. At a later period the general of the Franciscan order, with the approval of Nicholas IV., had him again cast into prison, and only after that pope’s death was he liberated through the intercession of his friends. He died soon after in A.D. 1291.[307]

§ 103.9. Theologians of a Biblical and Practical Tendency.

1. Cæsarius of Heisterbach near Bonn was a monk, then prior and master of the novices of the Cistercian monastery there. He died in A.D. 1230. His Dialogus magnus visionum et miraculorum in 12 bks., one of the best specimens of the finest culture and learning of the Middle Ages, in the form of conversation with the novices, gives an admirable and complete sketch of the morals and manners of the times illustrated from the history and legends of the monks, clergy, and people.

2. His younger contemporary the Dominican William Peraldus (Perault), in his Summa virtutum and Summa vitiorum, presents a summary of ethics with illustrations from life in France. He died about A.D. 1250, as bishop of Lyons.

3. Hugo of St. Caro (St. Cher, a suburb of Vienne), a Dominican and cardinal who died in A.D. 1263, gives evidence of careful Bible study in his Postilla in univ. Biblia juxta quadrupl. sensum (a commentary accompanying the text) and his Concordantiæ Bibliorum (on the Vulgate). To him we are indebted for our division of the Scriptures into chapters. At the request of his order he undertook a correction of the Vulgate from the old MSS.

4. Robert of Sorbon in Champagne, who died in A.D. 1274, was confessor of St. Louis and teacher of theology at Paris. He urged upon his pupils the duty of careful study of the Bible. In A.D. 1250 he founded the Sorbonne at Paris, originally a seminary for the education and support of the poorer clergy who aspired to the highest attainments in theology. Its fame became so great that it rose to the rank of a full theological faculty, and down to its overthrow in the French Revolution it continued to be the highest tribunal in France for all matters pertaining to religion and the church.

5. Raimund Martini, Dominican at Barcelona, who died after A.D. 1284, was unweariedly engaged in the conversion of Jews and Mohammedans. He spoke Hebrew and Arabic as fluently as Latin, and wrote Pugio fidei contra Mauros et Judæos.[308]

§ 103.10. Precursors of the German Speculative Mystics.—David of Augsburg, teacher of theology and master of the novices in the Franciscan monastery at Augsburg, deserves to be named first, as one who largely anticipated the style of speculative mysticism that flourished in the following century (§ 114). His writings, partly in Latin, partly in German, are merely ascetic directories and treatises of a contemplative mystical order, distinguished by deep spirituality and earnest, humble piety. The German works especially are models of a beautiful rhythmical style, worthy of ranking with the finest creations of any century. He is author of the important tract, De hæresi pauperum de Lugduno, in which the pious mystic shows himself in the less pleasing guise of a relentless inquisitor and heresy hunter.—A brilliant and skilful allegory, The Daughter of Zion, the human soul, who, having become a daughter of Babylon, went forth to see the heavenly King, and under the guidance of the virgins Faith, Hope, Love, Wisdom, and Prayer attained unto this end, was first written in Latin prose; but afterwards towards the close of the 13th century a free rendering of it in more than 4,000 verses was published by the Franciscan Lamprecht of Regensburg. Its mysticism is like that of St. Bernard and Hugo St. Victor.—In speculative power and originality the Dominican Theodorich of Freiburg, Meister Dietrich, a pupil of Albert the Great, far excelled all the mystics of this century. About A.D. 1280 he was reader at Treves, afterwards prior at Würzburg, took his master’s degree and taught at Paris, A.D. 1285-1289. About A.D. 1320, however, along with Meister Eckhart (§ 114, 1), he fell under suspicion of heresy, and nothing further is known of him. Among his still unpublished writings, mostly on natural and religious philosophy, the most important is the book De beatifica visione Dei per essentiam, which marks him out as a precursor of the Eckhart speculation.—On Female Mystics, see § 107.

IV. The Church and the People.

§ 104. PUBLIC WORSHIP AND ART.

Public worship had for a long time been popularly regarded as a performance fraught with magical power. The ignorant character of the priests led to frequent setting aside of preaching as something unessential, so that the service became purely liturgical. But now popes and synods urged the importance of rearing a race of learned priests, and the carefully prepared and eloquent sermons of Franciscans and Dominicans found great acceptance with the people. The Schoolmen gave to the doctrine of the sacraments its scientific form. The veneration of saints, relics, and images became more and more the central point of worship. Besides ecclesiastical architecture, which reached its highest development in the 13th century, the other arts began to be laid under contribution to beautify the ceremonial, the dresses of the celebrants, and the inner parts of the buildings.

§ 104.1. The Liturgy and the Sermon.—The Roman Liturgy was universally adopted except in Spain. When it was proposed at the Synod of Toledo in A.D. 1088 to set aside the old Mozarabic liturgy (§ 88, 1), the people rose against the proposal, and the ordeals of combat and fire decided in favour of retaining the old service. From that time both liturgies were used side by side. The Slavic ritual was abandoned in Moravia and Bohemia in the 10th century. The language of the church services everywhere was and continued to be the Latin. The quickening of the monkish orders in the 11th century, especially the Cluniacs and Cistercians, but more particularly the rise of the Franciscans and Dominicans in the 13th century, gave a great impulse to preaching. Almost all the great monks and schoolmen were popular preachers. The crowds that flocked around them as they preached in the vernacular were enormous. Even in the regular services the preaching was generally in the language of the people, but quotations from Scripture and the Fathers, as a mark of respect, were made in Latin and then translated. Sermons addressed to the clergy and before academic audiences were always in Latin.—As a preacher of repentance and of the crusades, Fulco of Neuilly, † A.D. 1202, regarded by the people as a saint and a miracle worker, had a wonderful reputation (§ 94, 4). Of all mediæval preachers, however, none can be compared for depth, spirituality, and popular eloquence with the Franciscan Berthold of Regensburg, pupil and friend of David of Augsburg (§ 103, 10), one of the most powerful preachers in the German tongue that ever lived. He died in A.D. 1272. He wandered from town to town preaching to crowds, often numbering 100,000 men, of the grace of God in Christ, against the abuse of indulgences and false trust in saints, and the idea of the meritoriousness of pilgrimages, etc. His sermons are of great value as illustrations of the strength and richness of the old German language. Roger Bacon too (§ 103, 8), usually so chary of praise, eulogises Frater Bertholdus Alemannus as a preacher worth more than the two mendicant orders together.

§ 104.2. Definition and Number of the Sacraments (§§ 58; 70, 2).—Radbert acknowledged only two: Baptism including confirmation, and the Lord’s Supper. Rabanus Maurus by separately enumerating the bread and the cup, and counting confirmation as well as baptism, made four. Hugo St. Victor again held them to be an indefinite number. But he distinguished three kinds: those on which salvation depends, Baptism, Confirmation, and the Supper; those not necessary and forming important aids to salvation, sprinkling with holy water, confession, extreme unction, marriage, etc.; those necessary for particular callings, the ordination of priests, sacred vestments. Yet he prepared the way for the final ecclesiastical conception of the sacraments, by placing its Elementa Corporalia under the threefold category as divinam gratiam ex similitudine repræsentantia, ex institutione significantia, and ex consecratione continentia. Peter the Lombard took practically the same view, but fixed the number of the Sacraments at seven: Baptism, Confirmation (§ 35, 4), the Supper, Penance, Extreme Unction, Marriage, and Ordination (§ 45, 1). This number was first officially sanctioned by the Florentine Council of A.D. 1439 (§ 67, 6). Alexander of Hales gave a special rank to Baptism and the Supper, as alone instituted by Christ, while Aquinas gave this rank to all the seven. All the ecclesiastical consecrations and benedictions were distinguished from the sacraments as Sacramentalia.—The Schoolmen distinguished the sacraments of the O.T., as ex opera operante, i.e. efficacious only through faith in a coming Redeemer, from the sacraments of the N.T. as ex opera operato, i.e. as efficacious by mere receiving without the exercise of positive faith on the part of all who had not committed a mortal sin. Against old sectaries (§§ 41, 3; 63, 1) and new (§§ 108, 7, 12) the scholastic divines maintained that even unworthy and unbelieving priests could validly dispense the sacraments, if only there was the intentio to administer it in the form prescribed by the church.[309]

§ 104.3. The Sacrament of the Altar.—At the fourth Lateran Council of A.D. 1215 the doctrine of Transubstantiation was finally accepted (§ 101, 2). The fear lest any of the blood of the Lord should be spilt led to the withholding from the 12th century of the cup from the laity, and its being given only to the priests. If not the cause, then the consequence, of this was that the priests were regarded as the only full and perfect partakers of the Lord’s table. Kings at their coronation and at the approach of death were sometimes by special favour allowed to partake of the cup. The withdrawal of the cup from the laity was dogmatically justified, specially by Alex. of Hales, by the doctrine of concomitantia, i.e. that in the body the blood was contained. Fear of losing any fragment also led to the substitution of wafers, the host, for the bread that should be broken.—A consecrated host is kept in the Tabernaculum, a niche in the wall on the right of the high altar, in the so-called liburium or Sanctissimum, i.e. a gold or silver casket, often ornamented with rich jewels. It is taken forth, touched only by the priests, and exhibited to the kneeling people during the service and in solemn processions.

§ 104.4. Penance.—Gratian’s decree (§ 99, 5) left it to the individual believer’s decision whether the sinner could be reconciled to God by heart penitence without confession. But in accordance also with the teaching of the Lombard, confession of mortal sins (Gal. v. 19 ff. and Cor. v. 9 f.), or, in case that could not be, the desire at heart to make it, was declared indispensable. The forgiveness of sins was still, however, regarded as God’s exclusive prerogative, and the priest could bind and loose only in regard to the fellowship of the church and the enjoyment of the sacraments. Before him, however, Hugo St. Victor had begun to transcend these limits; for he, distinguishing between the guilt and the punishment of the sinner, ascribed indeed to God alone the absolution from the guilt of sin on the ground of sincere repentance, but ascribed to the exercise of the priestly function, the absolution from the punishment of eternal death, in accordance with Matthew xviii. 18 and John xx. 23. Richard St. Victor held that the punishment of eternal death, which all mortal sins as well as venial sins entail, can be commuted into temporal punishment by priestly absolution, atoned for by penances imposed by the priests, e.g. prayers, fastings, alms, etc.; whereas without such satisfaction they can be atoned for only by the pains of purgatory (§ 61, 4). Innocent III., at the fourth Lateran Council of A.D. 1215, had the obligation of confession of all sins raised into a dogma, and obliged all believers under threat of excommunication to make confession at least once a year, as preparation for the Easter communion. The Provincial Synod at Toulouse in A.D. 1229 (§ 109, 2) insisted on compulsory confession and communion three times a year, at Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. The three penitential requirements, enforced first by Hildebert of Tours, and adopted by the Lombard, Contritio cordis, Confessio oris, and Satisfactio operis continued henceforth in force. But Hugo’s and Richard’s theory of absolution displaced not only that of the Lombard, but, by an extension of the sacerdotal idea to the absolution of the sinner from guilt, led to the introduction of a full-blown theory of indulgence (§ 106, 2). As the ground of the scientific construction given it by the Schoolmen of the 13th century, especially by Aquinas, the Catholic Church doctrine of penance received its final shape at the Council of Florence in A.D. 1439. Penance as the fourth sacrament consists of hearty repentance, auricular confession, and satisfaction; it takes form in the words of absolution, Ego te absolvo; and it is efficacious for the forgiveness of sins. Any breach of the secrecy of the confessional was visited by the fourth Lateran Council with excommunication, deposition, and lifelong confinement in a monastery. The exaction of a confessional fee, especially at the Easter confession, appears as an increment of the priest’s income in many mediæval documents. Its prohibition by several councils was caused by its simoniacal abuse. By the introduction of confessors, separate from the local clergy, the custom fell more and more into disuse.

§ 104.5. Extreme Unction.—Although as early as A.D. 416 Innocent I. had described anointing of the sick with holy oil (Mark vi. 13; Jas. v. 14) as a Genus Sacramenti (§ 61, 3), extreme unction as a sacrament made little progress till the 9th century. The Synod of Chalons in A.D. 813 calls it quite generally a means of grace for the weak of soul and body. The Lombard was the first to give it the fifth place among the seven sacraments as Unctio extrema and Sacramentum exeuntium, ascribing to it Peccatorum remissio et corporalis infirmitatio alleviatus. Original sin being atoned for by baptism, and actual sins by penance, Albert the Great and Aquinas describe it as the purifying from the Reliquiæ peccatorum which even after baptism and penance hinder the soul from entering into its perfect rest. Bodily healing is only a secondary aim, and is given only if thereby the primary end of spiritual healing is not hindered. It was long debated whether, in case of recovery, it should be repeated when death were found approaching, and it was at last declared to be admissible. The Council of Trent defines Extreme Unction as Sacr. pœnitentiæ totius vitæ consummativum. The form of its administration was finally determined to be the anointing of eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and hands, as well as (except in women) the feet and loins, with holy oil, consecrated by the bishop on Maundy Thursday. Confession and communion precede anointing. The three together constitute the Viaticum of the soul in its last journey. After receiving extreme unction recipients are forbidden again to touch the ground with their bare feet or to have marital intercourse.

§ 104.6. The Sacrament of Marriage (§ 89, 4).—When marriage came generally to be regarded as a sacrament in the proper sense, the laws of marriage were reconstructed and the administration of them committed to the church. It had long been insisted upon by the church with ever-increasing decidedness, that the priestly benediction must precede the marriage ceremonial, and that bridal communion must accompany the civil action. Hence marriage had to be performed in the immediate vicinity of a church, ante ostium ecclesiæ. As another than the father often gave away the bride, this position of sponsor was claimed by the church for the priest. Marriage thus lost its civil character, and the priest came to be regarded as performing it in his official capacity not in name of the family, but in name of the church. Christian marriage in the early times required only mutual consent of parties (§ 39, 1), but the Council of Trent demanded a solemn agreement between bride and bridegroom before the officiating priest and two or three witnesses. In order to determine more exactly hindrances to marriage (§ 61, 2) it was made a law at the second Lateran Council in A.D. 1139, and confirmed at the fourth in A.D. 1215, that the parties proposing to marry should be proclaimed in church. To each part of the sacrament the character indelibilis is ascribed, and so divorce was absolutely forbidden, even in the case of adultery (in spite of Matt. v. 32 and xix. 9), though separatio a mensa et toro was allowed. Innocent III. in A.D. 1215 reduced the prohibited degrees from the seventh to the fourth in the line of blood relationship (§ 61, 2).

§ 104.7. New Festivals.—The worship of Mary (§ 57, 2) received an impulse from the institution of the Feast of the Birth of Mary on 8th of September. To this was added in the south of France in the 12th century, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on the 8th December. Radbert (§ 91, 4) by his doctrine of Sanctificatio in utero gave basis to the theory of the Virgin’s freedom from original sin in her conception and bearing. Anselm of Canterbury, however, taught in Cur Deus Homo? ii. 16, that Mary was conceived and born in sin, and that she like all others had sinned in Adam. Certain canons of Lyons, in A.D. 1140, revived Radbert’s theory, but raised the Sanctif. in utero into the Immaculata conceptio. St. Bernard protested against the doctrine and the festival; sinless conception is a prerogative of the Redeemer alone. Mary like us all was conceived in sin, but was sanctified before the birth by Divine power, so that her whole life was faultless; if one imagines that Mary’s sinless conception of her Son had her own sinless conception as a necessary presupposition, this would need to be carried back ad infinitum, and to festivals of Immaculate Conceptions there would be no end. This view of a Sanctificatio in utero, with repudiation of the Conceptio immaculata, was also maintained by Alex. of Hales, Bonaventura, Albert the Great, and Aquinas. The feast of the Conception, with the predicate “immaculate” dropped, gradually came to be universally observed. The Franciscans adopted it in this limited sense at Pisa, in A.D. 1263, but when, beginning with Duns Scotus (§§ 113, 112), the doctrine of the immaculate conception came to be regarded as a distinctive dogma of the order, the Dominicans felt called upon to offer it their most strenuous opposition.[310] (Continuation, § 112, 4.)—To the feast of All Saints, on 1st November, the Cluniacs added in A.D. 998, the feast of All Souls on 2nd November, for intercession of believers on behalf of the salvation of souls in purgatory. In the 12th century the Feast of the Trinity was introduced on the Sunday after Pentecost. Out of the transubstantiation doctrine arose the Corpus Christi Festival, on the Thursday after Trinity. A pious nun of Liège, Juliana, in A.D. 1261, saw in a vision the full moon with a halo around it, and an inward revelation interpreted this phenomenon to indicate that the festal cycle of the church still wanted a festival in honour of the eucharist. Urban IV. gave effect to this suggestion in A.D. 1264, avowedly in consequence of the miracle of the mass of Bolsena. A priest of Bolsena celebrating mass spilt a drop of consecrated wine, which left a blood-red stain on the corporal or pall (§ 60, 5), in the form of a host. The festival did not come into favour till Clement V. renewed its institution at the Council of Vienne, in A.D. 1311. The church, by order of John XXIII. in A.D. 1316, celebrated it by a magnificent procession, in which the liburium was carried with all pomp.

§ 104.8. The Veneration of Saints (§ 88, 4).—The numerous Canonizations, from the 12th century exclusively in the hands of the popes, gave an impulse to saint worship. It was the duty of Advocatus diaboli to try to disprove the reports of virtues and miracles attributed to candidates. The proofs of holiness adduced were generally derived from thoroughly fabulous sources. The introduction of the name of accepted candidates into the canon of the mass gave rise to the term canonization. Beatification was a lower degree of honour, often a preliminary to canonization at a later period. It carried with it the veneration not of the whole church, but of particular churches or districts. The Dominican Jacobus a Voragine, who died in A.D. 1298, in his Legenda aurea afforded a pattern for numerous late legends of the saints. A Parisian theologian who styled it Legenda ferrea, was publicly expelled from his office. The Veneration of Mary, to whom were rendered Hyperdoulia in contradistinction from the Doulia of the saints, not only among the people, but with the most cultured theologians, publicly and privately, literally and figuratively, in prose and poetry, was almost equal to the worship rendered to God, and indeed often overshadowed it. The angel’s salutation (Luke i. 28) was in every prayer. Its frequent repetition led to the use of the Rosary, a rose wreath for the most blessed of women. The great rosary attributed to St. Dominic has fifteen decades, or 150 smaller pearls of Mary, each of which represents an Ave Maria, and after every ten there is a greater Paternoster pearl. The small or common rosary has only five decades of beads of Mary with a Paternoster bead for each decade. Thrice repeated it forms the so-called Psalter of Mary. The first appearance of the rosary in devotion was with the monk Macarius in the 4th century, who took 300 stones in his lap, and after every Paternoster threw one away. The rosary devotion is also practised by Moslems and Buddhists. In cloisters, Saturday was usually dedicated to the Mother of God, and was begun by a special Officium S. Mariæ. May was called the month of Mary.—In the 11th century no further trace is found of the Frankish opposition to Image Worship (§ 92, 1). But this in no way hindered the growth of Relic Worship. Returning crusaders showered on the West innumerable relics, which notwithstanding many sceptics were received generally with superstitious reverence. Castles and estates were often bartered for pretended relics of a distinguished saint, and such treasures were frequently stolen at the risk of life. No story of a trafficker in relics was too absurd to be believed.—Pilgrimages, especially to Rome and Palestine, were no less in esteem among the Western Christians of the 10th century during the Roman pornocracy (§ 96, 1) or the tyranny of the Seljuk dynasty in Palestine (§ 94). The expectation of the approaching end of the world, rather gave them an impulse during this century, which reached its fullest expression in the crusades.—Continuation, § 115, 9.

§ 104.9. The earliest trace of a commemoration of St. Ursula and her 11,000 Virgins is met with in the 10th century. Excavations in the Ager Ursulanus near Cologne in A.D. 1155 led to the discovery of some thousand skeletons, several of them being those of males, with inscribed tablets, one of the fictitious inscriptions referring to an otherwise unknown pope Cyriæus. St. Elizabeth of Schönau (§ 107, 1) at the same time had visions in which the Virgin gave her authentic account of their lives. Ursula, the fair daughter of a British king of the 3rd century, was to have married a pagan prince; she craved three years’ reprieve and got from her father eleven ships, each with an equipment of a thousand virgins, with which she sailed up the Rhine to Basel, and thence with her companions travelled on foot a pilgrimage to Rome. On her return, in accordance with the Divine instruction, Pope Cyriæus accompanied her, whose name was on this account struck out of the list by the offended cardinals; for as Martinus Polonus says, Credebant plerique eum non propter devotionem sed propter obtectamenta virginum papatum dimississe. Near Cologne they met the army of the Huns, by whom they were all massacred, at last even Ursula herself on her persistent refusal to marry the barbaric chief.—In the absence of any historical foundations for this legend, an explanation has been attempted by identifying Ursula with a goddess of the German mythology. An older suggestion is that perhaps an ancient inscription may have given rise to the legend.[311]

§ 104.10. Hymnology.—The Augustan age of scholasticism was that also of the composition of Latin hymns and sequences (§ 88, 2). The most distinguished sacred poets were Odo of Clugny, king Robert of France (Veni, sancte Spiritus, et emitte), Damiani, Abælard, Hildebert of Tours, St. Bernard, Adam of St. Victor,[312] Bonaventura, Aquinas, the Franciscan Thomas of Celano, A.D. 126O (Dies iræ), and Jacopone da Todi, † A.D. 1306 (Stabat mater dolorosa). The latter, an eccentric enthusiast and miracle-working saint, called himself “Stultus propter Christum.” Originally a wealthy advocate, living a life of revel and riot, he was led by the sudden death of his young wife to forsake the world. He courted the world’s scorn in the most literal manner, appearing in the public market bridled like a beast of burden and creeping on all fours, and at another time appearing naked, tarred and feathered at the marriage of a niece. But he glowed with fervent love for the Crucified and a fanatical veneration for the blessed Virgin. He also fearlessly raised his voice against the corruption of the clergy and the papacy, and vigorously denounced the ambition of Boniface VIII. For this he was imprisoned and fed on bread and water. When tauntingly asked, “When wilt thou come out?” he answered in words that were soon fulfilled, “So soon as thou shall come down.” Sacred Poetry in the vernacular was used only in extra-ecclesiastical devotions. The oldest German Easter hymn belongs to the 12th century.[313] The Minnesingers of the 13th century composed popular songs of a religious character, especially in praise of Mary; there were also sacred songs for travellers, sailors, soldiers, etc. Heretics separated from the church and its services spread their views by means of hymns. St. Francis wrote Italian hymns, and among his disciples Fra Pacifico, Bonaventura, Thomas of Celano, and Jacopone followed worthily in his footsteps.

§ 104.11. Church Music (§ 88, 2).—The Gregorian Cantus firmus soon fell into disfavour and disuetude. The rarity, costliness, and corruption of the antiphonaries, the difficulty of their notation and of their musical system, and the want of accurately trained singers, combined to bring this about. Singers too had often made arbitrary alterations. Hence alongside of the Cantus firmus there gradually grew up a Discantus or Cantus figuratus, and instead of singing in unison, singing in harmony was introduced. Rules of harmony, concord, and intervals were now elaborated by the monk Hucbald of Rheims about A.D. 900, while the German monk Reginus about A.D. 920 and the abbot Opo of Clugny did much for the theory and practice of music. In place of the intricate Gregorian notation the Tuscan Benedictine Guido of Arezzo, A.D. 1000-1050, introduced the notation that is still used, which made it possible to write the harmony along with the melody, counterpoint, i.e. punctum contra punctum. The discoverer of the measure of the notes was Franco of Cologne about A.D. 1200. The organ was commonly used in churches. The Germans were the greatest masters in its construction and in the playing of it.—Continuation, § 115, 8.

§ 104.12. Ecclesiastical Architecture.—Church building, which the barbarism of the 10th century, and the widespread expectation of the coming end of the world had restrained, flourished during the 11th century in an extraordinary manner. The endeavour to infuse the German spirit into the ancient style of architecture gave rise to the Romance Style of Architecture, which prevailed during the 12th century. It was based upon the structure of the old basilicas, the most important innovation being the introduction of the vaulted in place of the flat wooden roof, which made the interior lighter and heightened the perspective effect. The symbolical and fanciful ornamentation was also richly developed by figures from the plants and animals of Germany, from native legends. Towers were also added as fingers pointing upward, sometimes over the entrance to the middle aisle or at both sides of the entrance, sometimes over the point where the nave and transepts intersected one another, or on both sides of the choir. The finest specimens of this style were the cathedrals of Spires, Mainz, and Worms. But alongside of this appeared the beginnings of the so-called Gothic Architecture, which reached its height in the 13th and 14th centuries. Here the German ideas shook themselves free from the bondage of the old basilica style. Retaining the early ground plan, its pointed arch admitted of development in breadth and height to any extent. The pointed arch was first learnt from the Saracens, but its application to the Gothic architecture was quite original, because it was not as with the Saracens decorative, but constructive. The blank walls were changed into supporting pillars, and became a magnificent framework for the display of ingenious window architecture. A rich stone structure rose upon the cruciform ground plan, and the powerful arches towered up into airy heights. Tall tapering pillars symbolized the heavenward strivings of the soul. The rose window over the portal as the symbol of silence teaches that nothing worldly has a voice there. The gigantic peaked windows send through their beautifully painted glass a richly coloured light full on the vast area. Everything in the structure points upward, and this symbolism is finally expressed in the lofty towers, which lose themselves in giddy heights. The victory over the kingdom of darkness is depicted in the repulsive reptiles, demonic forms, and dragon shapes which are made to bear up the pillars and posts, and to serve as water carriers. The wit of artists has made even bishops and popes perform these menial offices, just as Dante condemned many popes to the infernal regions.[314]

§ 104.13. The most famous architects were Benedictines. The master builder along with the scholars trained by him formed independent corporations, free from any other jurisdiction. They therefore called themselves “Free Masons,” and erected “Lodges,” where they met for consultation and discussion. From the 13th century these lodges fell more and more into the hands of the laity, and became training schools of architecture. To them we are largely indebted for the development of the Gothic style. Their most celebrated works are the Cologne cathedral and the Strassburg minster. The foundation of the former was laid under Archbishop Conrad of Hochsteden in A.D. 1248; the choir was completed and consecrated in A.D. 1322 (§ 174, 9). Erwin of Steinbach began the building of the Strassburg minster in A.D. 1275.

§ 104.14. Statuary and Painting.—Under the Hohenstaufens statuary, which had been disallowed by the ancient church, rose into favour. Its first great master in Italy was Nicola Pisano, who died in A.D. 1274. Earlier indeed a statuary school had been formed in Saxony, of which no names but great works have come down to us. The goldsmith’s craft and metallurgy were brought into the service of the church by the German artists, and show not only wonderful technical skill, but also high attainment in ideal art. In Painting the Byzantines taught the Italians, and these again the Germans. At the beginning of the 13th century there was a school of painting at Pisa and Siena, claiming St. Luke as its patron, and seeking to impart more life and warmth to the stiff figures of the Byzantines. Their greatest masters were Guido of Siena and Giunta of Pisa, and the Florentine Cimabue, † A.D. 1300. Mosaic painting mostly on a golden ground was in favour in Italy. Painting on glass is first met with in the beginning of the 11th century in the monastery of Tegernsee in Bavaria, and soon spread over Germany and all over Europe.[315]—Continuation, § 115, 13.

§ 105. NATIONAL CUSTOMS AND THE NATIONAL LITERATURE.

It was an age full of the most wonderful contradictions and anomalies in the life of the people, but every phenomenon bore the character of unquestionable power, and the church applied the artificer’s chisel to the unhewn marble block. In club law the most brutal violence prevailed, but bowed itself willingly or unwillingly before the might of an idea. The basest sensuality existed alongside of the most simple self-denial and renunciation of the world, the most wonderful displays of self-forgetting love. The most sacred solemnities were parodied, and then men turned in awful earnest to manifest the profoundest anxiety for their soul’s salvation. Alongside of unmeasured superstition we meet with the boldest freethinking, and out of the midst of widespread ignorance and want of culture there radiated forth great thoughts, profound conceptions, and suggestive anticipations.

§ 105.1. Knighthood and the Peace of God.—Notwithstanding its rude violence there was a deep religious undertone in knighthood, which came out in Spain in the war with the Saracens, and throughout Europe in the crusades. What princes could not do to check savagery was to some extent accomplished by the church by means of the injunction of the Peace of God. In A.D. 1034 the severity of famine in France led to acts of cannibalism and murder, which the bishops and synods severely punished. In A.D. 1041 the bishops of Southern France enjoined the Peace of God, according to which under threat of anathema all feuds were to be suspended from Wednesday evening to Monday morning, as the days of the ascension, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. At a later council at Narbonne in A.D. 1054, Advent to Epiphany, Lent to eight days after Easter, from the Sunday before Ascension to the end of the week of Pentecost, as well as the ember days and the festivals of Mary and the Apostles, were added. Even on other days, churches, cloisters, hospitals, and churchyards, as well as priests, monks, pilgrims, merchants, and agriculturists, in short, all unarmed men, and, by the Council of Clermont, A.D. 1095, even all crusaders, were included in the peace of God. Its healthful influence was felt even outside of France, and at the 3rd Lateran Council in A.D. 1179 Alexander III. raised it to the rank of a universally applicable law of the church.

§ 105.2. Popular Customs.—Superstition resting on old paganism introduced a Christian mythology. In almost all the popular legends the devil bore a leading part, and he was generally represented as a dupe who was cheated out of his bargain in the end. The most sacred things were made the subjects of blasphemous parodies. On Fool’s Festival on New Year’s day in France, mock popes, bishops, and abbots were introduced and all the holy actions mimicked in a blasphemous manner. Of a similar nature was the Festum innocentum (§ 57, 1) enacted by schoolboys at Christmas. Also at Christmas time the so-called Feast of Asses was celebrated. At Rouen dramatic representation of the prophecies of Christ’s birth were given; at Beauvais, the flight into Egypt. This relic of pagan license was opposed by the bishops, but encouraged by the lower clergy. After bishops and councils succeeded in banishing these fooleries from consecrated places they soon ceased to be celebrated. Under the name of Calends, because their gatherings were on the Calends of each month, brotherhoods composed of clerical and lay members sprang up in the beginning of the 13th century throughout Germany and France, devoting themselves to prayer and saying masses for living and deceased members and relatives. This pious purpose was indeed soon forgotten, and the meetings degenerated into riotous carousings.

§ 105.3. Two Royal Saints.—St. Elizabeth, daughter of Andrew II. of Hungary, married in her 14th year to St. Louis IV., Landgrave of Thuringia, was made a widow in her 20th year by the death of her husband in the crusade of Frederick II. in A.D. 1227, and thereafter suffered many privations at the hand of her brother-in-law. Her father confessor inspired her with a fanatical spirit of self denial. She assumed in Marburg the garb of the Franciscan nuns, took the three vows, and retired into a house of mercy, where she submitted to be scourged by her confessor. There she died in her 24th year in A.D. 1231. Her remains are credited with the performance of many miracles. She was canonized by Gregory IX., in A.D. 1235, and in the 14th century the order of Elizabethan nuns was instituted for ministering to the poor and sick.[316]—St. Hedwig, aunt of Elizabeth, married Henry duke of Silesia, in her 12th year. After discharging her duties of wife, mother, and princess faithfully, she took along with her husband the vow of chastity, and out of the sale of her bridal ornaments built a nunnery at Trebnitz, where she died in A.D. 1243 in her 69th year. Canonized in A.D. 1268, her remains were deposited in the convent church, which became on that account a favourite resort of pilgrims.

§ 105.4. Evidences of Sainthood.

1. Stigmatization. Soon after St. Francis’ death in A.D. 1226, the legend spread that two years before, during a forty days’ fast in the Apennines, a six-winged seraph imprinted on his body the nail prints of the wounded Saviour. The saint’s humility, it was said, prevented him speaking of the miracle except to those in closest terms of intimacy. The papal bull canonizing the saint, however, issued in A.D. 1228, knows nothing of this wonderful occurrence. What was then told of the great saint was subsequently ascribed to about 100 other ascetics, male and female. Some sceptical critics attributed the phenomenon to an impressionable temperament, others again accounted for all such stories by assuming that they were purely fabulous, or that the marks had been deceitfully made with human hands. Undoubtedly St. Francis had made those wounds upon his own body. That pain should have been felt on certain occasions in the wounds may be accounted for, especially in the case of females, who constituted the great majority of stigmatized individuals, on pathological grounds.

2. Bilocation. The Catholic Church Lexicon, published in A.D. 1882 (II. 840), maintains that it is a fact universally believed that saints often appeared at the same time at places widely removed from one another. Examples are given from the lives of Anthony of Padua, Francis Xavier, Liguori, etc. This is explained by the supposition that either God gives this power to the saint or sends angels to assume his form in different places.

§ 105.5. Religious Culture of the People.—Unsuccessful attempts were made by the Hohenstaufens to institute a public school system and compulsory education. Waldensians and such like (§ 108) obtained favour by spreading instruction through vernacular preaching, reading, and singing. The Dominicans took a hint from this. The Council of Toulouse, A.D. 1229 (§ 109, 2), forbade laymen to read the Scriptures, even the Psalter and Breviary, in the vulgar tongue. Summaries of the Scripture history were allowed. Of this sort was the Rhyming Bible in Dutch by Jacob of Maërlant, † A.D. 1291, which gives in rhyme the O.T. history, the Life of Jesus, and the history of the Jews to the destruction of Jerusalem. In the 13th century Rhyming Legends gave in the vernacular the substance of the Latin Martyrologies. The oldest German example in 3 bks. by an unknown author contains 100,000 rhyming lines, on Christ and Mary, the Apostles and the saints in the order of the church year. Still more effectively was information spread among the people during the 11th and subsequent centuries by the performance of Sacred Plays. From simple responsive songs they were developed into regular dramas adapted to the different festivals. Besides historical plays which were called Mysteries=ministeria as representations of the Ministri eccl., there were allegorical and moral plays called Moralities, in which moral truths were personified under the names of the virtues and vices. The numerous pictures, mosaics, and reliefs upon the walls helped greatly to spread instruction among the people.[317]

§ 105.6. The National Literature (§ 89, 3).—Walter v. d. Vogelweide, † A.D. 1230, sang the praises of the Lord, the Virgin, and the church, and lashed the clerical vices and hierarchical pretensions of his age. The 12th century editor of the pagan Nibelungenlied gave it a slightly Christian gloss. Wolfram of Eschenbach, however, a Christian poet in the highest sense, gave to the pagan legend of Parcival a thoroughly Christian character in the story of the Holy Grail and the Knights of the Round Table of King Arthur. His antipodes as a purely secular poet was Godfrey of Strassburg, whose Tristan and Isolt sets forth a thoroughly sensual picture of carnal love; yet as the sequel of this we have a strongly etherealized rhapsody on Divine love conceived quite in the spirit of St. Francis.—The sprightly songs of the Troubadours of Southern France were often the vehicle of heretical sentiments and gave expression to bitter hatred of the Romish Babylon.[318]

§ 106. CHURCH DISCIPLINE, INDULGENCES, AND ASCETICISM.

The ban, directed against notorious individual sinners and foes of the church, and the interdict, directed against a whole country, were formidable weapons which rarely failed in accomplishing their purpose. Their foolishly frequent use for political ends by the popes of the 13th century was the first thing that weakened their influence. The penitential discipline of the church, too (§ 104, 4), began to lose its power, when outward works, such as alms, pilgrimages, and especially money fines in the form of indulgences were prescribed as substitutes for it. Various protests against prevailing laxity and formality were made by the Benedictines and by new orders instituted during the 11th century. Strict asceticism with self-laceration and mortification was imposed in many cloisters, and many hermits won high repute for holiness. The example and preaching of earnest monks and recluses did much to produce a revival of religion and awaken a penitential enthusiasm. Not satisfied with mortifying the body by prolonging fasts and watchings, they wounded themselves with severe scourgings and the wearing of sackcloth next the skin, and sometimes also brazen coats of mail, heavy iron chains, girdles with pricks, etc.

§ 106.1. Ban and Interdict.—From the 9th century a distinction was made between Excommunicatio major and minor. The latter, inflicted upon less serious offences against the canon law, merely excluded from participation in the sacrament. The former, called Anathema, directed against hardened sinners with solemn denunciation and the church’s curse, involved exclusion from all ecclesiastical communion and even refusal of Christian burial. Zealots who slew such excommunicated persons were declared by Urban II. not to be murderers. Innocent III., at the 4th Lateran Council A.D. 1215, had all civil rights withdrawn from excommunicates and their goods confiscated. Rulers under the ban were deposed and their subjects released from their oath of allegiance. Bishops exercised the right of putting under ban within their dioceses, and the popes over the whole church.—The Interdict was first recognised as a church institution at the Synod of Limoges in A.D. 1031. While it was in force against any country all bells were silenced, liturgical services were held only with closed doors, penance and the eucharist administered only to the dying, none but priests, mendicant friars, strangers, and children under two years of age received Christian burial, and no one could be married. Rarely could the people endure this long. It was therefore a terrible weapon in the hands of the popes, who not infrequently exercised it effectually in their struggles with the princes of the 12th and 13th centuries.

§ 106.2. Indulgences.—The old German principle of composition (§ 89, 5), and the Gregorian doctrine of purgatory (§ 61, 4), formed the bases on which was reared the ordinance of indulgences. The theory of the monks of St. Victor of the 12th century regarding penitential satisfaction (§ 104, 4), gave an impetus to the development of this institution of the church. It copestone was laid in the 13th century by the formulating of the doctrine of the superabundant merit of Christ and the saints (Thesaurus supererogationis Christi et perfectorum) by Alexander of Hales, Albert the Great, and Aquinas. The members of the body of Christ could suffer and serve one for another, and thus Aquinas thought the merits of one might lessen the purgatorial pains of another. Innocent III., in A.D. 1215, allowed to bishops the right of limiting the pains of purgatory to forty days, but claimed for the pope exclusively the right of giving full indulgence (Indulgentia plenaria). Clement VI. declared that the pope as entrusted with the keys was alone the dispenser of the Thesaurus supererogationis. Strictly indulgence was allowed only to the truly penitent, as an aid to imperfect not a substitute for non-existent satisfaction. This was generally ignored by preachers of indulgences. This was specially the case in the times of the crusaders. Popes also frequently gave indulgences to those who simply visited certain shrines.

§ 106.3. The Church Doctrine of the Hereafter.—All who had perfectly observed every requirement of the penances and sacraments of the church to the close of their lives had the gates of Heaven opened to them. All others passed into the Lower World to suffer either positively=sensus, inexpressible pains of fire, or negatively=damnum, loss of the vision of God. There are four degrees corresponding to four places of punishment. Hell, situated in the midst of the earth, abyssus (Rev. xx. 1), is place and state of eternal punishment for all infidels, apostates, excommunicates, and all who died in mortal sin. The next circle is the purifying fire of Purgatory, or a place of temporary punishment positive or negative for all believing Christians who did not in life fully satisfy the three requirements of the sacrament of penance (§ 104, 4). The Limbus infantum is a side chamber of purgatory, where all unbaptized infants are kept for ever, only deprived of blessedness in consequence of original sin. Then above this is the Limbus Patrum, “Abraham’s bosom,” where the saints of the Old Covenant await the second coming of Christ.

§ 106.4. Flagellation.—From the 8th century discipline was often exercised by means of scourging, administered by the confessor who prescribed it. In the 11th century voluntary Self-Flagellation was frequently practised not only as punishment for one’s own sin, but, after the pattern of Christ and the martyrs, as atonement for sins of others. It originated in Italy, had its great patron in Damiani (§ 97, 4), and was earnestly commended by Bernard, Norbert, Francis, Dominic, etc. It is reported of St. Dominic that he scourged himself thrice every night, first for himself, and then for his living companions, and then for the departed in purgatory. The zealous Franciscan preachers were mainly instrumental in exerting an enthusiasm for self-mortification among the people (§ 98, 4). About A.D. 1225, Anthony of Padua attracted crowds who went about publicly lashing themselves while singing psalms. Followers of Joachim of Floris (§ 108, 5) as Flagellants rushed through all Northern Italy in great numbers during A.D. 1260, preaching the immediate approach of the end of the world.[319]

§ 107. FEMALE MYSTICS.

Practical mysticism which concerned itself only with the salvation of the soul, had many representatives among the women of the 12th and 13th centuries. Among them it was specially characterized by the prevalence of ecstatic visions, often deteriorating into manifestations of nervous affections which superstitious people regarded as exhibitions of miraculous power. Examples are found in all countries, but especially in the Netherlands, and the Rhine provinces, in France, Alsace and Switzerland, in Saxony and Thuringia. Those whose visions pointed to the inauguration of reforms are of particular interest to us, as they often had a considerable influence on the subsequent history of the church.

§ 107.1. Two Rhenish Prophetesses of the 12th Century.—St. Hildegard was founder and abbess of a cloister near Bingen on the Rhine, where she died in A.D. 1178 in her 74th year. Grieving over clerical and papal corruptions, she had apocalyptic visions of the antichrist, and travelled far and engaged in an extensive correspondence in appealing for radical reforms. St. Bernard and pope Eugenius III. who visited Treves in A.D. 1147 acknowledged her prophetic vocation, and the people ascribed to her wonderful healing power.—Hildegard’s younger contemporary was the like-minded St. Elizabeth of Schönau, abbess of the neighbouring convent of Schönau, who died in A.D. 1165. Her prophecies were mostly of the apocalyptic-visionary order, and in them with still greater severity she lashed the corruptions of the clergy. She also gave currency to the legend of St. Ursula (§ 104, 9).

§ 107.2. Three Thuringian Prophetesses of the 13th Century.—Mechthild of Magdeburg, after thirty years of Beguine life, wrote in a beautiful rhythmical style in German her “Light of Deity,” setting forth the sweetness of God’s love, the blessedness of glorified saints, the pains of purgatory and hell, and denouncing with great moral earnestness the corruptions of the clergy and the church, and depicting with a poet’s or prophet’s power the coming of the last day. Influenced by the apocalyptic views of Joachim of Floris (§ 108, 5), she also gives expression to a genuinely German patriotism. With her it is a new preaching order that leads to victory against antichrist, and the founder of this order, who meets a martyr’s death in the conflict, is a son of the Roman king. In contrast with Joachim, she thus makes the German empire not a foe but the ally of the church. Mechthild’s prophecies largely influenced Dante, and even her name appears in that of his guide Matilda.—Mechthild of Hackeborn, who died in A.D. 1310, in her Speculum spiritualis gratiæ published her visions of a reformatory and eschatological prophetic order, more subjective and personal than those of the former.—Gertrude the Great, who died in A.D. 1311, is more decidedly a reformer than either of the Mechthilds or any other woman of the Middle Ages. A diligent inquirer into the depths of Scripture, she renounced the veneration usually shown to Mary, the saints, and relics, repudiated all the ideas of her age regarding merits, ceremonial exercises, and indulgences, and in the exercise of simple faith trusted only to the grace of God in Christ. She seems to belong to the 16th rather than to the 13th century. Her visions, too, are more of a spiritual kind.

V. Heretical Opposition to Ecclesiastical Authority.

§ 108. THE PROTESTERS AGAINST THE CHURCH.

Mediæval endeavours after reform, partly proceeded from within the church itself in attempts to restore apostolic purity and simplicity, partly from without on the part of those who despaired of any good coming out of the church, and who therefore warred bitterly against it. Such attempts were often lost amid the vagaries of fanaticism and heresy, which soon threatened the foundation of the social fabric, and often came into collision with the State. Most widely spread and most radical were the numerous dualistic sects of the Cathari. Montanist fanaticism was revived in apocalyptic prophesyings. There were also pantheistic sects, and among the Pasagians a sort of Ebionism reappeared. Another group of sects originated through reformatory endeavours of individual men, who perceiving the utter corruption of the church of their day, sought salvation in a revolutionary overthrow of all ecclesiastical institutions and repudiated often the truth with the error which was the object of their hate. The only protesting church of a thoroughly sensible evangelical sort was that of the Waldensians.

§ 108.1. The Cathari.—Opposition to hierarchical pretensions led to the spread of sects, especially in Northern Italy and France, from the 11th century. Hidden remnants of Old Manichæan sects got new courage and ventured into the light during the period of the crusades. In France they were called Tisserands, because mostly composed of weavers. In Italy they were called Patareni or Paterini, either from the original meaning of the word, rabble, riff-raff (§ 97, 5), or because they so far adopted the attitude of the Pasaria of Milan, as to offer lay opposition to the local clergy, or because of the frequent use of the Paternoster. Of later origin are the names Publicani and Bulgări, given as opprobrious designations to the Paulicians. The most widely current name of Cathari, from early times a favourite title assumed by rigorist sects (§ 41, 3), had its origin in the East. In France they were called Albigensians, from the province of Albigeois, which was their chief seat in Southern France.—Of the Writings of the Cathari we possess from the end of the 13th century a Provençal translation of the N.T., free from all falsification in favour of their sectarian views. Their tenets are to be learnt only from the polemical writings of their opponents, Alanus ab Insulis (§ 102, 5), the Dominican Joh. Moneta, about A.D. 1240, and Rainerius, Sacchoni, Dominican and inquisitor, about A.D. 1250.

§ 108.2. Besides their opposition to the hierarchy, all these sects had in common a dualistic basis to their theological systems. They held in a more or less extreme form the following doctrines: The good God who is proclaimed in the N.T. created in the beginning the heavenly and invisible world, and peopled it with souls clothed in ethereal bodies. The earthly world, on the other hand, is the work of an evil spirit, who is held up as object of worship in the O.T. Entering the heavenly world he succeeded in seducing some of its inhabitants, whom he, when defeated by the archangel Michael, took with him to earth, and there imprisoned in earthly bodies, so as to make return to their heavenly home impossible. Yet they are capable of redemption, and may, on repentance and submission to purificatory ordinances, be again freed from their earthly bonds and brought home again to heaven. For this redemption the good God sent “the heavenly man” Jesus (1 Cor. xv. 47) to earth in the appearance of man to teach men their heavenly origin and the means of restoration. The Cathari rejected the O.T., but accepted the N.T., which they read in the vernacular. Marriage they regarded as a hindrance to Christian perfection. They treated with contempt water baptism, the Supper, and ordination, as well as all veneration of saints and relics, and tolerated no images, crosses, or altars. Prayer, abstinence, and baptism of the Spirit were regarded as the only means of salvation. Preaching was next to prayer most prominent in their public services. They also laid great stress upon fasting, genuflection, and repetitions of stated formulæ, especially the Lord’s Prayer. Their members were divided into Cregentz (credentes or catechumens) and Bos homes or Bos crestias (boni homines, boni Christiani=perfecti or electi). A lower order of the catechumens were the Auditores. These were received as Credentes after a longer period of training amid various ceremonies and repetition of the Lord’s prayer, etc. The order of the Perfecti was entered by spiritual baptism, the Consolamentum or communication of the Holy Spirit as the promised Comforter, without which no one can enjoy eternal life. Even opponents such as St. Bernard admit that there was great moral earnestness shown by some of them, and many met a martyr’s death with true Christian heroism. Symptoms of decay appeared in the spread among them of antinomian practices. This moral deterioration showed itself as a radical part of this system in the so-called Luciferians or devil worshippers, whose dualism, like that of the Euchites and Bogomils (§ 71), led to the adoption of two Sons of God. Lucifer the elder, wrongly driven from heaven, is the creator and lord of this earthly world, and hence alone worshipped in it. His expulsion (Isa. xiv. 12) is carried out by the younger son, Michael, who will, however, on this account, whenever Lucifer regains heaven, be sent with all his company into eternal punishment. Of an incarnation of God, even of a docetic kind, they know nothing. They regarded Jesus as a false prophet who was crucified on account of the evil he had done.—Catharist sects suspected of Manichæan tendencies were discovered here and there during the 11th century. In the following century their number had increased enormously, and they spread over Lombardy and Southern France, but were also found in Southern Italy, in Germany, Belgium, Spain, and even in England. They had a pope residing in Bulgaria, twelve magistri and seventy-two bishops, each with a Filius major and minor at his side. In A.D. 1167 they were able to muster an œcumenical Catharist Council at Toulouse. Neither clemency nor severity could put them down. St. Bernard prevailed most by the power of his love, and subsequently learned Dominicans had more effect with their preaching and disputations. They found abundant opportunity of displaying their hatred of the papacy during the struggles of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. In spite of terrible persecution, which reached its height in the beginning of the 13th century in the Albigensian crusade (§ 109, 1), remnants of them were found down into the 14th century.

§ 108.3. The small sect of the Pasagians in Lombardy during the 12th century, protesting against the Manichæan depreciation of the O.T. of the Catharists, adopted views of a somewhat Ebionite character. With the exception of sacrifice, they enforced all the old ceremonial observances, even circumcision, and held an Arian or Ebionite theory of the Person of Christ. Their name meaning “passage,” seems to refer to pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and possibly from this a clue to their origin may be obtained.

§ 108.4. Pantheistic Heretics.

1. Amalrich of Bena taught first philosophy, then theology, at Paris in the end of the 12th century. In A.D. 1204 Innocent III. called him to account for his proposition, Christian in sound, but probably pantheistically intended, that no one could be saved who is not a member in Christ’s body, and obliged him to retract. His death occurred soon after, and some years later we find traces of a pantheistic sect founded on the alleged doctrines of Amalrich vigorously propagated by his disciple William the goldsmith. God had previously appeared as Father incarnate in Abraham, and as Son in Christ, and now henceforth as the Holy Spirit in every believer, who therefore in the same sense as Christ is God. As such, too, he is without sin, and what to others would be sin is not so to him. In the age of the Son the Mosaic law lost its validity, and in that of the Spirit, the sacraments and services of the new covenant. God has always been all in all. We find him in Ovid as well as in Augustine, and the body of Christ is in common bread as well as in the consecrated wafer on the altar. Saint worship is idolatry. There is no resurrection; heaven and hell exist only in the imagination of men. Rome is Babylon, and the pope is antichrist; but to the king of France, after the overthrow of antichrist, shall the kingdoms of the earth be subject, etc. A synod at Paris in A.D. 1209 condemned William and nine priests to be burnt, and four other priests to imprisonment for life, and ordered that Amalrich’s bones should be exhumed and scattered over an open field. Regarding the physical works of Aristotle as the source of this heresy, the council also prohibited all lectures upon these (§ 103, 1). This was seen to be a mistake, and so in A.D. 1225 Honorius III. fixed on the true culprit and condemned the De divisione naturæ of Erigena (§ 90, 6). The penalties inflicted did not by any means lead to the rooting out of the sect. During the whole 13th century it continued to spread from Paris over all eastern France as far as Alsace, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, and in the 14th century reached its highest development in the pantheistic-libertine doctrines of the Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit (§ 116, 5). We never again meet with the name of Amalrich, and the sects were never called after him.

2. David of Dinant at the same time with Amalrich taught philosophy and theology in the University of Paris. He also lived for a long while at the papal court in Rome, high in favour with Innocent III. as a subtle dialectician. The Synod of Paris of A.D. 1209, which passed judgment on the Amalricians, pronounced David a heretic and ordered his works to be burnt. He avoided personal punishment by flight. The central point of his system was the assumption of a single eternal substance without distinctions, from which God, spirit (νοῦς), and matter (ὕλη) sprang as the three principles of all later forms of existences (corpora, animæ, and substantiæ æternæ). God is regarded as the primum efficiens, matter as the primum suscipiens, and spirit as the medium between the two. David’s scholars never formed a sect and never had any connection apparently with the followers of Amalrich.

3. The Ortlibarians were a sect condemned by Innocent III., followers of a certain Ortlieb of Strassburg about A.D. 1212. They held the world to be without beginning. They looked upon Jesus as the son of Joseph and Mary, sinless like all other children, but raised to be son of God only through illumination from the doctrines of their sect, which had existed from the earliest times. They admitted the gospel story of Christ’s life, sufferings, and resurrection, not, however, in a literal but only in a moral and mystical acceptation. The consecrated host was but common bread, and in it was the body of the Lord. A Jew entering their sect needed not to be baptized, and fellowship with them was sufficient to secure salvation. There is no resurrection of the flesh; man’s spirit alone is immortal. After the last judgment, which will come when pope and emperor are converted to their views and all opposition is overcome, the world will last for ever, and men will be born and die just as now. They professed a strictly ascetic life, and many of them fasted every second day.

§ 108.5. Apocalyptic Heretics.—The Cistercian abbot Joachim of Floris, who died in A.D. 1202, with his notions of the so called “Everlasting Gospel,” as a reformer and as one inclined to apocalyptic prophecy, followed in the footsteps of Hildegard of Bingen and Elizabeth of Schönau (§ 107, 1). His prophetic views spread among the Franciscans and were long unchallenged. In A.D. 1254 the University of Paris, warning against the begging monks (§ 103, 3), got Alexander IV. to condemn these views as set forth in commentaries on Isaiah and Jeremiah ascribed to Joachim, but now found to be spurious. Preger doubts but, Reuter maintains the genuineness of the three tracts grouped under the title of the Evangelium æternum. The main points in his theory seem to have been these: There are three ages, that of the Father in the O.T., of the Son in the N.T., and of the Holy Spirit in the approaching fulness of the kingdom of God on earth. Of the apostles, Peter is representative of the first age, Paul of the second, and John of the third. They may also be characterized as the age of the laity, the clergy, and the monks, and compared in respect of light with the stars, the moon, and the sun. The first six periods of the N.T. age are divided (after the pattern of the forty-two generations of Matt. i. and the forty-two months or 1260 days of Rev. xi. 2, 3) into forty-two shorter periods of thirty years each, so that the sixth period closes with A.D. 1260, and then shall dawn the Sabbath period of the New Covenant as the age of the Holy Spirit. This will be preceded by a short reign of antichrist as a punishment for the corruptions of the church and clergy. By the labours of the monks, however, the church is at last purified and brought forth triumphant, and the life of holy contemplation becomes universal. The germs of antichrist were evidently supposed to lie in the Hohenstaufen empire of Frederick I. and Henry VI. The commentaries on Isaiah and Jeremiah went so far as to point to the person of Frederick II. as that of the antichrist.

§ 108.6. Ghibelline Joachites in Italy, mostly recruited from the Franciscans, sided with the emperor against the pope and adopted apocalyptic views to suit their politics, and regarded the papacy as the precursor of antichrist. One of their chiefs, Oliva, who died in A.D. 1297, wrote a Postilla super Apoc., in which he denounced the Roman church of his day as the Great Whore of Babylon, and his scholar Ubertino of Casale saw in the beast that rose out of the sea (Rev. xiii.) a prophetic picture of the papacy.—In Germany these views spread among the Dominicans during the 13th century, especially in Swabia. The movement was headed by one Arnold. who wrote an Epistola de correctione ecclesiæ about A.D. 1246. He finds in Innocent IV. the antichrist and in Frederick II. the executioner of the Divine judgment and the inauguration of the reformation. Frederick’s death, which followed soon after in A.D. 1250, and the catastrophe of A.D. 1268 (§ 96, 20), must have put an end to the whole movement.

§ 108.7. Revolutionary Reformers.

1. The Petrobrusians, whose founder, Peter of Bruys, was a pupil of Abælard and a priest in the south of France, repudiated the outward or visible church and sought the true or invisible church in the hearts of believers. He insisted on the destruction of churches and sanctuaries because God could be worshipped in a stable or tavern, burnt crucifixes in the cooking stove, eagerly opposed celibacy, mass, and infant baptism, and after a twenty years’ career perished at the stake about A.D. 1126 at the hands of a raging mob. One of Peter’s companions, Henry of Lausanne, whose fiery eloquence had been influential in inciting to reform, succeeded to the leadership of the Petrobrusians, who from him were called Henricians. St. Bernard succeeded in winning many of them back. Henry was condemned to imprisonment for life, and died in A.D. 1149.

2. Arnold of Brescia, who died in A.D. 1155, a preacher of great moral and religious earnestness, addressed himself to attack the worldliness of the church and the papacy. Except in maintaining that sacraments dispensed by unworthy priests have no efficacy, he does not seem to have deviated from the church doctrine. Officiating as reader in his native town, his bishop complained of him as a heretic to the second Lateran Council of A.D. 1139. His views were condemned, and he himself was banished and enjoined to observe perpetual silence. He now went to his teacher Abælard in France. Here St. Bernard accused him at the synod convened against Abælard at Sens in A.D. 1141 (§ 102, 2) as “the armour-bearer” of this “Goliath-heretic,” and obtained the condemnation of both. He was then excommunicated by Innocent II. and imprisoned in a cloister. Arnold, however, escaped to Switzerland, where he lived and taught undisturbed in Zürich for some years, till Bishop Hermann of Constance, at the instigation of the Saint of Clairvaux, threatened him with imprisonment or exile. He was now taken under the protection of Guido de Castella, Abælard’s friend and patron, and accompanied him to Bohemia and Moravia. On Guido’s elevation as Cœlestine II. to the papal chair in A.D. 1143, Arnold returned to his native land. From A.D. 1146 we find him in Rome at the head of the agitation for political and ecclesiastical freedom. For further details of his history, see § 96, 13, 14. A party of so-called Arnoldists occupied itself long after his death with the carrying out of his ecclesiastico-political ideal.

§ 108.8.

1. The so called Pastorelles were roused to revolution by the miseries following the crusades. An impulse was given to the sect by the news of the imprisonment of St. Louis (§ 94, 6). A Cistercian Magister Jacob from Hungary appeared in A.D. 1251 with the announcement that he had seen the Mother of God, who gave him a letter calling upon the pastors to rescue the Holy Sepulchre. Those who have heard the Christmas message are called of God to undertake the great work which neither the corrupt hierarchy nor the proud, ambitious nobles were able to perform; but before them, the poor shepherds, the sea will open a way, so that they may hasten with dry feet to the release of king Louis. His fanatical harangues soon gathered immense crowds of common people around him, estimated at about 100,000 men. But instead of going to the Holy Land, they first gave vent to their wrath against the clergy, monks, and Jews at home by murdering, plundering, and ill treating them in all manner of ways. The queen-mother Blanca, favourable at first, now used all her power against them. Jacob was slain at Bourges, his troops scattered, and their leaders executed.

2. In the Apostolic Brothers we have a blending of Arnoldist and Joachist tendencies. Their founder, Gerhard Segarelli, an artisan of Parma, was moved about A.D. 1260 by the sight of a picture of the apostles in their poverty to go about preaching repentance and calling on the church to return to apostolic simplicity. He did not question the doctrine of the church. Only when Honorius in A.D. 1286 and Nicholas IV. in A.D. 1290 took measures against them did they openly oppose the papacy and denounce the Roman church as the apocalyptic Babylon. Segarelli was seized in A.D. 1294 and perished in the flames with many of his followers in A.D. 1300. Fra Dolcino, a younger priest, now took the leadership, and roused great enthusiasm by his preaching against the Roman antichrist. He bravely held his ground with 2,000 followers for two years in the recesses of the mountains, but was reduced at last in A.D. 1307 by hunger, and died like his predecessor at the stake. He distinguished four stages in the historical development of the kingdom of God on earth. The first two are those of the Father and the Son in the O.T. and the N.T. The third begins with Constantine’s establishment of the Christian empire, advanced by the Benedictine rule and the reforms of the Franciscans and Dominicans, but afterwards falling into decay. The fourth era of complete restoration of the apostolic life is inaugurated by Segarelli and Dolcino. A new chief sent of God will rule the church in peace, and the Holy Spirit will never leave the restored communion of His saints. Remnants of the sect were long in existence in France and Germany, where they united with the Fraticelli and Beghards. Even in A.D. 1374 we find a synod at Narbonne threatening them with the severest punishments.

§ 108.9. Reforming Enthusiasts.

1. A certain Tanchelm about A.D. 1115 preached in the Netherlands against the corruptions of the church. He claimed like honour with Christ as being assisted by the same Spirit, is said to have betrothed himself to the Virgin Mary, and to have been killed at last in A.D. 1124 by a priest.

2. A Frenchman, Eon de Stella of Brittany, hearing in a church the words “per Eum qui venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos,” and understanding it of his own name, went through the country preaching, prophesying, and working miracles. He secured many followers, and when persecuted, fled to the woods. He denied the Divine institution of the hierarchy, denounced the Roman church as false because of the wicked lives of the priests, rejected the doctrine of a resurrection of the body, denied that marriage was a sacrament, and regarded the communication of the Spirit by imposition of hands the only true baptism. In A.D. 1148 troops were sent against him, and he and many of his followers were taken prisoners. His adherents were burnt, but Eon was brought before a synod at Rheims, where he answered the question of the pope Eugenius III., “Who art thou?” by saying Is qui venturus est, etc. He was then pronounced deranged and delivered over to the custody of the archbishop.

§ 108.10. The Waldensians.

1. Their Origin.—A citizen of Lyons, named Valdez (Valdesius, Waldus, the Christian name of Peter, given to him first 120 years later, is quite unsupported), who had become rich by the practice of usury, an occupation condemned by the church, was about A.D. 1173 deeply impressed by reading the legend of St. Alexius, and was in his spiritual anxiety directed by a theologian to the words of Christ to the rich young ruler in Matthew xix. 21. Making over to his wife only his landed property, and distributing all the rest of his possessions among the poor, and then, for further instruction in regard to the imitation of Christ required of him, having applied himself to the study of the gospels, the Psalter, and other biblical books, and a selection of classical passages translated for his use by two friendly priests out of the writings of the Fathers into the Romance dialect, he founded in A.D. 1177, in company with certain men and women, who were prepared like himself to abandon the world and all its goods, a society for preaching the gospel among the people. In accordance with the Lord’s command to the seventy disciples (Luke x. 1-4), they went forth two and two in apostolic costume, in woollen penitential garments, without staff or scrip, their feet protected with merely wooden sandals (sabatas, sabots), preaching repentance, and proclaiming the gospel message of salvation throughout the land, in order to bring back again among the people the Christian life in its purity and simplicity. The Archbishop of Lyons prohibited their preaching; but they referred to Acts v. 29, and appealed, praying for a confirmation of their association, to the Third Lateran Council of A.D. 1179, under Alexander III., which, however, scornfully dismissed their appeal. As they nevertheless still continued to preach, Pope Lucius III., at the Council of Verona, in A.D. 1184, laid them under the ban. They had hitherto no intention of offering any sort of opposition to the doctrine, worship, or constitution of the Catholic church. Even the Catholic authorities did not so much take offence at what they preached but rather only at this, that they without ecclesiastical call and authority had assumed the function of preaching. Innocent III., also, admitted the imprudence of his predecessor, and favoured the plan of a Waldensian who had left his brethren to transform the association of the Pauperes de Lugduno into the monastic-like lay union of Pauperes Catholici, to which in A.D. 1208 he assigned the duties of preaching, expounding Scripture, and holding meetings for edification under episcopal supervision. But this concession came too late. Since the church had itself broken off the fetters which had previously bound them to the traditional faith of the Catholic church, the Leonists had gone too far upon the path of evangelical freedom to be satisfied with any such terms. Innocent now renewed the ban against them at the Fourth Lateran Council of A.D. 1215. Of the later life and work of the founder we know with certainty only this, that he made extensive journeys in the interests of his cause. Even during his lifetime (he died probably about A.D. 1217) the members (socii) of the society (Societas Valdesiana) founded by him had spread themselves in great numbers over the whole of the south of France, the east of Spain, the north of Italy, and the south of Germany, and had even crossed the Channel into England. They were named, in accordance with their fundamental principle, as well as from the starting point of their apostolic mission, Pauperes de Lugduno or Leonistæ=from Lyons, also from the covering of their feet, Sabatati; but they styled themselves among one another fratres and sorores, and their adherents among the people amici and amicæ; while the Catholic polemical writers, who for a similar class among the Cathari had employed the distinctive terms Perfecti and Credentes, made use of these designations in treating of the Waldensians. The latter continue “in the world,” that is, in the exercise of their family duties, and the discharge of civil obligations, and all the positions and entanglements connected therewith; while the former devoted themselves to a celibate life, to absolute poverty, to incessant preaching from place to place, and to unconditional refusal of all oathtaking, and a literal acceptance of all the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount, involving the rejection of any sort of fixed residence, and on the basis of Luke x. 7, 8, any handiwork that would earn for them the necessaries of life. They had their own ministri for the administration of the sacraments; but these were elected only ad tempus, namely once a year, simply for the discharge of that duty. At the head of the whole community down to his death stood the founder himself. He led the entire movement, received new members into the societas, and chose and ordained the ministri.—The two most important sources for the primitive history of the Waldensian movement, mutually supplementing one another, are, the Chronicon Laudunense of an unnamed canon of Laon in the Mon. Germ. Scrr. xxvi. 447, and the tract De Septem Donis Spir. S. of the inquisitor Stephen de Borbone, who died A.D. 1261, which is given in full in de la Marche, Anecdotes historiques, etc., Paris, 1877.

§ 108.11.

1. Their Divisions.—One of the oldest, most important, and most reliable sources of information regarding the affairs of the old Waldensians was first published by Preger in 1875, in his Beiträge z. Gesch. d. Waldensier im MA., namely, an epistle embodied by the “anonymous writer of Passau” in his heretic catalogue, from the “Poor Men of Italy” to their fellow believers in Germany, ad Leonistas in Alamannia, in which they give a report of the proceedings at a convention held at Bergamo in A.D. 1218, with the deputies from “the ultramontane,” that is, the French, “Poor Men.” On the basis of this communication Preger has contested the view that the “Poor Men of Italy” were the Waldensians, and traces their origin rather to the working men’s association of the Humiliati that had already sprung up in the eleventh century (§ 98, 7), which having even before this, by adopting Arnoldist ideas, become estranged from the Catholic church, came also into connection with Valdez, appropriated many of his opinions, and then entered into fraternal relations with the French Waldesians. This theory, as also no less the explanations connected therewith of the constitutional and doctrinal differences of the two parties, has been proved by Carl Müller in his Die Waldensier u. ihre einzelne Gruppen bis Auf d. 14. Jhd. to be in many particulars untenable, and he has shown that the Waldensian origin of “the Poor Men of Lombardy” is witnessed to even by this epistle. The results of his researches are in the main as follows: The movement set on foot in A.D. 1177 by Valdez of Lyons in the direction of an apostolic walk and conversation was transplanted at a very early period into northern Italy, and found there a favourable reception, especially in the ranks of the Humiliati. These, too, as well as Valdez, in A.D. 1179, approached Alexander III. with the prayer to authorize their entering on such a vocation, but were also immediately repulsed, attached themselves then to the “Poor Men of Lyons,” submitting to the monarchical rule of their founder, and along with them, in A.D. 1184, fell under the papal ban. Yet among the Lombards a strong craving after greater independence and freedom soon found expression, which asserted itself most decidedly in the claim to the right of their own independent choice and ordination of lifelong organs of government for their society, as well as for priestly services, which, however, Valdez, fearing a dissolution of the whole society from the granting of such partial independence, answered with a decided refusal. With equal decision did he insist upon the disbanding of those workmen’s associations for common production, which the Lombards, as formerly the Humiliati, formed from the laymen belonging to them, and forbade them even engaging in any handicraft which they had hitherto pursued alongside of their spiritual vocations, as inconsistent with the apostolic life according to the prescriptions of Christ in Luke x. Thus it came about, in consequence of the unyielding temper of both parties, that there was a formal split; for the Lombards appointed their own independent præpositus, who, just like their ministri charged with the conduct of worship, held office for life. In the course of the year the split widened through the adoption of other divergences on the part of the Lombards. Yet after the death of the founder, about A.D. 1217 they entered upon negotiations about a reunion, which found a hearty response also among the French. By means of epistolary explanations a basis for union in regard to those questions which had occasioned the separation had already been attained unto. The French granted to the Lombards independent election and ordination of their ministers for church government and worship, and allowed the appointment to be for life, while they also agreed to the continuance of their workmen’s associations. In May, A.D. 1218, six brethren from the two parties were at Bergamo appointed to draw up definite terms of peace, and to secure a verbal explanation of other less important differences, which was also accomplished without difficulty. The whole peace negotiations, however, were ultimately shattered over two questions, which first came to the front during the verbal explanations: (i.) Over the question of the felicity of the deceased founder, which the Lombards were disposed to affirm only conditionally, i.e. in case he had been penitent before his death for the sins of which he had been guilty through his intolerant treatment of them, while the French would have it affirmed unconditionally; and (ii.) over the controversy about the validity of the dispensation of the sacrament of the altar by an unworthy person. On both sides they were thoroughly agreed in saying that not the priest, but the omnipotence of God, changed bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper into the body and blood of Christ. But while the French drew from this the conclusion that even an unworthy and wicked priest could truly and effectually administer the sacrament, the Italians persisted in the contrary opinion, and quoted Scripture and the writings of the Fathers to prove the correctness of their views.

§ 108.12.

1. Attempts at Catholicizing.—On the origin, character, and task of the Pauperes Catholici referred to above, the epistles of Pope Innocent III. regarding them afford us pretty accurate and detailed information. The first impulse toward their formation was given by a disputation with the French Waldensians held by Bishop Diego of Osma at Pamiers in A.D. 1206, by means of which he succeeded, aided by the powerful co-operation of his companion St. Dominic, in persuading a number of the heretics to return to the obedience of the Catholic church. Among those converted on that occasion was the Spaniard Durandus of Osca (Huesca), who now laid before the pope the plan of forming from among the converted Waldensians a society of Catholic Poor Men under the oversight of the bishops, which, by appropriating and carrying out all the fundamental principles of the Waldensian system—apostolic poverty, apostolic dress, apostolic life, and apostolic vocation, according to Luke x.—would not only paralyse or outbid the ministry of the heretical Poor Men among the people, but would also open up the way for their own return and attachment again to the church. The pope approved of his plan, and confirmed the union founded by him in A.D. 1208. The undertaking of Durandus seems to have been from the first not altogether without success in the direction intended. At least we find that Bernard Primus was encouraged one and a half years later to found a second similar society on essentially the same basis, which Innocent III. approved and confirmed. This later association was distinguished from the earlier only in this, that it allowed its members, besides their itinerant preaching and pastoral work, to engage also in their own handicraft. We are now led, by this difference, to the conclusion that, as the institution of Durandus issued from the bosom of the French Waldensians, that of Bernard had its origin among the groups of the Poor Men of Lombardy. This supposition is further confirmed when we observe that the latter, in drawing up its Catholic confession of faith, expressly abjures the formerly cherished conviction of the inefficacy of sacramental actions performed by unworthy priests. But the reason why both these unions, notwithstanding papal approval and support, failed to exert any permanent influence is to be sought pre-eminently in this, that, tainted as their reputation was with the memory of their former heresy, they were soon far outrun and overshadowed by the two great mendicant orders, which wrought with ampler means and appliances in the same direction.

§ 108.13.

1. The French Societies.—What these found fault with in the Catholic church was, not its dogmatics, to which, with the single exception of the doctrine of purgatory and all therewith connected, indulgence, masses for souls, foundations, alms, and works of piety on behalf of the dead, they firmly adhered; nor yet its liturgical institutions, which, with the exception of masses for souls, they left untouched; nor yet its hierarchical constitutions per se, for they transferred its leading principles into their own organization: but it was simply this, that its clergy had become guilty of the deadly sin of assuming and exercising the apostolic prerogative without undertaking the obligations of apostolic poverty, the apostolic life, and the apostolic vocation, which alone warranted such assumption. But as they thus, nevertheless, firmly adhered to the Catholic principle of the validity of a sacrament administered even by an unworthy person, if only he had authority for doing so from the church, they could allow themselves, and specially their lay adherents, to take part in all Catholic services and acts of worship, without regarding themselves or their followers as under obligation to yield obedience to the pope and the bishops, or to recognise their spiritual jurisdiction, authority to inflict punishment, and right of arbitrary legislation in regard to fasts, festivals, impediments to marriage, etc.—As to the organization of the society, it is now perfectly clear that there was a threefold division of offices: bishops, presbyters, and deacons. Reception into the Societas Fratrum was consummated by the imparting of the ordination of deacon. This, however, was preceded by a longer or shorter novitiate, i.e. a period of trial and preparation for the apostolic vocation of preaching. The entrance into this novitiate (conversio) required the surrender of all property for the benefit of the poor, and on the part of those already married the abandonment of every form of marital relationship; and on reception into the brotherhood the vow of obedience to the superiors was exacted, as well as a vow of celibacy and chastity.—To the bishop, who as such was also called minister and major or majoralis, belonged the right to administer the sacraments of penance and ordination, as well as the consecration of the eucharistic elements; he might preach wherever he chose, and he assigned to presbyters and deacons their spheres of labour. The presbyters, in addition to preaching, also heard confessions, imposed penance, and granted absolution, but did not administer the punishments imposed, for this was the exclusive function of the bishop.—The deacons were only to preach, but not to hear confession, and their special duty consisted in collecting contributions for the support of the brethren. That also women, on the basis of Titus ii. 3, 4, were admitted into these societies is an undoubted fact. Their position was essentially the same as that of the deacons; but the number of preaching sisters continued always relatively small.—After the death of the founder the society once a year chose from among the existing bishops two rectores, who now together administered that supreme government and high priesthood which had previously been exercised by the founder alone. It was, however, by-and-by found desirable to revert to the older monarchical constitution, but all through the 13th century this office was held only by a yearly tenure. The retiring bishops, however, received for life the rank and title of major. But even over the rector stood the commune or congregatio; i.e. the general chapter assembled once or twice in the year, in which the brethren of all the three orders had a seat and vote. The obligation to wear the apostolic dress, persistence in which would have in a very short time thrown all the brethren into the Moloch arms of the Inquisition, was abandoned soon after the erection of that tribunal in A.D. 1232.—The lay adherents attracted by the preaching and pastoral activity of the brethren, the so-called Amici, Fautores, Receptatores, were not organized as exclusive and independent communities, because their continued participation in the services and sacraments of the Catholic church was regarded as permissible. On the other hand, they maintained, as far as possible, regular intercourse with the brethren, who in various styles of dress visited them secretly, preached to them, exhorted and instructed them, prayed with them and said grace at their tables, heard their confessions, imposed penances and granted absolution, uttering the formula of absolution, however, not in the language of an absolute judicial proclamation, but as a supplication and fervent desire. The Amici were allowed to make their Easter confession and observance of the Supper at the Catholic service. The brethren had of course also an independent celebration of the Lord’s Supper, which occurred only once a year, on Maundy Thursday, but was confined as a rule to the brothers and sisters there assembled. The profound acquaintance with Holy Scripture, especially the New Testament, not only among the preaching “brothers,” but also among their “friends,” many of whom knew by heart a large portion of the New Testament, was the subject of general remark and the occasion of astonishment. Besides Holy Scripture, the selection of patristic passages used by Valdez and the Moralia of Gregory the Great were in high repute as means of instruction and edification.—The systematic efforts put forth from A.D. 1232 for the uprooting and extirpating of heresy wrought effectually among the French Waldensian “brethren” and “friends.” The remnants of them that survived the persecution were driven farther and farther into the remotest valleys of the western and eastern spurs of the Cottian Alps, into Dauphiné and Provence on the French side, and into Piedmont on the Italian side.—The most important sources are: Adv. Valdens. sectam, of Bernard Abbot of Fonscalidus, who died in A.D. 1193; Doctrina de Moda Procedendi a Hæret. of the Inquisition at Carcassone and Toulouse of A.D. 1280; the consultatio of Arch. Peter Amelius of Narbonne and the provincial synods held under him in A.D. 1243, 1244; and the recently published Practica Inquisition. of the inquisitor Bernard Guidonis of A.D. 1321.—Continuation, § 119, 9A.

§ 108.14.

A representation of the origin and character of the old Waldensian movement completely different from that given in the sources mentioned and used in the preceding sections, especially in reference to the French societies, has been current since the middle of the 16th century in the modern Waldensian tradition, and by means of falsified or misunderstood documents has been repeated by most Protestant historians down to and including U. Hahn. The investigations of Dieckhoff and Herzog first demolished for ever those fabulous creations of Waldensian mythology, though more recent Waldensian writers, e.g. Hudry-Ménos, but not Comba, seek still tenaciously to assert their truth. According to these traditions, long before the days of Waldus of Lyons there were Waldensian, i.e. Vallensian communities in the valleys of Piedmont, the “Israel of the Alps,” the bearers of pure gospel truth, whose origin was to be traced back at least to Claudius of Turin, while others fondly carried it back to the Apostle Paul, who on his journey to Spain (Rom. xv. 24) may have also visited the Piedmontese valleys. It was to them that Peter of Lyons owed his spiritual awakening and his surname of Waldus, i.e. the Waldensian. For proof of this assertion we are referred to a pretty copious manuscript literature said to be old Waldensian, written in a peculiar Romance dialect, deposited in the libraries of Geneva, Dublin, Cambridge, Zürich, Grenoble, and Paris. Upon close and unprejudiced examination of these literary pieces, of which the oldest portion cannot possibly claim an earlier date than the beginning of the 14th century, it has become quite apparent that these, in so far as they are not fabrications or interpolations, do not afford the least grounds for justifying those Waldensian fantasies. This view is further corroborated by the fact, that the most careful and thorough investigator in this department, Carl Müller, confidently maintains the conviction and shows the basis on which it rests, “that the whole so-called Waldensian literature of the pre-Hussite period has been without exception derived from Catholic and not from Waldensian sources.” The falsifications in this reputed old Waldensian group of writings referred to, by means of interpolation, omission, and alteration in the tracts belonging to that collection, as well as the forging of new writings, and that simply for the purpose of vindicating for their society the mythical fame of a primitive, independent, and ever pure evangelical church, first found place after the Protestantizing of the Romance or Piedmontese Waldensians, and were thereafter successfully turned to account bona or mala fide by their historians, Perrin, Leger, Muston, Monastier, etc. In the Nobla laiczon (=lectio), e.g. a religious doctrinal poem, in the statement of vv. 6, 7, that since the origin of the New Testament writings 1,400 years had passed (mil e 4 cent anz) the figure 4 was erased, so that it might appear to be an ascertained fact that in A.D. 1100, seventy years before the appearance of Waldus, there were already Waldensian communities in existence. But when, in A.D. 1862, the Morland manuscripts, which had been lost for 200 years, were again discovered in Cambridge library, there was found among them a copy of the Nobla laiczon, in which before the word cent an erasure was observable, in which the outlines of the loop of the Arabic numeral 4 were still clearly discernible. In another piece contained in this collection the passage referred to was quoted as “mil e CCCC anz.” Hussite writings translated from the Bohemian were also palmed off as genuine Waldensian works of the earlier centuries, and were in addition provided with the corresponding date. A manuscript of the New Testament at Zürich was assigned to the 12th century; but on more careful scrutiny it was shown that the writer must have had before him the Greek Testament of Erasmus. But the most glaring case of falsification is seen in the “Waldensian Confession of Faith,” first adduced by Perrin as evidence of the faith of the old Waldensians, to which a later hand had ascribed as the date of its composition the year 1120. It copies almost word for word the utterances of Bucer as given in Morel’s report of his negotiations with that divine and Œcolampadius. In this way a new stamp has been put upon the doctrinal articles of the old Waldensians.[320]

§ 108.15.

1. The Lombard-German Branch.—In regard to the Lombards themselves, since the epistle of Bergamo we have only scanty reports, and these are found in the treatise of Monata, of 1240, Adv. Catharos et Valdenses, and in the Summa de Catharis et Leonistis of the Dominican inquisitor Rainerius Sacchoni, of 1250. We have ampler accounts, however, from their German mission-field, which had already extended so far as to stretch from the Rhine provinces into Austria. From the time of the unsuccessful endeavours at Bergamo to effect a union between the two principal groups, there was, so far as we are aware, no further intercourse between the two. On the other hand, the German Waldensians during the 13th and 14th centuries maintained a pretty regular communication with their Italian brethren.—In general, too, the Lombards continued, along with their German offspring, to hold firmly by the fundamental tenets of the primitive Waldensian faith. Their preaching brothers and sisters were also called in Germany Meister (magistri) and Meïsterinnen, the men also Apostles and Twelve-Apostles, or, since also there, next to preaching, they had as their most essential and important spiritual function the administration of the sacrament of penance, Beichtiger (bihter), confessors. The view that had been already so vigorously maintained at Bergamo, that a priest guilty of mortal sin, and such in their eyes were all Catholic priests, could not efficaciously administer any sacrament, led them naturally to assume a much freer attitude toward the Catholic church, which summed itself up in the radical principle, that everything connected with that church which cannot be shown from the New Testament to have been expressly taught and enjoined by Christ or His apostles, is to be set aside as an unevangelical human addition. This position however was insisted upon by them less in criticism and confutation of the church doctrine than in opposition to the practices of the church as a whole. In consequence of this criticism, they, transcending far the mere negations of the French, rejected not only all church festivals, beyond the simple Sunday festival, not only all processions and pilgrimages, all ceremonies, candles, incense, holy water, images, liturgical dress and cloths, all consecrations and blessing of churches, bells, burying grounds, candles, ashes, palms, robes, salt, water, etc., but also the centre and climax of all Catholic worship, the mass; not only of purgatory and everything in church practice that had sprung from it, not only ban and interdict, but also invocation of saints, image and relic worship, etc. Yet all the masters did not go equally far in this negative direction. Especially during the second half of the 13th century a remarkable reaction set in against the severity and exclusiveness of that negation, because increasing persecution obliged them to withdraw into secrecy as much as possible with their confession and their specifically Waldensian forms of worship, or to suspend their services altogether, and indeed, to save themselves from the suspicion of heresy, to allow to themselves and their lay adherents liberty to engage in the services of the Catholic church, and to submit to the indispensable demands of the church, such as the attendance at mass, making confession, and taking the communion at Easter. They held indeed firmly by the principle, Quod sacerdos in mortali peccato sacramentum non possit conficere, but they comforted themselves by the assurance already expressed at Bergamo, that the Lord Himself directly gives to the worthy communicant who, in case of need, receives the sacrament from the hand of an unworthy priest, what by him cannot be communicated, for the transubstantiation is effected not in manu indigne conficientis, but in ore digne sumentis. Thus during the times of oppression they kept their own observance of the supper quite in abeyance, the dispensation of which was not among them, as among the French, restricted to the masters; but on this account they laid all the greater weight on the necessity of confession to their own clergy as those who could alone give absolution. Also the prohibition of all oaths as well as bloodshedding, therefore also of military service, and the acceptance of magisterial and judicial offices, was strictly adhered to.—A peculiar adaptation of the Roman Catholic tradition of the baptism and donation of Constantine, which seems to have found no acceptance among the French, became a favourite legend among all the Lombard and German Waldensians. According to it the ancient church had existed for three hundred years in apostolic humility, simplicity, and poverty. But when the Roman bishop Sylvester was endowed by the emperor Constantine the Great with such superabundance of worldly might, riches, and honour, the period of general decline from the apostolic pattern set in. Only one of his fellow clergy protested, and was, when all enticements and threatenings proved of no avail, driven away along with his adherents. The latter increased and spread by-and-by over the earth. After a violent persecution, which had almost cut off all of them, Peter Waldus made his appearance with his companion, John of Lyons, as the restorer of the apostolic life and calling, etc. To this there was subsequently attached another legend. The brethren had previously based their right to discharge all priestly functions with the greatest confidence simply on their apostolic life, and so they could not conceal from themselves at a later period the fact that the want of continued apostolic succession, on which the Catholic church rested the claims of their priests, would place the Waldensian masters very much in the shade as compared with the Catholics. They began, therefore, not only to claim that their founder Waldus had been previously a Roman presbyter, but also to devise the fable of a bishop or even a cardinal of the Romish church, through whose favour that defect had been overcome.—Continuation, § 119, 9.

§ 108.16.

1. Relations between the Waldensians and Older and Contemporary Sects.—Owing to the extraordinarily lively and zealous propagandist activity of the sects at the time of the origin and early development of the Waldensian movement, there can scarcely be a doubt that the latter, after it had freed itself from all obligation of obedience to the pope and bishops, and had been driven out by them, must at various points have come into close relations with the other sects which, like it, had risen in rebellion against the papacy and the hierarchy, and like it had been persecuted by these. The numerous sect of the Cathari holds a conspicuous position in this connection. That Waldus and his companions must have decidedly repudiated the dualistic principles which all these otherwise greatly diverging Catharist sects had in common is indeed quite self-evident; but this by no means prevented them from recognising and appropriating such particular institutions, forms of organization or modes of worship, peculiar moral requirements, etc., practised by them as might seem fitted to further their own ends. And that this actually was done, many noticeable points of agreement between the two plainly indicate. Thus on both sides we find a similar division of members, the Perfecti and Credentes corresponding to the Fratres and Amici, and the kind of spiritual care which the former took of the latter, the grace at table said by the itinerant preachers, the importance attached to the possession and use of bread that had been blessed by the brethren, the frequent use by both of the Lord’s Prayer, the rejection of purgatory and everything connected therewith, also the prohibition of swearing and of military service, the refusal of the magisterial jus gladii, etc. On the other hand, however, it is more than probable that at last the remnants of the Cathari which escaped the Inquisition in great part had found refuge among the Waldensians in the valleys of the Cottian Alps, and there became assimilated and amalgamated with them (§ 119, 9A).—Further, the assumption that the Lombard Waldensians had first reached the principle by which they are distinguished from their French brethren, about the incapacity of unworthy priests for dispensing the sacraments, from outside influences, perhaps from the Arnoldists, is raised almost to a certainty by the statement made by their deputies at Bergamo in A.D. 1218, that they had even themselves in earlier times held the opposite view.—Even the pantheistic tendency of an Amalrich and the Brethren of the New Spirit may have found entrance among the German Waldensians, and have there given origin to the sect of the Ortlibarians.

§ 109. THE CHURCH AGAINST THE PROTESTERS.

The church was by no means indifferent to the spread of those heresies of the 11th and 12th centuries, which called in question its own very existence. Even in the 11th century she called in the aid of the stake as a type of the fire of hell that would consume the heretics, and against this only one voice, that of Bishop Wazo of Liège († A.D. 1048), was raised. In the 12th century protesting voices were more numerous: Peter the Venerable (§ 98, 1), Rupert of Deutz, St. Hildegard, St. Bernard, declared sword and fire no fit weapons for conversion. St. Bernard showed by his own example how by loving entreaty and friendly instruction more might be done than by awakening a fanatical enthusiasm for martyrdom. But hangmen and stakes were more easily produced than St. Bernards, of whom the 12th and 13th centuries had by no means a superabundance. By-and-by Dominic sent out his disciples to teach and convert heretics by preaching and disputation; as long as they confined themselves to these methods they were not without success. But even they soon found it more congenial or more effective to fight the heretics with tortures and the stake rather than with discussion and discourse. The Albigensian crusade and the tribunal of the Inquisition erected in connection therewith at last overpowered the protesters and drove the remnants of their sects into hiding. In the administration of punishment the church made no distinction between the various sects; all were alike who were at war with the church.

§ 109.1. The Albigensian Crusade, A.D. 1209-1229.—Toward the end of the 12th century sects abounded in the south of France. Innocent III. regarded them as worse than the Saracens, and in A.D. 1203 sent a legate, Peter of Castelnau, with full powers to secure their extermination. But Peter was murdered in A.D. 1208, and suspicion fell on Raymond IV., Count of Toulouse. A crusade under Simon de Montfort was now summoned against the sectaries, who as mainly inhabiting the district of Albigeois were now called Albigensians. A twenty years’ war was carried on with mad fanaticism and cruelty on both sides, in which guilty and innocent, men, women, and children were ruthlessly slain. At the sack of Beziers with 20,000 inhabitants the papal legate cried, “Slay all, the Lord will know how to seek out and save His own.”[321]

§ 109.2. The Inquisition.—Every one screening a heretic forfeited lands, goods, and office; a house in which such a one was discovered was levelled to the ground; all citizens had to communicate thrice a year, and every second year to renew their oath of attachment to the church, and to refuse all help in sickness to those suspected of heresy, etc. The bishops not showing themselves zealous enough in enforcing these laws, Gregory IX. in A.D. 1232 founded the Tribunal of the Inquisition, and placed it in the hands of the Dominicans. These as Domini canes subjected to the most cruel tortures all on whom the suspicion of heresy fell, and all the resolute were handed over to the civil authorities, who readily undertook their execution.[322]—Continuation § 117, 2.

§ 109.3. Conrad of Marburg and the Stedingers.—The first Inquisitor of Germany, the Dominican Conrad of Marburg, also known as the severe confessor of St. Elizabeth (§ 105, 3), after a three years’ career of cruelty was put to death by certain of the nobles in A.D. 1233. Et sic, say the Annals of Worms, divino auxilio liberata est Teutonia ab isto judicio enormi et inaudito. He was enrolled by Gregory IX. among the martyrs. Perhaps wrongly he has been blamed for Gregory’s crusade of A.D. 1234 against the Stedingers. These were Frisians of Oldenburg who revolted against the oppression of nobles and priests, refused socage and tithes, and screened Albigensian heretics. The first crusade failed; the second succeeded and plundered, murdered, and burned on every hand. Thousands of the unhappy peasants were slain, neither women nor children were spared, and all prisoners were sent to the stake as heretics.

THIRD SECTION.

HISTORY OF THE GERMANO-ROMANIC CHURCH IN THE 14th AND 15th CENTURIES (A.D. 1294-1517).

I. The Hierarchy, Clergy, and Monks.

§ 110. THE PAPACY.[323]

From the time of Gelasius II. (§ 96, 11) it had been the custom of the popes whenever Italy became too hot for them to fly to France, and from France they had obtained help to deliver Italy from the tyranny of the latest representatives of the Hohenstaufens. But when Boniface VIII. dared boldly to assert the universal sovereignty of the papacy even over France itself, this presumption wrought its own overthrow. The consequence was a seventy years’ exile of the papal chair to the banks of the Rhone, with complete subjugation under French authority. Under the protection of the French court, however, the popes found Avignon a safe asylum, and from thence they issued the most extravagant hierarchical claims, especially upon Germany. The return of the papal court to Rome was the occasion of a forty years’ schism, during which two popes, for a time even three, are seen hurling anathemas at one another. The reforming Councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basel sought to put an end to this scandal and bring about a reformation in the head and the members. The fathers in these councils, however, in accordance with the prevalent views of the age, maintained the need of one visible head for the government of the church, such as was afforded by the papacy. But the corruptions of the papal chair led them to adopt the old theory that the highest ecclesiastical authority is not the pope but the voice of the universal church expressed in the œcumenical councils, which had jurisdiction over even the popes. The successful carrying out of this view was possible only if the several national churches which had come now more decidedly than ever to regard themselves as independent branches of the great ecclesiastical organism, should heartily combine against the corrupt papacy. But this they did not do. They were contented with making separate attacks, in accordance with their several selfish interests. Hence papal craft found little difficulty in rendering the strong remonstrances of these councils fruitless and without result. The papacy came forth triumphant, and during the 15th century, the age of the Renaissance, reached a degree of corruption and moral turpitude which it had not approached since the 10th century. The vicars of God now used their spiritual rank only to further their ambitious worldly schemes, and by the most scandalous nepotism (the so-called nephews being often bastards of the popes, who were put into the highest and most lucrative offices) as well as by their own voluptuousness, luxury, revelry, and love of war, brought ruin upon the church and the States of the Church.

§ 110.1. Boniface VIII. and Benedict XI., A.D. 1294-1304.—Boniface VIII., A.D. 1294-1303 (§ 96, 22), was not inferior to his great predecessor in political talents and strength of will, but was destitute of all spiritual qualities and without any appreciation of the spiritual functions of the papal chair, while passionately maintaining the most extravagant claims of the hierarchy. The opposition to the pope was headed by two cardinals of the powerful Colonna family, who maintained that the abdication of Cœlestine V. was invalid. In A.D. 1297 Boniface stripped them of all their dignities, and then they appealed to an œcumenical council as a court of higher jurisdiction. The pope now threatened them and their supporters with the ban, fitted out a crusade against them, and destroyed their castles. At last after a sore struggle Palæstrina, the old residence of their family, capitulated. Also the Colonnas themselves submitted. Nevertheless in A.D. 1299 he had the famous old city and all its churches and palaces levelled to the ground, and refused to restore to the outlawed family its confiscated estates. Then again the Colonnas took up arms, but were defeated and obliged to fly the country, while the pope forbade under threat of the ban any city or realm to give refuge or shelter to the fugitives. But neither his anathema nor his army was able to keep the rebellious Sicilians under papal dominion. Even in his first contest with the French king, Philip IV. the Fair, A.D. 1285-1314, he had the worst of it. The pope had vainly sought to mediate between Philip and Edward I. of England, when both were using church property in carrying on war with one another, and in A.D. 1295 he issued the bull Clericis laicos, releasing subjects from their allegiance and anathematizing all laymen who should appropriate ecclesiastical revenues and all priests who should put them to uses not sanctioned by the pope. Philip then forbade all payment of church dues, and the pope finding his revenues from France withheld, made important concessions in A.D. 1297 and canonized Philip’s grandfather, Louis IX. His hierarchical assumptions in Germany gave promise of greater success. After the first Hapsburger’s death in A.D. 1291, his son Albert was set aside, and Adolf, Count of Nassau, elected king; but he again was overthrown and Albert I. crowned in A.D. 1298. Boniface summoned Albert to his tribunal as a traitor and murderer of the king, and released the German princes from their oaths of allegiance to him. Meanwhile, during A.D. 1301, Boniface and Philip were quarrelling over vacant benefices in France. The king haughtily repudiated the pretensions of the papal legate and imprisoned him as a traitor. Boniface demanded his immediate liberation, summoned the French bishops to a council at Rome, and in the bull Ausculta fili showed the king how foolish, sinful, and heretical it was for him not to be subject to the pope. The bull torn from the messenger’s hands was publicly burnt, and a version of it probably falsified published throughout the kingdom along with the king’s reply. All France rose in revolt against the papal pretensions, and a parliament at Notre Dame in Paris A.D. 1302, at which the king assembled the three estates of the empire, the nobles, the clergy, and (for the first time) the citizens, it was unanimously resolved to support Philip and to write in that spirit to Rome, the bishops undertaking to pacify the pope, the nobles and citizens making their complaint to the cardinals. The king expressly forbade his clergy taking any part in the council that had been summoned, which, however, met in the Lateran, in Nov., 1302. From it Boniface issued the famous bull Unam Sanctam, in which, after the example of Innocent III. and Gregory IX., he set forth the doctrine of the two swords, the spiritual wielded by the church and the temporal for the church, by kings and warriors indeed, but only according to the will and by the permission of the spiritual ruler. That the temporal power is independent was pronounced a Manichæan heresy; and finally it was declared that no human being could be saved unless he were subject to the Roman pontiff. King and parliament now accused the pope of heresy, simony, blasphemy, sorcery, tyranny, immorality, etc., and insisted that he should answer these charges before an œcumenical council. Meanwhile, in A.D. 1303, Boniface was negotiating with king Albert, and got him not only to break his league with Philip, but also to acknowledge himself a vassal of the papal see. The pope had all his plans laid for launching his anathema against Philip, but their execution was anticipated by the king’s assassins. His chancellor Nogaret and Sciarra, one of the exiled Colonnas, who, with the help of French gold, had hatched a conspiracy among the barons, attacked the papal palace and took the pope prisoner while he sat in full state upon his throne. The people indeed rescued him, but he died some weeks after in a raging fever in his 80th year. Dante assigns him a place in hell. In the mouth of his predecessor Cœlestine V. have been put the prophetic words, Ascendisti ut vulpes, regnatis ut leo, morieris ut canis.[324] His successor Benedict XI., A.D. 1303, 1304, would have willingly avenged the wrongs of Boniface, but weak and unsupported as he was he soon found himself obliged, not only to withdraw all imputations against Philip, who always maintained his innocence, but also to absolve those of the Colonnas who were less seriously implicated.

§ 110.2. The Papacy during the Babylonian Exile, A.D. 1305-1377.—After a year’s vacancy the papal chair was filled by Bertrand de Got, Archbishop of Bordeaux, a determined supporter of Boniface, who took the name of Clement V., A.D. 1305-1314. He refused to go to be enthroned at Rome, and forced the cardinals to come to Lyons, and finally, in A.D. 1309, formally removed the papal court to Avignon, which then belonged to the king of Naples as Count of Provence. At this time, too, Clement so far yielded to Philip’s wish to have Boniface condemned and struck out of the list of popes, as to appoint two commissions to consider charges against Boniface, one in France and the other in Italy. Most credible witnesses accused the deceased pope of heresies, crimes, and immoralities committed in word and deed mostly in their presence, while the rebutting evidence was singularly weak. A compromise was effected by Clement surrendering the Templars to the greedy and revengeful king. In the bull Rex gloriæ of A.D. 1311 he expressly declares that Philip’s proceeding against Boniface was bona fide, occasioned by zeal for church and country, cancels all Boniface’s decrees and censures upon the French king and his servants, and orders them to be erased from the archives. The 15th œcumenical Council of Vienne in A.D. 1311 was mainly occupied with the affairs of the Templars, and also with the consideration of the controversies in the Franciscan order (§ 112, 2).—Henry VII. of Luxemburg was raised to the German throne on Albert’s death in A.D. 1208 in opposition to Philip’s brother Charles. Clement supported him and crowned him emperor, hoping to be protected by him from Philip’s tyranny. At Milan in A.D. 1311 Henry received the iron crown of Lombardy; but at Rome the imperial coronation was effected in A.D. 1312, not in St. Peter’s, the inner city being held by Robert of Naples, papal vassal and governor of Italy, but only in the Lateran at the hands of the cardinals commissioned to do so. The emperor now, in spite of all papal threats, pronounced the ban of the empire against Robert, and in concert with Frederick of Sicily entered on a campaign against Naples, but his sudden death in A.D. 1313 (according to an unsupported legend caused by a poisoned host) put an end to the expedition. Clement also died in the following year; and to him likewise has Dante assigned a place in hell.

§ 110.3. After two years’ murderous strife between the Italian and French cardinals, the French were again victorious, and elected at Lyons John XXII., A.D. 1316-1334, son of a shoemaker of Cahors in Gascony, who was already seventy-two years old. He is said to have sworn to the Italians never to use a horse or mule but to ride to Rome, and then to have taken ship on the Rhone for Avignon, where during his eighteen years’ pontificate he never went out of his palace except to go into the neighbouring cathedral. Working far into the night, this seemingly weak old man was wont to devote all his time to his studies and his business. The weight of his official duties will be seen from the fact that 60,000 minutes, filling 59 vols. in the papal archives, belong to his reign.—In Germany, after the death of Henry VII. there were two rivals for the throne, Louis IV. the Bavarian, A.D. 1314-1347, and Frederick III. of Austria. The pope, maintaining the closest relations with Robert of Anjou, his feudatory as king of Naples and his protector as Count of Provence, and esteeming his wish as a command, refused to acknowledge either, declared the German throne still vacant, and assumed to himself the administration of the realm during the vacancy. At Mühldorf in A.D. 1322 Louis conquered his opponent and took him prisoner. He sent a detachment of Ghibellines over the Alps, while he made himself master of Milan and put an end to the papal administration in Northern Italy. The pope in A.D. 1323 ordered him within three months to cease discharging all functions of government till his election as German king should be acknowledged and confirmed by the papal chair. Louis first endeavoured to come to an understanding with the pope, but soon employed the sharp pens of the Minorites, who in May, 1324, drew up a solemn protest in which the king, basing his claims to royalty solely on the election of the princes and treating the pope as one who had forfeited his chair in consequence of his heresies (§ 112, 2), appealed from this false pope to an œcumenical council and a future legitimate pope. John now thundered an anathema against him, declared that he was deprived of all his dignities, freed his subjects from their allegiance, forbade them, under pain of anathema, to obey him, and summoned all European potentates to war against the excommunicated monarch. Louis now sought Frederick’s favour, and in A.D. 1325 shared with him the royal dignity. In Milan in A.D. 1327 he was crowned king of Lombardy, and in A.D. 1328 in Rome he received the imperial crown from the Roman democracy. Two bishops of the Ghibelline party gave him consecration, and the crown was laid on his head by Sciarra Colonna in the name of the Roman people. In vain did the pope pronounce all these proceedings null and void. The king began a process against the pope, deposed him as a heretic and antichrist, and finally condemned him to death as guilty of high treason, while the mob carried out this sentence by burning the pope in effigy upon the streets. The people and clergy of Rome, in accordance with an old canon, elected a new pope in the person of a pious Minorite of the sect of the Spirituales (§ 112, 2), who took the name of Nicholas V. Louis with his own hand placed the tiara on his head, and was then himself crowned by him. All this glory, however, was but short lived. An unsuccessful and inglorious war against Robert of Naples and a consequent revolt in Rome caused the emperor in A.D. 1328, with his army and his pope, amid the stonethrowing of the mob, to quit the eternal city, which immediately became subject to the curia. He did not fare much better in Tuscany or Lombardy; and thus the Roman expedition ended in failure. Returning to Munich, Louis endeavoured in vain amid many humiliations to move the determined old man at Avignon. But Nicholas V., the most wretched of all the anti-popes, went to Avignon with a rope about his neck in A.D. 1328, cast himself at the pope’s feet, was absolved, and died a prisoner in the papal palace in A.D. 1333. Next year John died. Notwithstanding the expensive Italian wars 25,000,000 gold guldens was found in the papal treasury at his death.—Roused by his opposition to the stricter party among the Franciscans (§ 112, 2), its leaders lent all their influence to the Bavarian and supported the charge of heresy against the pope. Against John’s favourite doctrine that the souls of departed saints attain to the vision of God only after the last judgment, these zealots cited the opinions of the learned world (§ 113, 3), with the University of Paris at its head. Philip VI. of France was also in the controversy one of his bitterest opponents, and even threatened him with the stake. Pressed on all sides the pope at last in A.D. 1333 convened a commission of scholars to decide the question, but died before its judgment was given. His successor hasted to still the tumult by issuing the story of a deathbed recantation, and gave ecclesiastical sanction to the opposing view.

§ 110.4. Benedict XII., A.D. 1334-1342, would probably have yielded to the urgent entreaties of the Romans to return to Rome had not his cardinals been so keenly opposed. He then built a palace at Avignon of imposing magnitude, as though the papacy were to have an eternal residence there. Louis the Bavarian retracted his heretical sentiments in order to get the ban removed and to obtain an orderly coronation. The first diet of the electoral union was held at Rhense near Mainz, in A.D. 1338, where it was declared that the election of a German king and emperor was, by God’s appointment, the sole privilege of the elector-princes, and needed not the confirmation or approval of the pope. This encouraged Louis to assert anew his imperial pretensions. Benedict’s successor Clement VI., A.D. 1342-1352, added by purchase in A.D. 1348 the city of Avignon to the county of Venaissin, which Philip III. had gifted to the papal chair in A.D. 1273. Both continued in the possession of the Roman court till A.D. 1791 (§ 165, 13). Louis, now at feud with some of the powerful German nobles, sought to make terms of peace with the new pope. But Clement was not conciliatory, and made the unheard of demand that Louis should not only annul all his previous ordinances, but also should in future issue no enactment in the empire without permission of the papal see; and on Maunday Thursday, A.D. 1346, he pronounced him without title or dignity and called upon the electors to make a new choice, which, if they failed to do, he would proceed to do himself. As fittest candidate he recommended Charles of Bohemia, who was actually chosen by the five electors who answered the summons, under the title of Charles IV., A.D. 1346-1378, and had his election confirmed by the pope. The new emperor solemnly promised never to set foot on the domains of the Roman church without express papal permission, and to remain in Rome only so long as was required for his coronation. Louis died before he was able to engage in war with his rival, and when, six months later, the next choice of Louis’ party also died, Charles was acknowledged without a dissentient voice. He was crowned emperor in Rome by a cardinal appointed by Innocent VI., in A.D. 1355. Without doing anything to restore the imperial prestige in Italy, Charles went back like a fugitive to Germany, despised by Guelphs and Ghibellines. But in the following year, at the Diet of Nuremberg, he passed a new imperial law in the so called Golden Bull of A.D. 1356, according to which the election of emperor was to be made at Frankfort, by three clerical electors (Mainz, Cologne, and Treves) and four temporal princes (Bohemia, the Palatine of the Rhine, Saxony, and Brandenburg), and he appeased the pope’s wrath by various concessions to the curia and the clergy.

§ 110.5. The famous Rienzi was made apostolic notary by Clement VI. in A.D. 1343, and as tribune of the people headed the revolt against the barons in A.D. 1347. Losing his popularity through his own extravagances he was obliged to flee, and being taken prisoner by Charles at Prague, he was sent to Avignon in A.D. 1350. Instead of the stake with which Clement had threatened him, Innocent VI., A.D. 1352-1362, bestowed senatorial rank upon him, and sent him to Rome, hoping that his demagogical talent would succeed in furthering the interests of the papacy. He now once more, amid loud acclamations, entered the eternal city, but after two months, hated and cursed as a tyrant, he was murdered in A.D. 1354, while attempting flight.—By A.D. 1367 things had so improved in Rome that, notwithstanding the opposition of king and court and the objections of luxurious cardinals unwilling to quit Avignon, Urban V., A.D. 1362-1370, in October of that year made a triumphal entrance into Rome amid the jubilations of the Romans. Charles’ Italian expedition of the following year was inglorious and without result. The disquiet and party strifes prevailing through the country made the position of the pope so uncomfortable, that notwithstanding the earnest entreaty of St. Bridget (§ 112, 8), who threatened him with the Divine judgment of an early death in France, he returned in A.D. 1370 to Avignon, where in ten weeks the words of the northern prophetess were fulfilled. His successor was Gregory XI., A.D. 1370-1378. Rome and the States of the Church had now again become the scene of the wildest anarchy, which Gregory could only hope to quell by his personal presence. The exhortations of the two prophetesses of the age, St. Bridget and St. Catherine (§ 112, 4), had a powerful influence upon him, but what finally determined him was the threat of the exasperated Romans to elect an anti-pope. And so in spite of the renewed opposition of the cardinals and the French court, the curia again returned to Rome in A.D. 1377; but though the rejoicing at the event throughout the city was great, the results were by no means what had been expected. Sick and disheartened, the pope was already beginning to speak of going back to Avignon, when his death in A.D. 1378 put an end to his cares and sufferings.

§ 110.6. The Papal Schism and the Council of Pisa.—Under pressure from the people the cardinals present in Rome almost unanimously chose the Neapolitan archbishop of Bari, who took the name of Urban VI., A.D. 1378-1389. His energies were mainly directed to the emancipating of the papal chair from French interference and checking the abuses introduced into the papal court during the Avignon residence; but the impatience and bitterness which he showed in dealing with the greed, pomp, and luxury of the cardinals roused them to choose another pope. After four months, they met at Fundi, declared that the choice of Urban had been made under compulsion, and was therefore invalid. In his place they elected a Frenchman, Robert, cardinal of Geneva, who was enthroned under the name of Clement VII., A.D. 1378-1394. The three Italians present protested against this proceeding and demanded, but in vain, the decision of a council. Thus began the greatest and most mischievous papal schism, A.D. 1378-1417. France, Naples, and Savoy at once, and Spain and Scotland somewhat later, declared in favour of Clement; while the rest of Western Europe acknowledged Urban. The two most famous saints of the age, St. Catherine and St. Vincent Ferrér (§ 115, 2), though both disciples of Dominic, took different sides, the former as an Italian favouring Urban, the latter as a Spaniard favouring Clement. Failing to secure a footing in Italy, Clement took possession of the papal castle at Avignon in A.D. 1379. The schism lasted for forty years, during which time Boniface IX., A.D. 1389-1404, Innocent VII., A.D. 1404-1406, and Gregory XII., A.D. 1406-1415, elected by the cardinals in Rome, held sway there in succession, while at Avignon on Clement’s death his place was taken by the Spanish cardinal Pedro de Luna as Benedict XIII., A.D. 1394-1424. The Council of Paris of A.D. 1395 recommended the withdrawal of both popes and a new election, but Benedict insisted upon a decision by a two-thirds majority in favour of one or other of the two rivals. An œcumenical council at Pisa, in A.D. 1409, dominated mainly by the influence of Gerson (§ 118, 4), who maintained that the authority of the councils is superior to that of the pope, made short work with both contesting popes, whom it pronounced contumacious and deposed. After the cardinals present had bound themselves by an oath that whosoever of them might be chosen should not dissolve the council until a reform of the church in its head and members should be carried out, they elected a Greek of Candia in his seventieth year, Cardinal Philangi, who was consecrated as Alexander V., A.D. 1409-1410, and for three years the council continued to sit without effecting any considerable reforms. The consequence was that the world had the edifying spectacle of three contemporary popes anathematizing one another.

§ 110.7. The Council of Constance and Martin V.—Alexander V. died after a reign of ten months by poison administered, as was supposed, by Balthasar Cossa, resident cardinal legate and absolute military despot, suspected of having been in youth engaged in piracy. Cossa succeeded, as John XXIII., A.D. 1410-1415. He was acknowledged by the new Roman king, Sigismund, A.D. 1411-1437, and soon afterwards, in A.D. 1412, by Ladislas [Ladislaus] of Naples, so that Gregory XII. was thus deprived of his last support. The University of Paris continued to demand the holding of a council to effect reforms. Sigismund, supported by the princes, insisted on its being held in a German city. Meanwhile Ladislas [Ladislaus] had quarrelled with the pope, and had overrun the States of the Church and plundered Rome in A.D. 1413, and John was obliged to submit to Sigismund’s demands, He now summoned the 16th œcumenical Council of Constance, A.D. 1414-1418 (§ 119, 5). It was the most brilliant and the most numerously attended council ever held. More than 18,000 priests and vast numbers of princes, counts, and knights, with an immense following; in all about 100,000 strangers, including thousands of harlots from all countries, and hordes of merchants, artisans, showmen, and players of every sort. Gerson and D’Ailly, the one representing European learning, the other the claims of the Gallican church (§ 118, 4), were the principal advisers of the council. The decision to vote not individually but by nations (Italian, German, French, and English) destroyed the predominance of the Italian prelates, who as John’s creatures were present in great numbers. Terrified by an anonymous accusation, which charged the pope with the most heinous crimes, he declared himself ready to withdraw if the other two popes would also resign, but took advantage of the excitement of a tournament to make his escape disguised as an ostler. Sigismund could with difficulty keep the now popeless council together. John, however, was captured, seventy-two serious charges formulated against him, and on 26th July, A.D. 1415, he was deposed and condemned to imprisonment for life. He was given up to the Count Palatine Louis of Baden, who kept him prisoner in Mannheim, and afterwards in Heidelberg. Meanwhile the leader of an Italian band making use of the name of Martin V. purchased his release with 3,000 ducats. He now submitted himself to that pope, and was appointed by him cardinal-bishop of Tuscoli, and dean of the sacred college, but soon afterwards died in Florence, in A.D. 1419. Gregory XII. also submitted in A.D. 1415, and was made cardinal-bishop of Porto. Benedict, however, retired to Spain and refused to come to terms, but even the Spanish princes withdrew their allegiance from him as pope. The cardinals in conclave elected the crafty Oddo Colonna, who was consecrated as Martin V., A.D. 1417-1431. There was no more word of reformation. With great pomp the council was closed, and indulgence granted to its members. As the whole West now recognised Martin as the true pope the schism may be said to end with his accession, though Benedict continued to thunder anathemas from his strong Spanish castle till his death in A.D. 1424, and three of his four cardinals elected as his successor Clement VIII. and the fourth another Benedict XIV. Of the latter no notice was taken, but Clement submitted in A.D. 1429, and received the bishopric of Majorca.—Martin V. on entering Rome in A.D. 1420 found everything in confusion and desolate. By his able administration a change was soon effected, and the Rome of the Renaissance rose on the ruins of the mediæval city.[325]

§ 110.8. Eugenius IV. and the Council of Basel.—Martin V. commissioned Cardinal Julian Cesarini to look after the Hussite controversy in the Basel Council, A.D. 1431-1449. His successor Eugenius IV., A.D. 1431-1447, confirmed this appointment. After thirteen months he ordered the council to meet at Bologna, finding the heretical element too strong in Germany. The members, however, unanimously refused to obey. Sigismund, too, protested, and the council claimed to be superior to the pope. The withdrawal of the bull within sixty days was insisted upon. As a compromise, the pope offered to call a new council, not at Bologna, but at Basel. This was declined and the pope threatened with deposition. A rebellion, too, broke out in the States of the Church; and in A.D. 1433 Eugenius was completely humbled and obliged to acquiesce in the demands of the council. One danger was thus averted, but he was still threatened by another. In A.D. 1434 Rome proclaimed itself a republic and the pope fled to Florence. The success of the democracy, however, was now again of but short duration. In five months Rome was once more under the dominion of the pope. Negotiations for union with the Greeks were begun by the pope at Ferrara A.D. 1438. A small number of Italians under the presidency of the pope here assumed the offices of an œcumenical council, those at Basel being ordered to join them, the Basel Council being suspended, and the continuance of that council being pronounced schismatical. Julian, now styled “Julianus Apostata II.,” with almost all the cardinals, betook himself to Ferrara. Under the able cardinal Louis d’Aleman (§ 118, 4), archbishop of Arles, some still continued the proceedings of the council at Basel, but in consequence of a pestilence they moved, in A.D. 1439, to Florence. A union with the Greeks was here effected, at least upon paper. The Basel Council banned by the pope, deposed him, and in A.D. 1439 elected a new pope in the person of Duke Amadeus of Savoy, who on his wife’s death had resigned his crown to his son and entered a monkish order. He called himself Felix V. Princes and people, however, were tired of rival papacies. Felix got little support, and the council itself soon lost all its power. Its ablest members one after another passed over to the party of Eugenius. In A.D. 1449 Felix resigned, and died in the odour of sanctity two years afterwards.[326]

§ 110.9. Only Charles VII. of France took advantage of the reforming decree of Basel for the benefit of his country. He assembled the most distinguished churchmen and scholars of his kingdom at Bourges, and with their concurrence published, in A.D. 1438, twenty-three of the conclusions of Basel that bore on the Gallican liberties under the name of the Pragmatic Sanction, and made it a law of his realm. For the rest he maintained an attitude of neutrality towards both popes, as also shortly before the electors convened at Frankfort had done. Those assembled at the Diet of Mainz in A.D. 1439 recognised the reforming edicts of Basel as applying to Germany. Frederick IV., A.D. 1439-1493, who as emperor is known as Frederick III., under the influence of the cunning Italian Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini (§ 118, 6), though at first in the opposition, went over to the side of Eugenius IV. in A.D. 1446 upon receiving 100,000 guldens for the expenses of an expedition to Rome and certain ecclesiastical privileges for his Austrian subjects. Some weeks later the electors of Frankfort took the same steps, stipulating that Eugenius should recognise the decrees of the Council of Constance and the reforming decrees of Basel, and should promise to convene a new free council in a German city to bring the schism to an end, which if he failed to do they would quit him in favour of Basel. But at the diet, held in September of that year at Frankfort, the legates of the pope and of the king succeeded by diplomatic arts in coming to an understanding with the electors met at Mainz. Thus it happened that in the so-called Frankfort Concordat of the Princes a compromise was effected, which Eugenius confirmed in A.D. 1447, with a careful explanation to the effect that none of these concessions in any way infringed upon the rights and privileges of the Holy See. In the following year Frederick in name of the German nation concluded with Eugenius’ successor, Nicholas V., the Concordat of Vienna, A.D. 1448. The advantages gained by the German church were quite insignificant. Frederick received imperial rank as reward for the betrayal of his country, and was crowned in Rome, in A.D. 1452, as the last German emperor.

§ 110.10. Nicholas V., Calixtus III., and Pius II., A.D. 1447-1464.—With Nicholas V., A.D. 1447-1455, a miracle of classical scholarship and founder of the Vatican Library, the Roman see for the first time became the patron of humanistic studies, and under this mild and liberal pope the secular government of Rome was greatly improved. The conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, in A.D. 1453, produced excitement throughout the whole of Europe. The eloquence of the pope roused the crusading spirit of Christendom, and oratorical appeals were thundered from the pulpits of all churches and cathedrals. But the princes remained cold and indifferent. After Nicholas, a Spaniard, the cardinal Alphonso Borgia, then in his seventy-seventh year, was raised to the papal chair as Calixtus III., A.D. 1455-1458. Hatred of Turks and love of nephews were the two characteristics of the man. Yet he could not rouse the princes against the Turks, and the fleet fitted out at his own cost only plundered a few islands in the Archipelago. Calixtus’ successor was Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini, the able and accomplished apostate from the Basel reform party, who styled himself, with intended allusion to Virgil’s “pius Æneas,” Pius II., A.D. 1458-1464. The pope’s Ciceronian eloquence failed to secure the attendance of princes at the Mantuan Congress, summoned in A.D. 1459 to take steps for the equipment of a crusade. A war against the Turks was indeed to have been undertaken by emperor Frederick III., and a tax was to have been levied on Christians and Jews for its cost; but neither tax nor crusade was forthcoming. Pius demanded of the French ambassadors a formal repudiation of the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, and when they threatened the calling of an œcumenical council, he issued the bull Execrabilis, which pronounced “the execrable and previously unheard of” enormity of an appeal to a council to be heresy and treason. In A.D. 1461 the pope, by a long epistle, attempted the conversion of Mohammed II., the powerful conqueror of Constantinople. As the discovery of the great alum deposit at Rome in A.D. 1462 was attributed to miraculous direction, the pope was led to devote its rich resources to the fitting out of a crusade against the Turks. He wished himself to lead the army in person, in order to secure victory by uplifted hands, like Moses in the war with Amalek. But here again the princes left him in the lurch. Coming to Ancona in A.D. 1464 to take ship there upon his great undertaking, only his own two galleys were waiting him. After long weary waiting, twelve Venetian ships arrived, just in time to see the pope prostrated with fever and excitement.

§ 110.11. Paul II., Sixtus IV. and Innocent VII., A.D. 1464-1492.—Among the popes of the last forty years of the 15th century Paul II., A.D. 1464-1471, was the best, though vain, sensual, greedy, fond of show, and extravagant. He was impartial in the administration of justice, free from nepotism, and always ready to succour the needy. His successor, Sixtus IV., A.D. 1471-1484, formerly Franciscan general, was one of the most wicked of the occupants of the chair of Peter. His appeal for an expedition against the Turks finding no response outside of Italy, his love of strife found gratification in fomenting internal animosities among the Italian states. In favour of a nephew he sought the overthrow in A.D. 1478 of the famous Medici family in Florence. Julian was murdered, but Lorenzo escaped, and the archbishop, as abettor of the crime, was hanged in his official robes. The pope placed the city under ban and interdict. It was only the conquest of Otranto in A.D. 1480, and the terror caused by the landing of the Turks in Italy, that moved him to make terms with Florence. His nepotism was most shamelessly practised, and he increased his revenues by taxing the brothels of Rome. His powerful government did something towards the improvement of the administration of justice in the Church States and his love of art beautified the city. In A.D. 1482 Andrew, archbishop of Crain, a Slav by birth and of the Dominican order, halted at Basel on his return from Rome, where he had been as ambassador for Frederick, and, with the support of the Italian league and the emperor, issued violent invectives against the pope, and summoned an œcumenical council for the reform of the church in its head and members. The pope ordered his arrest and extradition, but this the municipal authorities refused. After a volley of bulls and briefs, charges and appeals, and after innumerable embassies and negotiations between Basel, Vienna, Innsbrück, Florence, and Rome, in which the emperor abandoned the archbishop and the papal legates dangled an interdict over Basel, the authorities decided to imprison the objectionable prelate, but refused to deliver him up. After eleven months’ imprisonment, however, he was found hanged in his cell in A.D. 1484. Sixtus had died three months before and Basel was absolved by his successor Innocent VIII., A.D. 1484-1492. In character and ability he was far inferior to his predecessor. The number of illegitimate children brought by him to the Vatican gave occasion to the popular witticism: “Octo Nocens genuit pueros totidemque puellas, Hunc merito poterit dicere Roma patrem.” The mighty conqueror of half the world, Mohammed II., had died in A.D. 1481. His two sons contested for the throne, and Bajazet proving successful committed the guardianship of his brother to the Knights of St. John in Rhodes. The Grandmaster transferred his prisoner, in A.D. 1489, to the pope. Innocent rewarded him with a cardinalate, and Bajazet promised the pope not only continual peace, but a yearly tribute of 40,000 ducats. He also voluntarily presented his holiness with the spear which pierced the Saviour’s side. All this, however, did not prevent the pope from repeatedly but ineffectually seeking to rouse Christendom to a crusade against the Turks. To this pope also belongs the odium of familiarizing Europe with witch prosecutions (§ 117, 4).[327]

§ 110.12. Alexander VI., A.D. 1492-1503.—The Spanish cardinal Roderick Borgia, sister’s son of Calixtus III., purchased the tiara by bribing his colleagues. In him as Alexander VI. we have a pope whose government presents a scene of unparalleled infamy, riotous immorality, and unmentionable crimes, of cruel despotism, fraud, faithlessness, and murder, and a barefaced nepotism, such as even the city of the popes had never witnessed before. He had already before his election five children by a concubine, Rosa Vanossa, four sons and one daughter, Lucretia, and his one care was for their advancement. His favourite son was Giovanni, for whom while cardinal he had purchased the rank of a Spanish grandee, with the title Duke of Gandia, and when pope he bestowed on him, in A.D. 1497, the hereditary dukedom of Benevento. But eight days after his corpse with dagger wounds upon it was taken out of the Tiber. The pope exclaimed, “I know the murderer.” Suspicion fell first upon Giovanni Sforsa of Pesaro, Lucretia’s husband, who had charged the murdered man with committing incest with his sister, but afterwards upon Cardinal Cæsar Borgia, the pope’s second son, who was jealous of his brother because of the favour shown him by Lucretia and by her father. Alexander’s grief knew no bounds, but sought escape from it by redoubled love to the suspected son. In A.D. 1498 the papal bastard resigned the cardinalate as an intolerable burden, married a French princess, and was made hereditary duke of Romagna. Suddenly at the same time, and in the same manner, in A.D. 1503, father and son took ill. The father died after a few days, but the vigour of youth aided the son’s recovery. Cæsar Borgia was at a later period cast into prison by Julius II., and fell in A.D. 1507 in the service of his brother-in-law, the king of Navarre. It was generally believed that Alexander died of poisoned wine prepared by his son to secure the removal of a rich cardinal. The father as well as the two brothers were suspected of incest with Lucretia. This pope, too, did not hesitate to intrigue with the Turkish sultan against Charles VIII. of France. With unexampled assumption, during the contention of Portugal and Spain about the American discoveries, he presented Ferdinand and Isabella in A.D. 1493 with all islands and continents that had been discovered or might yet be discovered lying beyond a line of demarcation drawn from the North to the South Pole. Once only, when grieving over the death of his favourite son, had this pope a twinge of conscience. He had resolved, he said, to devote himself to his spiritual calling and secure a reform in church discipline. But when the commission appointed for this purpose presented its first reform proposals the momentary emotion had already passed away. Nothing was further from his thought than the calling of an œcumenical council, which not only the king of France, but also the Florentine reformer Savonarola demanded (§ 119, 11).

§ 110.13. Julius II., A.D. 1503-1513.—Alexander’s successor, Pius III., son of a sister of Pius II., died after a twenty-six days’ pontificate. He was followed by a nephew of Sixtus IV., a bitter enemy of the Borgias, who took the name of Julius II. He was essentially a warrior, with nothing of the priest about him. He was also a lover of art, and carried on the works which his uncle had begun. His youthful excesses had seriously impaired his health. As pope, he was not free from nepotism and simony, in controversy passionate, and in policy intriguing and faithless. He transformed the States of the Church into a temporal despotic monarchy, and was himself incessantly engaged in war. When he broke with France, which held Milan from A.D. 1499 with Alexander’s consent, Louis XII., A.D. 1498-1515, convened a French national council at Tours in A.D. 1510. This council renewed the Pragmatic Sanction, which in a weak hour Louis XI., in A.D. 1462, had abrogated, and had in consequence obtained, in A.D. 1469, the title Rex Christianissimus, and refused to obey the pope. Also Maximilian I., A.D. 1493-1519, who even without papal coronation called himself “elected Roman emperor,” directed the learned humanist Wimpfeling of Heidelberg to collect the gravamina of the Germans against the Roman curia, and to sketch out a Pragmatic Sanction for Germany. France and Germany, with five revolting cardinals, convoked an œcumenical council at Pisa, in A.D. 1511. Half in sport, half in earnest, Maximilian spoke of placing on his own head the tiara, as well as the imperial crown. The pope put Pisa, where only a few French prelates ventured, under an interdict, and anathematized the king of France, who then had medals cast, with the inscription, Perdam Babylonis nomen. In a murderous battle at Ravenna, in A.D. 1512, the army of the papal league was all but annihilated. But two months later, the French, by the revolt of the Milanese and the successes of the Swiss, were driven to their homes ingloriously, and the schismatic council, which had been shifted from Pisa to Milan, had to withdraw to Lyons, where it was dissolved by the pope “on account of its many crimes.” Meanwhile the pope had summoned a council to meet at Rome, the fifth œcumenical Lateran Council, A.D. 1512-1517, at which however only fifty-three Italian bishops were present. There the ban upon the king of France was renewed, but a concordat was concluded with Maximilian, redressing the more serious grievances of which he had complained. The pope succeeded in freeing Northern Italy from French oppression, and only his early death prevented him from delivering Southern Italy from the Spanish yoke.

§ 110.14. Leo X., A.D. 1513-1521.—John, son of Lorenzo Medici, who was cardinal in A.D. 1488, in his eighteenth year, when thirty-eight years of age ascended the papal throne as Leo X.; a great patron of the Renaissance, but luxurious and pleasure-loving, extravagant and frivolous, without a spark of religion (§ 120, 1), and a zealous promoter of the fortunes of his own family. The attempt of Louis XII., with the help of Venice, to regain Milan failed, and being hard pressed in his own country by Henry VIII. of England, the French king decided at last, in Dec., 1513, to end the schism and recognise the Lateran Council. His successor, Francis I., A.D. 1515-1547, was more fortunate. In the battle of Marignano he gained a brilliant victory over the brave Swiss, in consequence of which the duchy of Milan fell again into the hands of France. At Bologna, in A.D. 1516, the pope in person now greeted the king, who proferred him obedience, and concluded a political league and an ecclesiastical concordat with his holiness, abrogating the Pragmatic Sanction of Charles VII., but maintaining the king’s right to nominate all bishops and abbots of his realm, with reservation of the annats for the papal treasury. The Lateran Council, though attended only by Italian bishops, was pronounced œcumenical. During its five years’ sittings it had issued concordats for Germany and France, the papal bull Pastor æternus was solemnly ratified, which renewed the bull Unam sanctam and by various forgeries proved the power of the pope to be superior to the authority of councils, quieted the bishops’ objections to the privileges of the begging friars by a compromise, and as a protection against heresy gave the right of the censorship of the press to bishops, while explicitly asserting the immateriality, individuality, and immortality of the human soul.[328]

§ 110.15. Papal Claims to Sovereignty.—From A.D. 1319 the popes secured large revenues from the Annats, revenues for a full year of all vacancies; the Reservations, the holding of rich benefices and bestowing them upon payment of large sums; the Expectances, naming for payment a successor to an incumbent still living; the Offices held in commendam, provisionally on payment of a part of the incomes; the Jus spoliarum, the Holy See being the legitimate heir of all property gained by Churchmen from their offices; the Taxing of Church property for particularly pressing calls; innumerable Indulgences, Absolutions, Dispensations, etc. The happy thought occurred to Paul II., in A.D. 1469, to extend the law of Annats to such ecclesiastical institutions as belonged to corporations. He reckoned the lifetime of a prelate at fifteen years, and so claimed his tax of such institutions every fifteenth year. The doctrine of the papal infallibility in matters of faith, under the influence of the reforming councils of the 15th century, was rather less in favour than before. The rigid Franciscans opposed the papal doctrine of poverty (§§ 98, 4; 112, 2); and John XXII. was almost unanimously charged by his contemporaries with heresy, because of his views about the vision of God. Even the most zealous curialists of the 15th century did not venture to ascribe to the pope absolute infallibility. A distinction was made between the infallibility of the office, which is absolute, and that of the person, which is only relative; a pope who falls into error and heresy thereby ceases to be pope and infallible. This was the opinion of the Dominican Torquemada (§ 112, 4), whom Eugenius IV. rewarded at the Basel Council with a cardinalate and the title of Defensor fidei, as the most zealous defender of papal absolutism. From the 14th century the popes have worn the triple crown. The three tiers of the tiara, richly ornamented with precious stones, indicated the power of the pope over heaven by his canonizing, over purgatory by his granting of indulgences, and over the earth by his pronouncing anathemas. Until the papal court retired to Avignon the Lateran was the usual residence of the popes, and after the ending of the schism, the Vatican.[329]

§ 110.16. The Papal Curia.—The chief courts of the papal government are spoken of collectively as the curia, their members being taken from the higher clergy. The following are the most important: the Cancellaria Romana, to which belonged the administration of affairs pertaining to the pope and the college of cardinals; the Dataria Romana, which had to do with matters of grace not kept secret, such as absolutions, dispensations, etc.; while the Pœnitentiaria Romana dealt with matters which were kept secret; the Camera Romana, which administered the papal finances; and the Rota Romana, which was the supreme court of justice. Important decrees issued by the pope himself with the approval of the cardinals are called bulls. They are written on parchment in the Gothic character in Latin, stamped with the great seal of the Roman church, and secured in a metal case. The word bull was originally applied to the case, then to the seal, and at last to the document itself. Less important decrees, for which the advice of the cardinals had not been asked, are called briefs. The brief is usually written on parchment, in the ordinary Roman characters, and sealed in red wax with the pope’s private seal, the fisherman’s ring.

§ 111. THE CLERGY.

Provincial synods had now lost almost all their importance, and were rarely held, and then for the most part under the presidency of a papal legate. The cathedral chapters afforded welcome provision for the younger sons of the nobles, who were nothing behind their elder brothers in worldliness of life and conversation. For their own selfish interests they limited the number of members of the chapter, and demanded as a qualification evidence of at least sixteen ancestors. The political significance of the prelates was in France very small, and as champions of the Gallican liberties they were less enthusiastic than the University of Paris and the Parliament. In England they formed an influential order in the State, with carefully defined rights; and in Germany, as princes of the empire, especially the clerical elector princes, their political importance was very great. In Spain, on the other hand, at the end of the 15th century, by the ecclesiastico-political reformation endeavours of Ferdinand “the Catholic” and Isabella (§ 118, 7), the higher clergy were made completely dependent upon the Crown.

§ 111.1. The Moral Condition of the Clergy was in general very low. The bishops mostly lived in open concubinage. The lower secular clergy followed their example, and had toleration granted by paying a yearly tax to the bishop. The people, distinguishing office and person, made no objection, but rather looked on it as a sort of protection to their wives and daughters from the dangers of the confessional. Especially in Italy, unnatural vice was widely spread among the clergy. At Constance and Basel it was thought to cure such evils by giving permission to priests to marry; but it was feared that the ecclesiastical revenues would be made heritable, and the clergy brought too much under the State.—The mendicant orders were allowed to hear confession everywhere, and when John de Polliaco, a Prussian doctor, maintained that the local clergy only should be taken as confessors, John XXII., in A.D. 1322, pronounced his views heretical.

§ 111.2. The French concordat of A.D. 1516 (§ 110, 14), which gave the king the right of appointing commendator abbots (§ 85, 5), to almost all the cloisters, induced many of the younger sons of old noble families to take orders, so as to obtain rich sinecures or offices, which they could hold in commendam. They bore a semi-clerical character, and had the title of abbé, which gradually came to be given to all the secular clergy of higher culture and social position. In Italy too it became customary to give the title abbate to the younger clergy of high rank, before receiving ordination.

§ 112. MONASTIC ORDERS AND SOCIETIES.

The corruption of monastic life was becoming more evident from day to day. Immorality, sloth, and unnatural vice only too often found a nursery behind the cloister walls. Monks and nuns of neighbouring convents lived in open sin with one another, so that the author of the book De ruina ecclesia (§ 118, 4, c) thinks that Virginem velare is the same as Virginem ad scortandum exponere. In the Benedictine order the corruption was most complete. The rich cloisters, after the example of their founder, divided their revenues among their several members (proprietarii). Science was disregarded, and they cared only for good living. The celebrated Scottish cloister (§ 98, 1) of St. James, at Regensburg, in the 14th century, had a regular tavern within its walls, and there was a current saying, Uxor amissa in monasterio Scotorum quæri debet. The mendicants represented even yet relatively the better side of monasticism, and maintained their character as exponents of theological learning. Only the Carthusians, however, still held fast to the ancient strict discipline of their order.

§ 112.1. The Benedictine Orders.—For the reorganization of this order, which had abandoned itself to good living and luxury, Clement V., at the Council of Vienna, A.D. 1311, issued a set of ordinances which aimed principally at the restoration of monastic discipline and the revival of learning among the monks. But they were of little or no avail. Benedict XII. therefore found it necessary, in A.D. 1336, with the co-operation of distinguished French abbots, to draw up a new constitution for the Benedictines, which after him was called the Benedictina. The houses of Black Friars were to be divided into thirty-six provinces, and each of them was to hold every third year a provincial chapter for conference and determination of cases. In each abbey there should be a daily penitential chapter for maintaining discipline, and an annual chapter for giving a reckoning of accounts. In order to reawaken interest in scientific studies, it was enjoined that from every cloister a number of the abler monks should be maintained at a university, at the cost of the cloister, to study theology and canon law. But the disciplinary prescriptions of the Benedictina were powerless before the attractions of good living, and the proposals for organization were repugnant to the proud independence of monks and abbots. The enactments in favour of scientific pursuits led to better results. The first really successful attempt at reforming the cloisters was made, in A.D. 1435, by the general chapter of the Brothers of the Common Life, who not only dealt with their own institutions, but also with all the Benedictine monasteries throughout the whole of the West. The soul of this movement was Joh. Busch, monk in Windesheim, then prior in various monasteries, and finally provost of Sulte, near Hildesheim, A.D. 1458-1479. The so called Bursfeld Union or Congregation resulted from his intercourse with the abbot of the Benedictine monastery at Bursfeld, on the Weser, John of Hagen (ab Andagine). Notwithstanding the bitter hostility of corrupt monks and nuns, there were in a short time seventy-five monasteries under this Bursfeld rule, where the original strictness of the monastic life was enforced. The rule was confirmed by the council of A.D. 1440, and subsequently by Pius II. Most of the cloisters under this rule joined the Lutheran reformation of the 16th century, and Bursfeld itself is at this day the seat of a titular Lutheran abbot.—A new branch of the Benedictine order, the Olivetans, was founded by Bernard Tolomæi. Blindness having obliged him to abandon his teaching of philosophy at Siena, the blessed Virgin restored him his sight; and then, in A.D. 1313, he forsook the world, and withdrew with certain companions into almost inaccessible mountain recesses, ten miles from Siena. Disciples gathered around him from all sides. He built a cloister on a hill, which he called the Mount of Olives, and founded under the Benedictine rule a congregation of the Most Blessed Virgin of the Mount of Olives, which obtained the sanction of John XXII. Tolomæi became its first general, in A.D. 1322, and held the office till his death, caused by infection caught while attending the plague stricken in A.D. 1348. There were new elections of abbots every third year. The Olivetans were zealous worshippers of Mary, and strict ascetics. In several of their cloisters, which numbered as many as one hundred, the study of theology and philosophy was diligently prosecuted. They embraced also an order of nuns, founded by St. Francisca Romana.

§ 112.2. The Franciscans.—At the Council of Vienna, in A.D. 1312, Clement V. renewed the decree of Nicholas III., and by the constitution Exivi de paradiso decided in favour of the stricter view (§ 98, 4), but ordered all rigorists to submit to their order. But neither this nor the solemn ratification of his predecessor’s decisions by John XXII. in A.D. 1317 put an end to the division. The contention was now of a twofold kind. The Spirituals confined their opposition to a rigoristic interpretation of the vow of poverty. The Fraticelli carried their opposition into many other departments. They exaggerated the demand of poverty to the utmost, but also repudiated the primacy of the pope, the jurisdiction of bishops, the admissibility of oaths, etc. In the south of France within a few years 115 of them had perished at the stake; and the Spirituals also suffered severely.—The Dominicans were the cause of a new split in the Seraphic order. The Inquisition at Narbonne had, in A.D. 1321, condemned to the stake a Beghard who had affirmed, what to the Dominicans seemed a heretical proposition, that Christ and the apostles had neither personal nor common property. The Franciscans, who, on the plea of a pretended transference of their property to the pope, claimed to be without possessions, pronounced that proposition orthodox, and the Dominicans complained to John XXII. He pronounced in favour of the Dominicans, and declared the Franciscans’ transference of property illusory; and finding this decision contrary to decrees of previous popes, he asserted the right of any pontiff to reverse the findings of his predecessors. The Franciscans were driven more and more into open revolt against the pope. They made common cause with the persecuted Spirituals, and like them sought support from the Italian Ghibellines and the emperor, Louis the Bavarian (§ 110, 3). The pope summoned their general, Michael of Cesena, to Avignon; and while detaining him there sought unsuccessfully to obtain his deposition by the general synod of the order. Michael, with two like-minded brothers, William Occam (§ 113, 3) and Bonagratia of Bergamo, escaped to Pisa in a ship of war, which the emperor sent for them in A.D. 1328. There, in the name of his order, he appealed to an œcumenical council to have the papal excommunication and deposition annulled which had now been issued against him. After the disastrous Italian campaign in A.D. 1330, the excommunicated churchmen accompanied the emperor to Munich, where they conducted a literary defence of their rights and privileges, and charged the pope with a multitude of heresies. Michael died at Munich, in A.D. 1342.—After the overthrow of the schismatic Minorite pope, Nicholas V. (§ 110, 3), the opposition soon gave in its submission. But to the end of his life John XXII. was a bloody persecutor of all schismatical Franciscans, who showed a fanatical love of martyrdom, rather than abate one iota of their opposition to the possession of property.

§ 112.3. The strict and lax tendencies were brought to light in connection with successive attempts at reformation. In A.D. 1368 Paolucci of Foligni founded the fraternity of Sandal-wearers, which embraced the remnants of the Cœlestine eremites (§ 98, 4). This strict rule was soon modified so as to admit of the possession of immovable property and living together in conventual establishments. Those who adhered rigidly to the original requirements as to seclusion, asceticism, and dress were now called Observants and the more lax Conventuals. Crossing the Alps in A.D. 1388, they spread through Europe, converting heretics and heathens. Both sections received papal encouragement. Their leader for forty years was John of Capistrano, born A.D. 1386, died A.D. 1456, who inspired all their movements, and as a preacher gathered hundreds of thousands around him. His predecessor in office, Bernardino of Siena, who died in A.D. 1444, was canonized after a hard fight in A.D. 1450. John was deputed by the pope in that same year to proceed to Austria and Germany to convert the Hussites and preach a crusade against the Turks. His greatest feat was the repulse, in A.D. 1456, of the Turks, under Mohammed II., before Belgrade, ascribed to him and his crusade, which delivered Hungary, Germany, and indeed the whole West, from threatened subjection to the Moslem yoke. Capistrano died three months afterwards. Notwithstanding all the efforts of his followers, his beatification was not secured till A.D. 1690, and the decree of canonization was not obtained till A.D. 1724.—Continuation § 149, 6.

§ 112.4. The Dominicans.—The Dominicans, as they interpreted the vow of poverty only of personal and not of common property, soon lost the character of a mendicant order.—One of their most distinguished members was St. Catharine of Siena, who died in A.D. 1380, in her thirty-third year. Having taken the vow of chastity as a child, living only on bread and herbs, for a time only on the eucharistic elements, she was in vision affianced to Christ as His bride, and received His heart instead of her own. She felt the pains of Christ’s wounds, and, like St. Dominic, lashed herself thrice a day with an iron chain. She gained unexampled fame, and along with St. Bridget procured the return of the pope from Avignon to Rome.—The controversy of the Dominicans with the Franciscans over the immaculata conceptio (§ 104, 7) was conducted in the most passionate manner. The visions of St. Catherine favoured the Dominican, those of St. Bridget the Franciscan views; during the schism the French popes favoured the former, the Roman popes the latter. The Franciscan view gained for the time the ascendency. The University of Paris sustained it in A.D. 1387, and made its confession a condition of receiving academic rank. The Dominican Torquemada combated this doctrine, in A.D. 1437, in his able Tractatus de veritate Conceptionis B. V. In A.D. 1439, the Council of Basel, which was then regarded as schismatical, sanctioned the Franciscan doctrine. Sixtus IV., who had previously, as general of the Franciscans, supported the views of his order in a special treatise, authorized the celebration of the festival referred to, but in A.D. 1483 forbade controversy on either side. A comedy with a very tragical conclusion was enacted at Bern, in connection with this matter in A.D. 1509. The Dominicans there deceived a simple tailor called Jetzer, who joined them as a novice, with pretended visions and revelation of the Virgin, and burned upon him with a hot iron the wound prints of the Saviour, and caused an image of the mother of God to weep tears of blood over the godless doctrine of the Franciscans. When the base trick was discovered, the prior and three monks had to atone for their conduct by death at the stake. (Continuation § 149, 13.) A new controversy between the two orders broke out in A.D. 1462, at Brescia. There, on Easter Day of that year, the Franciscan Jacob of Marchia in his preaching said that the blood of Christ shed upon the cross, until its reassumption by the resurrection, was outside of the hypostatic union with the Logos, and therefore as such was not the subject of adoration. The grand-inquisitor, Jacob of Brescia, pronounced this heretical, and at Christmas, A.D. 1463, a three days’ disputation was held between three Dominicans and as many Minorites before pope and cardinals, which yielded no result. Pius II. reserved judgment, and never gave his decision.

§ 112.5. The Augustinians.—In A.D. 1432, Zolter, at the call of the general of the Augustinians, reorganized the order, and in A.D. 1438 Pius II. gave a constitution to the Observants. The “Union of the Five Convents” founded by him in Saxony and Franconia, with Magdeburg as its centre, formed the nucleus of regular Augustinian Observants, which had Andrew Proles of Dresden as their vicar-general for a second time in A.D. 1473. Notwithstanding bitter opposition, the union spread through all Germany, even to the Netherlands. In A.D. 1475 the general of the order at Rome took offence at Proles for looking directly to the apostolic see, and not to him, for his authority. He therefore abolished the institution of vicars, insisted that all Observants should return to their allegiance to the provincials, and make full restitution of all the cloisters which they had appropriated, and empowered the provincial of Saxony to imprison and excommunicate Proles and his party, in case of their refusal. Proles did not submit, and when the ban was issued appealed directly to the pope. A papal commission in A.D. 1477 decided that all Observant cloisters placed by the duke under the pope’s protection should so continue, confirmed all their privileges, and annulled all mandates and anathemas issued against Proles and his followers. With redoubled energy and zeal Proles now wrought for the extension and consolidation of the congregation until A.D. 1503, when he resigned office in his 74th year, and soon after died. He was one of the worthiest and most pious men in the German Church of his time; but Flacius is quite mistaken when he describes him as a precursor of Luther, an evangelical martyr and witness for the truth in the sense of the Reformation of the 16th century. Energetic and devoted as he was in prosecuting his reformation, he gave himself purely to the correcting of the morals of the monks and restoring discipline; but in zeal for the doctrine of merits, the institution of indulgences, mariolatry, saint and image worship, and in devotion to the papacy, he and his congregation were by no means in advance of the age.

§ 112.6. As his successor in the vicariate the chapter, in accordance with the wish of Proles, elected John von Staupitz. He had been prior of the Augustinian cloister at Tübingen, and became professor of theology in the University of Wittenberg, in A.D. 1502. Like his predecessor, he devoted himself to the interests of the congregation, and by the union which he effected between it and the Lombard Observant congregation, he greatly increased its importance. In carrying out a plan for uniting the Saxon Conventuals with the German Observants by combining in his own hand the Saxon provincial priorate with the German vicariate, he encountered such difficulties that he was obliged to abandon the attempt; but he succeeded thus far, that from that time the Conventuals and Observants of Germany dwelt in peace side by side. He directed the troubled spirit of Luther to the crucified Saviour (§ 122, 1), and thus became the spiritual father of the great reformer. The new constitutions for the German congregations, proffered by him and accepted by the chapter at Nuremberg, A.D. 1504, are characterized by earnest recommendations of Scripture study. But of a deep and comprehensive evangelical and reformatory application of them we find no traces as yet, even in Staupitz; neither do we see any zealous study of Augustine’s writings, and consequent appreciation of his theological principles, such as is shown by the mystics of the 13th and 14th centuries. All this appears later in his little treatise “On the Imitation of the Willingly Dying Christ” of A.D. 1515. A discourse on predestination in A.D. 1517 moves distinctly on Augustinian lines, and the mysticism of St. Bernard may be traced in the book “On the Love of God” of that same year. True as he was to Luther as a counsellor and helper during the first eventful year of struggle, the reformer’s protest soon became too violent for him, and in A.D. 1520 he resigned his office, withdrew to the Benedictine cloister at Salzburg, and died as its abbot in A.D. 1524. His continued attachment to the positive tendencies of the Reformation is proved by his “Fast Sermons,” delivered in A.D. 1523.—His successor Link, Luther’s fellow student at Magdeburg, was and continued to be an attached friend of the reformer. Unsuccessful in his endeavours to remove abuses, he resigned office in A.D. 1523, and became evangelical pastor in Altenburg, and married. The very small opposition chose in place of him Joh. Spangenberg, who, unable to withstand the movement among the German Conventuals, as well as among the Observants, resigned in A.D. 1529.

§ 112.7. Overthrow of the Templars.—The order of Knights Templar, whose chief seat was now in Paris and the south of France, by rich presents, exactions, and robberies in the island of Cyprus, vast commercial speculations and extensive money-lending and banking transactions with crusaders and pilgrims and needy princes, had acquired immense wealth in money and landed property in the East and the West. They had in consequence become proud, greedy, and vicious. Their independence of the State had long been a thorn in the eye of Philip the Fair of France, and their policy was often at variance with his. But above all their great wealth excited his cupidity. In a letter to a visitor of the order Innocent III. had in A.D. 1208 bitterly complained of their unspirituality, worldliness, avarice, drunkenness, and study of the black art, saying that he refrained from remarking upon yet more shameful offences with which they were charged. Stories also were current of apostasy to Mohammedanism, sorcery, unnatural vice, etc. It was said that they worshipped an idol Baphomet; that a black cat appeared in their assemblies; that at initiation they abjured Christ, spat on the cross, and trampled it under foot. A Templar expelled for certain offences gave evidence in support of these charges. Thereupon in A.D. 1307 Philip had all Templars in his realm suddenly apprehended. Many admitted their guilt amid the tortures of the rack; others voluntarily did so in order to escape such treatment. A Parliament assembled at Tours in A.D. 1308 heartily endorsed the king’s opinion, and the pope, Clement V., was powerless to resist (§ 110, 2). While the pope’s commissioners were prosecuting inquiries in all countries, Philip without more ado in A.D. 1310 brought to the stake one hundred Templars who had retracted their confession. The œcumenical council at Vienne in A.D. 1311, summoned for the final settlement of the matter, refused to give judgment without hearing the defence of the accused. But Philip threatened the pope till a decree was passed disbanding the order because of the suspicion and ill repute into which it had fallen. Its property was to go to the Knights of St. John. But a great part had already been seized by the princes, especially by Philip. Final decision in regard to individuals was committed by the pope to the provincial synods of the several countries. Judgment on the grand-master, James Molay, and the then chief dignitaries of the order, he reserved to himself. Philip paid no attention to this, but, when they refused to adhere to their confession of guilt, had them burnt in a slow fire at Paris in A.D. 1314. Most of the other knights turned to secular employments, many entered the ranks of the Knights of St. John, while others ended their days in monastic prisons.—Scholars are to this day divided in opinion as to the degree of guilt or innocence which may be ascribed to the Templars in regard to the serious charges brought against them.[330]

§ 112.8. New Orders.—In A.D. 1317 the king of Portugal, for the protection of his frontier from the Moors, instituted the Order of Christ, composed of knights and clergy, and to it John XXII. in A.D. 1319 gave the privileges of the order of Calatrava (§ 98, 13). Alexander VI. released them from the vow of poverty and allowed them to marry. The king of Portugal was grand-master, and at the beginning of the 16th century it had 450 companies and an annual revenue of one and a half million livres. In A.D. 1797 it was converted into a secular order.—Among the new monkish orders the following are the most important:

1. Hieronymites, founded in A.D. 1370 by the Portuguese Basco and the Spaniard Pecha as an order of canons regular under the rule of Augustine, and confirmed by Gregory XI. in A.D. 1373. Devoted to study, they took Jerome as their patron, and obtained great reputation in Spain and Italy.

2. Jesuates, founded by Colombini of Siena, who, excited by reading legends of the saints, combined with several companions in forming this society for self-mortification and care of the sick, for which Urban V. prescribed the Augustinian rule in A.D. 1367. They greeted all they met with the name of Jesus: hence their designation.

3. Minimi, an extreme sect of Minorites (§ 98, 3), founded by Francis de Paula in Calabria in A.D. 1436. Their rule was extremely strict, and forbade them all use of flesh, milk, butter, eggs, etc., so that their mode of life was described as vita quadragesimalis.

4. Nuns of St. Bridget. To the Swedish princess visions of the wounded and bleeding Saviour had come in her childhood. Compelled by her parents to marry, she became mother of eight children; but at her husband’s death, in A.D. 1344, she adopted a rigidly ascetic life, and in A.D. 1363 founded a cloister at Wedstena for sixty nuns in honour of the blessed Virgin, with thirteen priests, four deacons, and eight lay brothers in a separate establishment. All were under the control of the abbess. She also founded at Rome a hospice for Swedish pilgrims and students, made a pilgrimage from Rome to Jerusalem, and died at Rome in A.D. 1373. The Revelationes S. Brigittæ ascribed to her were in high repute during the Middle Ages. They are full of bitter invectives against the corrupt papacy; call the pope worse than Lucifer, a murderer of the souls committed to him, who condemns the guiltless and sells believers for filthy lucre. There were seventy-four cloisters of the order spread over all Europe. Her successor as abbess of the parent abbey was her daughter, St. Catherine of Sweden, who died in A.D. 1381.

5. The French Annunciate Order was founded in A.D. 1501 by Joanna of Valois, the divorced wife of Louis XII., and when abolished by the French Revolution it numbered forty-five nunneries.

§ 112.9. The Brothers of the Common Life, a society of pious priests, gave themselves to the devotional study of Scripture, the exercise of contemplative mysticism, and practical imitation of the lowly life of Christ with voluntary observance of the three monkish vows, and residing, without any lifelong obligation, in unions where things were administered in common. Pious laymen were not excluded from their association, and institutions for sisters were soon reared alongside of those for the brothers. The founder of this organization was Gerhard Groot, Gerardus magnus, of Deventer in the Netherlands, a favourite pupil of the mystic John of Ruysbroek (§ 114, 7). Dying a victim to his benevolence during a season of pestilence in A.D. 1384, a year or two after the founding of the first union institute, he was succeeded by his able pupil and assistant Florentius Radewins, who zealously carried on the work he had begun. The house of the brothers at Deventer soon became the centre of numerous other houses from the Scheld to the Wesel. Florentius added a cloister for regular canons at Windesheim, from which went forth the famous cloister reformer Burch. The most important of the later foundations of this kind was the cloister built on Mount St. Agnes near Zwoll. The famous Thomas à Kempis (§ 114, 7) was trained here, and wrote the life of Groot and his fellow labourers. Each house was presided over by a rector, each sister house by a matron, who was called Martha. The brothers supported themselves by transcribing spiritual books, the lay brothers by some handicraft; the sisters by sewing, spinning, and weaving. Begging was strictly forbidden. Besides caring for their own souls’ salvation, the brothers sought to benefit the people by preaching, pastoral visitation, and instructing the youth. They had as many as 1,200 scholars under their care. Hated by the mendicant friars, they were accused by a Dominican to the Bishop of Utrecht. This dignitary favoured the brothers, and when the Dominican appealed to the pope, he applied to the Constance Council of A.D. 1418, where Gerson and d’Ailly vigorously supported them. Their accuser was compelled to retract, and Martin V. confirmed the brotherhood. Though heartily attached to the doctrines of the Catholic Church, their biblical and evangelical tendencies formed an unconscious preparation for the Reformation (§ 119, 10). A great number of the brothers joined the party of the reformers. In the 17th century the last remnant of them disappeared.[331]

II. Theological Science.

§ 113. SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS REFORMERS.

The University of Paris took the lead, in accordance with the liberal tendencies of the Gallican Church, in the opposition to hierarchical pretensions, and was followed by the universities of Oxford, Prague, and Cologne, in all of which the mendicant friars were the teachers. Most distinguished among the schoolmen of this age was John Duns Scotus, whose works formed the doctrinal standard for the Franciscans, as those of Aquinas did for the Dominicans. After realism had enjoyed for a long time an uncontested sway, William Occam, amid passionate battles, successfully introduced nominalism. But the creative power of scholasticism was well nigh extinct. Even Duns Scotus is rather an acute critic of the old than an original creator of new ideas. Miserable quarrels between the schools and a spiritless formalism now widely prevailed in the lecture halls, as well as in the treatises of the learned. Moral theology degenerated into fruitless casuistry and abstruse discussion on subtly devised cases where there appeared a collision of duties. But from all sides there arose complaint and contradiction. On the one side were some who made a general complaint without striking at the roots of the evil. They suggested the adoption of a better method, or the infusion of new life by the study of Scripture and the Fathers, and a return to mysticism. To this class belonged the Brothers of the Common Life (§ 112, 9) and d’Ailly and Gerson, the supporters of the Constance reforms (§ 118, 4). Here too we may place the talented father of natural theology, Raimund of Sabunde, and the brilliant Nicholas of Cusa, in whom all the nobler aspirations of mediæval ecclesiastical science were concentrated. But on the other side was the radical opposition, consisting of the German mystics (§ 114), the English and Bohemian reformers (§ 119), and the Humanists (§ 120).

§ 113.1. John Duns Scotus.—The date of birth, whether A.D. 1274 or A.D. 1266, and the place of birth, whether in Scotland, Ireland, or England, of this Franciscan hero, honoured with the title doctor subtilis, are uncertain; even the place and manner of his training are unknown. After lecturing with great success at Oxford, he went in A.D. 1304 to Paris, where he obtained the degree of doctor, and successfully vindicated the immaculata conceptio B. V. (§ 104, 7) against the Thomists. Summoned to Cologne in A.D. 1308 to engage in controversy with the Beghards, he displayed great skill in dialectics, but died during that same year. His chief work, a commentary on the Lombard, was composed at Oxford. His answers to the questions proposed for his doctor’s degree were afterwards wrought up into the work entitled Quæstiones quodlibetales. The opponent and rival of Thomas, he controverted his doctrine at every point, as well as the doctrines of Alexander and Bonaventura of his own order, and other shining stars of the 13th century. In subtlety of thought and dialectic power he excelled them all, but in depth of feeling, profundity of mind, and ardour of faith he was far behind them. Proofs of doctrines interested him more than the doctrines themselves. To philosophy he assigns a purely theoretical, to theology a pre-eminently practical character, and protests against the Thomist commingling of the two. He accepts the doctrine of a twofold truth (§ 103, 3), basing it on the fall. Granting that the Bible is the only foundation of religious knowledge, but contending that the Church under the Spirit’s guidance has advanced ever more and more in the development of it, he readily admits that many a point in constitution, doctrine, and worship cannot be established from the Bible; e.g. immaculate conception, clerical celibacy, etc. He has no hesitation in contradicting even Augustine and St. Bernard from the standpoint of a more highly developed doctrine of the Church.

§ 113.2. Thomists and Scotists.—The Dominicans and Franciscans were opposed as followers respectively of Thomas and of Scotus. Thomas regarded individuality, i.e. the fact that everything is an individual, every res is a hæc, as a limitation and defect; while Duns saw in this hæcitas a mark of perfection and the true end of creation. Thomas also preferred the Platonic, and Duns the Aristotelian realism. In theology Duns was opposed to Thomas in maintaining an unlimited arbitrary will in God, according to which God does not choose a thing because it is good, but the thing chosen is good because He chooses it. Thomas therefore was a determinist, and in his doctrine of sin and grace adopted a moderate Augustinianism (§ 53, 5), while Duns was a semipelagian. The atonement was viewed by Thomas more in accordance with the theory of Anselm, for he assigned to the merits of Christ as the God-Man infinite worth, satisfactio superabundans, which is in itself more than sufficient for redemption; but Duns held that the merits of Christ were sufficient only as accepted by the free will of God, acceptatio gratuita. The Scotists also most resolutely contended for the doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin, while the Thomists as passionately opposed it.—Among the immediate disciples of Duns the most celebrated was Francis Mayron, teacher at the Sorbonne, who died in A.D. 1325 and was dignified with the title doctor illuminatus or acutus. The most notable of the Thomists was Hervæus Natalis, who died in A.D. 1323 as general of the Dominicans. Of the later Thomists the most eminent was Thomas Bradwardine, doctor profundus, a man of deep religious earnestness, who accused his age of Pelagianism, and vindicated the truth in opposition to this error in his De causa Dei c. Pelagium. He began teaching at Oxford, afterwards accompanied Edward III. as his confessor and chaplain on his expeditions in France, and died in A.D. 1349 a few weeks after his appointment to the archbishopric of Canterbury.[332]

§ 113.3. Nominalists and Realists.—After nominalism (§ 99, 2) in the person of Roscelin had been condemned by the Church (§ 101, 3) realism held sway for more than two centuries. Both Thomas and Duns supported it. By sundering philosophy and theology Duns opened the way to freer discussion, so that by-and-by nominalism won the ascendency, and at last scarcely any but the precursors of the Reformation (§ 119) were to be found in the ranks of the realists. The pioneer of the movement was the Englishman William Occam, a Franciscan and pupil of Duns, who as teacher of philosophy in Paris obtained the title doctor singularis et invincibilis, and was called by later nominalists venerabilis inceptor. He supported the Spirituals (§ 112, 2) in the controversies within his order. He accompanied his general, Michael of Cesena, to Avignon, and escaping with him in A.D. 1328 from threatened imprisonment, lived at Munich till his death in A.D. 1349. There, protected by Louis the Bavarian, he vindicated imperial rights against papal pretensions, and charged various heresies against the pope (§ 118, 2). In philosophy and theology he was mainly influenced by Scotus. In accordance with his nominalistic principles he assumed the position in theology that our ideas derived from experience cannot reach to a knowledge of the supernatural; and thus he may be called a precursor of Kant (§ 171, 10). The universalia are mere fictiones (§ 99, 2), things that do not correspond to our notions; the world of ideas agrees not with that of phenomena, and so the unity of faith and knowledge, of theological and philosophical truth, asserted by realists, cannot be maintained (§ 103, 2). Faith rests on the authority of Scripture and the decisions of the Church; criticism applied to the doctrines of the Church reduces them to a series of antinomies.—In A.D. 1339 the University of Paris forbade the reading of Occam’s works, and soon after formally condemned nominalism. Thomists and Scotists forgot their own differences to combine against Occam; but all in vain, for the Occamists were recruited from all the orders. The Constance reform party too supported him (§ 118, 4).[333] Of the Thomists who succeeded to Occam the most distinguished was William Durand of St. Pourçain, doct. resolutissimus, who died in A.D. 1322 as Bishop of Meaux. Muertius of Inghen, one of the founders of the University of Heidelberg in A.D. 1386 and its first rector, was also a zealous nominalist. The last notable schoolman of the period was Gabriel Biel of Spires, teacher of theology at Tübingen, who died A.D. 1495, a nominalist and an admirer of Occam. He was a vigorous supporter of the doctrine of the immaculate conception, and delivered public discourses on the “Ethics” of Aristotle.

§ 113.4. Casuistry, or that part of moral theology which seeks to provide a complete guide to the solution of difficult cases of conscience, especially where there is collision of duties, moral or ecclesiastical, makes its first appearance in the penitentials (§ 89, 6), and had a great impetus given it in the compulsory injunction of auricular confession (§ 104, 4). It was also favoured by the hair-splitting character of scholastic dialectics. The first who elaborated it as a distinct science was Raimundus [Raimund] de Pennaforte, who besides his works on canon law (§ 99, 5), wrote about A.D. 1238 a summa de casibus pœnitentialibus. This was followed by the Franciscan Antesana, the Dominican Pisana, and the Angelica of the Genoese Angelus of A.D. 1482, which Luther in A.D. 1520 burned along with the papal bull and decretals. The views of the different casuists greatly vary, and confuse rather than assist the conscience. Out of them grew the doctrine of probabilism (§ 149, 10).

§ 113.5. The Founder of Natural Theology.—The Spaniard Raimund of Sabunde settled as a physician in Toulouse in A.D. 1430, but afterwards turned his attention to theology. Seeing the need of infusing new life into the corrupt scholasticism, he sought to rescue it from utter formalism and fruitless casuistry by a return to simple, clear, and rational thinking. Anselm of Canterbury was his model of a clear and profound thinker and believing theologian (§ 101, 1). He also turned for stimulus and instruction to the book of nature. The result of his studies is seen in his Theologia naturalis s. liber creaturarum, published in A.D. 1436. God’s book of nature, in which every creature is as it were a letter, is the first and simplest source of knowledge accessible to the unlearned layman, and the surest, because free from all falsifications of heretics. But the fall and God’s plan of salvation have made an addition to it necessary, and this we have in the Scripture revelation. The two books coming from the one author cannot be contradictory, but only extend, confirm, and explain one another. The facts of revelation are the necessary presupposition or consequences of the book of nature. From the latter all religious knowledge is derivable by ascending through the four degrees of creation, esse, vivere, sentire, and intelligere, to the knowledge of man, and thence to the knowledge of the Creator as the highest and absolute unity, and by arguing that the acknowledgment of human sinfulness involved an admission of the need of redemption, which the book of revelation shows to be a fact. In carrying out this idea Raimund attaches himself closely to Anselm in his scientific reconciling of the natural and revealed idea of God and redemption. Although he never expressly contradicted any of the Church doctrines, the Council of Trent put the prologue of his book into the Index prohibitorum.

§ 113.6. Nicholas of Cusa was born in A.D. 1401 at Cues, near Treves, and was originally called Krebs. Trained first by the Brothers at Deventer (§ 112, 9), he afterwards studied law at Padua. The failure of his first case led him to begin the study of theology. As archdeacon of Liège he attended the Basel Council, and there by mouth and pen supported the view that the council is superior to the pope, but in A.D. 1440 he passed over to the papal party. On account of his learning, address, and eloquence he was often employed by Eugenius IV. and Nicholas V. in difficult negotiations. He was made cardinal in A.D. 1448, an unheard of honour for a German prelate. In A.D. 1450 he was made bishop of Brixen, but owing to a dispute with Sigismund, Archduke of Austria, he suffered several years’ hard imprisonment. He died in A.D. 1464 at Todi in Umbria. His principal work is De docta ignorantia, which shows, in opposition to proud scholasticism, that the absolute truth about God in the world is not attainable by men. His theological speculation approaches that of Eckhart, and like it is not free from pantheistic elements. God is for him the absolute maximum, but is also the absolute minimum, since He cannot be greater or less than He is. He begets of Himself His likeness, i.e. the Son, and He again turns back as Holy Spirit into unity. The world again is the aggregated maximum. His Dialogus de pace, occasioned by the fall of Constantinople in A.D. 1453, represents Christianity as the most perfect of all religions, but recognises in all others, even in Islam, essential elements of eternal truth. Like Roger Bacon (§ 103, 8), he assigns a prominent place to mathematics and astronomy, and in his De separatione Calendarii of A.D. 1436 he recommended reforms in the calendar which were only effected in A.D. 1582 by Gregory XIII. (§ 149, 3). He detected the pseudo-Isidore (§ 87, 2) and the Donation of Constantine (§ 87, 4) frauds.

§ 113.7. Biblical and Practical Theologians.

1. The Franciscan Nicholas of Lyra, doctor planus et utilis, a Jewish convert from Normandy, and teacher of theology at Paris, did good service as a grammatico-historical exegete and an earnest expositor of Scripture. Luther gratefully acknowledges the help he got in his Bible translation from the postils of Lyra.[334] He died in A.D. 1340.

2. Antonine of Florence played a prominent part at the Florentine Council of A.D. 1439, and was threatened by Eugenius IV. with the loss of his archbishopric. He discharged his duties with great zeal, especially during a plague and famine in A.D. 1448, and during the earthquake which destroyed half of the city in A.D. 1457. As an earnest preacher, an unwearied pastor, and upright churchman he was universally admired, and was canonized by Hadrian VI. in A.D. 1523. He had a high reputation as a writer. His Summa historialis is a chronicle of universal history reaching down to his own time; and his Summa theologica is a popular outline of the Thomist doctrine.

3. The learned and famous abbot John Trithemius, born in A.D. 1462, after studying at Treves and Heidelberg, entered in A.D. 1487 the Benedictine cloister of Sponheim, became its abbot in the following year, resigned office in A.D. 1505 owing to a rebellion among his monks, and died in A.D. 1516 as abbot of the Scottish cloister of St. James at Würzburg. Influenced by Wessel’s reforming movement (§ 119, 10), he urged the duty of Scripture study and prayer, but still practised and commended the most extravagant adoration of Mary and Ann. Though he was keenly alive to the absurdity of certain forms of superstition, he was himself firmly bound within its coils. He lashed unsparingly the vices of the monks, but regarded the monastic life as the highest Christian ideal. He pictured in dark colours the deep and widespread corruption of the Church, and was yet the most abject slave of the hierarchy which fostered that corruption.

§ 114. THE GERMAN MYSTICS.[335]

The schoolmen of the 13th century, with the exception of Bonaventura, had little sympathy with mysticism, and gave their whole attention to the development of doctrine (§ 99, 1). The 14th century was the Augustan age of mysticism. Germany, which had already in the previous period given Hugo of St. Victor and the two divines of Reichersberg (§ 102, 4, 6), was its proper home. Its most distinguished representatives belonged to the preaching orders, and its recognised grand-master was the Dominican Meister Eckhart. This specifically German mysticism cast away completely the scholastic modes of thought and expression, and sought to arrive at Christian truth by entirely new paths. It appealed, not to the understanding and cultured reason of the learned, but to the hearts and spirits of the people, in order to point them the surest way to union with God. The mystics therefore wrote neither commentaries on the Lombard nor gigantic summæ of their own composition, but wrought by word and writing to meet immediate pressing needs. They preached lively sermons and wrote short treatises, not in Latin, but in the homely mother tongue. This popular form however did not prevent them from conveying to their readers and hearers profound thoughts, the result of keen speculation; but that in this they did not go over the heads of the people is shown by the crowds that flocked to their preaching. The “Friends of God” proved a spiritual power over many lands (§ 116, 4). From the practical prophetic mysticism of the 12th and 13th centuries (§§ 107; 108, 5) it was distinguished by avoiding the visionary apocalyptic and magnetic somnambulistic elements through a better appreciation of science; and from the scholastic mysticism of that earlier age (§§ 102, 3, 4, 6; 103, 4) by abandoning allegory and the scholastic framework for the elevation of the soul to God, as well as by indulgence in a somewhat pantheistic speculation on God and the world, man and the God-Man, on the incarnation and birth of God in us, on our redemption, sanctification, and final restoration. Its younger representatives however cut off all pantheistic excrescences, and thus became more practical and edifying, though indeed with the loss of speculative power. In this way they brought themselves more into sympathy with another mystic tendency which was spreading through the Netherlands under the influence of the Flemish canon, John of Ruysbroek. In France too mysticism again made its appearance during the 15th century in the persons of d’Ailly and Gerson (§ 118, 4), in a form similar to that which it had assumed during the 12th and 13th centuries in the Victorines and Bonaventura.

§ 114.1. Meister Eckhart.—One of the profoundest thinkers of all the Christian centuries was the Dominican Meister Eckhart, the true father of German speculative mysticism. Born in Strassburg about A.D. 1260, he studied at Cologne under Albert the Great, but took his master’s degree at Paris in A.D. 1303. He had already been for some years prior at Erfurt and provincial vicar of Thuringia. In A.D. 1304 he was made provincial of Saxony, and in A.D. 1307 vicar-general of Bohemia. In both positions he did much for the reform of the cloisters of his order. In A.D. 1311 we find him teacher in Paris; then for some years teaching and preaching in Strassburg; afterwards officiating as prior at Frankfort; and finally as private teacher at Cologne, where he died in A.D. 1327. While at Frankfort in A.D. 1320 he was suspected of heresy because of alleged intercourse with Beghards (§ 98, 12) and Brothers of the Free Spirit (§ 116, 5). In A.D. 1325 the archbishop of Cologne renewed these charges, but Eckhart succeeded in vindicating himself. The archbishop now set up an inquisition of his own, but from its sentence Eckhart appealed to the pope, lodged a protest, and then of his own accord in the Dominican church of Cologne, before the assembled congregation, solemnly declared that the charge against him rested upon misrepresentation and misunderstanding, but that he was then and always ready to withdraw anything that might be erroneous. The papal judgment, given two years after Eckhart’s death, pronounced twenty-eight of his propositions to be pantheistic in their tendency, seventeen being heretical and eleven dangerous. He was therefore declared to be suspected of heresy. The bull, contrary to reason and truth, went on to say that Eckhart at the end of his life had retracted and submitted all his writings and doctrines to the judgment of the Holy See. But Eckhart had indignantly protested against the charge of pantheism, and certainly in his doctrine of God and the creature, of the high nobility of the human soul, of retirement and absorption into God, he has always kept within the limits of Christian knowledge and life. Attaching himself to the Platonic and Neoplatonic doctrines, which are met with also in Albert and Thomas, and appealing to the acknowledged authorities of the Church, especially the Areopagite, Augustine, and Aquinas, Eckhart with great originality composed a singularly comprehensive and profound system of religious knowledge. Although in all his writings aiming primarily at quickening and edification, he always grounds his endeavours on a theoretical investigation of the nature of the thing. But knowledge is for him essentially union of the knowing subject with the object to be known, and the highest stage of knowledge is the intuition where all finite things sink into the substance of Deity.[336]

§ 114.2. Mystics of Upper Germany after Eckhart.—A noble band of mystics arose during the 14th and 15th centuries influenced by Eckhart’s writings, who carefully avoided pantheistic extremes by giving a thoroughly practical direction to their speculation. Nearest to Eckhart stands the author of “The German Theology,” in which the master’s principles are nobly popularized and explained. Luther, who took it for a work of Tauler, and published it in A.D. 1516, characterized it as “a noble little book, showing what Adam and Christ are, and how Adam should die and Christ live in us.” In the most complete MS. of this tract, found in A.D. 1850, the author is described as a “Friend of God.”—The Dominican John Tauler was born at Strassburg, studied at Paris, and came into connection with Eckhart, whose mysticism, without its pantheistic tendencies, he adopted. When Strassburg was visited with the Black Death, he laboured as preacher and pastor among the stricken with heroic devotion. Though the city was under an interdict (§ 110, 3), the Dominicans persisted for a whole year in reading mass, and were stopped only by the severe threats of the master of their order. The magistrates gave them the alternative either to discharge their official duties or leave the city. Tauler now, in A.D. 1341, retired to Basel, and afterwards to Cologne. In A.D. 1437 we find him again in Strassburg, where he died in A.D. 1361. His thirty sermons, with some other short tracts, appeared at Leipzig in A.D. 1498. The most important of all Tauler’s works is, “The Imitation of the Poverty of Christ.” It was thought to be of French authorship, but is now admitted to be Tauler’s.[337]—Rulman Merswin, a rich merchant of Strassburg, in his fortieth year, A.D. 1347, with his wife’s consent, retired from his business and forsook the world, gave his wealth to charities, and bought in A.D. 1366 an old, abandoned convent near the city, which he restored and presented to the order of St. John. Here he spent the remainder of his days in pious contemplation, amid austerities and mortifications and favoured with visions. He died in A.D. 1382. Four years after his conversion he attained to clear conceptions and inner peace. His chief work, composed in A.D. 1352, “The Book of the Nine Rocks,” was long ascribed to Suso. It is full of bitter complaints against the moral and religious corruption of all classes, and earnest warnings of Divine judgment. Its starting point is a vision. From the fountains in the high mountains stream many brooks over the rocks into the valley, and thence into the sea; multitudes of fishes transport themselves from their lofty home, and are mostly taken in nets, only a few succeed in reaching their home again by springing over these nine rocks. At the request of the “Friend of God from the Uplands” he wrote the “Four Years from the Beginning of Life.” His “Banner Tract” describes the conflict with and victory over the Brothers of the Free Spirit under the banner of Lucifer (§ 116, 4, 5).

§ 114.3. The Friend of God in the Uplands.—In a book entitled “The Story of Tauler’s Conversion,” originally called “The Master’s Book,” but now assigned to Nicholas of Basel, it is told that in A.D. 1346 a great “Master of Holy Scripture” preached in an unnamed city, and that soon his fame spread through the land. A layman living in the Uplands, thirty miles off, was directed in a vision thrice over to go to seek this Friend of God, companion of Rulman. He listened to his preaching, chose him as his confessor, and then sought to show him that he had not yet the true consecration. Like a child the master submitted to be taught the elements of piety of religion by the layman, and at his command abstaining from all study and preaching for two years, gave himself to meditation and penitential exercises. When he resumed his preaching his success was marvellous. After nine years’ labour, feeling his end approaching, he gave to the layman an account of his conversion. The latter arranged his materials, and added five sermons of the master, and sent the little book, in A.D. 1369, to a priest of Rulman’s cloister near Strassburg. In A.D. 1486 the master was identified with Tauler. This however is contradicted by its contents. The historical part is improbable and incredible, and its chronology irreconcilable with known facts of Tauler’s life. We find no trace of the original ideas or characteristic eloquence of Tauler; while the language and homiletical arrangement of the sermons are quite different from those of the great Dominican preacher.

§ 114.4. Nicholas of Basel.—After long hiding from the emissaries of the Inquisition the layman Nicholas of Basel, in extreme old age, was taken with two companions, and burned at Vienna, as a heretic, between A.D. 1393-1408. He has been identified by Schmidt of Strassburg with the “Friend of God.” This is more than doubtful, since of the sixteen heresies, for the most part of a Waldensian character, charged against Nicholas, no trace is found in the writings of the Friend of God; while it is made highly probable by Denifle’s researches that the “Friend of God” was but a name assumed by Rulman Merswin.

§ 114.5. Henry Suso, born A.D. 1295, entered the Dominican cloister of Constance in his 13th year. When eighteen years old he took the vow, and till his twenty-second year unceasingly practised the strictest asceticism, in imitation of the sufferings of Christ. He completed his studies, A.D. 1325-1328, under Eckhart at Cologne, and on the death of his pious mother withdrew into the cloister, where he became reader and afterwards prior. The first work which he here published, in A.D. 1335, the “Book of the Truth,” is strongly influenced by the spirit of his master. Accused as a heretic, he was deposed from the priorship in A.D. 1336. His “Book of Eternal Wisdom” was the favourite reading of all lovers of German mysticism. Blending the knight’s and fanatic’s idea of love with the Solomonic conception of Wisdom, which he identifies sometimes with God, sometimes with Christ, sometimes with Mary, he chose her for his beloved, and was favoured by her with frequent visions and was honoured with the title of “Amandus.”—Like most of his fellow monks at Constance, Suso was a supporter of the pope in his contest with Louis the Bavarian, while the city sided with the emperor. When, in A.D. 1339, the monks, in obedience to the papal interdict, refused to perform public worship, they were expelled by the magistrates. In his fortieth year Suso had begun his painful career of self-discipline, which he carried so far as to endanger his life. Now driven away as an exile, he began his singularly fruitful wanderings, during which, passing from cloister to cloister as an itinerant preacher, he became either personally or through correspondence most intimately acquainted with all the most notable of the friends of mysticism, and made many new friends in all ranks, especially among women. In A.D. 1346, along with eight companions, he ventured to return to Constance. There however he met with his sorest trial. An immoral woman, who pretended to him that she sorrowed over and repented of her sins, while really she continued in the practice of them, and was therefore turned away by him, took her revenge by charging him with being the father of the child she was about to bear. Probably this painful incident was the occasion of his retiring into the monastery of Ulm, where he died in A.D. 1366. In him the poetic and romantic element overshadowed the speculative, and in his attachment to ecclesiastical orthodoxy he kept aloof from all reformatory movements.

§ 114.6. Henry of Nördlingen is only slightly known to us by the letters which he sent to his lady friend, the Dominican nun Margaret Ebner. He was spiritually related to Tauler, as well as to Suso, and shared with the great preacher in his sorrows over the calamities of the age, which his sensitive nature felt in no ordinary degree during enforced official idleness under the interdict. His mysticism, by its sweetly sentimental character, as well as by its superstitious tendency to reverence Mary and relics, was essentially distinguished from that of Tauler. His friend Margaret, who had also a spiritual affinity to Tauler, and was highly esteemed by all the “Friends of God,” was religiously and politically, as a supporter of the anathematized emperor, much more decided. In depth of thought and power of expression however she is quite inferior to the earlier Thuringian prophetesses (§ 107, 2).—Hermann of Fritzlar, a rich and pious layman, is supposed to have written, A.D. 1343-1349, a life of the saints in the order of the calendar, as a picture of heart purity, with mystic reflections and speculations based on the legendary matter, and all expressed in pure and simple German. Hermann, however, was only the author of the plan, and the actual writer was a Dominican of Erfurt, Giseler of Slatheim.—A Franciscan in Basel, Otto of Passau, published, in A.D. 1386, “The Four-and-Twenty Elders, or the Golden Throne,” which became a very popular book of devotion, in which the twenty-four elders of Revelation iv. 4, one after another, show the loving soul how to win for himself a golden throne in heaven. Passages of an edifying and contemplative description from the Fathers and teachers of the Church down to the 13th century are selected by the author, and adapted to the use of the unlearned “Friends of God” in a German translation.

§ 114.7. Mystics of the Netherlands.

1. John of Ruysbroek was born, in A.D. 1298, in the village of Ruysbroek, near Brussels. In youth he was addicted more to pious contemplation than to scholastic studies, and in his sixtieth year he resigned his position as secular priest in Brussels, and retired into a convent of regular canons (§ 97, 3) near Brussels, where he died as its prior in A.D. 1481, when eighty-eight years old. He was called doctor ecstaticus, because he regarded his mystical views, which he developed amid pious contemplation in the shades of the forest, and there wrote out in Flemish speech, as the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. His mysticism was essentially theistic. The unio mystica consisted not in the deification of man, but was wrought only through the free grace of God in Christ without the loss of man’s own personality. His genuine practical piety led him to see in the moral depravity of the clergy, not less than of the people generally, the cause of the decay of the Church, so that even the person of the pope did not escape his reproof. Numerous pilgrims from far and near sought the pious sage for counsel and quickening. His favourite disciple was Gerhard Groot of Deventer, who impressed much of his master’s spirit upon the brotherhood of the Common Life (§ 112, 9).—Of this noble school of mystics the three following were the most distinguished.

2. Hendrik Mande, who died A.D. 1430, impressed by a sermon of Groot’s, and favoured during a long illness by visions, abandoned the life of a courtier for the fellowship of the Brethren of Deventer, and in A.D. 1395 entered the cloister of Windesheim, to which he bequeathed his wealth, and where he continued to enjoy visions of the Saviour and the saints. His works, written in Dutch, are characterized by spirituality and depth of feeling, copious and appropriate imagery, and great moral earnestness.

3. Gerlach Peters was the favourite scholar of Florentius in Deventer. He subsequently entered the monastery of Windesheim, where, after a painful illness, he died in A.D. 1411, in his thirty-third year. “An ardent spirit in a body of skin and bone,” praising God for his terrible bodily sufferings as a means of grace bestowed on him, his devotion reaches the sublimest heights of enthusiasm. He wrote the Soliloquium, the voice of a man who has daily struggled in God’s presence to free his heart from worldly bonds, and by God’s grace in the cross of Christ to have Adam’s purity restored and union with the highest good secured.

4. Thomas à Kempis, formerly Hamerken, was born in A.D. 1380 at Kempen, near Cologne. He was educated at Deventer, and died as sub-prior of the convent of St. Agnes, near Zwoll, in A.D. 1471. To him, and not to the chancellor Gerson, according to the now universally accepted opinion, belongs the world renowned book De Imitatione Christi. Reprinted about five thousand times, oftener than any other book except the Bible, it has been also translated into more languages than any other. Free from all Romish superstition, it is read by Catholics and Protestants, and holds an unrivalled position as a book of devotion. A photographic reproduction of the original edition of A.D. 1441 was published from the autograph MSS. of Thomas, by Ch. Ruelans, London, 1879.[338]

III. The Church and the People.

§ 115A. PUBLIC WORSHIP AND THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE.

Preaching in the vernacular was carried on mainly by the Brothers of the Common Life, the mystics, and several heretical sects, e.g. Waldensians, Wiclifites, Hussites, etc.; and stimulated by their example, others began to follow the same practice. The so called Biblia pauperum set forth in pictures the New Testament history with its Old Testament types and prophecies; Bible Histories made known among the people the Scripture stories in a connected form; and, after the introduction of printing, the German Plenaries helped also to spread the knowledge of God’s word by renderings for private use of the principal parts of the service. For the instruction of the people in faith and morals a whole series of Catechisms was constructed after a gradually developed type. The “Dance of Death” in its various forms reminded of the vanity of all earthly pleasures. The spirit of the Reformation was shown during this period in the large number of hymns written in the vernacular. Church music too received a powerful impulse.

§ 115.1. Fasts and Festivals.—New Mary Festivals were introduced: F. præsentationis M. on 21st Nov. (Lev. xii. 5-8), F. visitationis M. (Luke i. 39-51), on 2nd July. In the 15th century we meet with the festivals of the Seven Pains of Mary, F. Spasmi M., on Friday or Saturday before Palm Sunday. Dominic instituted a rosary festival, F. rosarii M., on 1st Oct., and its general observance was enjoined by Gregory XIII. in A.D. 1571.—The Veneration of Ann (§ 57, 2) was introduced into Germany in the second half of the 15th century, but soon rose to a height almost equal to that of Mary.—The Fasts of the early Church (§ 56, 7) had, even during the previous period, been greatly relaxed. Now the most special fast days were mere days of abstinence from flesh, while most lavish meals of fish and farinaceous food were indulged in. Papal and episcopal dispensations from fasting were also freely given.

§ 115.2. Preaching (§ 104, 1).—To aid and encourage preaching in the language of the people, unskilled preachers were supplied with Vocabularia prædicantium. Surgant, a priest of Basel, wrote, in the end of the 15th century, a treatise on homiletics and catechetics most useful for his age, Manuale Curatorum. In it he showed how Latin sermons might be rendered into the tongue of the people, and urged the duty of hearing sermons. The mendicants were the chief preachers, especially the mystics of the preaching orders, during the 14th century (§ 114), and the Augustinians, particularly their German Observants, during the 15th (§ 112, 5), and next to them, the Franciscans.—The most zealous preacher of his age was the Spanish Dominican Vincent Ferrér. In A.D. 1397 he began his unprecedentedly successful preaching tours through Spain, France, Italy, England, Scotland, and Ireland. He died in A.D. 1419. He laboured with special ardour for the conversion of the Jews, of whom he is said to have baptized 35,000. Wherever he went he was venerated as a saint, received with respect by the clergy and prelates, highly honoured by kings and princes, consulted by rich and poor regarding temporal and spiritual things. He was canonized by Calixtus III. in A.D. 1455. Certain Flagellants (§ 116, 3) whom he met in his travels followed him, scourging themselves and singing his penitential songs, but he stopped this when objected to by the Council of Constance. His sermons dealt with the realities of actual life, and called all classes to repent of their sins. Of a similar spirit was the Italian Dominican Barletta, who died in A.D. 1480, whose burlesque and scathing satire rendered him the most popular preacher of the day. In his footsteps went the Frenchmen Maillard and Menot, both Franciscans, and the German priest of Strassburg, Geiler of Kaisersberg, quite equal to them in quaint terseness of expression and biting wit. All these were preeminently distinguished for moral earnestness and profound spirituality.[339]

§ 115.3. The Biblia Pauperum.—The typological interpretation of the Old Testament history received a fixed and permanent form in the illustrations introduced into the service books and pictures printed on the altars, walls, and windows of churches, etc., during the 12th century. A set of seventeen such picture groups was found at Vienna, of which the middle panels represent the New Testament history, sub gracia, above it an Old Testament type from the period ante legem, and under it one from the period sub lege. This picture series was completed by the Biblia pauperum, so called from the saying of Gregory I., that pictures were the poor man’s Bible. Many of the extant MSS., all depending on a common source, date from the 14th and 15th centuries. The illustrations of the New Testament are in the middle, and round about are pictures of the four prophets, with volumes in their hands, on which the appropriate Old Testament prophecies are written. On right and left are Old Testament types. The multiplication of copies of this work by woodcuts and types was one of the first uses to which printing was put.[340]

§ 115.4. The Bible in the Vernacular.—The need of translations of the Bible into the language of the people, specially urged by the Waldensians and Albigensians, was now widely insisted upon by those of reformatory tendencies (§ 119). On the introduction of printing, about A.D. 1450, an opportunity was afforded of rapidly circulating translations already made in most of the European languages. Before Luther, there were fourteen printed editions of the Bible in High and five in Low German. The translations, made from the Vulgate, were in all practically the same. The translators are unknown. The diction is for the most part clumsy, and the sense often scarcely intelligible. Translations had been made in England by the Wiclifites, and in Bohemia by the Hussites. In France, various renderings of separate books of Scripture were circulated, and a complete French Bible was issued by the confessor of Charles VIII., Jean de Rely, at Paris, in A.D. 1487. Two Italian Bibles were published in Venice, in A.D. 1471, one by the Camaldulite abbot Malherbi, closely following the Vulgate; the other by the humanist Bruccioli, which often falls back on the original text. The latter was highly valued by Italian exiles of the Reformation age. In Spain a Carthusian, Ferreri, attempted a translation, which was printed at Valencia in A.D. 1478. More popular however than these translations were the Bible Histories, i.e. free renderings, sometimes contracted, sometimes expanded, of the historical books, especially these of the Old Testament. From A.D. 1470 large and frequent editions were published of the German Plenaries, containing at first only the gospels and epistles, afterwards also the Service of the Mass, for all Sundays and festivals and saints’ days, with explanations and directions.

§ 115.5. Catechisms and Prayer Books.—Next to preaching, the chief opportunity for imparting religious instruction was confession. Later catechisms drew largely upon the baptismal and confessional services. In the 13th and 14th centuries the decalogue was added, and afterwards the seven deadly sins and the seven principal virtues. Pictures were used to impress the main points on the minds of the people and the youth. The catechetical literature of this period, both in guides for priests and manuals for the people, was written in the vernacular.—During the 15th century there were also numerous so-called Artes moriendi, showing how to die well, in which often earnest piety appeared side by side with the grossest superstition. There were also many prayer books, Hortuli animæ, published, in which the worship of Mary and the saints often overshadowed that of God and Christ, and an extravagant belief in indulgences led to a mechanical view of prayer that was thoroughly pagan.

§ 115.6. The Dance of Death.—The fantastic humour of the Middle Ages found dramatic and spectacular expression in the Dance of Death, in which all classes, from the pope and princes to the beggars, in turn converse with death. It was introduced into Germany and France in the beginning of the 14th century, with the view of raising men out of the pleasures and troubles of life. It was called in France the Dance of the Maccabees, because first introduced at that festival. Pictures and verbal descriptions of the Dance of Death were made on walls and doors of churches, around MSS. and woodcuts, where death was generally represented as a skeleton. Hans Holbein the Younger gave the finishing touch to these representations in his Imagines Mortis, the originals of which are in St. Petersburg. In this masterpiece, the idea of a dancing pair is set aside, and in its place forty pictures, afterwards increased to fifty-eight, full of humour and moral earnestness, pourtray the power of death in the earthly life.[341]

§ 115.7. Hymnology (§ 104, 10).—The Latin Church poetry of the 14th and 15th centuries was far beneath that of the 12th and 13th. Only the mystics, e.g. Thomas à Kempis, still composed some beautiful hymns. We have now however the beginnings of German and Bohemian hymnology. The German flagellators sang German hymns (§ 116, 3), and so obtained much popular favour. The Hussite movement of the 15th century gave a great impulse to church song. Huss himself earnestly urged the practice of congregational singing in the language of the people, and himself composed Bohemian hymns. The Bohemian and Moravian Brethren were specially productive in this department (§ 119, 8). In many churches, at least on high festivals, German hymns were sung, and in some even at the celebration of mass and other parts of public worship. The spiritual songs of this period were of four kinds: some half German, half Latin; others translations of Latin hymns and sequences; others, original German compositions by monks and minstrels; and adaptations of secular songs to spiritual purposes. In the latter case the original melodies were also retained. Popular forms and melodies for sacred songs were now secured, and these were subsequently appropriated by the Reformers of the 16th century.

§ 115.8. Church Music (§ 104, 11).—Great improvements were made in organs by the invention of pedals, etc. Church music was also greatly developed by the introduction of harmony and counterpoint. The Dutch were pre-eminent in this department. Ockenheim, founder of the second Dutch school of music, at the end of the 15th century, was the inventor of the canon and the fugue. The greatest composer of this school was Jodocus Pratensis, about A.D. 1500, and next to him may be named the German, Adam of Fulda.

§ 115.9. Legendary Relics.—The legend of angels having transferred the house of Mary from Nazareth, in A.D. 1291, to Tersato in Dalmatia, in A.D. 1294 to Reccanati, and finally, in A.D. 1295, to Loretto in Ancona, arose in the 14th century, in connection with the fall of Acre (§ 94, 6) and the overthrow of the last remnants of the kingdom of Jerusalem. When and how the legend arose of the Scala santa at Rome being the marble steps of Pilate’s prætorium, brought there by St. Helena, is unknown.—Even Frederick the Wise, at an enormous cost, brought together 1,010 sacred relics into his new chapel at Wittenberg, a mere look at which secured indulgence for 100 years. In a catalogue of relics in the churches of St. Maurice and Mary Magdalene at Halle, published in A D. 1520, are mentioned a piece of earth, from a field of Damascus, of which God made the first man; a piece from a field at Hebron, where Adam repented; a piece of the body of Isaac; twenty-five fragments of the burning bush of Horeb; specimens of the wilderness manna; six drops of the Virgin’s milk; the finger of the Baptist that pointed to the Lamb of God; the finger of Thomas that touched the wounds of Jesus; a bit of the altar at which John read mass for the Virgin; the stone with which Stephen was killed; a great piece of Paul’s skull; the hose of St. Thomas of Canterbury; the baret of St. Francis, etc. The collection consisted of 8,933 articles, and could afford indulgence for 39,245,100 years and 220 days! Benefit was to be had by contributions to the church, which went into the pocket of the elector-archbishop, Albert of Mainz. The craze for pilgrimages was also rife among all classes, old and young, high and low. Signs and wonders and newly discovered relics were regarded as consecrating new places of pilgrimage, and the stories of pilgrims raised the fame of these resorts more and more. In A.D. 1500 Düren, by the possession of a relic of Ann, stolen from Mainz, rapidly rose to first rank. The people of Mainz sought through the pope to recover this valuable property, but he decided in favour of Düren, because God had meanwhile sanctioned the transfer by working many miracles of healing.

§ 115B. NATIONAL LITERATURE AND ECCLESIASTICAL ART.

Toward the close of the 13th century, and throughout the 14th, a national literature, in prose and poetry, sprang up in Italy, which in several respects has close relations to the history of the church. The three Florentines, Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, boldly burst through the barriers of traditional usage, which had made Latin the only vehicle for literature and science, and became the creators of a beautiful Italian style; while their example powerfully influenced their own countrymen, and those of other western nations, during the immediately succeeding ages. The exclusive use of the Latin language had produced a uniform hierarchical spirit, and was a restraint to the anti-hierarchical movements of the age after independent national development in church and State. The breaking down of this barrier to progress was an important step. But all the three great men of letters whom we have named were also highly distinguished for their classical culture. They introduced the study of the ancient classics, and were thus the precursors of the humanists. They also presented a united front against the corruptions of the church, against hierarchical pretensions, the greed and moral debasement of the papacy, as well as against the moral and intellectual degradation of the clergy and the monks. Petrarch and Boccaccio too warred against the depraved scholasticism. The Augustan age of German national poetry was contemporary with the age of the Hohenstaufens. It consisted in popular songs, these often of a sacred character. During the 14th century the sacred drama reached the highest point of its development, especially in Germany, England, France, and Spain. The spirit of the Renaissance, which during the 15th century dominated Italian art, made itself felt also in the domain of ecclesiastical architecture and painting.

§ 115.10. The Italian National Literature.[342]—Dante Alighieri, born at Florence in A.D. 1265, was in A.D. 1302 banished as a Ghibelline from his native city, and died an exile at Ravenna, in A.D. 1321. His boyish love for Beatrice, which after her early death continued to fill his soul to the end of his life, gave him an impulse to a “New Life,” and proved the unfailing source of his poetic inspiration. His studies at Bologna, Padua, and Paris made him an enthusiastic admirer of Thomas, but alongside of his scholastic culture there lay the quick perception of the beautiful, combined with a lively imagination. He was thus able to deal with the burning questions of his day in one of the greatest poetic masterpieces of any age, people, or tongue. His Divina Commedia describes a vision in which the poet is led, first by the hand of Virgil, as the representative of human wisdom, through Hell and Purgatory, then by Beatrice, whose place at times is taken by the German Matilda (§ 107, 2), and finally by St. Bernard, as representatives of revealed religion, through Paradise and the several heavens up to the empyræum, the eternal residence of the triune God. The poet presents his readers with a description of what he saw, and reports his conversations with his guides and the souls of more important personages, most of them shortly before deceased, in which the problems of philosophy, theology, and politics are discussed. His political views, of which he treats ex professo in the three books of his De monarchia, are derived from Aquinas’ theory of the State, but breathe a strong Italian Ghibelline patriotism, so that he places not only Boniface VIII. but also Frederick II. in Hell. In the struggle between the empire and the papacy he stands decidedly on the side of the former. With profound sorrow he bewails the corruption of the church in its head and members, but holds firmly by its confession of faith. And while lashing vigorously the corruptions of monkery, he eulogizes the heavenliness of the lives of Francis and Dominic.[343] Petrarch, who died in A.D. 1374, broke away completely from scholasticism, and turned with enthusiasm to classical studies. He combated superstition, e.g. astrology, but also contends against the unbelief of his age, and in his letters and poems lashes with merciless severity the immorality of the papacy and the secularization of the church.[344] In Boccaccio again, who died in A.D. 1375, antipathy to scholasticism, monkery, and the hierarchy had reached its utmost stage. He has no anger and denunciation, but only contempt, reproach, and wit to shoot against them. He also makes light of the moral requirements of Christianity and the church, especially the seventh commandment. But in later years he manifested deep penitence for the lascivious writing of his youth, to which he had given reckless and shameless expression in his “Decameron.”

§ 115.11. The German National Literature.—The German prose style was greatly ennobled by the mystics (§ 114), and the highest development of German satire against the hierarchy, clergy, and monks was reached by Sebastian Brant, of Strassburg, who wrote in A.D. 1494 his “Ship of Fools.” Among popular preachers John Tauler held the first rank (§ 114, 2). In Strassburg, Geiler of Kaisersberg distinguished himself as an original preacher. His sermons were full of biting wit, keen sarcasm, and humorous expressions, but also of profound earnestness and withering exposures of the sins of the clergy and monks. His best known work is a series of sermons on Brant’s “Ship of Fools,” published in A.D. 1498.

§ 115.12. The Sacred Drama (§ 105, 5).—The poetic merit of most of the German mysteries performed at high festivals is not great. The Laments of Mary however often rose to true poetic heights. Comedy and burlesque too found place especially in connection with Judas, or the exchangers, or the unconverted Magdalene. A priest, Theodoric Schernberg, wrote a play on the fall and repentance of the popess Johanna (§ 82, 6). On Shrove Tuesday plays were performed, in which the clergy and monks were held up to ridicule. Hans Roseuplüt of Nuremberg, about A.D. 1450, was the most famous writer of German Shrovetide plays. In France, about the end of the 14th century, a society of young people of the upper rank was formed, called Enfans sans souci, whose Sotties, buffooneries, in which the church was ridiculed, were in high repute in the cities and at the court. Their most distinguished poet was Pierre Gringoire, who, in the beginning of the 16th century, in the French Chasse du Cerf des Cerfs, parodied the Servus servorum (§ 46, 10), and the church is represented as the old befooled mother. The numerous Italian mysteries were produced mainly by the gifted and cultured sons of Tuscany, who had already developed their native tongue into a beautiful and flexible language. In Spain, during the 15th century, the Autos, partly as Christmas plays and partly as sacramental or passion plays, were based on the ancient mysteries, and in form inclined more to the allegorical moralities.

§ 115.13. Architecture and Painting (§ 104, 12, 14)—Gothic architecture was the prevailing style in the churches of Germany, France, and England. In Italy, the humanist movement (§ 120, 1) led to the imitation of ancient classical models, and thus the Renaissance style was introduced, which flourished for 300 years. Its real creator was the Florentine Bruneleschi, who won imperishable renown by the grand cupola of the cathedral of Florence. Bramante, died A.D. 1514, marks the transition from the earlier Renaissance of the 15th century to the later of the 16th, at the summit of which stands Michael Angelo, A.D. 1474-1564. After a plan of Bramante Julius II., in A.D. 1506, began the magnificent reconstruction of St. Peter’s at Rome, the execution of which in its gigantic proportions occupied the reigns of twenty popes. It was completed under Urban VIII., in A.D. 1636. This great building, in consequence of the traffic in indulgences, entered on to defray its cost, became the occasion of the loss to the papacy of the half of western Christendom.—Sacred Statuary, in the hands of Ghiberti, died A.D. 1455, and Michael Angelo, reached the highest stage of excellence.—Of Painting, the Augustan age of which was the 15th century, there were properly four schools. Giotto, who died in A.D. 1336, was founder of the Florentine school, which was specially distinguished by its delineations of sacred history. To it belonged the Dominican Fra Giovanni da Fiesole, who painted only as he prayed, Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Bartolomeo, and Michael Angelo. Then there was the Lombard or Venetian School, at the head of which stands Giovanni Bellini, died A.D. 1516, which turned away from the church and applied itself with its fresh living colouring to the depicting of earthly ideals. Its most eminent representatives were Correggio, died A.D. 1534, and Titian, died A.D. 1576. In the Umbrian school, again, the spirit of St. Francis continued still to breathe. Its greatest master was Raphael of Urbino, the noblest and most renowned of all Christian painters, distinguished also as an architect. The German school had its ablest representatives in the brothers Hubert and John van Eyk, Albert Dürer, and Hans Holbein the Elder.—Continuation § 149, 15.

§ 116. POPULAR MOVEMENTS.

In consequence of the shameful debasement of the papacy and the deep corruption of the clergy and monks, the influence of the church on the moral and religious culture of the people, in spite of the ardent zeal of the homilists and catechists, was upon the whole much less than formerly. Reverence for the church as it stood was indeed tottering, but was not yet completely overthrown. The religious enthusiasm of earlier times was fading away, but occasional phenomena still continued to arise, like St. Bridget and St. Catharine of Siena (§ 112, 4, 8), Claus of Flüe, and the Maid of Orleans. But in order to elevate a John of Nepomuk into a recognised national saint, it was necessary to produce forged legendary stories in post-Reformation times. The market-place tricks of John of Capistrano (§ 112, 3) were of such a kind, that even the papal curia only after a century and a half had passed could venture to adorn him with the halo of saintship. The ever-increasing nuisance of the sale of indulgences smothered religious earnestness and crushed all religious spirit out of the people. But earnestness showed itself again in the reactions of the Beghards and Lollards, or in the explosions of the Flagellants, and spirituality often found rich nourishment in the preaching of the mystics. One current issuing from the widespread Friends of God passed deep into the heart of the German people; another, springing probably from the same source, but with a quite different tendency, appears in the Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit. On the other hand, superstition also prevailed, and was all the more dangerous the more it parted with its poetic and naïve character (§ 117, 4). Toward the end of that period however a new era dawned in social life, as well as in national literature. Knighthood paled before gunpowder. The establishment of civic corporations developed a sense of freedom, and introduced a healthy understanding and appreciation of civil liberty. The printing of books began the dissemination of knowledge, and the discovery of America opened to view a new world for trade, colonization, and the spread of Christianity. To the pious heart of the discoverer the extension of Christ’s kingdom proved the most powerful motive to his continued exertions, and from the treasures of the new world he hoped also to obtain the means for conquering again the Holy Sepulchre and the Holy Land.

§ 116.1. Two National Saints.—John of Nepomuk, of Pomuk in Bohemia, was from A.D. 1380 pastor, then canon, archiepiscopal secretary, and vicar-general of Prague. King Wenzel had him seized, cruelly tortured, and flung over the bridge into the Moldau, because, so runs the legend, he as confessor of the queen sturdily refused to betray the secrets of the confessional, but really because he had roused the king’s anger to the uttermost in a violent controversy between the king’s archbishop, John of Jenzenstein, and the chapter over their election and consecration of an abbot. The confession legend appears first in an Austrian writer of A.D. 1451, who gives it distinctly as a tradition. It is evidently connected with the Taborite rejection of the Catholic doctrine of auricular confession (§ 119, 7). If it be accepted as true, then, seeing that all the older chroniclers ascribe the cruel treatment of this prelate to the share he took in the abbot’s election, it will be necessary to assume two victims of the king’s wrath instead of one. The John Nepomuk of the legend, and the confessor of the queen, was tortured by the king’s command in A.D. 1383; the other, who figures in the old chronicles as archiepiscopal vicar-general, and is simply called John, was tortured in A.D. 1393, and then thrown over the bridge into the Moldau. This latter story appears first in a Bohemian chronicle of A.D. 1541. In the 17th century the Jesuits, in order to deprive the heretical national saint and martyr John Huss of his supremacy by bringing forward another genuine Bohemian, but also a thoroughly Catholic saint, gave currency to the legend, adorned with many additional stories of miracles. Benedict XIII. (§ 164, 1) was just the pope to aid such a device by sanctioning, as he did in A.D. 1729, the canonization of a purely fictitious saint-confessor John Nepomuk. He is patron saint of bridges, whose image in Bohemia, and other strictly Catholic lands, is met with at almost every bridge, and is reverenced as the protector from unjust accusations, as well as the dispenser of rain in seasons of great drought. Although no mention is made of the story about the confessional in the letter of complaint to Rome by Archbishop Jenzenstein, Catholic historians still insist that the confessor’s steadfastness was the real cause, the election of the abbot the ostensible cause, of the martyrdom of A.D. 1393.[345] The need of strengthening the position of the Romish church, in face of the progress of the Swiss Reformation of the 16th century, led also to the elevation of the recluse, Nicolaus [Nicolas] of Flüe upon the pedestal of a Swiss national saint. Esteemed even before his birth a saint by reason of signs and wonders, “Brother Claus,” after a long, active life in the world, in his 50th year, the father of ten children, forsook house and home, with the approval of his wife, abstained from all nourishment save that of the sacrament, and died, after spending nineteen years in the wilderness, in A.D. 1487. During this period he was the trusted adviser of all classes upon public and private affairs. He is specially famous as having saved Switzerland, by appearing personally at the Diet of Stanz, in A.D. 1481, stopping the conflict between cities and provinces, which threatened to break up the confederation and bring about civil war, and suggesting the peaceable compromise of the “Agreement of Stanz.” That Brother Claus did assist in securing harmony is a well established fact, but it is also demonstrable that he was not personally present at Stanz. He was beatified by Clement X. in A.D. 1671, but notwithstanding repeated endeavours by his admirers, he has not yet been canonized.

§ 116.2. The Maid of Orleans, A.D. 1428-1431.—Joan of Arc was the daughter of a peasant in the village of Domremy, in Champagne. Even in her thirteenth year she thought she saw a peculiar brightness and heard a heavenly voice exhorting her to chastity and piety. She now bound herself by a vow to perpetual virginity. Afterwards the heavenly voices became more frequent, and the brightness took the shape of the archangel Michael, St. Catharine, and other saints, who saluted her as saviour of her fatherland. France was, under the imbecile king Charles VI., and still more after his death, rent by the rival parties of the Armagnacs and Burgundians. The former fought for the rights of the dauphin Charles VII.; the latter supported his mother Isabella and the English king Henry V., who was succeeded in A.D. 1422 by his son Henry VI., then only nine months old. Joan was the enthusiastic supporter of the dauphin. He found himself in A.D. 1428 in the greatest straits. The last bulwark of his might, the city of Orleans, was besieged by the English, and seemed near its fall. Then her voices commanded Joan to relieve Orleans, and to accompany the dauphin to his coronation at Rheims. She now published her call, which had been hitherto kept secret, overcame all difficulties, was recognised as a messenger of heaven, assumed the male attire of a soldier, and placed herself at the head of an enthusiastic crowd. Great success attended the movements of this girl of seventeen years. In the latter campaigns of the war she became the prisoner of Burgundy, who delivered her over to the English. At Rouen she was subjected to an ecclesiastical tribunal, which after four months’ investigation condemned her to the stake as a heretic and sorceress. In view of the fire, her courage failed. Yielding to the persuasion of her confessor, she acknowledged her guilt, and had her sentence commuted to that of imprisonment for life. But eight days later she was led forth to the stake. Her rude keepers had taken away her female attire, and forced her to wear again male garments, and this act to which she was compelled was made a charge against her. She died courageously and piously in A.D. 1431. At the demand of her family, which had been ennobled, a revision of the process against her was made in A.D. 1450, when she was pronounced innocent, and the charges against her false. The endeavour of Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, in A.D. 1876, in the name of Catholic France, to have her canonized, was not responded to by the papal curia. The infallible church, that had burnt her as a witch in A.D. 1431, could scarcely give her a place among its saints, even after 450 years had gone.

§ 116.3. Lollards, Flagellants, and Dancers.—During a plague at Antwerp in A.D. 1300 the Lollards made their appearance, nursing the sick and burying the dead. They spread rapidly over the Netherlands and the bordering German provinces. Like the Beghards however, and for the same reasons, they soon fell under suspicion of heresy, and were subjected to the persecution of the Inquisition, until Gregory XI., in A.D. 1347, again granted them toleration. But the name Lollard still continued to be associated with heresy or hypocrisy (§ 119, 1).[346] The Flagellant fraternities, which had sprung up in the 12th century (§ 106, 4), greatly increased during this period, and reached their height during the 14th century. Their influence was greatest during the visitation of the Black Death, A.D. 1348-1350, which cost Europe many millions of lives. Issuing from Hungary, rushing forth with the force of an avalanche, and massing in great numbers on the upper Rhine, they spread over all Germany, Belgium and Holland, Switzerland, England, and Sweden. Entrance into France was refused them at the bidding of the Avignon pope Clement VI. In long rows of penitents, with uncovered head, screaming forth their penitential songs, and with tears streaming down their cheeks, they rushed about lashing their bare backs. They also from city to city and from village to village read aloud a letter of warning, said to have been written by Christ, and brought to the Patriarch of Jerusalem by an angel. This paroxysm lasted for three years. In Lombardy, in A.D. 1399, when famine, pestilence, the Turkish war, and expectation of the end of the world inclined men to such extravagances, the Flagellants made their appearance again, dressed in white robes, and so called Bianchi, Albati. Princes, scholars, and popes, universities and councils sought to check this silly fanaticism, but were not able to suppress it. Many Flagellants were also heretical in their views, spoke of the hierarchy as antichrist, withdrew from the worship of the church, declared the bloody baptism of the scourge the only true sacrament, and died at the stake of the Inquisition.—The Dancers, Chorisantes, were a sect closely related to the Flagellants, but their fanaticism seemed more of a pathological than of a religious order. Half naked and crowned with leaves they rushed along the streets and into houses, dancing in a wild, tumultuous manner. They made a great noise in the Rhine Provinces in A.D. 1374 and in A.D. 1418. They were regarded as demoniacs and cured by calling upon St. Vitus.

§ 116.4. The Friends of God.—During the 14th century many detachments of mystic sects spread through all Southern Germany, and even from the Netherlands to Hungary and Italy. A powerful religious awakening, with an undertone of contemplative mysticism, was now experienced in the castles of the knights, in the shops of artisans, and in the stalls of traders, as well as in the Beguine houses, the monasteries, and nunneries of the Dominicans and other monkish orders. A great free association was then called forth under the name of “Friends of God” (John xv. 15), whose members maintained personal and epistolary correspondence with one another. The headquarters of this movement were Cologne, Strassburg, and Basel. Its preachers and supporters were mostly Dominicans. They drew their intellectual and spiritual nourishment from the writings of the German mystics. They repudiated all sectarian intentions, carefully observed the rites and ceremonies and attended on the worship of the church, and accepted all its dogmas. But all the greater on this account was their sorrow over the deep decay of religious and moral life, and their lamentations over the corruption of the clergy and hierarchy. Fantastic visionary conceptions, however, derived from the domain of mysticism, were by no means rare among them.

§ 116.5. Pantheistic Libertine Societies.—A demoniacally inspired counterpart to the fraternity of the “Friends of God” is found in the sect of the Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit. This sect, derived for the most part from the artisan class, may be regarded as carrying out to a consistent development the views of Amalrich of Bena (§ 108, 4). We meet with these in the beginning of the 14th century wandering about, missionarising and agitating in all parts of Southern Germany as well as in Switzerland, while they were particularly numerous in the Rhine Provinces, where Cologne and Strassburg were their main resorts. Often associating with strolling Beghards (§ 98, 12) they are frequently confounded with these. They were communistic libertine pantheists. Every pious man is a Christ, in whom God becomes man. Whatever is done in love is pure. The perfect are free from the law, and cannot sin. The church with her sacraments and institutions is a thorough cheat; purgatory, heaven, and hell are mere figments, the marriage bond contrary to nature, all property is common good, and theft of it allowable. Their secret services ended with immoral orgies. The Inquisition exterminated the sect by sword and stake.—The Adamites in Austria in A.D. 1312 and the Turlupines in the Isle of France showed similar tendencies. In the beginning of the 15th century they reappeared as Homines intelligentiæ at Brussels. In A.D. 1421 the Hussite leader Ziska rooted out the Bohemian Adamites or Picards, who went naked after the pattern of paradise, and had a community of wives. Picard is just a modification of the heretical designation Beghard. They gained a footing in several villages, and built an establishment on a small island in a tributary of the Moldau, from which they made excursions into the surrounding districts, until Ziska put an end to them by conquering the island in A.D. 1421.

§ 117. CHURCH DISCIPLINE.

The reckless and shameless sale of indulgences often made the exercise of church discipline impossible, and the discreditable conduct of the mendicant monks destroyed all respect for the confessional. The scandalous misuse of the ban and interdict had shorn these of much of their terror. Frightful curses were pronounced at Rome every Maundy Thursday against heretics by the solemn reading of the bull In Cœna Domini. The Inquisition was still abundantly occupied with persecuting and burning numerous heretics, and at the end of our period Innocent VIII. carried to the utmost extreme the persecution and burning of witches.

§ 117.1. Indulgences.—The scholastic theory of indulgences (§ 106, 2) was authoritatively proclaimed by Clement VI. in A.D. 1343. The reforming councils of the 15th century wished only to prevent them being misused, for the purpose of filling the papal treasury. Sixtus IV., in A.D. 1477, declared that it was allowable to take money for indulgences for the dead, and that their souls might be freed from purgatory. The pert question, why the pope would not rather free all souls at once by the exercise of his sovereign power, was answered by the assertion that the church, in accordance with Divine righteousness, could dispense its grace only discrete et cum moderamine. The institution of the jubilee gave a great impulse to the sale of indulgences. In A.D. 1300 Boniface VIII., at the bidding of an old man, proclaimed a complete indulgence for one hundred years to all Christians who would do penance for fifteen days in the churches of the apostles at Rome, and by this means gathered from day to day 200,000 pilgrims within the walls of the Holy City. Later popes made a jubilee every fiftieth year, then every thirty-third, and finally every twenty-fifth. Instead of appearing personally at Rome, it was enough to pay the cost of such a journey. The nepotism and extravagance of the popes had left an empty exchequer, which this sale of indulgences was intended to fill. The war with the Turks and the building of St. Peter’s gave occasion to repeated indulgence crusades. Traffickers in indulgences in the most barefaced way cried up the quality of their wares; the conditions of repentance and purpose of reformation were scarcely so much as named. Indulgences were even granted beforehand for sins that were contemplated.

§ 117.2. The Inquisition, since A.D. 1232 under the direction of the Dominicans (§ 109, 2), spread through all European countries during the 14th century. While the papal court resided at Avignon the Inquisition was at its height in France, where Waldensians and Albigensians, Beghards and Lollards, Fraticelli and Fanatical Spiritualists, were brought in crowds to the stake and subjected to the most cruel tortures. Bernard Delicieux, a Franciscan, raised his voice, A.D. 1300-1320, against the inhuman cruelty of the inquisitors, and with noble independence and heroic bravery appealed to king and pope against the merciless sacrifice of so many victims. He was shut up for life in a dark dungeon, and fed on bread and water.—In Germany, where, from the murder of Conrad of Marburg in A.D. 1233 (§ 109, 3), for almost a century and a half we find no trace of a regularly constituted Inquisition, it made its appearance again in A.D. 1368. During that year Urban V. issued a bull, by which he required that the civil and ecclesiastical authorities of Germany should support with their counsel and influence the two inquisitors who were searching out the heretical Beghards and Beguines (§ 116, 5), and place their prisons at the disposal of the Holy Office, which had still no prison of its own. His successor, Gregory XI., in A.D. 1372 increased the number of inquisitors in Germany to five, one in each of the archdioceses of Mainz, Cologne, Salzburg, Magdeburg, and Bremen; while his successor, Boniface IX., in A.D. 1399 added a sixth for North Germany. But these papal bulls would probably, owing to the disinclination of the Germans to the Inquisition, like the attempts of Gregory IX., never have been put in force, had not Charles IV. (§ 110, 4, 5) taken up the matter with an ardent zeal that even went beyond the intentions of Urban and Gregory. During his second journey to Rome, in A.D. 1369, he issued from Lucca four imperial decrees, and in A.D. 1378 from Treves a fifth, by which he granted to the Inquisition throughout Germany all the rights, powers, and privileges which it had anywhere, and required that all civil and ecclesiastical authorities, under pain of severest penalties and confiscation of all their goods, should support the Inquisition in its search for heretics and in its discovery and burning of all religious writings in the vulgar tongue composed and circulated by laymen or semi-laymen.—The Spanish Inquisition was re-established under Ferdinand and Isabella in A.D. 1480, and thoroughly organized by the grand-inquisitor Torquemada, A.D. 1483-1499. One of the first inquisitors appointed by him in A.D. 1484 was an Augustinian, Pedro Arbires, who amid the most unrelenting cruelties performed the duties of his office with such zeal, that in sixteen months many hundreds had perished at the stake; but his fanatical career was ended by his murder at the altar in A.D. 1485. Not only the two who did the deed, but also all their relatives and friends, to the number of two hundred, suspected of complicity in a plot, were burned, while the “martyr” himself was beatified by Alexander VII. in A.D. 1661, and canonized by Pius IX. in A.D. 1867. This terrible tribunal further undertook the persecution of the hated Moors and Jews who had been baptized under compulsion (§ 95, 2, 3), which through numerous confiscations greatly enriched the national exchequer of Spain. This institution reached its highest point under the grand-inquisitor the Cardinal Francis Ximenes, A.D. 1507-1517, under whom 2,536 persons were burnt alive and 1,368 in effigy. The auto da fès, which ended at the stake, were conducted with a horrible pomp. Even those who were acquitted of the charge of heresy were compelled for a long time to wear the san benito, an armless robe with a red cross marked on it before and behind. According to Llorente, who had been general secretary of the Inquisition at Madrid, the Spanish inquisition, down to its suppression by Joseph Buonaparte in A.D. 1808, had executed in person 31,912, burned in effigy 17,659, and subjected to severe punishments 291,456.[347]

§ 117.3. The Bull “In Cœna Domini.”—It was customary to repeat from time to time the more important decrees of excommunication, to show that they were still valid. In this way the famous bull In Cœna Domini was gradually constructed. The earliest sketch of it was given by Urban V., who died in A.D. 1370, and it was published in its final form by Urban VIII. in A.D. 1627. It contains a summary of all the rights of the Roman hierarchy, with anathemas against all opposing claims, not only on the part of secular princes and laymen, but also of antipapal councils, and concludes with a solemn excommunication of all heretics, to which Paul V. in A.D. 1610 added Lutherans, Zwinglians, and Calvinists, together with all their sympathisers. Pius V., in A.D. 1567, in a new redaction insisted that it should be read yearly in the Catholic churches of all lands, but could not get this carried out, especially in France and Germany. In A.D. 1770 Clement XIV. forbade its being read.

§ 117.4. Prosecution of Witches.—Down to the beginning of the 13th century many churchmen had spoken against the popular superstition regarding sorcery, witchcraft, and compacts with the devil, and a whole series of provincial councils had pronounced such belief to be heathenish, sinful, and heretical. Even in Gratian’s decretal (§ 99, 5) there was a canon which required the clergy to teach the people that witchcraft was a delusion, and belief in it incompatible with the Christian faith. But upon the establishment of the Inquisition in the beginning of the 13th century witchcraft came more and more to occupy the attention of the ecclesiastical authorities. Heresy and sorcery were now regarded as correlates, like two agencies resting on and serviceable to the demoniacal powers, and were therefore treated in the same way as offences to be punished with torture and the stake. The Dominicans, as administrators of the Inquisition, were the most zealous defenders of the belief in witchcraft, whereas the Franciscans generally spoke of it simply as foolish, heathenish, and heretical. Thomas Aquinas included it in his theological system, and Eymerich in his Directorium Inquisitorium (§ 109, 2). Yet witch prosecutions were only occasional incidents during the 14th and 15th centuries, especially in Germany, where clergy and people were adverse to them. But it was quite otherwise after Innocent VIII., on 3rd December, 1484, by his bull Summis desiderantes affectibus, complaining of previous laxity, called attention to the spread of witchcraft in the country, and appointed two inquisitors, Sprenger and Institor, to secure its extermination. These administered their office with such zeal and success, that in A.D. 1489 at Cologne they were able, as the result of their experiences, to publish under the title Malleus maleficarum a complete code for witch prosecutions. From the confessions wrung from their victims by torture and suggestive questions, they obtained a full, dogmatic system of compacts and intrigues with the devil, of Succubis and Incubis, of witch ointment, broomsticks, and ovenforks, of witches’ sabbaths, Walpurgis nights, and flights up chimneys. Soon this illusion spread like an epidemic, and thousands throughout Germany and all other Catholic countries, mostly old women, but also some young maidens, were subjected to the most horrible tortures, and after confession had been extorted, to death by fire. The Malleus accounted for the fact that women and very rarely men were found engaged in such proceedings, by this statement: Dicitur enim femina a feret minus, quia semper minorem habet et servat fidem, et hoc ex natura.—The Reformation of the 16th century made no change in these horrible proceedings, which rather rose to a height during the 17th century. Theologians of all confessions believed in the possibility and reality of compacts with the devil, and regarded this to be as essential to an orthodox creed as belief in the devil’s existence. The jurists and civil judges in Protestant and Catholic countries were no less narrow-minded and superstitious than the theologians. Among Catholics the most celebrated defenders of the witch prosecutions were Jean Bodin (§ 148, 3), Peter Binsfeld, and the Jesuit Mart. Delrio (§ 149, 11). Among Protestant vindicators of these prosecutions may be named the Heidelberg physician Thomas Erastus (§ 144, 1), James I. of England, and the famous criminal lawyer Carpzov of Leipzig. Noble men however were not wanting on both sides who were shrewd and sensible enough to oppose such crude conceptions. In the 16th century we have the physician Weier, who wrote his De præstigiis dæmonorum in A.D. 1563, and in the 17th the Jesuits Tanner and Spee (§ 149, 11; 156, 3), and the Dutch Protestant Bekker (§ 160, 5). The writings of the Halle jurist Thomasius in A.D. 1701, 1704, were the first to tell powerfully in favour of liberal views. In A.D. 1749 a nun of seventy years old was burnt at Würzburg as a witch. In A.D. 1754 a girl of thirteen and in A.D. 1756 one of fourteen years were put to death at Landshut as suspected of witchcraft. In German Switzerland a servant girl at Glarus in A.D. 1782 was the last victim. In bigoted Catholic countries the delusion lasted longer, but prosecutions were seldomer carried the length of judicial murder. In Mexico however, the Alcade Ignacio Castello of San Jacobo on 20th August, 1877, “with consent of the whole population,” burnt five witches alive. Altogether since the issue of the bull of Innocent there have been certainly no less than 300,000 women brought to the stake as witches.

IV. Attempts at Reformation.

§ 118. ATTEMPTED REFORMS IN CHURCH POLITY.

The struggle between imperialism and hierarchism, which is present through the whole course of the Middle Ages, rose to a height in the times of Louis the Bavarian, A.D. 1314-1347 (§ 110, 3, 4), and is of special interest here because of the literary war waged against one another by the rival supporters of the emperor and the pope. It concerns itself first of all only with the questions in debate between the imperial and the sacerdotal parties; but soon on the imperialist side there appeared a reforming tendency, which could not be given effect to without carrying the discussion into a multitude of other departments where reformation was also needed. Of quite another kind was the “reformation of head and members” desired by the great councils of the 15th century. The contention here was based, not so much upon any superiority claimed by the emperor over the pope and by the State over the church, but rather upon the subordination of the pope to the supreme authority of the universal church represented by the œcumenical councils. Yet both agreed in this, that with like energy they attacked the corruption of the papacy, in the one case in the interest of the State, in the other in the interest of the church.

§ 118.1. The Literary War between Imperialists and Curialists in the 14th Century.—The literary controversy over the debatable land between church and State was conducted with special vigour in the earlier part of our period, on account of the conflict between Boniface VIII. and Philip the Fair of France (§ 110, 1). The ablest vindicators of the independence of the State were the advocate Peter Dubois and the Dominican theologian John of Paris. Among their scholars were the men who twenty years later sought refuge from the wrath of Pope John XXII. at the court of Louis the Bavarian at Munich. Of these the most important was the Italian Marsilius of Padua. As teacher of theology, philosophy, and medicine at Paris, in A.D. 1324, when the dispute between emperor and pope had reached its height, he composed jointly with his colleague John of Jandun in Champagne a Defensor pacis, a civil and ecclesiastical memoir, which, with an insight and clearness very remarkable for that age, developed the evangelical mean of the superiority of the State over the church, and of the empire over the papacy, historically, exegetically, and dogmatically; and for this end established theories of Scripture and tradition, of the tasks and place of the church in the State, of excommunication and persecution of heretics, of liberty of faith and conscience, etc., which even transcend the principles laid down on these points by the Reformation of the 16th century. Both authors accompanied Louis to Italy in A.D. 1326, and there John of Jandun died in A.D. 1328. Marsilius continued with the emperor as his physician, counsellor, and literary defender, and died at Munich between A.D. 1341-1343. In A.D. 1327 John XXII. condemned the Defensor pacis, and Clement VI. pronounced its author the worst heretic of all ages. The book, often reprinted during the 16th century, was first printed at Basel in A.D. 1522.

§ 118.2. Alongside of Marsilius there also stood a goodly array of schismatical Franciscans, with their general, Michael of Cesena, at their head (§ 112, 2), who were like himself refugees at the court of Munich. They persistently contested the heresies of John XXII. in regard to the vision of God (§ 110, 3) and his lax theory of poverty. Their polemic also extended to the whole papal system, and the corruption of church and clergy connected therewith. The most celebrated of them in respect of scientific attainments was William Occam (§ 113, 3). His earlier treatises dealt with the pope’s heresies, and only after the Diet of Rhense (§ 110, 4) did he take up the burning questions about church and State. In the comprehensive Dialogus he rejects the infallibility of the pope as decidedly as his temporal sovereignty, and denies the Divine institution of the primacy. Also a German prelate, Leopold of Bebenburg, Canon of Würzburg, and from A.D. 1353 Bishop of Bamberg, inspired by genuinely German patriotism, made his appearance in A.D. 1338 as a brave and prudent defender of imperial rights against the assumptions of the papacy.—The ablest of all Marsilius’ opponents was the Spanish Franciscan Alvarus Pelagius, who wrote in A.D. 1330 the treatise De planctu ecclesiæ, in which, while sadly complaining of the corruption of the church and clergy, he yet ascribes to the pope as the vicar of Christ unlimited authority over all earthly principalities and powers, and regards him as the fountain of all privileges and laws. A still more thoroughgoing deification of the papacy had appeared a few years earlier in the Summa de potestate ecclesiæ ad Johannem Papam by the Augustinian Augustinus Triumphus of Ancona. But neither he nor Pelagius, in view of the manifest contradictions of the pope’s doctrines of poverty (§ 112, 2), dared go the length of maintaining papal infallibility. A German canon of Regensburg, Conrad of Megensburg, also took part in the controversy, seeking to vindicate and glorify the papacy.

§ 118.3. Reforming Councils of the 15th Century.—The longing for reform during this period found most distinct expression in the councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basel (§ 110, 7-9). The fruitlessness of these endeavours, though they had the sympathy of the people generally, shows that there was something essentially defective in them. The movement had kept itself aloof from all sectaries and separatists, wishing to hold by and reform the presently existing church. But its fault was this, that it insisted only upon a reformation in the head and members, not in the spirit, that it aimed at lopping off the wild growths of the tree, without getting rid of the corrupt sap from which the very same growths would again proceed. Only that which was manifestly unchristian in the pretensions of the hierarchy, the covetousness and greed of the pope, the immorality of the clergy, the depravity and ignorance of the monks, etc.—in short, only abuses in hierarchical constitution and discipline—were dealt with. There was no word about doctrine. The Romish system, in spite of all its perversions, was allowed to stand. The current forms of worship, notwithstanding the introduction of many unevangelical elements and pagan superstitions, were left untouched. It was not seen that what was most important of all was the revival of the preaching of repentance and of justification through Him who is the justifier of the ungodly. And so it happened that at Constance Huss, who had pointed out and followed this way, was sent to the stake, and at Basel the doctrine of the immaculate conception (§ 112, 4) was admitted as a doctrine of the church. It was not merely the election of a new pope opposed to the Reformation that rendered the negotiations at Pisa and Constance utter failures, the wrong principle upon which they proceeded insured a disappointing result.

§ 118.4. Friends of Reform in France during the 15th Century.

1. Peter d’Ailly, professor and chancellor of the University of Paris, Bishop of Cambray in A.D. 1397 and cardinal in A.D. 1411, was one of the ablest members of the councils of Pisa and Constance. He died in A.D. 1425 as cardinal-legate in Germany. His chief dogmatic treatise, the Quæstiones on the Sentences of the Lombard, occupies the standpoint of Occam. In many of his other works he falls back upon the position of the mystics of St. Victor (§ 102, 4), and recommends with much warmth the diligent study of the Scriptures. His ideas about church reform are centred in the affirmation of the Gallican Liberties, which he had to maintain as a French bishop, but are expressed with the moderation becoming a Roman cardinal. In opposition to Occam and the Spirituals, he founds the temporal sovereignty of the pope on the Donatio Constantini. He also holds by the primacy of the Roman bishop, as firmly established by Scripture. But the πέτρα of Matthew xvi. 18 he understands not of Peter, but of Christ. In this passage therefore no pre-eminence is given to Peter over the other apostles in the potestas ordinis, but by the injunction of John xx., “Feed My sheep,” such pre-eminence is given in the potestas regiminis. The œcumenical council, as representative of the whole church, stands superior to the pope as administrative head.

2. d’Ailly’s successor as professor and chancellor was the celebrated Jean Charlier, better known from the name of his birthplace near Rheims as Gerson. Having denounced the Duke of Burgundy’s murder of the Duke of Orleans, and having thus incurred that prince’s hatred, he withdrew after the Council of Constance into Bavaria. Soon after the duke’s death, in A.D. 1419, he returned to France, and settled at Lyons, where he died in A.D. 1429. Like d’Ailly, Gerson was a decided nominalist, and sought to give new life to scholasticism by combining with it Scripture study and mysticism. He, too, was powerfully influenced by the Victorine mystics, and yet more by Bonaventura He had no appreciation of the speculative element in German mysticism. Gerson was the first French theologian who employed the language of the people, particularly in his smaller practical tracts. He was mainly instrumental in bringing about the Council of Pisa. In the Council of Constance he was one of the most conspicuous figures. Restrained by no personal or official relationship with the curia, he could by speech and writing express himself much more freely than d’Ailly. The principle and means of the reform of the church, in its head and members, was recognised by Gerson in his statement that the highest authority of the church is to be sought not in the pope, but in the œcumenical council. He held however in every point to the Romish system of doctrine. He did indeed unweariedly proclaim the Bible the one norm and source of all Christian knowledge, but he would not allow the reading of it in the vernacular, and regarded all as heretics who did not in the interpretation of it submit unconditionally to the judgment of the church.

3. Nicholas of Clemanges was in A.D. 1393 rector of the University of Paris, but afterwards retired into solitude. He had the profoundest insight into the corruption of the church, and acknowledged Holy Scripture to be the only source of saving truth. From this standpoint he demanded a thorough reform in theological study and the whole constitution of the church.

4. Louis d’Aleman, cardinal and Archbishop of Arles, who died in A.D. 1450, was the most powerful and most eloquent of the anti-papal party at Basel. He was therefore excommunicated by Eugenius IV. At last submitting to the pope, he was restored by Nicholas V. and in A.D. 1527 beatified by Clement VII.

§ 118.5. Friends of Reform in Germany.

1. Even before the appearance of the Parisian friends of reform, a German, Henry of Langenstein, at Marburg had insisted upon the princes and prelates calling an œcumenical council for putting an end to schism and reforming the church. In a treatise published in A.D. 1381 he gave a sad but only too true picture of the desolate condition of the church. The cloisters he designated prostibula meretricium, cathedral churches speluncæ raptorum et latronum, etc. From A.D. 1363 he taught in Paris, from A.D. 1390 in Vienna, where in A.D. 1397 he died as rector of the university.

2. Theodorich or Dietrich of Niem in Westphalia accompanied Gregory XI. from France to Rome as his secretary in A.D. 1377. From A.D. 1395-1399 he was Bishop of Verdun, was probably present at the Council of Pisa, and certainly at that of Constance. He died in this latter place in A.D. 1417. His writings are of great value for the history of the schism and of the councils of Pisa and Constance. His language is simple, strong, and faithful.

3. Gregory of Heimburg was present at the Basel Council, in terms of close friendship with Æneas Sylvius, who was then also on the side of reform. He became in A.D. 1433 syndicus at Nuremberg, went to the council at Mantua in A.D. 1459 as envoy of Duke Sigismund of Austria, was banished in A.D. 1460 by his old friend, now Pius II., afterwards led a changeful life, never free from the papal persecutions, and died at Dresden in A.D. 1472. His principal writings on civil and ecclesiastical polity, powerful indictments against the Roman curia inspired by love for his German fatherland, appeared at Frankfort in A.D. 1608 under the title Scripta nervosa justitiæque plena.

4. Jacob of Jüterboyk [Jüterbock], who died in A.D. 1465, was first a Cistercian monk in Poland and teacher of theology at Cracow, then Carthusian at Erfurt, and to the end of his life a zealous defender of the positions of the Council of Basel, at which he was present in A.D. 1441. His writings leave untouched the doctrines of the church, but vigorously denounce the political and moral corruption of the papacy and monasticism, the greedy misuse of the sale of indulgences, and insist upon the subordinating of the pope under general councils, and their right even to depose the pontiff. Whoever contests this latter position teaches that Christ has given over the church to a sinful man, like a bridegroom who surrenders his bride to the unrestrained will of a soldier. All possession of property on the part of those in sacred offices is with him an abomination, and unhesitatingly he calls upon the civil power to put an end to this evil.

5. The Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (§ 113, 6) also for a long time was one of the most zealous friends of reform in the Basel Council.

6. Felix Hemmerlin, canon at Zürich, was to the end of his life an ardent supporter of the reform measures of the Council of Basel, at which he had been present. As he gave effect to his views in his official position, he incurred the hatred and persecution of the inmates of his convent to such an extent, that they laid a plot to murder him in A.D. 1439. His whole life was an almost unbroken series of sufferings and persecutions. These in great part he brought on himself by his zealous support of the reactionary party of the nobles that sided with Austria in opposition to the patriotic revolutionary party that struggled for freedom. Deprived of his revenues and deposed from office, he was imprisoned in A.D. 1454, and died between A.D. 1457-1464 in the prison of the monastery of the Minorites at Lucerne, martyr as much to his political conservatism as to his ecclesiastical reformatory principles. His writings were placed in the Index prohibitorum by the Council of Trent.

7. To this place also belongs the work written in the Swabian dialect, “The Reformation of the Emperor Sigismund,” which demands a thoroughgoing and radical reform of the clergy and the secular priests, insisting upon the renunciation of all personal property on the part of the latter, enforcing against prelates, abbots, monasteries, and monks all the reforms of the Basel Council, and making proposals for their execution in the spirit of the Taborites and Hussites. The author is styled in the MSS. Frederick of Landscron, and describes himself as a councillor of Sigismund. The tract was therefore regarded during the 15th and 16th centuries as a work composed under the direction of the emperor, setting forth the principles of reformation attempted at the Basel or Constance Council. According to Böhm its author was the Taborite Reiser (§ 119, 9), who, under the powerful reforming impulse of the Basel Council of A.D. 1435-1437, composed it in A.D. 1438.

§ 118.6. An Italian Apostate from the Basel Liberal Party.—Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini, born at Siena in A.D. 1405, appeared at Basel, first as secretary of a bishop, then of a cardinal, and finally of the Basel anti-pope Felix V., as a most decided opponent of Eugenius IV., and wrote in A.D. 1439 from this point of view his history of the council. In A.D. 1442 he entered the service of the then neutral Emperor Frederick III., was made Poeta laureatus and imperial councillor, and as such still fought for the independence of the German church. But in A.D. 1445, with all the diplomatic arts which were so abundantly at his disposal, he wrought to secure the subjection of the emperor and German princes under the pope (§ 110, 10). Made bishop of Siena in A.D. 1450, he was raised to the cardinalate by Calixtus III. in A.D. 1456, and two years later ascended the papal throne as Pius II. The lasciviousness of his earlier life is mirrored in his poems, novels, dialogues, dramas, and letters. But as pope, old and weak, he maintained an honourable life, and in a bull of retractation addressed to the University of Cologne exhorted Christendom Æneam rejicite, Pium recipite!

§ 118.7. Reforms in Church Policy in Spain.—Notwithstanding the church feeling awakened by the struggle with the Moors, a vigorous opposition to papal pretensions was shown during the 14th century by the Spanish princes, and after the outbreak of the great schism the anti-pope Clement VII., in A.D. 1381, purchased the obedience of the Spanish church by large concessions in regard to appointment to its bishoprics and the removal of the abuses of papal indulgences. The popes, indeed, sought not unsuccessfully to enlist Spain in their favour against the reformatory tendencies of the councils of the 15th century, until Ferdinand of Aragon [Arragon], A.D. 1479-1516, and Isabella of Castille [Castile], A.D. 1474-1504, who had on account of their zeal for the Catholic cause been entitled by the pontiff himself “their Catholic majesties,” entered so vigorous a protest against papal usurpations, that toward the end of the 15th century the royal supremacy over the Spanish church had won a recognition never accorded to it before. They consistently refused to acknowledge any bishop appointed by the pope, and forced from Sixtus IV. the concession that only Spaniards nominated by the Crown should be eligible for the highest ecclesiastical offices. All papal rescripts were subject to the royal approval, ecclesiastical tribunals were carefully supervised, and appeals from them were allowed to the royal judicatures. The church had also to give ordinary and extraordinary tithes of its goods and revenues for State purposes. The Spanish inquisition (§ 117, 2), thoroughly recognised in A.D. 1483, was more of a civil than an ecclesiastical institution. As the bishops and inquisitors were appointed by the royal edict, the orders of knights (§ 98, 13), by the transference of the grand-mastership to the king, were placed in complete subjection to the Crown; and whether he would or not Alexander VI. was obliged to accord to the royal commission for church and cloister visitation and reform the most absolute authority. But in everything else these rulers were worthy of the name of “Catholics,” for they tolerated in their church only the purely mediæval type of strict orthodoxy. The most distinguished promoter of their reforms in church polity was a Franciscan monk, Francis Ximenes, from A.D. 1492 confessor to Isabella, afterwards raised by her to the archbishopric of Toledo, made a Roman cardinal by Alexander VI., and grand-inquisitor of Spain in A.D. 1507. He died in A.D. 1517.

§ 119. EVANGELICAL EFFORTS AT REFORM.

Alongside of the Parisian reformers, but far in advance of them, stand those of the English and Bohemian churches represented by Wiclif and Huss. The reformation aimed at by these two was essentially of the same kind, Wiclif being the more original, while Huss was largely dependent upon his great English precursor. For in personal endowment, speculative power, rich and varied learning, acuteness and wealth of thought, originality and productivity of intellect, the Englishman was head and shoulders above the Bohemian. On the other hand, Huss was far more a man for the people, and he conducted his contention in a sensible, popular, and practical manner. There were also powerful representatives of the reform movement in the Netherlands during this period, who pointed to Scripture and faith in the crucified Saviour as the only radical cure for the corruptions of the church. While Wiclif and Huss attached themselves to the Augustinian theology, the Dutchmen gave themselves to quiet, calm contemplation and the acquirement of practical religious knowledge. In Italy too a reformer appeared of a strongly evangelical spirit, who did not however show the practical sense of those of the Netherlands.

§ 119.1. Wiclif and the Wiclifites.—In England the kings and the Parliament had for a long time withstood the oppressive yoke of the papal hierarchy. Men too like John of Salisbury, Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, and Thomas Bradwardine had raised their voices against the inner corruption of the church. John Wiclif, a scholar of Bradwardine, was born about A.D. 1320. As fellow of the University of Oxford, he supported in A.D. 1366 the English Crown against the payment of tribute to the papal court then at Avignon, admitted by John Lackland (§ 96, 18), of which payment had now for a long time been refused. This secured him court favour, the title of doctor, and a professorship of theology at Oxford; and in A.D. 1374 he was chosen as member of a commission which was to discuss at Brügge in the Netherlands with the papal envoys the differences that had arisen about the appointing to ecclesiastical offices. After his return he openly spoke and wrote against the papal “antichrist” and his doctrines. Gregory XI. now, in A.D. 1377, condemned nineteen propositions from his writings, but the English court protected him from the strict inquiry and punishment threatened. Meanwhile Wiclif was ever becoming bolder. Under his influence religious societies were formed which sent out travelling preachers of the gospel among the people. By their opponents they were called Lollards (§ 116, 3), a name to which the stigma of heresy was already attached. Wiclif translated for them the Scriptures from the Vulgate into English. The bitterness of his enemies now reached its height. Just then, in A.D. 1381, a rebellion of the oppressed peasants that deluged all England with blood broke out. Its origin has been quite gratuitously assigned to the religious movement. When he had directly repudiated the doctrine of transubstantiation, a synod at London, in A.D. 1382, condemned his writings and his doctrine as heretical, and the university also cast him out. Court and Parliament could only protect his person. He now retired to his rectory at Lutterworth in Leicestershire, where he died on 31st December, 1384.—For five centuries his able writings were left unprinted, to moulder away in the obscurity of libraries. His English works have now been edited by Matthews, London, 1880. Lechler of Leipzig edited Wiclif’s most complete and comprehensive work, the “Trialogus” (Oxford, 1869), in which his whole theological system is developed. Buddensieg of Dresden published the keen antipapal controversial tract, “De Christo et suo adversario Antichristo” (Leipzig, 1880). The Wiclif Society, instituted at the fifth centenary of Wiclif’s death for the purpose of issuing critical editions of his most important works, sent forth as their first performance Buddensieg’s edition of “twenty-six Latin controversial tracts of Wiclif’s from MSS. previously unprinted,” in 2 vols., London, 1883. Among Wiclif’s systematic treatises we are promised editions of the Summa theologiæ, De incarnatione Verbi, De veritate s. Scr., De dominio divino, De ecclesia, De actibus animæ, etc., some by English, some by German editors.—As the principle of all theology and reformation Wiclif consistently affirms the sole authority of Divine revelation in the Holy Scriptures. He has hence been called doctor evangelicus. Anything that cannot be proved from it is a corrupting human invention. Consistently carrying out this principle, he denounced the worship of saints, relics, and images, the use of Latin in public worship, elaborate priestly choir singing, the multiplication of festivals, private masses, extreme unction, and generally all ceremonialism. The Catholic doctrine of indulgence and the sale of indulgences, as well as the ban and the interdict, he pronounced blasphemous; auricular confession he regarded as a forcing of conscience; the power of the keys he explained as conditional, its binding and loosing powerless, except when in accordance with the judgment of Christ. He denied the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, and affirmed, like Berengar, a spiritual communication thereof, which however he makes dependent, not only on the faith of the receiver, but also on the worthiness of the officiating priest. The doctrine of purgatory he completely rejected, and supported Augustine’s predestinationism against the prevalent semipelagianism. The papacy was antichrist; the pope has his power only from the emperor, not from God. The hierarchical system should be replaced by the apostolic presbyterial constitution. Ordination confers no indelible character; a priest who has fallen into mortal sin cannot dispense the sacrament. Every believer is as such a priest. The State is a representation of Christ, as the God-Man ruler of the universe; the clergy represent only the poor and suffering life of His humanity. Monkery is contrary to nature, etc.—Wiclif’s supporters, many of them belonging to the noblest and most cultured orders, were after his death subjected to violent persecution, which reached its height when the House of Lancaster in the person of Henry IV. ascended the English throne in A.D. 1399. An act of parliament was passed in A.D. 1400 which made death by fire the punishment of the heresy of the Lollards. Among the martyrs which this law brought to the stake was the noble Sir John Oldcastle, who in A.D. 1418 was hung up between two beams in iron chains over a fire and there slowly burnt. The Council of Constance in A.D. 1415 condemned forty-five propositions from Wiclif’s writings, and ordered his bones to be exhumed and scattered abroad. Many germs sown by him continued until the Reformation came.[348]

§ 119.2. Precursors of the Hussite Movement.—Owing to its Greek origin (§ 79, 2, 3), the Bohemian church had a certain character of its own and barely tolerated the Roman constitution and ritual. In Bohemia too the Waldensians had numerous supporters during the 13th century. And even before the appearance of Huss three distinguished clergymen in and around Prague by earnest preaching and pastoral work had awakened in many a consciousness of crying abuses in the church.

1. Conrad of Waldhausen was a famous preacher when called by Charles IV. to Prague, where after fifteen years’ labour he died in A.D. 1369. Preaching in German, he inveighed against the cupidity, hypocrisy, and immorality of the clergy and monks, against the frauds connected with the worship of images and relics and shrines, and threw back upon his accusers the charge of heresy in his still extant Apologia.

2. More influential than Conrad as a preacher of repentance in Prague was John Milicz of Cremsier in Moravia, who died in A.D. 1374. Believing the end of the world near and antichrist already come, he went to Rome in A.D. 1367 to place before Urban V. his scheme of apocalyptic interpretation. Escaping with difficulty from the Inquisition, he returned to Prague, and there applied himself with renewed zeal to the preaching of repentance. His preaching led to the conversion of 200 fallen women, for whom he erected an institution which he called Jerusalem. But the begging friars accused him before Gregory XI. as a heretic. Milicz fearlessly went for examination to Avignon in A.D. 1374, where he soon died before judgment had been passed. The most important of his works is De Antichristo.

3. Matthias of Janow, of noble Bohemian descent, died in A.D. 1374, after fourteen years’ work as a preacher and pastor in Prague. His sermons, composed in Bohemian, lashed unsparingly the vices of the clergy and monks, as well as the immorality of the laity, and denounced the worship of images and relics. None of his sermons are extant, but we have various theological treatises of his on the distinguishing of the true faith from the false and the frequent observance of the communion. At a Prague synod of A.D. 1389 he was obliged to retract several of his positions, and especially to grant the propriety of confessing and communicating half-yearly. Janow however, like Conrad and Milicz, did not seriously contest any fundamental point of the doctrine of the church.

§ 119.3. John Huss of Hussinecz in Bohemia, born A.D. 1369, was Bachelor of Theology at Prague, in A.D. 1394, Master of Liberal Arts in A.D. 1396, became public teacher in the university in A.D. 1398, was ordained priest in A.D. 1400, undertook a pastorate in A.D. 1402 in the Bethlehem chapel, where he had to preach in the Bohemian language, was chosen confessor of Queen Sophia in A.D. 1403, and was soon afterwards made synodal preacher by the new archbishop, Sbynko of Hasenburg. Till then he had in pious humility accepted all the doctrines of the Romish Church, and even in A.D. 1392 he offered his last four groschen for an indulgence, so that for a long time dry bread was his only nourishment. But about A.D. 1402 he reached an important crisis in his life through the study of Wiclif’s theological works.—Bohemians who had studied in Oxford brought with them Wiclif’s philosophical works, and in A.D. 1348 the discussion on realism and nominalism broke out in Prague. The Bohemians generally sided with Wiclif for realism; the Germans with the nominalists (§ 113, 3). This helped to prepare an entrance for Wiclif’s theological writings into Bohemia. Of the national party which favoured Wiclif’s philosophy and theology, Huss was soon recognised as a leader. A university decree of A.D. 1403 condemned forty-five propositions from Wiclif’s works as heretical, and forbade their promulgation in lectures or sermons. Huss however was still highly esteemed by Archbishop Sbynko. In A.D. 1405 he appointed Huss, with other three scholars, a commission to investigate a reputed miracle at Wilsnack, where on the altar of a ruined church three blood-red coloured hosts were said to have been found. Huss pronounced the miracle a cheat, and proved in a tract that the blood of Christ glorified can only be invisibly present in the sacrament of the altar. The archbishop approved this tract, and forbade all pilgrimages to the spot. He also took no offence at Huss for uttering Wiclifite doctrine in his synod sermon. Only when, in A.D. 1408, the clergy of his diocese complained that Huss by his preaching made the priests contemptible before the people, did he deprive him of his function as synod preacher. When the majority of cardinals at Leghorn in A.D. 1408 took steps to put an end to the schism, king Wenzel determined to remain neutral, and demanded the assent of the university as well as the clergy of his realm. But only the Bohemian members of the university agreed, while the rest, along with the archbishop, supported Gregory XII. Sbynko keenly resented the revolt of the Bohemians, and forbade Huss as their spokesman to preach within his diocese. Huss paid no attention to the prohibition, but secured a royal injunction, that henceforth in the university Bohemians should have three votes and foreigners only one. The foreigners then withdrew, and founded the University of Leipzig in A.D. 1409. Huss was made first rector of the newly organized University of Prague; but the very fact of his great popularity in Bohemia caused him to be profoundly hated in other lands.[349]

§ 119.4. The archbishop escaped prosecution only by unreservedly condemning the doctrines of Wiclif, burning his books, and prohibiting all lectures upon them. Huss and his friends appealed to John XXIII., but this did not prevent the archbishop burning in his palace yard about two hundred Wiclifite books that had previously escaped his search. For this he was hooted in the streets, and compelled by the courts of law to pay the value of the books destroyed. John XXIII. cited Huss to appear at Rome. King, nobles, magistrates, and university sided with him; but the papal commission condemned him when he did not appear, and the archbishop pronounced anathema against him and the interdict against Prague (A.D. 1411). Huss appealed to the œcumenical council, and continued to preach. The court forced the archbishop to become reconciled with Huss, and to admit his orthodoxy. Sbynko reported to the pope that Bohemia was free from heresy. He soon afterwards died. The pope himself was the cause of a complete breach, by having an indulgence preached in Bohemia in A.D. 1412 for a crusade against Ladislaus of Naples, the powerful adherent of Gregory XII. Huss opposed this by word and writing, and in a public disputation maintained that the pope had no right to grant such indulgence. His most stanch supporter was a Bohemian knight, Jerome of Prague, who had studied at Oxford, and returned in A.D. 1402 an enthusiastic adherent of Wiclif’s doctrines. Their addresses produced an immense impression, and two days later their disorderly followers, to throw contempt on the papal party, had the bull of indulgence paraded through the streets, on the breast of a public prostitute, representing the whore of Babylon, and then cast into the flames. But many old friends now withdrew from Huss and joined his opponents. The papal curia thundered against him and his followers the great excommunication, with its terrible curses. Wherever he resided that place was put under interdict. But Huss appealed to the one righteous Judge, Jesus Christ. At the wish of the king he left the city, and sought the protection of various noble patrons, from whose castles he went forth diligently preaching round about. He spread his views all over the country by controversial and doctrinal treatises in Latin and Bohemian, as well as by an extensive correspondence with his friends and followers. Thus the trouble and turmoil grew from day to day, and all the king’s efforts to restore peace were in vain.

§ 119.5. The Roman emperor Sigismund summoned Huss to attend the Council of Constance (§ 110, 7), and promised him a safe-conduct. Though not yet in possession of this latter, which he only got at Constance, trusting to the righteousness of his cause, for which he was quite willing to die a martyr’s death, he started for Constance on 11th October, A.D. 1414, reaching his destination on 3rd November. On 28th November he was sentenced to imprisonment at a private conference of the cardinals, on the pretended charge of an attempt at flight, first in the Dominican cloister, then in the bishop’s castle of Gottlieben, where he was put in chains, finally in the Franciscan cloister. Sigismund, who had not been forewarned when he was cast into prison, ordered his release; but the council convinced him that Huss, arraigned as a heretic before a general council, was beyond the reach of civil protection. His bitterest enemies and accusers were two Bohemians, Michael of Deutschbrod and Stephan of Palecz. The latter extracted forty-two points for accusations from his writings, which Huss from his prison retracted. D’Ailly and Gerson were both against him. The brave knight John of Chlum stood faithfully by him as a comforter to the last. For almost seven months was he harassed by private examinations, in which, notwithstanding his decided repudiation of many of them, he was charged with all imaginable Wiclifite heresies. The result was the renewed condemnation of those forty-five propositions from Wiclif’s writings, which had been condemned A.D. 1408 by the University of Prague. At last, on 5th June, A.D. 1415, he was for the first time granted a public trial, but the tumult at the sitting was so great that he was prevented from saying a single word. Even on the two following days of the trial he could do little more than make a vain protest against being falsely charged with errors, and declare his willingness to be better instructed from God’s word. The humility and gentleness of his demeanour, as well as the enthusiasm and believing joyfulness which he displayed, won for him many hearts even outside of the council. All possible motives were urged to induce him to submit. Sigismund so exhorted him, with the threat that if he did not he would withdraw his protection. The third and last day of trial was 8th June, A.D. 1415, and judgment was pronounced in the cathedral church on the 6th July. After high mass had been celebrated, a bishop mounted the pulpit and preached on Romans vi. 6. He addressed Sigismund, who was present, “By destroying this heretic, thou shalt obtain an undying name to all ensuing generations.” Once again called upon to recant, Huss repeated his previous protests, appealed to the promise of a safe-conduct, which made Sigismund wince and blush, and kneeling down prayed to God for his enemies and unjust judges. Then seven bishops dressed him in priestly robes in order to strip him of them one after another amid solemn execrations. Then they put on him a high pyramidal hat, painted with figures of devils, and bearing the inscription, Hæresiarcha, and uttered the words, “We give thy soul to the devil.” He replied: “I commend it into the hands of our Saviour Jesus Christ.” On that same day he was given over by Sigismund to Louis Count-palatine of the Rhine, and by him to the Constance magistrates, and led to the stake. Amid prayer and praise he expired, joyfully, courageously, and confidently, showing himself worthy to rank among the martyrs who in the best times of Christianity had sealed their Christian confession with their blood. His ashes were scattered on the Rhine. The later Hussites, in accordance with an old Christian custom (§ 39, 5), celebrated the day of his death as the dies natalis of the holy martyr John Huss.—Jerome of Prague had gone unasked to Constance. When he saw that his longer stay would not help his friend, but only involve himself in his fate, he left the city; but was seized on the way, and taken back in chains in April, A.D. 1415. During a severe half-year’s imprisonment, and wearied with the importunities of his judges, he agreed to recant, and to acquiesce in the sentence of Huss. But he was not trusted, and after as before his recantation he was kept in close confinement. Then his courage revived. He demanded a public trial before the whole council, which was at last granted him in May, A.D. 1416. There he solemnly and formally retracted his previous retractation with a believer’s confidence and a martyr’s joy. On May 30th, A.D. 1416, he, too, died at the stake, joyfully and courageously as Huss had done. The Florentine humanist Poggio, who was present, has given enthusiastic expression in a still extant letter to his admiration at the heroic spirit of the martyr.

§ 119.6. In all his departures from Romish doctrine Huss was dependent upon Wiclif, not only for the matter, but even for the modes of expression. He did not however separate himself quite so far from the Church doctrines as his English master. He firmly maintained the doctrine of transubstantiation; he was also inclined to withhold the cup from the laity; and, though he sought salvation only from the Saviour crucified for us, he did not refuse to give any place to works in the justification of the sinner, and even invocation of the saints he did not wholly condemn. While he energetically protested against the corruption of the clergy, he never denied that the sacrament might be efficaciously administered by an unworthy priest. In everything else however he was in thorough agreement with the English reformer. The most complete exposition of his doctrine is found in the Tractatus de ecclesia of A.D. 1413. Augustine’s doctrine of predestination is its foundation. He distinguishes from the church as a visible human institution the idea of the church as the true body of Christ, embracing all elected in Christ to blessedness from eternity. Its one and only head is Christ: not Peter, not the pope; for this church is no monster with two heads. Originally and according to Christ’s appointment the bishop of Rome was no more than the other bishops. The donation of Constantine first gave him power and dignity over the rest. As the church in the beginning could exist without a pope, so the church unto the end can exist without one. The Christian can obey the pope only where his commands and doctrines agree with those of Christ. In matters of faith Holy Scripture is the only authority. Fathers, councils, and popes may err, and have erred; only the word of God is infallible.—That this liberal reforming Council of Constance, with a Gerson at its head, should have sentenced such a man to death is not to be wondered at when we rightly consider how matters stood. His hateful realism seemed to the nominalistic fathers of the council the source of all conceivable heresies. It had even been maintained that realism consistently carried out would give a fourth person to the Godhead. His devotion to the national interests of Bohemia in the University of Prague had excited German national feeling against him. And, further, the council, which was concerned only with outward reforms, had little sympathy with the evangelical tone of his spirit and doctrine. Besides this, Huss had placed himself between the swords of two contending parties. The hierarchical party wished, in order to strike terror into their opponents, to show by an example that the church had still the power to burn heretics; and the liberal party refused to this object of papal hate all protection, lest they should endanger the cause of reformation by incurring a suspicion of sympathy with heresy.—The prophecy said to have been uttered by Huss in his last moments, “To-day you burn a goose (this being the meaning of Huss in Slavonian), but from its ashes will arise a swan (Luther’s coat of arms), which you will not be able to burn,” was unknown to his contemporaries. Probably it originated in the Reformation age from the appeals of both martyrs to the judgment of God and history. Huss had often declared that instead of the weak goose there would come powerful eagles and falcons.[350]

§ 119.7. Calixtines and Taborites.—During the imprisonment of their leader the Hussite party was headed by Jacob of Misa, pastor of St. Michael’s church in Prague. With consent of Huss he introduced the use of the cup by the laity and rejected the jejunium eucharisticum as opposed to Matthew xxvi. 26. This led to an interchange of controversial tracts between Prague and Constance on the withholding of the cup. The council decreed that whoever disobeys the Church on this point is to be punished as a heretic. This decree, followed by the execution of Huss, roused Bohemia to the uttermost. King Wenceslaw died in A.D. 1419 in the midst of national excitement, and the estates refused to crown his brother Sigismund, “the word-breaker.” Now arose a civil war, A.D. 1420-1436, characterized by cruelties on both sides rarely equalled. At the head of the Hussites, who had built on the brow of a steep hill the strong fortress Tabor, was the one-eyed, afterwards blind, John Ziska of Trocznov. The crusading armies sent against the Hussites were one after another destroyed; but the gentle spirit of Huss had no place among most of his followers. The two parties became more and more embittered toward one another. The aristocratic Calixtines (calix, cup) or Utraquists (sub utraque), at whose head was Bishop Rokycana of Prague, declared that they would be satisfied if the Catholic church would concede to them four articles:

1. Communion under both kinds;

2. Preaching of the pure gospel in the vulgar tongue;

3. Strict discipline among the clergy; and

4. Renunciation by the clergy of church property.

On the other hand, the Taborites would have no reconciliation with the Romish church, regarding as fundamentally corrupt in doctrine and worship whatever is not found in Scripture, and passing over into violent fanaticism, iconoclasm, etc. After Ziska’s death of the plague in A.D. 1424, the majority of the Taborites elected Procopius the Great as his successor. A small party that regarded no man worthy of succeeding the great Ziska, refused him allegiance, and styled themselves Orphans. They were the most fanatical of all.—Meanwhile the Council of Basel had met (§ 110, 8) and after long fruitless negotiations it was resolved in A.D. 1433 that 300 Hussite deputies should appear at Basel. After a fifty days’ disputation the four Calixtine articles with certain modifications were accepted by the council. On the basis of this Basel Compact the Calixtines returned to the Romish church. The Taborites regarded this as shameful treason to the cause of truth, and continued the conflict. But in A.D. 1434 they were utterly annihilated at Böhmischbrod, not far from Prague. In the Treaty of Iglau in A.D. 1436 Sigismund swore to observe the compact, and was recognised as king. But the concessions sworn to by church and state were more and more restricted and ultimately ignored. Sigismund died in A.D. 1437. In place of his son-in-law, Albert II., the Utraquists set up a rival king in the person of the thirteen year old Polish prince Casimir; but Albert died in A.D. 1439. His son, Ladislaus, born after his father’s death, had, in George Podiebrad, a Calixtine tutor. After he had grown up in A.D. 1453, he walked in his grandfather’s footsteps, and died in A.D. 1457. The Calixtines now elected Podiebrad king, as a firm supporter of the compact. Pius II. recognised him in the hope that he would aid him in his projected war against the Turks. When this hope was disappointed he cancelled the compact, in A.D. 1462. Paul II. put the king under him, and had a crusade preached against him. Podiebrad however still held his ground. He died in A.D. 1471. His successor, Wladislaw II., a Polish prince, though a zealous Catholic, was obliged to confirm anew to the Calixtines at the Diet of Cuttenberg, in A.D. 1485, all their rights and liberties. Yet they could not maintain themselves as an independent community. Those of them who did not join the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren gradually during the 16th century became thoroughly amalgamated with the Catholic church.

§ 119.8. The Bohemian and Moravian Brethren.—George Podiebrad took Tabor in A.D. 1453, and scattered the last remnants of the Taborites. Joining with the evangelical Friends of God, they received from the king a castle, where, under the leadership of the local pastor, Michael of Bradacz, they formed a Unitas fratrum, and called themselves Bohemian and Moravian Brethren. But in A.D. 1461 Podiebrad withdrew his favour, and confiscated their goods. They fled into the woods, and met for worship in caves. In A.D. 1467 the most distinguished of the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren met in a Bohemian village, Shota, with the German Waldensians, and chose three brethren by lot as priests, who were ordained by Michael and a Waldensian priest. But when the validity of their ordination was disputed, Michael went to the Waldensian bishop Stephen, got from him episcopal consecration, and then again ordained the three chosen at Shota, one, Matthias of Conewald, as bishop, the other two as priests. This led Rokycana to persecute them all the more bitterly. They increased their numbers however, by receiving the remnants of the Waldensians and many Utraquists, until by the beginning of the 16th century they had four hundred congregations in Bohemia and Moravia. Under Wladislaw II. persecution was stopped from A.D. 1475, but was renewed with great violence in A.D. 1503. They sent in A.D. 1511 a confession of faith to Erasmus (§ 120, 6), with the request that he would give his opinion about it; which he however, fearing to be compromised thereby, declined to do. After the death of Bishop Matthias, in A.D. 1500, a dislike of monarchy led to the appointment of four Seniors instead of one bishop, two for Bohemia and two for Moravia. The most important and influential of these was Luke of Prague, who died in A.D. 1518, rightly regarded as the second founder of the union. He impressed a character upon the brotherhood essentially distinct in respect of constitution and doctrine from the Lutheran Reformation.—Continuation § 139, 19.

§ 119.9. The Waldensians.

1. The range of the missionary enterprise of the Lombard-German Waldensians was widely extended during the 14th century. At the close of that period it stretched “from western Switzerland across the southern borders of the empire, from the upper and middle Rhine along the Main and through Franconia into Thuringia, from Bohemia up to Brandenburg and Pomerania, and with its last advances reached to Prussia, Poland, Silesia, Hungary, Transylvania, and Galicia.” The anonymous writer of Passau, about A.D. 1260 or 1316, reports from his own knowledge of numerous “Leonists,” who in forty-two communities, with a bishop at Einzinspach, in the diocese of Passau, were in his time the subject of inquisitorial interference, and in theory and practice bore all the characteristic marks of the Lombard Leonists. The same applies to the Austrian Waldensians, of whose persecution in A.D. 1391 we have an account by Peter of Pilichdorf. We may also with equal confidence pronounce the Winkelers, so called from holding their services in secret corners, who about this time appeared in Bavaria, Franconia, Swabia, and the Rhine Provinces, to be Waldensians of the same Lombard type. Their confessors, Winkelers in the narrower sense, were itinerant, celibate, and without fixed abode, carrying on missionary work, and administering the sacrament of penance to their adherents. Although, in order to avoid the attentions of the Inquisition, they took part in the Catholic services, and in case of need confessed to Catholic priests, they were nevertheless traced about A.D. 1400 to Strassburg. Thirty-two of them were thrown into prison, and induced under torture to confess. The Dominicans insisted that they should be immediately burned, but the council was satisfied with banishing them from the city. At a later period the Hussites obtained an influence over them. One of their most notable apostles at this time was Fr. Reiser of Swabia. In his travels he went to Bohemia, attached himself to the Hussites there, received from them priestly ordination, and in A.D. 1433 accompanied their representatives to the Basel Council. Then Procopius procured him a call to a pastorate in the little Bohemian town of Landscron, which, however, he soon abandoned. Encouraged by the reformatory tendency of the council, he now remained for a long time in Basel, then conducted missionary work in Germany, at first on his own account, afterwards at the head of a Taborite mission of twelve agents, in which position he styled himself Fridericus Dei gratia Episcopus fidelium in Romana ecclesia Constantini donationem spernentium. At last, in A.D. 1457, he went to Strassburg, with the intention of there ending his days in peace. But soon after his arrival he was apprehended, and in A.D. 1458, along with his faithful follower, Anna Weiler, put to death at the stake.—On the Waldensians in German Switzerland, and the Inquisition’s oft repeated interference with them, Ochsenbein gives a full report, drawn from original documents, specially full in regard to the great Inquisition trial at Freiburg, in A.D. 1430, consisting of ninety-nine wearisome and detailed examinations. Subsequently terrible persecutions, aiming at their extermination, became still more frequent in Switzerland. Also the Swiss Waldensians already bore unmistakable marks of having been influenced by the Hussites. Finally, Wattenbach has made interesting communications regarding the Waldensians in Pomerania and Brandenburg, based upon a manuscript once in the possession of Flacius, but afterwards supposed to have been lost, discovered again in the Wolfenbüttel library in A.D. 1884, though in a very defective form, which contains the original reports of 443 prosecutions for heresy in Pomerania, Brandenburg, and Thuringia. By far the greatest number of these trials were conducted between A.D. 1373 and 1394, by the Cœlestine provincial Peter, appointed inquisitor by the pope. From A.D. 1383 Stettin was the centre of his inquisitorial activity, and on the conclusion of his work he could boast that during the last two years he had converted to the Catholic faith more than 1,000 Waldensians. The victims of the Inquisition belonged almost exclusively to the peasant and artisan classes. Their objectionable doctrines and opinions are essentially almost the same as those of their ancestors of the 13th century. Although equally with their predecessors they abhorred the practice of the Catholic church, and declared all swearing and slaughter to be mortal sin, they yet in great part, and as it seems even without the application of torture, were persuaded to abjure their heresy, and incurred nothing more than a light penance. They did this, perhaps, only in the hope that their indulgent confessors would absolve them from their sin. The last protocols bring us down to A.D. 1458. Since a great number of these heretics were found again in Brandenburg, the elector caused one of their most distinguished leaders, the tailor Matthew Hagen, and three of his disciples to be taken prisoners to Berlin, and commissioned the Bishop of Brandenburg to investigate the case; but owing to his sickness this duty devolved upon John Cannemann, professor and doctor of theology. The elector was himself present at the trial. The investigation showed that the Waldensians of Brandenburg had evidently been influenced in their opinions by the Bohemian Taborites, and that they were constantly in close communion with them, and Hagen confessed that he had been there ordained by Fr. Ryss or Reiser to the clerical office. When Hagen persistently refused to retract, he was delivered over to the civil authorities for punishment, and was by them executed, probably at the stake. His three companions abjured their heresy, and on submitting to church discipline and wearing clothes marked with the sign of the cross, were pardoned. Cannemann then proceeded to Angermünde, where in the city and surrounding country crowds of such heretics resided; and there he succeeded without great difficulty in bringing them to abjure their errors and accept the Catholic confession.—The Waldensians in Bohemia and Moravia quite voluntarily amalgamated with the “United Brethren” there. The remnants of the German and Swiss Waldensians may have attached themselves to the Reformation of the 16th century, but probably for the most part to the Protestant sects of that age, some joining Schwenkfeld, and still more going with the Anabaptists, to whom they were essentially much more closely related than to Luther or Zwingli.—As to the ultimate fate of the Lombard Waldensians themselves, we know nothing. Probably many of them sought escape from the persecutions which raged against them among the French Waldensians in the valleys of Piedmont.

§ 119.9A.

1. The remnants of the French Waldensians and their lay adherents down to the beginning of the 14th century had for the most part settled in the remote and little cultivated valleys on both sides of the Cottian Alps. This settlement, which bore the character of an assembly as well as that of an isolation, now rendered indispensable the organization of an independent congregational order, such as had never been attempted before. In the arrangements of this community, not only was the question of clerical rank simplified by the combination of the order of bishop or majoralis with that of the presbyter, to which combined office was given the honourable designation of “barbe,” uncle, and instead of the hitherto annual tenure of this office was introduced a life tenure, but also to the laity was assigned a share in the church government at their synod meetings. A bull of John XXII., of A.D. 1332, informs us that then in the Piedmontese valleys ita creverunt et multiplicati sunt hæretici, præcipue de secta Waldensium, quod frequenter congregationes per modum capitali facere inibi præsumpserunt, in quibus aliquando 500 Valdenses fuerunt insimul congregati; yet certainly not merely clergy, as among the earlier congregations on the yearly tenure. The great, yea, extraordinarily great, number of the Waldensians in the Piedmontese valleys is proved by this, that from thence, since A.D. 1340, flourishing colonies of Waldensians were transplanted into Calabria and Apulia with the connivance of the larger proprietors in those parts. Those who had settled on the western side, in the province of Dauphiné, succumbed completely in A.D. 1545 to the oft repeated persecutions. The colonies of southern Italy, however, seem long to have led a quiet and little disturbed life under the protection of the territorial princes, until their adoption of Protestant views called down upon them the attention of the Inquisition, and led to their utter extermination in A.D. 1561. On the other hand, the Waldensians of Piedmont, in spite of continuous oppression and frequently renewed persecution, maintained their existence down to the present day. When in the beginning of the 15th century their residence came under the sway of the Duke of Savoy, the persecutions began, and lasted down to A.D. 1477, when a crusade for their extermination was summoned by Innocent VIII., which ended in the utter rout of the crusading army by Savoy and France. They had now a long period of repose, till their adoption of Protestant views in the 16th century anew awakened against them the horrors of persecution. In this time of rest brotherly intercourse was cultivated between the Waldensian groups and the Bohemian Brethren, who had hitherto maintained relations only with the German Waldensians. This movement originated with the Bohemians. Even at an earlier date, these, inspired by the wish to seek abroad what they could not obtain at home, namely, communion with a church free from Romish corruptions, had made a voyage of discovery in the east, which yielded no result. Now, in A.D. 1497, they determined to make another similar search, under the leadership of Luke of Prague, in the primitive haunts of the Waldensians in France and Italy. The deputies went forth, beginning with the south of France, and the remnants of the French communities in their settlements among the Piedmontese Alps. More detailed reports of their intercourse with these no longer exist, but it cannot be doubted that there was a mutual interchange of religious writings. It is a question therefore that has been much discussed as to which party was the chief gainer by this interchange. But it can now be no longer questioned that the Waldensians, as those who were far less advanced in the direction of the evangelical reformation, learnt much from the Bohemians, and by transferring it into their own literature, secured it as their permanent property.

§ 119.10. The Dutch Reformers sprang mostly from the Brothers of the Common Life (§ 112, 9).

1. John Pupper of Goch in Cleves, prior of a cloister founded by him at Mecheln, died A.D. 1475. His works show him to have been a man of deep spirituality. Love, which leads to the true freedom of sons of God, is the material, the sole authority of Scripture is the formal, principle of his theology, which rests on a purely Augustinian foundation. He contends against the doctrine of righteousness by works, the meritoriousness of vows, etc.

2. John Ruchrath of Wesel, professor in Erfurt, afterwards preacher at Mainz and Worms, died in A.D. 1481. On the basis of a strictly Augustinian theology he opposed the papal systems of anathemas and indulgences, and preached powerfully salvation by Jesus Christ only. For the church doctrine of transubstantiation he substituted one of impanation. He spiritualized the doctrine of the church. Against the ecclesiastical injunction of fasts, he wrote De jejunio; against indulgences, De indulgentiis; against the hierarchy, De potestate ecclesiastica. The Dominicans of Mainz accused and condemned him as a heretic in A.D. 1479. The old man, bent down with age and sickness, was forced to recant, and to burn his writings, and was sentenced to imprisonment for life in a monastery.

3. John Wessel of Gröningen was a scholar of the Brothers of the Common Life at Zwoll, where Thomas à Kempis exerted a powerful influence over him. He taught in Cologne, Lyons, Paris, and Heidelberg, and then retired to the cloister of Agnes Mount, near Zwoll, where he died in A.D. 1489. His friends called him Lux mundi. Scholastic dialectics, mystical depths, and rich classical culture were in him united with a clear and accurate knowledge of science. Luther says of him: “Had I read Wessel before, my enemies would have said, Luther has taken everything from Wessel, so thoroughly do our ideas agree.” His views are in harmony with Luther’s, especially in what he teaches of Holy Scripture, the universal priesthood of Christians, indulgence, repentance, faith, and justification. He taught that not only popes but even councils may err and have erred; excommunication has merely outward efficacy, indulgence has to do only with ecclesiastical penalties, and God alone can forgive sins; our justification rests on Christ’s righteousness and God’s free grace. Purgatory meant for him nothing more than the intermediate position between earthly imperfection and heavenly perfection, which is attained only through various stages. The protection of powerful friends saved him from the persecution of the Inquisition. Many of his works were destroyed by the diligence of the mendicant friars. The most important of his extant writings is the Farrago, a collection of short treatises.[351]

4. The priest of Rostock, Nicholas Russ, in the end of the 15th century, deserves honourable mention alongside of these Dutchmen. Living in intimate relations with Bohemian Waldensians, he was subjected to many indignities, and died a fugitive in Livonia. He wrote in the Dutch language a tract against the hierarchy, indulgences, worship of saints and relics, etc., which was translated into German by Flacius. A copy of it was found in Rostock library in A.D. 1850. It is entitled, “Of the Rope or of the Three Strings.” The rope that will raise man from the depths of his corruption must be made up of the three strings, faith, hope, and love. These three strings are described in succession, and so the book forms a complete compendium of Christian faith and life, with a sharp polemic against the debased church doctrine and morals of the age.

§ 119.11. An Italian Reformer.—Jerome Savonarola, born A.D. 1452, monk and from A.D. 1481 prior of the Dominican cloister of San Marco in Florence, was from A.D. 1489 in high repute in that city as an eloquent and passionate preacher of repentance, with even reckless boldness declaiming against the depravity of clergy and laity, princes and people. With his whole soul a Dominican, and as such an enthusiastic admirer of Thomas, practising rigid self-discipline by fasts and flagellations, he was led by the study of Augustine and Scripture to a pure and profound knowledge of the evangelical doctrine of salvation, which he sought, not in the merits and intercession of the saints, nor in the performance of good works, but only in the grace of God and justification through faith in the crucified Saviour of sinners. But with this he combined a prophetic-apocalyptic theory, according to which he thought himself called and fitted by Divine inspiration, like the prophets of the Old Testament, to grapple with the political problems of the age. And, in fact, he made many a hardened sinner tremble by revealing contemplated secret sins, and many of his political prophecies seem to have been fulfilled with surprising accuracy. Thus he prophesied the death of Innocent VIII. in A.D. 1492, and proclaimed the speedy overthrow of the house of the Medici in Florence, as well as the punishment of other Italian tyrants and the thorough reformation of the church by a foreign king crossing the Alps with a powerful army. And lo, in the following year, the king of France, Charles VIII., crossed the Alps to enforce his claims upon Naples and force from the pope recognition of the Basel reforms; the Medici were banished from Florence, and Naples unresistingly fell into the hands of the French. Thus the ascetic monk of San Marco became the man of the people, who now began with ruthless energy to carry out, not only moral and religious reformatory notions, but also his political ideal of a democratic kingdom of God. In vain did Alexander VI. seek by offer of a cardinal’s hat to win over the demagogical prophet and reformer; he only replied, “I desire no other red hat than that coloured by the blood of martyrdom.” In vain did the pope insist that he should appear before him at Rome; in vain did he forbid him the pulpit, from which he so powerfully moved the people. An attempt to restore the Medici also failed. At the carnival in A.D. 1497 Savonarola proved the supremacy of his influence over the people by persuading them, instead of the usual buffoonery, to make a bonfire of the articles of luxury and vanity. But already the political movements were turning out unfavourably, and his utterances were beginning to lose their reputation as true prophecies. Charles VIII. had been compelled to quit Italy in A.D. 1495, and Savonarola’s assurances of his speedy return were still unfulfilled. Popular favour vacillated, while the nobles and the libertine youth were roused to the utmost bitterness against him. The Franciscans, as members of a rival order, were his sworn enemies. The papal ban was pronounced against him in A.D. 1497, and the city was put under the interdict. A monk of his cloister, Fra Domenico Pescia, offered to pass the ordeal of fire in behalf of his master, if any of his opponents would submit to the same trial. A Franciscan declared himself ready to do so, and all arrangements were made. But when Domenico insisted upon taking with him a consecrated host, the trial did not come off, to the great disappointment of a people devotedly fond of shows. A fanatical mob took the prophet prisoner. His bitterest enemies were his judges, who, after torture had extorted from him a confession of false prophecy most repugnant to his inmost convictions, condemned him to death by fire as a deceiver of the people and a heretic. On 23rd May, A.D. 1498, he was, along with Domenico and another monk, hung upon a gallows and then burned. The believing joy with which he endured death deepened the reverence of an ever-increasing band of adherents, who proclaimed him saint and martyr. His portrait in the cell once occupied by him, painted by Fra Bartolomeo, surrounded with the halo of a saint, shows the veneration in which he was held by his generation and by his order. His numerous sermons represent to us his burning oratory. His chief work is his Triumphus crucis of A.D. 1497, an eloquent and thoughtful vindication of Christianity against the half pagan scepticism of the Renaissance, then dominant in Florence and at the court. An exposition of the 51st Psalm, written in prison and not completed, works out, with a clearness and precision never before attained, the doctrine of justification by faith. It was on this account republished by Luther in A.D. 1523.[352]

§ 120. THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING.

The classical literature of Greek, and especially of Roman, antiquity was during the Middle Ages in the West by no means so completely unknown and unstudied as is commonly supposed. Rulers like Charlemagne, Charles the Bald, Alfred the Great, and the German Ottos encouraged its study. Such scholars as Erigena, Gerbert, Barnard Sylvester, John of Salisbury, Roger Bacon, etc., were relatively well acquainted with it. Moorish learning from Spain and intercourse with Byzantine scholars spread classical culture during the 12th and 13th centuries, and the Hohenstaufen rulers were its eager and liberal patrons. In the 14th century the founders of a national Italian literature, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, earnestly cultivated and encouraged classical studies. But an extraordinary revival of interest in such pursuits took place during the 15th century. The meeting of Greeks and Italians at the Council of Florence in A.D. 1439 (§ 67, 6) gave the first impulse, while the Turkish invasion and the downfall of Constantinople in A.D. 1453 gave it the finishing touch. Immense numbers of Byzantine scholars fled to Italy, and were accorded an enthusiastic reception at the Vatican and in the houses of the Medici. With the aid of printing, invented about A.D. 1450, the treasures of classical antiquity were made accessible to all. From the time of this immigration, too, classical studies took an altogether new direction. During the Middle Ages they were made almost exclusively to subserve ecclesiastical and theological ends, but now they were conducted in a thoroughly independent spirit, for the purpose of universal human culture. This “humanism” emancipated itself from the service of the church, assumed toward Christianity for the most part an attitude of lofty indifference, and often lost itself in a vain worship of pagan antiquity. Faith was mocked at as well as superstition; sacred history and Greek mythology were treated alike. The youths of all European countries, thirsting for knowledge, crossed the Alps, to draw from the fresh springs of the Italian academies, and took home with them the new ideas, transplanting into distant lands in a modified form the libertinism of the new paganism that had now over-run Italy.

§ 120.1. Italian Humanists.—Italy was the cradle of humanism, the Greeks who settled there (§ 62, 1, 2), its fathers. The first Greek who appeared as a teacher in Italy was Emmanuel Chrysoloras, in A.D. 1396. After the Council of Florence, Bessarion and Gemisthus Pletho settled there, both ardent adherents of the Platonic philosophy, for which they created an enthusiasm throughout all Italy. From A.D. 1453 Greek littérateurs came in crowds. From their schools classical culture and pagan ideas spread through the land. This paganism penetrated even the highest ranks of the hierarchy. Leo X.[353] is credited with saying, “How many fables about Christ have been used by us and ours through all these centuries is very well known.” It may not be literally authentic, but it accurately expresses the spirit of the papal court. Leo’s private secretary, Cardinal Bembo, gave a mythological version of Christianity in classical Latin. Christ he styled “Minerva sprung from the head of Jupiter,” the Holy Spirit “the breath of the celestial Zephyr,” and repentance was with him a Deos superosque manesque placare. Even during the council of Florence Pletho had expressed the opinion that Christianity would soon develop into a universal religion not far removed from classical paganism; and when Pletho died, Bessarion comforted his sons by saying that the deceased had ascended into the pure heavenly spheres, and had joined the Olympic gods in mystic Bacchus dances. In the halls of the Medici there flourished a new Platonic school, which put Plato’s philosophy above Christianity. Alongside of it arose a new peripatetic school, whose representative, Peter Pompanazzo [Pomponazzo], who died A.D. 1526, openly declared that from the philosophical point of view the immortality of the soul is more than doubtful. The celebrated Florentine statesman and historian Macchiavelli,[354] who died A.D. 1527, taught the princes of Italy in his “Prince,” in direct contradiction to Dante’s idealistic “Monarchia,” a realistic polity which was completely emancipated from Christianity and every system of morality, and presented the monster Cæsar Borgia (§ 110, 12) as a pattern of an energetic prince, consistently labouring for the end he had in view. Looseness of morals went hand in hand with laxity in religion. Obscene poems and pictures circulated among the humanists, and their practice was not behind their theory. Poggio’s lewd facetiæ, as well as Boccadelli’s indecent epigrams, fascinated the cultured Christian world as much by their lascivious contents as by their classical style. From the dialogues of Laurentius Valla on lust and the true good, which were meant to extol the superiority of Christian morals over those of the Epicureans and Stoics, comes the saying that the Greek courtesans were more in favour than the Christian nuns. The highly gifted poet, Pietro Aretino, in his poetical prose writings reached the utmost pitch of obscenity. He was called “the divine Aretino,” and not only Charles V. and Francis I. honoured him with presents and pensions, but also Leo X., Clement VIII., and even Paul III. showed him their esteem and favour. In their published works the Italian humanists generally ignored rather than contested the church and its doctrines and morality. But Laurentius Valla, who died A.D. 1457, ventured in his Adnotationes in N.T. freely to find fault with and correct the Vulgate. He did even more, for he pronounced the Donation of Constantine (§ 87, 4) a forgery, and poured forth bitter invectives against the cupidity of the papacy. He also denied the genuineness of the correspondence of Christ with Abgarus [Abgar] (§ 13, 2), as well as that of the Areopagite writings (§ 47, 11) and questioned if the Apostles’ Creed was the work of the apostles (§ 35, 2). The Inquisition sought to get hold of him, but Nicholas V. (§ 110, 10) frustrated the attempt and showed him kindness. With all his classical culture, however, Valla retained no small reverence for Christianity. In a still higher degree is this true of John Picus, Prince of Mirandola, the phœnix of that age, celebrated as a miracle of learning and culture, who united in himself all the nobler strivings of the present and the past. When a youth of twenty-one he nailed up at Rome nine hundred theses from all departments of knowledge. The proposed disputation did not then come off, because many of those theses gave rise to charges of heresy, from which he was cleared only by Alexander VI. in A.D. 1493. The combination of all sciences and the reconciliation of all systems of philosophy among themselves and with revelation on the basis of the Cabbala was the main point in his endeavours. He has wrought out this idea in his Heptaplus, in which, by means of a sevenfold sense of Scripture, he succeeds in deducing all the wisdom of the world from the first chapter of Genesis. He died in A.D. 1494, in the thirty-first year of his age. In the last year of his life, renouncing the world and its glory, he set himself with all his powers to the study of Scripture, and meant to go from land to land preaching the Cross of Christ. His intentions were frustrated by death. His saying is a very characteristic one: Philosophia veritatem quærit, theologia invenit, religio possidet.

§ 120.2. German Humanism.—The home of German humanism was the University of Erfurt, founded A.D. 1392. At the Councils of Constance and Basel Erfurt, next to Paris, manifested the greatest zeal for the reformation of head and members, and continued to pursue this course during the twenty years’ activity of John of Wesel (§ 119, 10). About A.D. 1460 the first representatives of humanism made their appearance there, a German Luder and a Florentine Publicius. From their school went forth among others Rudolph of Langen, who carried the new light into the schools of Westphalia, and John of Dalberg, afterwards Bishop of Worms. When these two had left Erfurt, Maternus Pistorius headed the humanist movement. Crowds of enthusiastic scholars from all parts of Germany gathered around him. As men of poetic tastes, who appreciated the ancient classics, they maintained excellent relations with the representatives of scholasticism. But in A.D. 1504 Busch, a violent revolutionist, appearing at Erfurt, demanded the destruction of the old scholastic text-books, and thus produced an absolute breach between the two tendencies. Maternus retired, and Mutian, an old Erfurt student, assumed the leadership in Gotha. Erfurt and Gotha were kept associated by a lively intercourse between the students resident at these two places. Mutian had no literary ambitions, and firmly declined a call to the new University of Wittenberg. All the more powerfully he inspired his contemporaries. His bitter opposition to hierarchism and scholasticism was expressed in keen satires. On retiring from public life, he devoted himself to the study of Holy Scripture and the Fathers. Shortly before his death he wrote down this as his confession of faith: Multa scit rusticus, quæ philosophus ignorat; Christus vero pro nobis mortuus est, qui est vita nostra, quod certissime credo. The leadership passed over to Eoban Hesse. The members of the society joined the party of Luther, with the exception of Crotus Rubianus. Ulrich von Hutten was one of the followers of Mutian, a knight of a noble Franconian family, inspired with ardent patriotism and love of freedom, who gave his whole life to battle against pedantry, monkery, and intolerance. Escaping in A.D. 1504 from Fulda, where he was being trained for the priesthood, he studied at Erfurt, fought in Maximilian’s army with the sword, in Mutian’s and Reuchlin’s ranks with the pen, and after the fall of Sickingen became a homeless wanderer, until he died in want, in A.D. 1523, on Ufenan, an island in the Lake of Zürich.[355]

§ 120.3. Next to Erfurt, Heidelberg, founded in A.D. 1386, afforded a congenial home for humanist studies. The most brilliant representative of humanism there was Rudolph Agricola, an admirer and disciple of À. Kempis and Wessel. His fame rests more on the reports of those who knew him personally than on any writings left behind by him. His pupils mostly joined the Reformation.—The University of Wittenberg, founded by Frederick the Wise in A.D. 1502, was the nursery of a wise and moderate humanism. Humanist studies also found an entrance into Freiburg, founded in A.D. 1455, into Tübingen, founded in A.D. 1477, where for a long time Reuchlin taught, and into Ingolstadt, founded in A.D. 1472, where the Duke of Bavaria spared no efforts to attract the most distinguished humanists. Conrad Celtes, a pupil of Agricola, taught at Ingolstadt until his removal to Vienna in A.D. 1497. Eck and Rhegius, too, were among its ablest alumni. As a bitter opponent of Luther, Eck gave the university a most pronounced anti-reformation character; whereas Rhegius preached the gospel in Augsburg, and spent his life in the service of the Reformation. Reuchlin also taught for a time in Ingolstadt, and the patriotism and reformatory tendencies of Aventinus the Bavarian historian received there the first powerful impulse. At Nuremberg the humanists found a welcome in the home of the learned, wealthy, and noble Councillor Pirkheimer. In Reuchlin’s controversy with the scholars of Cologne he showed himself an eager apologist, and headed the party of Reuchlin. He greeted Luther’s appearance with enthusiasm, and entertained the reformer at his own house on his return from the discussion with Cajetan (§ 122, 3), on account of which Eck made the papal bull against Luther tell also against him. What he regarded as Luther’s violence, however, soon estranged him, while the cloister life of his three sisters and three daughters presented to him a picture of Catholicism in its noblest and purest form. His eldest sister, Christas, abbess of the Clara convent at Nuremburg [Nuremberg], one of the noblest and most cultured women of the 16th century, had a powerful influence over him. He died in A.D. 1530.

§ 120.4. John Reuchlin, born in A.D. 1455 at Pforzheim, went to the celebrated school at Schlettstadt in Alsace, studied at Freiburg, Paris, Basel, and Orleans, taught law in Tübingen, and travelled repeatedly in Italy with Eberhard the Bearded of Württemberg. After Eberhard’s death he went to the court of the Elector-palatine Philip, and along with D’Alberg [Dalberg] did much for the reputation of the University of Heidelberg. Afterwards he was for eleven years president of the Swabian court of justiciary at Tübingen. When in A.D. 1513 the seat of this court was removed to Augsburg he retired to Stuttgart, was called in A.D. 1519 by William of Bavaria to Ingolstadt as professor of Greek and Hebrew. On the outbreak of the plague at Ingolstadt in A.D. 1520, he accepted a call back to Tübingen, where he died in A.D. 1522. He never gave in his adhesion to the reforming ideas of Luther. He left unanswered a letter from the reformer in A.D. 1518. But as a promoter of every scientific endeavour, especially in connection with the study of the original text of the O.T., Reuchlin had won imperishable renown. He was well entitled to conclude his Rudimenta linguæ Hebraicæ of A.D. 1506 with Horace’s words, Stat monumentum aëre perennino, for that book has been the basis of all Christian Hebrew philology.[356] He also discussed the difficult subject of Hebrew accents in a special treatise, De Acc. et Orthogr. Hebr. 11. iii, and the secret doctrines of the Jews in his De arte Cabbalistica. He offered to instruct any Jew who wished it in the doctrines of Christianity, and also to care for his temporal affairs. His attention to rabbinical studies involved him in a controversy which spread his fame over all Europe. A baptized Jew, Pfefferkorn, in Cologne in A.D. 1507 exhibited a neophyte’s zeal by writing bitter invectives against the Jews, and in A.D. 1509 called upon the Emperor Maximilian to have all rabbinical writings burnt because of the blasphemies against Christ which they contained. The emperor asked the opinion of the universities of Mainz, Cologne, Erfurt, and Heidelberg, as well as of Reuchlin and the Cologne inquisitor Hoogstraten. Erfurt and Heidelberg gave a qualified, Reuchlin an unqualified answer in opposition to the proposal. The openly abusive Jewish writings, e.g. the notorious Toledoth Jeschu, he would indeed condemn, but all other books, e.g. the Talmud, the Cabbala, the biblical glosses and commentaries, books of sermons, prayers, and sacred songs, as well as all philosophical, scientific, poetic, and satirical writings of the Jews, he was prepared unconditionally to defend. Pfefferkorn contended against him passionately in his “Handspiegel” of A.D. 1511, to which Reuchlin replied in his “Augenspiegel.” The theological faculty of Cologne, mostly Dominicans, pronounced forty-three statements in the “Augenspiegel” heretical, and demanded its suppression. Reuchlin now gave free vent to his passion, and in his Defensio c. calumniatores suos Colonienses denounced his opponents as goats, swine, and children of the devil. Hoogstraten had him cited before a heresy tribunal. Reuchlin did not appear, but appealed to Pope Leo X. (A.D. 1513). A commission appointed by Leo met at Spires in A.D. 1514, and declared him not guilty of heresy, found Hoogstraten liable in the costs of the process, which was enforced with hearty satisfaction by Franz von Sickingen in A.D. 1519. But meanwhile Hoogstraten had made a personal explanation of his affairs at Rome, and had won over the influential magister sacri palatii, Sylvester Prierias (§ 122, 2), who got the pope in A.D. 1520 to annul the judgment and to condemn Reuchlin to pay the costs and observe eternal silence. The men of Cologne triumphed, but in the public opinion of Germany Reuchlin was regarded as the true victor.

§ 120.5. A multitude of vigorous and powerful pens were now in motion on behalf of Reuchlin. In the autumn of A.D. 1515 appeared the first book of the Epistolæ obscurorum virorum, which pretended to be the correspondence of a friend with the Cologne teacher Ortuinus Gratius of Deventer. In the most delicious monkish Latin the secret affairs of the mendicant monks and their hatred of Reuchlin were set forth, so that even the Dominicans, according to Erasmus, for a time regarded the correspondence as genuine. All the more overwhelming was the ridicule which fell upon them throughout all Europe. The mendicants indeed obtained from Leo a bull against the writers of the book, but this only increased its circulation. The authors remained unknown; but there is no doubt they belonged to the Mutian party. Justus Jonas, a member of that guild, affirms that Crotus Rubianus had a principal hand in its composition. The idea of it was probably suggested by Mutian himself. Ulrich von Hutten repudiated any share in it, and on internal and external grounds this is more than probable. Busch, Urban, Petrejus, and Eoban Hesse most likely contributed to it. In order to keep up the deception, Venice was given as the place of publication, the name of the famous Aldus Manutius, the papal publisher of Venice, was put upon the title, and a pseudo-papal imprimatur was attached. The second book was issued in A.D. 1517 by Frobenius in Basel. The monkish party published as a counterblast Lamentationes obscurorum virorum at Cologne in A.D. 1518, but the lame and forced wit of the book marked it at once as a ridiculous failure. The monks and schoolmen were once and for ever morally annihilated.[357]

§ 120.6. Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam was the most brilliant of all the humanists, not only of Germany, but also of all Europe. Born in A.D. 1465, he was educated by the Brothers of the Common Life at Deventer and Herzogenbusch, and afterwards forced by his relatives to enter a monastery in A.D. 1486. In A.D. 1491 he was relieved from the monastic restraints by the Bishop of Cambray, and sent to finish his studies at Paris. He visited England in A.D. 1497, in the company of young Englishmen to whom he had been tutor. There the humanist theologian Colet of Oxford exerted over him a wholesome influence that told upon his whole future life. After spending a year and a half in England, he passed the next six years, sometimes in France, sometimes in the Netherlands; was in Italy from A.D. 1507 till A.D. 1510; then again for five years in England, for most of that time teaching Greek at Cambridge; then other six years in the Netherlands; and at last, in A.D. 1521, he settled with his publisher Frobenius in Basel, where he enjoyed intercourse with the greatest scholars of the day, and maintained an extensive correspondence. He refused every offer of official appointment, even the rank of cardinal, but in reality held undisputed sway as king in the world of letters. He did much for the advancement of classical studies, and in various ways promoted the Protestant Reformation. The faults of the scholastic method in the study of theology he unsparingly exposed, while the misdeeds of the clergy and the ignorance and sloth of the monks afforded materials for his merciless satires. The heathenish spirit of many of the humanists, as well as the turbulent and revolutionary procedure of Ulrich von Hutten, was quite distasteful to him; but his Pelagianising tendencies also prevented him from appreciating the true character of the gospel. He desired a reformation of the Church, but he had not the reformer’s depth of religious emotion, world-conquering faith, self-denying love, and heroic preparation for martyrdom. He was much too fond of a genial literary life, and his perception of the corruption of the church was much too superficial, so that he sought reformation rather by human culture than by the Divine power of the gospel. When the Reformation conquered at Basel in A.D. 1529, Erasmus withdrew to Freiburg. He returned to Basel in A.D. 1536 for conference with Frobenius, and died there under suspicion of heresy without the sacraments of the church. His friends the monks at an earlier period, on the occasion of a false report of his death, had said in their barbarous Latin that he died “sine lux, sine crux, sine Deus.” The most important of his works are his critical and exegetical treatises on the N.T. The first edition of his Greek N.T., with Latin translation, short notes, and three introductory sections, was published in A.D. 1516. In the second edition of A.D. 1519, one of these introductory sections, Ratio veræ theologiæ, appeared in a greatly extended form; and from A.D. 1522 it was issued separately, and passed through several editions. Scarcely less important were his paraphrases of all the biblical books except the Apocalypse, begun in A.D. 1517. He did much service too by his editions of the Fathers. On his polemic with Luther see § 125, 3. His Ecclesiastes s. concionator evangelicus of A.D. 1535 is a treatise on homiletics admirable of its kind. In his “Praise of Folly” (Ἐγκώμιον μωρίας, s. Laus stultitiæ) of A.D. 1511, dedicated to his friend Sir Thomas More, he overwhelms with ridicule the schoolmen, as well as the monks and the clergy; and in his “Colloquies” of A.D. 1518, by which he hoped to make boys latiniores et meliores, he let no opportunity pass of reproaching the monks, the clergy, and the forms of worship which he regarded as superstitious. Also his Adagia of A.D. 1500 had afforded him abundant scope for the same sort of thing. A piety of the purest and noblest type, derived from the schools of the Brothers of the Common Life, and from intercourse with Colet, breathes through his Enchiridion militis christiani of A.D. 1502.[358]—Continuation § 123, 3.

§ 120.7. Humanism in England.—In England we meet with two men in the end of the 15th century, closely related to Erasmus, of supreme influence as humanists in urging the claims of reform within the Catholic church. John Colet in A.D. 1496 returned to England after a long sojourn in Italy, where he had obtained, not only humanistic culture, but also, through contact with Savonarola and Mirandola, a powerful religious impulse. He then began, at Oxford, his lectures on the Pauline epistles, in which he abandoned the scholastic method and returned to the study of Scripture and the Fathers. There, in A.D. 1498, he attached himself closely to Erasmus and to young Thomas More, who was studying in that place. In A.D. 1505 Colet was made doctor and Dean of St. Paul’s, in which position he expounded with great success whole biblical books and large portions of others in his sermons. After his father’s death in A.D. 1510, he applied his great wealth to the founding of a grammar school at St. Paul’s for the instruction of more than 150 boys in classical, biblical, and patristic literature. A convocation of English bishops in A.D. 1512, to devise means for rooting out heresy (§ 119, 1), gave him the opportunity in his opening sermon to speak plainly to the assembled bishops. He told them that reform of their own order was the best way to protect the church against the incursion of heretics. This aroused the bitter wrath of the old, bigoted Bishop Fitzjames of London, who disliked him exceedingly on account of his reforming tendencies and his pastoral and educational activity. But the archbishop, Warham of Canterbury, repelled the bishop’s fanatical charge of heresy as well as King Henry’s suspicions in regard to the political sympathies of the simple, pious man. Colet died in A.D. 1519.—Thomas More, born in A.D. 1480, was recommended to the king by Cardinal Wolsey, and rose from step to step until in A.D. 1529 he succeeded his patron as Lord Chancellor of England. In bonds of closest intimacy with Colet and Erasmus, More also shared in their desires for reform, but applied himself, in accordance with his civil and official position, more to the social and political than to the ecclesiastical aspects of the question. His most comprehensive contribution is found in his famous satire, “Utopia,” of A.D. 1516, in which he sets forth his views as to the natural and rational organization of all social and political relations of life in contrast to the corrupt institutions of existing states. The religious side of this utopian paradise is pure deism, public worship being restricted to the use of what is common to all religions, and peculiarities of particular religions are relegated to special or private services. We cannot however from this draw any conclusion as to his own religious beliefs. More continued to the end a zealous Catholic and a strict ascetic, and was a man of a singularly noble and steadfast character. In the controversy between the king and Luther (§ 125, 3) he supported the king, and as chancellor he wrote, in direct contradiction to the principles of religious toleration commended in his “Utopia,” with venomous bitterness against the adherents of the anti-Catholic reformation. But he decidedly refused to acquiesce in the king’s divorce; and when Henry quarrelled with the pope in A.D. 1532 and began to carry out reforms in a Cæsaro-papistic manner (§ 139, 4), he resigned his offices, firmly refused to acknowledge the royal supremacy over the English church, and, after a long and severe imprisonment, was beheaded in A.D. 1535.[359]

§ 120.8. Humanism in France and Spain.—In France humanist studies were kept for a time in the background by the world-wide reputation of the University of Paris and its Sorbonne. But a change took place when the young king Francis I., A.D. 1515-1547, became the patron and promoter of humanism. One of its most famous representatives was Budæus [Buddæus], royal librarian, who aided in founding a college for the cultivation of science free from the shackles of scholasticism, and exposed the corruptions of the papacy and the clergy. But much as he sympathized with the spirit of the Reformation, he shrank from any open breach with the Catholic church. He died in A.D. 1540. His like-minded contemporary, Faber Stapulensis, as a teacher of classical literature at Paris gathered crowds of pupils around him, and from A.D. 1507 applied himself almost exclusively to biblical exegetical studies. He criticised and corrected the corrupt text of the Vulgate, commented on the Greek text of the gospels and apostolic epistles, and on account of this, as well as by reason of a critical dissertation on Mary Magdalene of A.D. 1521, was condemned by the Sorbonne. Francis I. and his sister Margaret of Orleans protected him from further persecution. Also his former pupil, William Briçonnet, Bishop of Meaux, who was eagerly endeavouring to restore morality and piety among his clergy, appointed him his vicar-general, and gave him an opportunity to bring out his French translation of the New Testament from the Vulgate in A.D. 1523, which was followed by a translation of the Old Testament and a French commentary on the pericopes of the Sundays and festivals. As Faber here represented the Scriptures as the only rule of faith for all Christians, and taught that man is justified not by his works, but only by faith in the grace of God in Christ, the Sorbonne charged him with the Lutheran heresy, and Parliament, during the king’s imprisonment in Spain (§ 126, 5) in A.D. 1525, appointed a commission to search out and suppress heresy in the diocese of Meaux. Faber’s books were condemned to the flames, but he himself, threatened with the stake, escaped by flight to Strassburg. After his return the king provided for him a safe retreat at Blois, where he wrought at his translation of the Old Testament, which he completed in A.D. 1528. He spent his last years at Nérac, the residence of his patroness Margaret, now Queen of Navarre, where he died in A.D. 1536 in his 86th year. Though at heart estranged from the Catholic church, he never formally forsook it.—In Spain Cardinal Ximenes (§ 118, 7) acted as the Mæcenas of humanist studies. The most distinguished Spanish humanist was Anton of Lebrija, professor at Salamanca, a fellow labourer with Ximenes on the Complutensian Polyglott, and protected by him from the Inquisition, which would have called him to account for his criticism of the Vulgate. He died in A.D. 1522.

§ 120.9. Humanism and the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century.—Humanists, in common with the reformers, inveighed against the debased scholasticism as well as against the superstition of the age. They did so however on very different grounds, and conducted their warfare by very different methods. While the reformers employed the word of God, and strove after the salvation of the soul, the humanists employed wit and sarcasm, and sought after the temporal well-being of men. Hence the reaction of the despised scholasticism and the contemned monasticism against humanism was often in the right. A reformation of the church by humanism alone would have been a return to naked paganism. But, on the other hand, classical studies afforded men who desired a genuine reformation of the church a rich, linguistic, philosophical, and scientific culture, without which, as applied to researches in church history, the exposition of Scripture, and the revision of doctrine, the reforms of the sixteenth century could hardly have been carried out in a comprehensive and satisfactory manner. The most permanent advantage won for the church and theology by the revival of learning was the removal of Holy Scripture from under the bushel, and giving it again its rightful place as the lamp of the church. It pointed back from the Vulgate, of which since A.D. 1500, some ninety-eight printed editions had appeared, to the original text, condemned the allegorical method of exposition, awakened an appreciation of the grammatical and historical system of interpretation, afforded scientific apparatus by its philological studies, and by issuing printed Bibles secured the spread of the original text. From the time of the invention of printing the Jews were active in printing the Old Testament. From A.D. 1502 a number of Christian scholars, under the presidency of Ximenes, wrought at Alcala at the great Complutensian Polyglott, published in A.D. 1520. It contained the Hebrew and Greek texts, the Targums, the LXX., and the Vulgate, as well as a Latin translation of the LXX. and of the Targums, with a much-needed grammatical and lexical apparatus. Daniel Bomberg of Antwerp published at Venice various editions of the Old Testament, some with, some without, rabbinical commentaries. His assistants were Felix Pratensis, a learned Jew; and Jacob ben Chaijim, a rabbi of Tunis. As the costly Complutensian Polyglott was available only to a few, Erasmus did great service by his handy edition of the Greek New Testament, notwithstanding its serious critical deficiencies. Erasmus himself brought out five successive editions, but very soon more than thirty impressions were exhausted.

THIRD DIVISION.

History of the Development of the Church under Modern European Forms of Civilization.

§ 121. CHARACTER AND DISTRIBUTION OF MODERN CHURCH HISTORY.

In the Reformation of the sixteenth century the intelligence of Germany, which had hitherto been under the training and tutelage of the Romish church, reached maturity by the application of the formal and material principles of Protestantism,—the sole normative authority of Scripture, and justification by faith alone without works of merit. It emancipated itself from its schoolmaster, who, for selfish ends, had made and still continued to make strenuous efforts to check every movement towards independence, every endeavour after ecclesiastical, theological, and scientific freedom, every struggle after evangelical reform. Yet this emancipation was not completely effected in all the purely German nationalities, much less among those Romanic and Slavonic peoples which had bowed their necks to the papal hierarchy. The Romish church of the Reformation not only adhered to the form and content of its former unevangelical constitution, but also still further developed and formally elaborated its creed in the same unevangelical direction, and the result was a split in the western church into an Evangelical Protestant and a Roman Catholic church. Then again the principles of the Reformation were set forth in different ways, and Protestantism branched off into two divisions, the Lutheran and the Reformed. Besides these three new western churches and the one old eastern church, which all rested upon the common œcumenical basis of the old Catholic church, a variety of sects sprang out of them. Through these greater and lesser divisions, modern church history, where, with some advantages and some disadvantages, one church is pitted against another, possesses a character entirely different from the church history of earlier times.

Modern church history naturally falls into four divisions. The distinguishing characteristic of each is found partly in the opposition of particular churches to one another, partly in the antagonism of faith and unbelief. The transition from one to another corresponds generally with the boundaries of the centuries. The sixteenth century forms the Reformation period, in which the new Protestantism, parted from the old Roman Catholicism, cast off the deformatory elements which had attached themselves to it, and developed for itself a system of doctrine, worship, and constitution; while the Roman Catholic church, from the middle of the century, set to work upon a counter-Reformation, by which it succeeded in large measure in reconquering the field that had been lost. The seventeenth century was characterized on the Protestant side as the age of orthodoxy, in which confessionalism obtained undivided supremacy, deteriorating however in doctrine and life into a frigid formalism, which called forth the movement of Pietism as a corrective; but, on the Roman Catholic side, it was characterized as a period of continued successful restoration. In the eighteenth century begins the struggle against the dominant church and the prevailing conceptions of Christianity in the forms of deism, naturalism, and rationalism within both the Protestant and Catholic churches. The fourth division embraces the nineteenth century. The newly awakened faith strives vigorously with rationalism, and then, on the Protestant side, splits into unionism and confessionalism; while, on the Roman Catholic side, it makes its fullest development in a zealous ultramontanism. But rationalism again renews its youth under the cloak of science, and alongside of it appears a more undisguised unbelief in the distinctly antichristian forms of pantheism, materialism, and communism, which seeks to annihilate everything Christian in church and state, in science and faith, in social and political life.

FIRST SECTION.

CHURCH HISTORY OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

I. The Reformation.[360]

§ 122. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE WITTENBERG REFORMATION.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century everything seemed to combine in favour of those reforming endeavours which had been held back during the Middle Ages. There was a lively perception of the corruptions of the church, a deep and universal yearning after reformation, the scientific apparatus necessary for its accomplishment, a pope, Leo X., careless and indolent; a trafficker in indulgences, Tetzel, stupidly bold and shameless; a noble, pious, and able prince, Frederick the Wise (§ 123, 9), to act as protector of the new creed; an emperor, Charles V. (§ 123, 5), powerful and hostile enough to kindle the purifying fire of tribulation, but too much occupied with political entanglements to be able to indulge in reckless and violent oppression. There were also thousands of other persons, circumstances, and relations helping, strengthening, and furthering the work. And now, at the right hour, in the fittest place, and with the most suitable surroundings, a religious genius, in the person of Luther, appeared as the reformer, with the rarest combination of qualities of head and heart, character and will, to engage upon that great work for which Providence had so marvellously qualified him. This mighty undertaking was begun by ninety-five simple theses, which he nailed to the door of the church of Wittenberg, and the Leipzig Disputation marked the first important crisis in its history.

§ 122.1. Luther’s Years of Preparation.—Martin Luther, a miner’s son, was born on November 10th, A.D. 1483. His childhood was passed under severe parental control and amid pinching poverty, and he went to school at Mansfeld, whither his parents had migrated; then at Magdeburg, where, among the Brothers of the Common Life, he had mainly to secure his own support as a singing boy upon the streets; and afterwards at Eisenach, where Madame Ursula Cotta, moved by his beautiful voice and earnest entreaty, took him into her house. In A.D. 1501 he entered on the study of jurisprudence at Erfurt (§ 120, 2), took the degree of bachelor in A.D. 1502, and that of master in A.D. 1505. During a fearful thunderstorm, which overtook him as he travelled home, he was driven by terror to vow that he would become a monk, impressed as he was by the sudden death of an unnamed friend which had taken place shortly before. On the 17th July, A.D. 1505, he entered the Augustinian convent at Erfurt. In deep concern about his soul’s salvation, he sought by monkish asceticism, fasting, prayer, and penances to satisfy his conscience, but the inward struggles only grew stronger. An old monk proclaimed to the weary inquirer, almost fainting under the anxiety of spirit and self-imposed tortures, the comforting declaration of the creed, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins.” Still more powerful in directing him proved the conversation of his noble superior, John Staupitz (§ 112, 6). He showed him the way of true repentance and faith in the Saviour crucified not for painted sins. Following his advice, Luther diligently studied the Bible, together with, of his own accord, Augustine’s writings. In A.D. 1507 he was ordained priest, and in A.D. 1508 Staupitz promoted him to the University of Wittenberg, founded in A.D. 1502, where he lectured on the “Dialectics” and “Physics” of Aristotle; and in A.D. 1509 he was made Baccalaureus biblicus. In the autumn of the same year he went again, probably by Staupitz’ advice, to Erfurt, until, a year and a half afterwards, he obtained a definite settlement at Wittenberg. Highly important for his subsequent development was the journey which, in A.D. 1511, he took to Rome in the interests of his order. On the first view of the holy city, he sank upon his knees, and with his hands raised to heaven cried out, “I greet thee, holy Rome.” But he withdrew utterly disgusted with the godless frivolity and immorality which he witnessed among the clergy on every side, and dissatisfied with the externalism of the penitential exercises which he had undertaken. During his whole journey the Scripture sounded in his ear, “The just shall live by his faith.” It was a voice of God in his soul, which at last carried the blessed peace of God into his wounded spirit. After his return, in A.D. 1512, Staupitz gave him no rest until he took the degree of doctor of divinity; and now he gave lectures in the university on Holy Scripture, and afterwards preached in the city church of Wittenberg. He applied himself more and more, by the help of Augustine, to the study of Scripture and its fundamental doctrine of justification by faith alone. About this time too he was powerfully influenced by Tauler’s mysticism and the “Deutsche Theologie,” of which he published an edition in A.D. 1516.

§ 122.2. Luther’s Theses of A.D. 1517.—The æsthetic and luxurious pope Leo X. (§ 110, 14), avowedly for the building of St. Peter’s, really to fill his own empty coffers, had proclaimed a general indulgence. Germany was divided between three indulgence commissions. The elector-cardinal Albert of Mainz, archbishop of Magdeburg, and brother of Elector Joachim of Brandenburg, undertook the direction of the commission for his archiepiscopal province, for which he was to receive half the proceeds for the payment of his debts. The most shameless of the traffickers in indulgences employed by him was the Leipzig Dominican prior, John Tetzel. This man had been sentenced at Innsbrück to be drowned for adultery, but on the intercession of the Elector of Saxony had his sentence commuted to imprisonment for life. He now was taken from his prison in order to do this piece of work for Albert. With great success he went from place to place, and offered his wares for sale, proclaiming their virtues in the public market with unparalleled audacity. He went to Jüterbock, in the vicinity of Wittenberg, where he attracted crowds of purchasers from all around. Luther discovered in the confessional the corrupting influence of such procedure, and on the afternoon of All Saints’ Day, October 31st, A.D. 1517, he nailed on the door of the Castle Church of Wittenberg ninety-five theses, explaining the meaning of the indulgence. Although they were directed not so much against the principle of indulgences as against their misunderstanding and abuse, they comprehended the real germ of the Reformation movement, negatively in the conception of repentance which they set forth, and positively in the distinct declaration that the grace of God in Christ can alone avail for the forgiveness of sin. With incredible rapidity the theses spread over all Germany, indeed over all Europe. Luther accompanied them with a sermon on indulgence and grace. The immense applause which its delivery called forth led the supporters of the old views to gird on their armour. Tetzel publicly burnt the theses at Jüterbock, and with the help of Wimpina posted up and circulated at Frankfort and other places counter-theses. The Wittenberg students purchased quantities of these theses, and in retaliation burnt them, but Luther did not approve their conduct. In April, A.D. 1518, Luther went to Heidelberg, to take part there in a regular chapter of the Augustinians, which was usually accompanied by public preaching and disputations by members of the order. The disputation, which on this occasion was assigned to Luther, gave him the welcome opportunity of making known to wider circles these philosophical and theological views which he had hitherto uttered only in Wittenberg. The professors of the University of Heidelberg repudiated and opposed them, but in almost every case mildly and with tolerance. On the other hand, many of the young theologians studying there enthusiastically accepted his doctrines, and several of them, e.g. Martin Bucer of Strassburg (§ 125, 1), John Brenz and Erhard Schnepf of Swabia (§ 133, 3), as well as Theobald Billicanus, afterwards reformer of Nördlingen, etc., there and then consecrated themselves to their life work.

§ 122.3. Prierias, Cajetan, and Miltitz, A.D. 1518, 1519.—Leo X. at first regarded the matter as an insignificant monkish squabble, and praised Brother Martin as a real genius. He gave no heed to Hoogstraten’s outcry of heresy, nor did he encourage the Dominican Prierias in his attack on Luther. The book of Prierias was a harmless affair. Luther gave it a short and crushing reply. Prierias answered in a second and third tract, which Luther simply republished with sarcastic and overwhelming prefaces. The pope then enjoined silence upon his luckless steward. In May, A.D. 1518, Luther wrote a humble epistle to the pope, and added a series of Resolutiones in vindication of his theses. Staupitz is said to have revised both. Meanwhile it had been determined in Rome to deal with the Wittenberg business in earnest. The papal procurator made a complaint against Luther. A court was commissioned, which summoned him to appear in person at Rome to answer for himself. But, on the representations of the University of Wittenberg and the Elector Frederick the Wise, the pope charged Cardinal Cajetan, his legate at the Diet of Augsburg, to take up the consideration of the matter. Luther appeared, and made his appeal to the Bible. The legate however wished him to argue from the schoolmen, demanded an unconditional recantation, and at last haughtily dismissed “the beast with deep eyes and wonderful speculations in his head.” Luther made a formal appeal a sanctissimo Domino Leone male informato ad melius informandum, and quitted Augsburg in good spirits. The cardinal now sought to rouse Frederick against the refractory monk, but Luther’s buoyant and humble confidence won the noble elector’s heart. Cajetan continued a vigorous opponent of the reformed doctrine. But Luther’s superiority in Scripture knowledge had so impressed the cardinal, that he now applied himself closely to the study of the Bible in the original tongues; and thus, while firmly attached to the Romish system, he was led on many points, e.g. on Scripture and tradition, divorce, injunctions about meats, the use of the vernacular in public worship, the objectionableness of the allegorical interpretation, etc., to adopt more liberal views, so that he was denounced by some Roman Catholic controversialists as guilty of various heresies.—Luther had no reason in any case to look for any good from Rome. Hence he prepared beforehand an appeal for an œcumenical council, which the publisher, against Luther’s will, at once spread abroad. In Rome the cardinal’s pride was wounded by the failure of his undertaking. A papal bull defined the doctrine of indulgences, in order more exactly to guard against misrepresentations, and an accomplished courtier, the papal chamberlain, Carl von Miltitz, a Saxon, was sent to Saxony, in A.D. 1519, as papal nuncio, to convey to the elector the consecrated golden rose, and to secure a happy conclusion to the controversy. The envoy began by addressing a sharp admonition to Tetzel, and met Luther with hypocritical graciousness. Luther acknowledged that he had acted rashly, wrote a humble, submissive letter to the pope, and published “An Instruction on some Articles ascribed to him by his Traducers.” But after all the retractations which he made at the diet he still firmly maintained justification by faith, without merit of works. He promised the nuncio to abstain from all further polemic, on condition that his opponents also should be silent. But silent these would not be.

§ 122.4. The Leipzig Disputation, A.D. 1519.—John Eck of Ingolstadt had engaged in controversy with a zealous supporter and colleague of Luther, Andrew Bodenstein of Carlstadt, professor and preacher at Wittenberg, and Luther himself took part in the discussion between the two. This disputation came off at Leipzig, and lasted from June 27th to July 16th. But Eck’s vanity led him not only to seek the greatest possible fame from his present disputation, but also to drag in Luther by challenging his theses. Eck disputed for eight days with Carlstadt about grace and free will, and with abundant eloquence, boldness, and learning vindicated Romish semi-Pelagianism. Then he disputed for fourteen days with Luther about the primacy of the pope, about repentance, indulgences, and purgatory, and pressed him hard about the Hussite heresy. But Luther sturdily opposed him on the grounds of Scripture, and confirmed himself in the conviction that even œcumenical councils might err, and that not all Hussite doctrines are heretical. Both parties claimed the victory. Luther continued the discussion in various controversial treatises, and Eck, too, was not silent. New combatants also, for and against, from all sides appeared upon the scene. The liberal humanists (§ 120, 2) had at first taken little notice of Luther’s contention. But the Leipzig Disputation led them to change their attitude. Luther seemed to them now a new Reuchlin, Eck another specimen of Ortuinus Gratius. A biting satire of Pirkheimer (§ 120, 3), “Der abgehobelte Eck,” appeared in the beginning of A.D. 1520, exceeding in Aristophanic wit any of the epistles of the Obscurantists. It was followed by several satires by Ulrich von Hutten, who received new inspiration from Luther’s appearance at Leipzig. Hutten and Sickingen, with their whole party, undertook to protect Luther with body and soul, with sword and pen. This was a covenant of some advantage to the Reformation in its early years; but had it not been again abrogated, it might have diverted the movement into an altogether wrong direction. From this time forth Duke George of Saxony, at whose castle and in whose presence the disputation had been conducted, became the irreconcilable enemy of Luther and his Reformation.

§ 122.5. Philip Melanchthon.—At the Leipzig Disputation there also appeared a man fated to become of supreme importance in the carrying out of the Reformation. Born on February 16th, A.D. 1497, at Bretten in the Palatinate, Philip Melanchthon entered the University of Heidelberg in his thirteenth year, and at the age of sixteen published a Greek grammar. He took the degree of master at seventeen, and at twenty-one, in A.D. 1518, on the recommendation of his grand-uncle Reuchlin, he was made Professor of Greek in Wittenberg. His fame soon spread over all Europe, and attracted to him thousands of hearers from all parts. Luther and Erasmus vied with one another in lauding his talents, his fine culture and learning, and his contemporaries have given him the honourable title of Præceptor Germaniæ. He was an Erasmus of nobler form and higher power, a thorough contrast to Luther. His whole being breathed modesty, mildness, and grace. With childlike simplicity he received the recognised truths of the gospel. He bowed humbly before the powerful, practical spirit of Luther, who also, on his part, acknowledged with profound thankfulness the priceless treasure God had sent to him and to his work in this fellow labourer. Melanchthon wrote to his friend Œcolampadius at Basel an account of the Leipzig Disputation, which by chance fell into Eck’s hands. This occasioned a literary controversy, in which Eck’s vain over-estimation of himself appears in very striking contrast to the noble modesty of Melanchthon. He took part in the Reformation first in February, A.D. 1521, by a pseudonymous apology for Luther.[361]

§ 122.6. George Spalatin.—In consequence of his influential position at the court of the elector, which he obtained on Mutian’s (§ 120, 2) recommendation, after completing his philosophical, legal, and theological studies at Erfurt, George Burkhardt, born in A.D. 1484 at Spalt, in the diocese of Eichstadt, and hence called Spalatinus, played an important part in the German Reformation. Frederick the Wise, who had, in A.D. 1509, entrusted him with the education of his nephew John Frederick, appointed him, in A.D. 1514, his court chaplain, librarian, and private secretary, in which capacity he accompanied the elector to all the diets, and was almost exclusively the channel for communicating to him tidings about Luther. John the Constant, in A.D. 1525, made him superintendent of Altenburg, and took him with him to the diets of Spires, in A.D. 1526, 1529, and of Augsburg in A.D. 1530. John Frederick the Magnanimous, his former pupil, employed him in A.D. 1537 on important negotiations at the conference of the princes at Schmalkald [Schmalcald] (§ 134, 1). From A.D. 1527 Spalatin was specially busy with the visitation and organization of the Saxon church (§ 127, 1), conducted, in the interests of the Reformation, an extensive correspondence, and composed several works on the history of his times and the history of the Reformation.

§ 123. LUTHER’S PERIOD OF CONFLICT, A.D. 1520, 1521.

The Leipzig Disputation had carried Luther to a more advanced standpoint. He came to see that he could not remain standing half way, that the carrying out of the Reformation principle, justification by faith, was incompatible with the hierarchical system of the papacy and its dogmatic foundation. But amid all the violence and subjective one-sidedness which he showed at the beginning of this period of conflict, he had sufficient control of himself to make clear the spiritual character of his reforming endeavours, and firmly to reject the carnal weapons which Ulrich von Hutten and his revolutionary companions wished him to take up, thankful as he was for their warm sympathy. His standpoint as a reformer is shown in the writings which he published during this period. The Romish bull of excommunication provoked him to strong words and extreme measures, and with heroic boldness he entered Worms to present to the emperor and diet an account of his doings. The papal ban was followed by the imperial decree of outlawry. But the Wartburg exile saved him from the hands of his enemies and—of his friends.

§ 123.1. Luther’s Three Chief Reformation Writings, A.D. 1520.—In the powerful treatise, “To His Imperial Majesty and the Christian Nobility of the German Nation on the Improvement of the Christian Condition,” which appeared in the beginning of August, A.D. 1520, Luther bombards first of all the three walls behind which the Romanists entrenched themselves, the superiority of the spiritual to the civil power, the sole right of the pope to interpret Scripture and to summon œcumenical councils. Then he commends to the laity, as consecrated by baptism to a spiritual priesthood, especially civil rulers ordained of God, the task of carrying out the reformation which God’s word requires, but the pope and clergy hinder; and then finally he makes a powerful appeal for carrying out this work in a practical way. He exposes the false pretensions of the papal curia, demands renunciation of annats and papal confirmation of newly elected bishops, complete abandonment of the interdict and the abuse of excommunication, the prohibition of pilgrimages and the begging of the monks, a limitation of holy days, reform of the universities, permission to the clergy to marry, reunion with the Bohemian Picards (§ 119, 8), etc.—The second work, “On the Babylonish Captivity of the Church,” is a dogmatic treatise, and is directed mainly against the misuse of the sacraments and the reckoning of them as seven, which have been made in the hands of the pope an instrument of tyranny over the church. Only three are recognised as founded on Scripture: baptism, penance, and the Lord’s Supper, with the remark that, strictly speaking, even penance, as wanting an outward sign, cannot be styled a sacrament. The doctrine of transubstantiation, the withholding of the cup from the laity, and the idea of a sacrifice in the mass are decidedly rejected. The third treatise, “On the Freedom of a Christian Man,” enters the ethical domain. It represents the life of the Christian, rooted in justifying faith, as complete oneness with Christ. His relation therefore to the world around is set forth in two propositions: A Christian man is a free lord over all things, and subject to no one; and a Christian man is a ministering servant of all things, and subject to every one. On the one hand, he has the perfect freedom of a king and priest set over all outward things; but, on the other hand, he yields complete submission in love to his neighbour, which, as consideration of the weak, his very freedom demands.[362]

§ 123.2. The Papal Bull of Excommunication, A.D. 1520.—In order to reap the fruits of his pretended victory at Leipzig, Eck had gone to Rome, and was sent back triumphant as papal nuncio with the bull Exsurge Domini of June 16th. It charged Luther with forty-one heresies, recommended the burning of his works, and threatened to put him and his followers, if they did not retract in sixty days, under the ban. Miltitz renewed his attempts at conciliation, which, however, led to no result, although Luther, to show at least his good will, attended the conference, and, as a basis for a mutual understanding, published his treatise, “On the Freedom of a Christian Man,” in Oct., A.D. 1520. He accompanied this with a letter to the pope, in which he treated him with personal respect, as a sheep among wolves and as a Daniel sitting among lions; but there was in it no word of repentance or of any desire to retract. It could easily have been foreseen that these two documents would prove thoroughly distasteful to the Romish court. Meanwhile Eck had issued the bull. Luther published a scathing polemic against it, and renewed his appeal, made two years before, to an œcumenical council. In Saxony Eck gained only scorn and reproach with his bull; but in Lyons, Mainz, Cologne, etc., Luther’s works were actually burnt. It was then that Luther took the boldest step in his whole career. With a numerous retinue of doctors and students, whom he had invited by a notice posted up on the blackboard, on the 10th Dec., A.D. 1520, at the Elster gate of Wittenberg, he cast into the blazing pile the bull and the papal decretals with the words, “Because thou hast troubled the saints of the Lord, let eternal fire consume thee.” It was the utter renunciation of the pope and his church, and with it he cut away every possibility of a return.

§ 123.3. Erasmus, A.D. 1520.—Erasmus (§ 120, 6) had been hitherto on good terms with Luther. They entertained for one another a genuine regard. Diverse as their positive tendencies were, they were at one in contending against scholasticism and monkery. Erasmus was not sorry to see such heavy blows dealt to the detested monks, and constantly refused to write against Luther; he had also, he confessed, no wish to learn from his own experience the sharpness of Luther’s teeth. When the papal bull appeared, without hesitation he disapproved it, and indeed refused to believe in its genuineness. He, as the oracle of his age, was applied to by many for his opinion of the matter. His judgment was that not the papal decision in itself but its style and form should be disapproved. He desired a tribunal of learned, pious men and three princes (the emperor and the kings of England and Hungary), to whose verdict Luther would have to submit. When Frederick the Wise consulted him, he expressed the opinion that Luther had made two mistakes, in touching the crown of the pope and the belly of the monks; he regretted in Luther’s proceedings a want of moderation and discretion. Not without profit did the elector hear the oracle thus discourse.—Continuation § 125, 3.

§ 123.4. Luther’s Controversy with Emser, A.D. 1519-1521.—Emser, secretary and orator in the service of Duke George, after the Leipzig Disputation, which he had attended, sought by letter-writing to alienate the Bohemians (§ 139, 19) from Luther, representing him as having there spoken bitterly against them. This roused Luther to make a passionate reply. After several pamphlets of a violent character had been issued by both combatants, Emser issued his charge in a full and comprehensive treatise, to which Luther replied in his work, “The Answer of Martin Luther to the Unchristian, Ultra-ecclesiastical, and Over-ingenious Book of Emser at Leipzig.” They had also a sharp passage at arms with one another, in A.D. 1524, over the canonization of Bishop Benno of Meissen, in which Emser, by his duke’s order, took a zealous part (§ 129, 1). But all the later writings in this controversy Luther left unanswered. Emser, with great bitterness, assailed Luther’s translation of the Bible, in which he professed to have found 1,400 heretical falsifications and more than 1,000 lexical blunders. Luther was candid enough to acknowledge that several of his animadversions were not unfounded. On Emser’s own translation, which appeared shortly before his death in A.D. 1527, see § 149, 14.

§ 123.5. The Emperor Charles V.—The Emperor Maximilian had died on 12th Jan., A.D. 1519. The Elector of Saxony, as administrator of the empire, managed to determine the election, which took place on 28th June, A.D. 1519, against the French candidate, Francis I., who was supported by the pope, in favour of the young king of Spain, Charles I., grandson of Maximilian. Detained at home by Spanish affairs, it was 23rd Oct., A.D. 1520, before he was crowned at Aachen. All hopes were now directed toward the young emperor. It was expected that he would put himself at the head of the religious and national movement in Germany. But Charles, uninspired by German sentiment, and even ignorant of the German language, had other interests, which he was not inclined to subordinate to German politics. The German crown was with him only an integral part of his power. Its interests must accommodate themselves to the common interests of the whole dominions, upon which the sun never set. The German movement he regarded as one, indeed, of high importance, but he regarded it not so much from its religious as from its political side. It afforded him the means for keeping the pope in check and obliging him to sue for his favour. Two things required he of the pope as the price of suppressing the German movement: renunciation of the French alliance, and repeal of the papal brief by which a transformation had been recommended of the Spanish Inquisition, the main buttress of absolute monarchy in Spain. The pope granted both demands, and the hopes of the Germans in their new emperor, that he would finally free their nation from the galling yoke of Rome, were thus utterly blasted.

§ 123.6. The Diet at Worms, A.D. 1521.—Immediately after the arrival of the bull the emperor gave it the full force of law in the Netherlands, where he was then staying. He did not at once venture to make the same proclamation for Germany, specially from regard to Frederick the Wise, Luther’s own prince, who insisted that he should not be condemned unheard. Personal negotiations between Frederick and the emperor and his councillors at Cologne, in November, A.D. 1520, ended with a demand that the elector should bring Luther to the diet, summoned to meet at Worms, on 28th January, A.D. 1521; but at the desire of Aleander, the papal nuncio, who energetically protested against the proposal that civil judges should treat of matters of faith with an already condemned heretic, the emperor, in December, withdrew this summons. In the beginning of February there came a papal brief, in which he was urgently entreated to give effect to the bull throughout Germany. Aleander even sketched an imperial mandate for its execution, but was not able to prevent the emperor from laying it before his councillors for their opinion and approval. This was done in the middle of February. And now there arose a quite unexpected storm of opposition. The councillors demanded that Luther should be brought under an imperial safe conduct to Worms, there to answer for himself. His attacks on Romish abuses they would not and could not regard as crimes, for they themselves, with Duke George at their head, had presented to the pope a complaint containing 101 counts. On the other hand, they declared that if Luther would not retract his doctrinal vagaries, they would be prepared to carry out the edict. They persisted in this attitude when another scheme was proposed to them, which insisted on the burning of Luther’s writings. In the beginning of March a third proposal was made, which asked only for the temporary sequestration of his works. And to this they agreed. The emperor, though against his own will, submitted to their demand, and cited the reformer of Wittenberg to answer for himself at Worms. On 6th March he signed a summons, accompanied with a safe conduct, both intended, as Aleander said in writing to Rome, rather to frighten him from coming than with any desire for his presence. But the result was not as they desired. The courier appointed to deliver this citation was not sent, but instead of him, on the 12th, an imperial herald, who delivered to Luther a respectful invitation beginning with the address, “Noble, dear, and worshipful sir.” This herald was to bring him honourably and safely to Worms, and to conduct him back again in safety. All this was done behind the back of Aleander, who first came to know about it on the 15th, and certainly was not wrong in attributing the emperor’s change of mind to a suspicion of French political intrigues, in which Leo X., notwithstanding his negotiations for an alliance with the emperor, was understood to have had a share. Two weeks later, however, such suspicions were seen to be unfounded. Too late the sending of the herald was regretted, and an effort was made to conciliate the nuncio by the publication of the sequestrating mandate, which had been hitherto suppressed.

§ 123.7. Luther was meanwhile not idle at Wittenberg, while waiting with heroic calm the issue of the Worms negotiations. He preached twice daily, delivered lectures at the university, taught and exhorted by books, letters, and conversations, fought with his opponents, especially Emser, etc. While Luther was engaged with these multifarious tasks the imperial herald arrived. He now set everything aside, and on 2nd April boldly and confidently obeyed the summons. The fears of his Wittenberg friends and the counsels to turn back which reached him on his way were rejected with a heroic consciousness that he was in the path of duty. He had written on 14th March to Spalatin, Intrabimus Wormatiam invitis omnibus portis inferni et potentatibus aëris; and again from Oppenheim he wrote him, that he would go to Worms even if there were as many devils there as tiles upon the roofs. Still another attempt was made upon him at Oppenheim. The emperor’s confessor, Glapio, a Franciscan, who was by no means a blind worshipper of the Roman curia, thought it possible that a good understanding might be reached. He was of opinion that if Luther would only withdraw the worst of his books, especially that on the Babylonish Captivity, and acknowledge the decisions of the Council of Constance, all might be agreeably settled. With this in his mind he applied to the Elector of Saxony, and when he received no encouragement there, to Franz von Sickingen, who invited Luther, on his arrival at Ebernburg, near Worms, to an interview with Glapio; but Luther declined the invitation.—His journey all through was like a triumphal march. On 16th April, amid a great concourse of people, he entered Worms, along with his friends Justus Jonas and Nic. Amsdorf, as well as his legal adviser Jerome Schurf. He was called to appear on the following day. He admitted that the books spread out before him were his, and when called on to retract desired one day’s adjournment. On the 18th the trial proper began. Luther distinguished three classes of his writings, systematic treatises, controversial tracts against the papacy and papal doctrine, and controversial tracts against private individuals, and did not know that he had said anything in them that he could retract. He was asked to give a direct answer. He then gave one “without horns or teeth,” saying that he could and would retract nothing unless proved false from Scripture, or on other good and clear grounds, and concluded with the words, “Here stand I; I can no otherwise! God help me, Amen.” Among the German knights and princes he had won many hearts, but had made no favourable impression on the emperor, who, when Luther denounced the absolute authority of councils, stopped proceedings and dismissed the heretical monk. On the following day, without consulting the opinion of the councillors, he passed sentence of unconditional condemnation. But the councillors would not have the matter settled in this fashion, and the emperor was obliged, on 24th April, to reopen negotiations before a select commission, under the presidency of the Archbishop of Treves. Of no avail was a private conference of the archbishop and Luther on the 25th, in which the prelate accompanied his exhortation to retract with the promise of a rich priorate in his neighbourhood under his own and the emperor’s protection and favour. Luther supported his refusal by confident reference to the words of Gamaliel, Acts v. 38. On 26th April he left Worms unhindered; for the emperor had decidedly refused to yield to the vile proposal that the safe conduct of a heretic should be violated.—In consequence of Luther’s persistent refusal to retract anything, the majority of the diet pronounced themselves ready to agree to the emperor’s judgment against him. The latter now assigned to Aleander the drawing up of a new mandate, which should in the severest terms proclaim the ban of the empire against Luther and all his friends. After it had been approved in an imperial cabinet council, and was ready for printing in its final form in Latin and German, with the date 8th May, it was laid before the emperor for signature, which, however, he put off doing from day to day, and finally, in spite of all the nuncio’s remonstrances, he decided that it must be produced before the diet. When it appeared that this must be done, the two nuncios were all impatient to have it passed soon. But it was only on the 25th May, after the close of the diet, and after several princes, especially the Electors of Saxony and the Palatinate, had gone, that Charles let them present the edict, to which all present agreed. On the 26th May, after Divine service in church, he solemnly signed the Latin and German forms, which were published with blast of trumpets on the following day, and on Wednesday the sequestrated books of Luther were burnt.—Undoubtedly political motives occasioned this long delay in signing the documents. Perhaps he suspected the pope of some new act of political treachery; probably also he wished to postpone the publication of the edict until the imperial councillors had promised to contribute to his proposed journey to Rome, and perhaps until the nobles dissenting from the proceedings against Luther had departed.

§ 123.8. The Wartburg Exile, A.D. 1521, 1522.—Some days after Luther had dismissed the imperial herald, his carriage was stopped in a wood near Eisenach by two disguised knights with some retainers. He was himself carried off with show of violence, and brought to the Wartburg, where he was to remain in knight’s dress under the name of Junker Georg without himself knowing anything more of the matter. It was indeed a contrivance of the wise elector, though probably he took no active share in the matter, so that he could declare at Worms that he knew nothing of the Saxon monk. The most contradictory reports were spread. Sometimes the Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg (§ 122, 2) was thought of as the perpetrator of the act, sometimes Franz von Sickingen (§ 124, 2), sometimes a Franconian nobleman who was on intimate terms with Frederick. And as the news rapidly spread that Luther’s body, pierced with a sword, had been found in an old silver mine, the tumult in Worms became so great that Aleander had good cause to fear for his life.—From the Wartburg Luther maintained a lively correspondence with his friends, and even to the general public he proved, by edifying and stirring tracts, that he still lived, and was not inclined to be silenced or repressed. He completed the exposition of the Magnificat, wrought upon the Latin exposition of the Psalms, issued the first series of his “Church Postils,” wrote an “Instruction to Penitents,” a book “On Confession, whether the Pope have the Power to Enjoin it,” another “Against the Abuses of the Mass,” also “On Priestly and Monkish Vows,” etc. When Cardinal Albert, in September, A.D. 1521, proclaimed a pilgrimage with unlimited indulgence to the relic shrine at Halle (§ 115, 9), Luther wrote a scathing tract, “Against the New Idol at Halle.” And when Spalatin assured him that the elector would not suffer its being issued, he declined to withhold it, but sent him the little book, with imperative orders to give it over to Melanchthon for publication. While Spalatin still delayed its issue, Luther left his castle, pushed his way toward Wittenberg through the very heart of Duke George’s territories, and suddenly appeared among his friends in the dress of a knight, with long beard and hair. When he heard that the mere report of what he was proposing to do had led those in Halle to stop the traffic in indulgences, he decided not to proceed with the publication, but instead he addressed a letter to Albert, in which the archbishop had to read many a strong word about “the knavery of indulgences,” “the Pharaoh-like hardened condition of ecclesiastical tyrants,” etc. The prelate sent a most humble, apologetic, and gracious reply to the bold reformer. Luther then returned to his protective exile, as he had left it, unmolested. But the longer it continued the more insupportable did this electoral guardianship become. He would rather “burn on glowing coals than spend thus a half idle life.” But it was just this enforced exile that saved Luther and the Reformation from utter overthrow. Apart from the dangers of the ban of the empire, which would have perhaps obliged him to throw himself into the arms of Hutten and his companions, and thus have turned the Reformation into a revolution this confinement in the Wartburg was in various ways a blessing to Luther and his work. It was of importance that men should learn to distinguish between Luther’s work and Luther’s person, and of yet greater importance was the discipline of this exile upon Luther himself. He was in danger of being drawn out of the path of positive reformation into that of violent revolutionism. The leisure of the Wartburg gave him time for calm reflection on himself and his work, and the extravagances of the Wittenberg fanatics and the wild excuses of the prophets of Zwickau (§ 124, 1) could be estimated with a freedom from prejudice that would have been impossible to one living and moving in the midst of them. Besides, he had not reached that maturity of theological knowledge needed for the conduct of his great undertaking, and was in many ways fettered by a one-sided subjectivism. In his seclusion he could turn from merely destructive criticism to construction, and by undisturbed study of Scripture became able to enlarge, purify, and confirm his religious knowledge. But most important of all was the plan which he formed in the Wartburg, and so far as the New Testament is concerned carried out there, of translating the whole of the Scriptures.[363]

§ 123.9. The Attitude of Frederick the Wise to the Reformation.—Frederick the Wise, A.D. 1486-1525, has usually been styled “the Promoter of the Reformation.” Kolde, however, has sought to represent him as favouring Luther because of his interest in the University of Wittenberg founded by him, the success of which was largely owing to Luther, and because of his patriotic desire to have German questions settled at home rather than in Rome. This author supposes that after the Diet of Worms Frederick took no particular interest in the Reformation, beyond watching to see how things would turn out. To all this Köstlin has replied that Frederick’s whole attitude during the Diet of Worms betrayed a warm and hearty interest in evangelical truth; that his correspondence with Tucher of Nuremberg, A.D. 1518-1523, supports this view; that in one of these letters he addresses his correspondent with evident satisfaction as a good Lutheran; that in another he incloses a copy of Luther’s Assertio omnium articulorum; that at a later period he forwards him a copy of Luther’s New Testament, and expresses the hope that he will gain spiritual blessing from its perusal. He himself found it his greatest comfort in the hour of death, partook of the communion in both kinds after the reformed manner, which takes away all ground for the suspicion that he yielded only to the importunities of his brother John and his chaplain Spalatin. And even though Frederick, as late as A.D. 1522, continued to increase the rich collection of relics which he had previously made for his castle church, this only proves that not all at once but only bit by bit he was able to break away from his earlier religious tendencies and predilections.

§ 124. DETERIORATION AND PURIFICATION OF THE WITTENBERG REFORMATION, A.D. 1522-1525.

During Luther’s absence, the Reformation at Wittenberg advanced only too rapidly, and at last ran out into the wildest extravagances. But Luther hastened thither, regulated the movement, and guided it back into wise evangelical ways. This fanaticism arose in Wittenberg, but soon spread into other parts. The Reformation was at the same time threatened with danger from another quarter. The religious movement came into contact with the struggle of the German knights against the princes and that of the German peasants against the nobles, and was in danger of being identified with these revolutionary proceedings and sharing their fate. But Luther stood firm as a wall against all temptations, and thus these dangers were avoided.

§ 124.1. The Wittenberg Fanaticism, A.D. 1521, 1522.—In A.D. 1521 an Augustinian, Gabriel Didymus or Zwilling, preached a violent tirade against vows and private masses. In consequence of this sermon, thirteen of the brethren of his order at once withdrew. Two priests in the neighbourhood married. Carlstadt wrote against celibacy and followed their example. At the Wittenberg convent, secessions from the order were allowed at pleasure, and mendicancy, as well as the sacrifice of the mass, was abolished. But matters did not stop there. Didymus, and still more Carlstadt, spread a fanatical spirit among the people and the students, who were encouraged in the wildest acts of violence. The public services were disturbed in order to stop the idolatry of the mass, images were thrown out of the churches, altars were torn down, and a desire evinced to put an end to theological science as well as to clerical orders. A fanatical spirit began now also to spread at Zwickau. At the head of this movement stood the tailor Nicolas Storch and a literate Marcus Stübner, who boasted of Divine revelations; while Thomas Münzer, with fervid eloquence, proclaimed the new gospel from the pulpit. Restrained by energetic measures taken against them, the Zwickau prophets wandered abroad. Münzer went to Bohemia, Storch and Stübner to Wittenberg. There they told of their revelations and inveighed against infant baptism as a work of Satan. The excitement in Wittenberg became greater day by day. The enemies of the Reformation rejoiced; Melanchthon could give no counsel, and the elector was confounded. Then could Luther no longer contain himself. Against the elector’s express command he left the Wartburg on 3rd March, A.D. 1522, wrote him a noble letter, availed himself of his knight’s incognito on the way, and appeared publicly at Wittenberg. For a week he preached daily against fanaticism, and got complete control of the wild revolutionary elements. The prophets of Zwickau left Wittenberg. Carlstadt remained, but for a couple of years held his peace. Luther and Melanchthon now laboured to secure a positive basis for the Reformation. Melanchthon had already made a beginning in A.D. 1521 by the publication of his Loci communes rerum theologicarum. Luther now, in A.D. 1522, against the decided wish of his friend, published his Annotationes in epist. t. Pauli ad Rom. et Cor. In Sept. of the same year appeared Luther’s translation of the N.T. Besides these he also issued several treatises in defence of the Reformation.

§ 124.2. Franz von Sickingen, A.D. 1522, 1523.—A private feud led Franz von Sickingen to attack the Elector and Archbishop of Treves in A.D. 1522, but soon other interests were involved, and he was joined by the whole party of the knights. Sickingen’s opponent was a prelate and a pronounced enemy of the Reformation, and he was also a prince and a peer of the empire. In both characters he was opposed by Sickingen, who called for support in the name of religion and freedom. The knights, discontented with the imperial government and bureaucracy, with princes and prelates, crowded to his standard. Sickingen would also have gladly secured the monk of Wittenberg as an ally, but Luther was not to be won. Sickingen’s enterprise failed. The Elector of the Palatinate and the young Landgrave of Hesse hasted to the help of their beleaguered neighbours. The knights were overthrown one after another; Sickingen died of mortal wounds in May, A.D. 1523, immediately after the taking of the shattered Ebernburg. The power of the knights was utterly broken. The Reformation thus lost indeed brave and noble protectors, but it was itself saved.

§ 124.3. Andrew Bodenstein of Carlstadt, A.D. 1524, 1525.—Even after the suppression of the Wittenberg fanaticism, Carlstadt continued to entertain his revolutionary views, and it was only with difficulty that he restrained himself for a few years. In A.D. 1524 he left Wittenberg and went to Orlamünde. With bitter invectives against Luther’s popism, he there resumed his iconoclasm, and brought forward his doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, in which the real presence of the body and blood of Christ was absolutely denied (§ 131, 1). In order to prevent disturbance, Luther, by the order of the elector, went to Jena, and there in Carlstadt’s presence preached most emphatically against image breakers and sacramentarians. This roused Carlstadt’s indignation. When Luther visited Orlamünde, he was received with stone throwing and curses. Carlstadt was now banished from his territories by the elector. He then went to Strassburg, where he sought to win over the two evangelical pastors, Bucer and Capito. Luther issued a letter of warning, “To the Christians of Strassburg.” Carlstadt went to Basel, and published violent tracts against Luther’s “unspiritual and irrational theology.” Luther replied in A.D. 1525, earnestly, thoroughly, and firmly in his treatise, “Against the Heavenly Prophets, or Images and the Sacraments.” Carlstadt had secured the support of the Swiss reformers, who continued the controversy with Luther. He involved himself in the Peasants’ War, and afterwards, by Luther’s intercession with the elector, obtained leave to return to Saxony. He retracted his errors, but soon again renewed his old disorderly practices; and, after a singularly eventful career, died as professor and preacher at Basel during the plague of A.D. 1541.

§ 124.4. Thomas Münzer, A.D. 1523, 1524.—The prophets when expelled from Wittenberg did not remain idle, but set themselves to produce all sort of disorders in church and state. At the head of these disturbers stood Thomas Münzer. After his expulsion from Zwickau, he had gone to Bohemia, and was there received as an apostle of the Taborite doctrine (§ 119, 7). In A.D. 1523 he returned to Saxony, and settled at Allstadt [Allstädt] in Thuringia, and when driven out by the elector he went to Mühlhausen. In both places he soon obtained a large following. The Wittenberg Reformation was condemned no less than the papacy. Not the word of Scripture but the Spirit was to be the principle of the Reformation; not only everything ecclesiastical but also everything civil was to be spiritualized and reorganized. The doctrine of the evangelical freedom of the Christian was grossly misconceived, the sacraments despised, infant baptism denounced, and sole weight laid on the baptism of the Spirit. Princes should be driven from their thrones, the enemies of the gospel destroyed by the sword, and all goods be held in common. When Luther wrote a letter of warning on these subjects to the church at Mühlhausen, Münzer issued an abusive rejoinder, in which he speaks contemptuously of Luther’s “honey-sweet Christ,” and “cunningly devised gospel.” From Mühlhausen, Münzer went forth on a proselytising crusade in A.D. 1524, to Nuremberg, and then to Basel, but found little response in either city. His revolutionary extravagances were more successful among the peasants of Southern Germany.

§ 124.5. The Peasant War, A.D. 1524, 1525.—The peasants of the empire had long groaned under their heavy burdens. Twice already, in A.D. 1502, 1514, had they risen in revolt, with little advantage to themselves. When Luther’s ideas of the freedom of a Christian man reached them, they hastily drew conclusions in accordance with their own desires. Münzer’s fanatical preaching led to the adoption of still more decidedly communistic theories. In August, A.D. 1524, in the Black Forest, a rebellion broke out, which was, however, quickly suppressed. In the beginning of A.D. 1525 troubles burst forth afresh. The peasants stated their demands in twelve articles, which they insisted upon princes, nobles, and prelates accepting. All Franconia and Swabia were soon under their power, and even many cities made common cause with them. Münzer, however, was not satisfied with this success. The twelve articles were too moderate for him, and still more distasteful to him were the terms that had been made with the nobles and clergy. He returned to Thuringia and settled again at Mühlhausen. From thence he spread his fanaticism through the whole land and organized a general revolt. With merciless cruelty thousands were massacred, all cloisters, castles, and palaces were ruthlessly destroyed. Boldly as Luther had attacked the existing ecclesiastical tyranny, he resolutely left civil matters alone. He preached that the gospel makes the soul free, but not the body or property. He had profound sympathy for the sorely oppressed peasants, and so long as their demands did not go beyond the twelve articles, he hoped to be able to regulate the movement by the power of the word. The revolutionists had themselves in their twelfth article offered to abandon any of their claims that might be found to have no countenance from the word of God. When Münzer’s disorders began in Thuringia, Luther visited the cities most threatened and exhorted them to quiet and obedience. But the death of the elector on 5th May called him back to Wittenberg. From thence he now published his “Exhortations to Peace on the Twelve Articles of the Swabian Peasants,” in which he speaks pointedly to the consciences of the nobles no less than of the peasants. But when the agitation continued to spread, and one enormity after another was perpetrated, he gave vent to his wrath in no measured terms in his book, “Against the Robbing and Murdering Peasants.” He there, with burning words, called upon the princes vigorously to stamp out the fanatical rebellion. Philip of Hesse was the first to take the field. He was joined by the new Elector of Saxony, Frederick’s brother, John the Constant, A.D. 1525-1532, as well as by George of Saxony and Henry of Brunswick. On 15th May, A.D. 1525, the rebels were annihilated after a severe struggle at Frankenhausen. Münzer was taken prisoner and beheaded. Even in Southern Germany the princes were soon in all parts masters of the situation. In this war 100,000 men had lost their lives and the most fertile districts had been turned into barren wastes.

§ 125. FRIENDS AND FOES OF LUTHER’S DOCTRINE, A.D. 1522-1526.

Luther’s fellow labourers in the work of the gospel increased from day to day, and so too the number of the cities in Northern and Southern Germany in which pure doctrine was preached. But Wittenberg was the heart and centre of the whole movement, the muster-ground for all who were persecuted and exiled for the sake of the gospel, the gathering point and nursery of new preachers. Among the theological opponents of Luther’s doctrine appears a crowned head, Henry VIII. of England, and also “the king of literature,” Erasmus of Rotterdam, entered the lists against him. But neither the one nor the other, to say nothing of the rude invectives of Thomas Murner, was able to shake the bold reformer and check the rapid spread of his opinions.

§ 125.1. Spread of Evangelical Views.—The most powerful heralds of the Reformation were the monkish orders. Cloister life had become so utterly corrupt that the more virtuous of the brethren could no longer endure it. Anxious to breathe a healthier atmosphere, evangelists inspired by a purer doctrine arose in all parts of Germany, first and most of all among the Augustinian order (§ 112, 6), which almost to a man went over to the Reformation and had the glory of providing its first martyr (§ 128, 1). The order regarded Luther’s honour as its own. Next to them came the Franciscans, prominent during the Middle Ages as a fanatical opposition (§ 98, 4; 108, 5; 112, 2), of whom many had the courage to free themselves of their shackles. From their cloisters proceeded, e.g., the two famous popular preachers, Eberlin of Günzburg and Henry of Kettenbach in Ulm, the Hamburg reformer Stephen Kempen, the fervent Lambert reformer of Hesse, Luther’s friend Myconius of Gotha, and many more. Other orders too supplied their contingent, even the Dominicans, to whom Martin Bucer, the Strassburg reformer, belonged. Blaurer of Württemberg was a Benedictine, Rhegius a Carmelite, Bugenhagen a Premonstratensian, etc. At least one of the German bishops, George Polenz of Samland, openly joined the movement, preached the gospel in Königsberg, and inspired the priests of his diocese with the same views. Other bishops, such as those of Augsburg, Basel, Bamberg, Merseburg, sympathised with the movement or at least put no hindrance in its way. But the secular clergy gave crowds of witnesses. In all the larger and even in some of the smaller towns of Germany Luther’s doctrines were preached from the pulpits with the approval of the magistrates, and where these were refused the preachers took to the market-places and fields. Where ministers were wanting, artisans and knights, wives and maidens, carried on the work.—One of the first cities which opened its gates freely to the gospel was Strassburg. Nowhere were Luther’s writings more zealously read, discussed, printed, and circulated than in that city. Shortly before Geiler of Kaisersberg (§ 115, 11) had prepared the soil for receiving the first seed of the Reformation. From A.D. 1518 Matthew Zell had wrought as pastor at St. Laurence in Münster. When the chapter forbade him the use of the stone pulpit erected for Geiler, the joiners’ guild soon made him a wooden pulpit, which was carried in solemn procession to Münster, and set up beside the one that had been closed against him. Zell was soon assisted by Capito, Bucer, Hedio, and others.

§ 125.2. “The Sum of Holy Scripture” and its Author.—This work, called also Deutsche Theologie, appeared anonymously at Leyden in A.D. 1523, and was confiscated in March, A.D. 1524. In various Dutch editions and in French, Italian, and English translations, it was soon widely spread over Europe; but so vigorously was it suppressed, that by the middle of the century it had disappeared and was forgotten. In A.D. 1877 the Waldensian Comba discovered and published an old Italian version, and Benrath translated into German in A.D. 1880 an old Dutch edition of A.D. 1526, and succeeded in unravelling for the most part its interesting history. He found that it was composed in Latin, and on the entreaty of the author’s friends rendered into Dutch. This led to the discovery, in the possession of Prof. Toorenenberger of Amsterdam, of the Latin original, which had appeared anonymously at Strassburg in A.D. 1527 with the title, Æconomica christiana. Benrath has also discovered the author to be Hendrik van Bommel, who was in the first half of A.D. 1520 priest and rector of a sisterhood at Utrecht, expelled in A.D. 1536 from Cleves, from A.D. 1542 to 1560 evangelical teacher and preacher at Wesel, dying in A.D. 1570 as pastor at Duisburg. The “Sum” is evidently influenced by those works of Luther which appeared up to A.D. 1523, its thoroughly popular, edifying, and positive contents are based upon a careful study of Scripture, and it is throughout inspired by the one grand idea, that the salvation of sinful men rests solely on the grace of God in Christ appropriated by faith.

§ 125.3. Henry VIII. and Erasmus.—Henry VIII. of England, as a second son, had been originally destined for the church. Hence he retained a certain predilection for theological studies and was anxious to be regarded as a learned theologian. In A.D. 1522 he appeared as the champion of the Romish doctrine of the seven sacraments in opposition to Luther’s book on the “Babylonish Captivity of the Church,” treating the peasant’s son with lordly contempt. Luther paid him in the same coin, and treated his royal opponent with less consideration than he had shown to Emser and Eck. The king obtained what he desired, the papal honorary title of Defensor fidei, but Luther’s crushing reply kept him from attempting to continue the controversy. He complained to the elector, who consoled him by reference to a general council (comp. § 129, 1). The pretty tolerable relations between Erasmus and Luther now suffered a severe shock. Erasmus, indebted to the English king for many favours, was roused to great bitterness by Luther’s unmeasured severity. He had hitherto refused all calls to write against Luther. Many pulpits charged him with having a secret understanding with the heretic; others thought he was afraid of him. All this tended to drive Erasmus into open hostility to the reformer. He now diligently studied Luther’s writings, for which he obtained the pope’s permission, and seized upon a doctrine which would not oblige him to appear as defender of Romish abuses, though to gauge and estimate it in its full meaning he was quite incompetent. Luther’s life experiences, joined with the study of Paul’s epistles and Augustine’s writings, had wrought in him the conviction that man is by nature incapable of doing any good, that his will is unfree, and that he is saved without any well doing of his own by God’s free grace in Christ. With Luther, as with Augustine, this conviction found expression in the doctrine of absolute predestination. Melanchthon had also formulated the doctrine in the first edition of his Loci communes. This fundamental doctrine of Luther was now laid hold upon by Erasmus in A.D. 1524 in his treatise, Διατριβή de libra arbitrio, pronounced dangerous and unbiblical, while his own semi-Pelagianism was set over against it. After the lapse of a year, Luther replied in his treatise, De servo arbitrio, with all the power and confidence of personal, experimental conviction. Erasmus answered in his Hyperaspistes diatribes adv. Lutheri servum arbitrium of A.D. 1526, in which he gave free vent to his passion, but did not advance the argument in the least. Luther therefore saw no need to continue the discussion.[364]

§ 125.4. Thomas Murner.—The Franciscan, Thomas Murner of Strassburg, had published in A.D. 1509 his “Fools’ Exorcism” and other pieces, which gave him a high place among German satirists. He spared no class, not even the clergy and the monks, took Reuchlin’s part against the men of Cologne (§ 120, 4), but passionately opposed Luther’s movement. His most successful satire against Luther is entitled, “On the Great Lutheran Fool as Exorcised by Dr. Murner, A.D. 1522.” It does not touch upon the spiritual aspect of the Reformation, but lashes with biting wit the revolutionary, fanatical, and rhetorical extravagances which were often closely associated with it. Luther did not venture into the lists with the savagely sarcastic monk, but the humanists poured upon him a flood of scurrilous replies.

§ 125.5. A notable Catholic witness on behalf of the Reformation is the “Onus ecclesiæ,” an anonymous tract of A.D. 1524, written by Bishop Berthold Pirstinger of Chiemsee. In apocalyptic phraseology it describes the corruption of the church and calls for reformation. The author however denounces Luther as a sectary and revolutionist, though he distinctly accepts his views of indulgences. He would reform the church from within. Four years after, the same divine wrote a “Tewtsche Theologey,” in which, with the exception of the doctrine of indulgence, the whole Romish system is vindicated and the corruptions of the church are ignored.

§ 126. DEVELOPMENT OF THE REFORMATION IN THE EMPIRE, A.D. 1522-1526.

In consequence of the terms of his election, Charles V. had, at the Diet of Worms, to agree to the erection of a standing imperial government at Nuremberg, which in his absence would have the supreme direction of imperial affairs. Within this commission, though presided over by Archduke Ferdinand, the emperor’s brother, a majority was soon found which openly favoured the new religion. Thus protected by the highest imperial judicature, the Reformation was able for a long time to spread unhindered and so made rapid progress (§ 125, 1). The Nuremberg court succumbed indeed to the united efforts of its political opponents, among whom were many nobles of an evangelical spirit, but all the more energetically did these press the interests of the Reformation. And their endeavours were so successful, that it was determined that matters should be settled without reference to pope and council at a general German national assembly. But the papal legate Campegius formed at Regensberg [Regensburg], in A.D. 1524, a league of the Catholic nobles for enforcing the edict of Worms, against which the evangelical nobles established a defensive league at Torgau, in A.D. 1526. The general national assembly was vetoed by the emperor, but the decision of the Diet of Spires of A.D. 1526 gave to all nobles the right of determining the religious matters of their provinces after their own views.

§ 126.1. The Diet at Nuremberg, A.D. 1522, 1523.—The imperial court held its first diet in the end of A.D. 1522. Leo X. had died in Dec., A.D. 1521, and Hadrian VI. (§ 149, 1), strictly conservative in doctrine and worship, a reformer of discipline and hierarchical abuses, had succeeded with the determination “to restore the deformed bride of Christ to her pristine purity,” but vigorously to suppress the Lutheran heresy. His legate presented to the diet a letter confessing abuses and promising reforms, but insisting on the execution of the edict of Worms. The diet declared that in consequence of the admitted corruptions of the church, the present execution of the Worms edict was not to be thought of. Until a general council in a German city, with guaranteed freedom of discussion, had been called, discussion should be avoided, and the word of God, with true Christian and evangelical explanation, should be taught.

§ 126.2. The Diet at Nuremberg, A.D. 1524.—A new diet was held at Nuremberg on 14th Jan., A.D. 1524. It dealt first of all with the question of the existence of the imperial court. The reformatory tendencies of the government showed that what was vital to this court was so also to the Reformation. This party had important supporters in the arch-catholic Ferdinand, who hoped thus to strengthen himself in his endeavour to obtain the Roman crown, in the Elector of Mainz, the prime mover in the traffic in indulgences, who had personal antipathies to the foes of the court, in the elector of Saxony, its proper creator, and in the princes of Brandenburg. But there were powerful opponents: the Swabian league, the princes of Treves, the Palatinate and Hesse, who had been successful in opposition to Sickingen, and the imperial cities, which, though at one with the court in favouring the Reformation, were embittered against it because of its financial projects. The papal legate Campegius also joined the opposition. Hadrian VI. had died in A.D. 1523, and was succeeded by Clement VII., A.D. 1523-1534. A skilful politician with no religious convictions, he determined to strengthen in every possible way the temporal power of the papal see. His legate was a man after his own mind. The opposition prevailed, and even Ferdinand after a struggle gave in. The newly organized governing body was only a shadow of the old, without power, influence, or independence. Thus a second (§ 124, 2) powerful support was lost to the Reformation, and the legate again pressed for the execution of the edict of Worms. But the evangelicals mustering all their forces, especially in the cities, secured a majority. They were indeed obliged to admit the legality of the edict; they even promised to carry it out, but with the saving clause “as far as possible.” A council in the sense of the former diet was demanded, and it was resolved to call a general national assembly at Spires, to be wholly devoted to religious and ecclesiastical questions. In the meantime the word of God in its simplicity was to be preached.

§ 126.3. The Convention at Regensburg, A.D. 1524.—While the evangelical nobles, by their theologians and diplomatists, were eagerly preparing for Spires, an assembly of the supporters of the old views met at Regensburg, June and July, A.D. 1524. Ignoring the previous arrangement, they proceeded to treat of the religious and ecclesiastical questions which had been reserved for the Spires Diet. This was the result of the machinations of Campegius. The Archduke Ferdinand, the Bavarian dukes, the Archbishop of Salzburg, and most of the South German bishops, joined the legate at Regensburg in insisting upon the edict of Worms. Luther’s writings were anew forbidden, their subjects were strictly enjoined not to attend the University of Wittenberg; several external abuses were condemned, ecclesiastical burdens on the people lightened, the number of festivals reduced, the four Latin Fathers, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory, set up as the standard of faith and doctrine, while it was commanded that the services should be conducted unchanged after the manner of these Fathers. Thus was produced that rent in the unity of the empire which never again was healed.—The imperial and the papal policies were so bound up with one another, that the proceedings of the Nuremberg diets, with their national tendencies, were distasteful to the emperor; and so in the end of July there came an imperial rescript, making attendance at the national assembly a crimen læsæ majestatis, punishable with ban and double-ban. The nobles obeyed, and the assembly was not held. With it Germany’s hopes of a peaceful development were shattered.

§ 126.4. The Evangelical Nobles, A.D. 1524.—Several nobles hitherto indifferent became now supporters of the Reformation. Philip of Hesse, moved by an interview with Melanchthon, gave himself enthusiastically to the cause of evangelical truth. Also the Margrave Casimir, George of Brandenburg-Ansbach, Duke Ernest of Lüneburg, the Elector Louis of the Palatinate, and Frederick I. of Denmark, as Duke of Schleswig and Holstein, did more or less in their several countries for the furtherance of the Reformation cause. The grand-master of the Teutonic order, Albert of Prussia, returned from the Diet of Nuremberg, where he had heard Osiander preach, doubtful of the scripturalness of the rule of his order. He therefore visited Wittenberg to consult Luther, who advised him to renounce the rule, to marry, and obtain heirs to his Prussian dukedom (§ 127, 3). The cities took up a most decided position. At two great city diets at Spires and Ulm in A.D. 1524, it was resolved to allow the preaching of a pure gospel and to assist in preventing the execution of the edict of Worms in their jurisdiction.

§ 126.5. The Torgau League, A.D. 1526.—Friends and foes of the Reformation had joined in putting down the peasant revolt. Their religious divergences however immediately after broke out afresh. George consulted at Dessau in July, A.D. 1525, with several Catholic princes as to means for preventing a renewal of the outbreak, and they unanimously decided that the condemned Lutheran sect must be rooted out as the source of all confusion. Soon afterwards two Leipzig citizens, who were found to have Lutheran books in their possession, were put to death. But Elector John of Saxony had a conference at Saalfeld with Casimir of Brandenburg, at which it was agreed at all hazards to stand by the word of God; and at Friedewald in November Hesse and the elector pledged themselves to stand true to the gospel. A diet at Augsburg in December, for want of a quorum, had reached no conclusion. A new diet was therefore summoned to meet at Spires, and all the princes were cited to appear personally. Duke George meanwhile gathered the Catholic princes at Halle and Leipzig, and they resolved to send Henry of Brunswick to Spain to the emperor. Shortly before his arrival, the emperor had concluded a peace at Madrid with the king of France, who had been taken prisoner in the battle of Pavia. Francis I., feeling he could not help himself, had agreed to all the terms, including an undertaking to join in suppressing the heretics. Charles therefore fully believed that he had a free hand, and determined to root out heresy in Germany. Henry of Brandenburg brought to the German princes an extremely firm reply, in which this view was expressed. But before its arrival the elector and the landgrave had met at Gotha, and had subsequently at Torgau, the residence of the elector, renewed the league to stand together with all their might in defence of the gospel. Philip undertook to gain over the nobles of the uplands. But the fear of the empire hindered his success. The elector was more fortunate among the lowland nobles. On 9th June the princes of Saxony, Lüneberg [Lüneburg], Grubenhagen, Anhalt, and Mansfeld met at Magdeburg, and subscribed the Torgau League. Also the city of Magdeburg, emancipated since A.D. 1524 from the jurisdiction of its archbishop, Albert of Mainz, and accepting the Lutheran confession, now joined the league.

§ 126.6. The Diet of Spires, A.D. 1526.—The diet met on 25th June, A.D. 1526. The evangelical princes were confident; on their armour was the motto, Verbum Dei manet in æternum. In spite of all the prelates’ opposition, three commissions were approved to consider abuses. When the debates were about to begin, the imperial commissioners tabled an instruction which forbade them to make any change upon the old doctrines and usages, and finally insisted upon the execution of the edict of Worms. The evangelicals however took comfort from the date affixed to the document. They knew that since its issue the relation of pope and emperor had become strained. Francis I. had been relieved by the pope from the obligation of his oath, and the pope had joined with Francis in a league at Cognac, to which also Henry VIII. of England adhered. All Western Europe had combined to break the supremacy gained by the Burgundian-Spanish dynasty at Pavia, and the duped emperor found himself in straits. Would he now be inclined to stand by his instruction? The commissioners, apparently at Ferdinand’s wish, had kept back the document till the affairs of the Catholics became desperate. The evangelical nobles felt encouraged to send an embassy to the emperor, but before it started the emperor realized their wishes. In a letter to his brother he communicated a scheme for abolishing the penalties of the edict of Worms and referring religious questions to a council. At the same time he called for help against his Italian enemies. Seeing then that in present circumstances it did not seem advisable to revoke, still less to carry out the edict, the only plan was to give to each prince discretionary power in his own territory. This was the birthday of the territorial constitution on a formally legitimate basis.

§ 127. ORGANIZATION OF THE EVANGELICAL PROVINCIAL CHURCHES, A.D. 1526-1529.

The nobles had now not only the right but also had it enjoined on them as a duty to establish church arrangements in their territories as they thought best. The three following years therefore marked the period of the founding and organizing of the evangelical provincial churches. The electorate of Saxony came first with a good example. After this pattern the churches of Hesse, Franconia, Lüneburg, East Friesland, Schleswig and Holstein, Silesia, Prussia, and a whole group of Low German states modelled their constitution and worship.

§ 127.1. The Organization of the Church of the Saxon Electorate, A.D. 1527-1529.—Luther wrote in A.D. 1528 an instruction to visitors of pastors in the electorate, which showed what and how ministers were to preach, indicated the reforms to be made in worship, protested against abuse of the doctrine of justification by urging the necessity of preaching the law, etc. The whole territory was divided under four commissions, comprising lay and clerical members. Ignorant and incompetent religious teachers were to be removed, but to be provided for. Teachers were to be settled over churches and schools, and superintendents over them were to inspect their work periodically, and to these last the performance of marriages was assigned. Vacant benefices were to be applied to the improvement of churches and schools; and those not vacant were to be taxed for maintenance of hospitals, support of the poor, founding of new schools, etc. The dangers occasioned by the often incredible ignorance of the people and their teachers led to Luther’s composing his two catechisms in A.D. 1529.

§ 127.2. The Organization of the Hessian Churches, A.D. 1526-1528.—Philip of Hesse had assembled the peers temporal and spiritual of his dominions in Oct., A.D. 1526, at Homberg, to discuss the question of church reform. A reactionary attempt failed through the fervid eloquence of the Franciscan Lambert of Avignon, a notable man, who, awakened in his cloister at Avignon by Luther’s writings, but not thoroughly satisfied, set out for Wittenberg, engaged on the way at Zürich in public disputation against Zwingli’s reforms, but left converted by his opponent, and then passed through Luther’s school at Wittenberg. There he married in A.D. 1523, and after a long unofficial and laborious stay at Strassburg, found at last, in A.D. 1526, a permanent residence in Hesse. He died in A.D. 1530.—Lambert’s personality dominated the Homberg synod. He sketched an organization of the church according to his ideal as a communion of saints with a democratic basis, and a strict discipline administered by the community itself. But the impracticability of the scheme soon became evident, and in A.D. 1528 the Hessian church adopted the principles of the Saxon church visitation. Out of vacant church revenues the University of Marburg was founded in A.D. 1527 as a second training school in reformed theology. Lambert was one of its first teachers.

§ 127.3. Organization of other German Provincial Churches, A.D. 1528-1530.—George of Franconian-Brandenburg, after his brother Casimir’s death, organized his church at the assembly of Anspach after the Saxon model. Nuremberg, under the guidance of its able secretary of council, Lazarus Spengler, united in carrying out a joint organization. In Brunswick-Lüneburg, Duke Ernest, powerfully impressed by the preaching of Rhegius at Augsburg, introduced the evangelical church organization into his dominions. In East Friesland, where the reigning prince did not interest himself in the matter, the development of the church was attended to by the young nobleman Ulrich of Dornum. In Schleswig and Holstein the prelates offered no opposition to reorganization, and the civil authorities carried out the work. In Silesia the princes were favourable, Breslau had been long on the side of the Reformation, and even the grand-duke who, as king of Bohemia, was suzerain of Silesia, felt obliged to allow Silesian nobles the privileges provided by the Diet of Spires. In Prussia (§ 126, 4), Albert of Brandenburg, hereditary duke of these parts, with the hearty assistance of his two bishops, provided for his subjects an evangelical constitution.

§ 127.4. The Reformation in the Cities of Northern Germany, A.D. 1524-1531.—In these cities the Reformation spread rapidly after their emancipation from episcopal control. It was organized in Magdeburg as early as A.D. 1524 by Nic. Amsdorf, sent for the purpose by Luther (§ 126, 5). In Brunswick the church was organized in A.D. 1528 by Bugenhagen of Wittenberg. In Bremen in A.D. 1525 all churches except the cathedral were in the hands of the Lutherans; in A.D. 1527 the cloisters were turned into schools and hospitals, and then the cathedral was taken from the Catholics. At Lübeck, nobles, councillors, and clergy had oppressed and driven away the evangelical pastors; but the councillors in their financial straits became indebted to sixty-four citizens, who stipulated that the pastors must be restored, the Catholics expelled, the cloisters turned into hospitals and schools, and finally Bugenhagen was called in to prepare for their church a Lutheran constitution.

§ 128. MARTYRS FOR EVANGELICAL TRUTH, A.D. 1521-1529.

On the publication of the edict of Worms several Catholic princes, most conspicuously Duke George of Saxony, began the persecution. Luther’s followers were at first imprisoned, scourged, and banished, and in A.D. 1521 a bookseller who sold Luther’s books was beheaded. The persecution was most severe in the Netherlands, a heritage of the emperor independent of the empire. Also in Austria, Bavaria, and Swabia many evangelical confessors were put to death by the sword and at the stake. The peasant revolt of A.D. 1525 increased the violence of the persecution. On the pretence of punishing rebels, those who took part in the Regensburg Convention (§ 126, 3) were expelled the country, thousands of them with no other fault than their attachment to the gospel. The conclusion of the Diet of Spires in A.D. 1526 (§ 126, 6) added new fuel to the flames. While the evangelical nobles, taking advantage of that decision, proceeded vigorously to the planting and organizing of the reformed church, the enemies of the Reformation exercised the power given them in cruel persecutions of their evangelical subjects. The vagaries of Pack (§ 132, 1) led to a revival and intensification of the spirit of persecution. In Austria, during A.D. 1527, 1528, a church visitation had been arranged very much in the style of that of Saxony, but with the object of tracking out and punishing heretics. In Bavaria the highways were watched, to prevent pilgrims going to preaching over the borders. Those caught were at first fined, but later on they were drowned or burned.

The first martyrs for evangelical truth were two young Augustinian monks of Antwerp, Henry Voes and John Esch, who died at the stake in A.D. 1523, and their heroism was celebrated by Luther in a beautiful hymn. They were succeeded by the prior of the cloister, Lampert Thorn, who was strangled in prison. The Swabian League, which was renewed after the rising of the Diet of Spires, with the avowed purpose of rooting out the Anabaptists, directed its cruel measures against all evangelicals. The Bishop of Constance in A.D. 1527 had John Hüglin burnt as an opposer of the holy mother church. The Elector of Mainz cited the court preacher, George Winkler, of Halle, for dispensing the sacrament in both kinds at Ascheffenburg [Aschaffenburg]. Winkler defended himself, and was acquitted, but was murdered on the way. Luther then wrote his tract, “Comfort to the Christians of Halle on the Death of their Pastor.” In North Germany there was no bloodshedding, but Duke George had those who confessed their faith scourged by the gaoler and driven from the country. The Elector Joachim of Brandenburg with his nobles resolved in A.D. 1527 to give vigorous support to the old religion. But the gospel took deep root in his land, and his own wife Elizabeth read Luther’s writings, and had the sacrament administered after the Lutheran form. But the secret was revealed, and the elector stormed and threatened. She then escaped, dressed as a peasant woman, to her cousin the Elector of Saxony.

§ 129. LUTHER’S PRIVATE AND PUBLIC LIFE, A.D. 1523-1529.

Only in December, A.D. 1524, did Luther leave the cloister, the last of its inhabitants but the prior, and on 13th June, A.D. 1525, married Catherine Bora, of the convent of Nimptschen, of whom he afterwards boasted that he prized her more highly than the kingdom of France and the governorship of Venice. Though often depressed with sickness, almost crushed under the weight of business, and harassed even to the end by the threats of his enemies against his life, he maintained a bright, joyous temper, enjoyed himself during leisure hours among his friends with simple entertainments of song, music, intellectual conversation, and harmless, though often sharp and pungent, interchange of wit. Thus he proved a genuine comfort and help in all kinds of trouble. By constant writing, by personal intercourse with students and foreigners who crowded into Wittenberg, by an extensive correspondence, he won and maintained a mighty influence in spreading and establishing the Reformation. By Scripture translation and Scripture exposition, by sermons and doctrinal treatises, he impressed upon the people his own evangelical views. A peculiarly powerful factor in the Reformation was that treasury of sacred song (§ 142, 3) which Luther gave his people, partly in translations of old, partly in the composition of new hymns, which he set to bright and pleasing melodies. He was also most diligent in promoting education in churches and schools, in securing the erection of new elementary and secondary schools, and laid special stress on the importance of linguistic studies in a church that prized the pure word of God.

§ 129.1. Luther’s Literary Works.—In A.D. 1524 appeared the first collection of spiritual songs and psalms, eight in number, with a preface by Luther. His reforms of worship were extremely moderate. In A.D. 1523 he published little tracts on baptism and the Lord’s Supper, repudiating the idea of a sacrifice in the mass, and insisting on communion in both kinds. In A.D. 1527 he wrote his “German Mass and Order of Public Worship” (§ 127, 1) which was introduced generally throughout the elector’s dominions. He wrote an address to burgomasters and councillors about the improvement of education in the cities. Besides his polemic against Erasmus and Carlstadt, against Münzer and the rebellious peasants, as well as against the Sacramentarians (§ 131), he engaged at this time in controversy with Cochlæus. A papal bull for the canonization of Bishop Benno of Meissen (§ 93, 9) called forth in A.D. 1524 Luther’s tract, “Against the new God and the old Devil being set up at Meissen.” He was persuaded by Christian II. of Denmark to write, in A.D. 1526, a very humble letter to Henry VIII. of England (§ 125, 3), which was answered in an extremely venomous and bitter style. When his enemies triumphantly declared that he had retracted, Luther answered, in A.D. 1527, with his book, “Against the Abusive Writing of the King of England,” in which he resumed the bold and confident tone of his earlier polemic. A humble, conciliatory epistle sent in A.D. 1526 to Duke George was no more successful. He now unweariedly continued his Bible translation. The first edition of the whole Bible was published by Hans Lufft in Wittenberg, in A.D. 1534. A collection of sayings of Luther collected by Lauterbach, a deacon of Wittenberg, in A.D. 1538, formed the basis of later and fuller editions of “Luther’s Table Talk.” A chronologically arranged collection was made ten years later, and was published in A.D. 1872 from a MS. in the Royal Library at Dresden. Aurifaber in his collection did not follow the chronological order, but grouped the utterances according to their subjects, but with many arbitrary alterations and modifications. The saying falsely attributed to Luther, “Who loves not wine, women, and song?” etc., is assigned by Luther himself to his Erfurt landlady, but has been recently traced to an Italian source.

§ 129.2. The famous Catholic Church historian Döllinger, who in his history of the Reformation had with ultramontane bitterness defamed Luther and his work, twenty years later could not forbear celebrating Luther in a public lecture as “the most powerful patriot and the most popular character that Germany possessed.” In A.D. 1871 he wrote as follows: “It was Luther’s supreme intellectual ability and wonderful versatility that made him the man of his age and of his nation. There has never been a German who so thoroughly understood his fellow countrymen and was understood by them as this Augustinian monk of Wittenberg. The whole intellectual and spiritual making of the Germans was in his hands as clay in the hands of the potter. He has given more to his nation than any one man has ever done: language, popular education, Bible, sacred song; and all that his opponents could say against him and alongside of him seemed insipid, weak, and colourless compared with his overmastering eloquence. They stammered, he spoke. It was he who put a stamp upon the German language as well as upon the German character. And even those Germans who heartily abhor him as the great heretic and betrayer of religion cannot help speaking his words and thinking his thoughts.”

§ 130. THE REFORMATION IN GERMAN SWITZERLAND, A.D. 1519-1531.

While Luther’s Reformation spread in Germany, a similar movement sprang up in the neighbouring provinces of German Switzerland. Its earliest beginnings date back as far as A.D. 1516. The personal characteristics of its first promoter, and the political democratic movement in which it had its rise, gave it a complexion entirely different from that of the Lutheran Reformation. The most conspicuous divergence occurred in the doctrine of the supper (§ 131), and since the Swiss views on this point were generally accepted in the cities of the uplands, the controversy passed over into the German Reformed Church and hindered common action, notwithstanding common interests and common dangers.

§ 130.1. Ulrich Zwingli.—Zwingli, born at Wildhaus in Toggenburg on January 1st, A.D. 1484, a scholar of the famous humanist Thomas Wyttenbach at Basel, was, after ten years’ service as pastor at Glarus, made pastor of Maria-Einsiedeln in A.D. 1516. The crowding of pilgrims to the famous shrine of Mary at that place led him to preach against superstitious notions of meritorious performances. But far more decisive in determining his attitude toward the Reformation was his appointment on January 1st, A.D. 1519, as Lent priest at Zürich, where he first became acquainted with Luther’s works, and took sides with him against the Romish court party. Zwingli soon took up a distinctive position of his own. He would be not only a religious, but also a political reformer. For several years he had vigorously opposed the sending of Swiss youths as mercenaries into the armies of foreign princes. His political opponents, the oligarchs, whose incomes depended on this traffic, opposed also his religious reforms, so that his support was wholly from the democracy. Another important distinction between the Swiss and German movements was this, that Zwingli had grown into a reformer not through deep conviction of sin and spiritual conflicts, but through classical and biblical study. The writings of Pico of Mirandola (§ 120, 1), too, were not without influence upon him. To him, therefore, justification by faith was not in the same degree as to Luther the guiding star of his life and action. He began the work of the Reformation not so much with purifying the doctrine, as with improving the worship, the constitution, the ecclesiastical and moral life. His theological standpoint is set forth in these works: Comment. de vera et falsa relig., A.D. 1525; Fidei ratio ad Car. Imp., A.D. 1530; Christian. fidei brevis at clara expos., ed. Bullinger, A.D. 1536; De providentia Dei; and Apologeticus. Of the two principles of the anti-Romish Reformation (§ 121) the Wittenberg reformer placed the material, the Zürich reformer the formal, in the foreground. The former only rejected what was not reconcilable with Scripture; the latter repudiated all that was not expressly enjoined in Scripture. The former was cautious and moderate in dealing with forms of worship and mere externals; the latter was extreme, immoderate, and violent. Luther retained pictures, altars, the ornaments of churches, and the priestly character of the service, purifying it simply from unevangelical corruptions; Zwingli denounced all these things as idolatry, and burnt even organ pipes and clock bells. Luther recognised no action of the Holy Spirit apart from the word and sacrament; Zwingli separated it from these, and identified it with mere subjective feeling. The sacraments were with him mere memorial signs; justification solely by the merits of Christ as a joyous assurance of salvation had for him a negative rather than a positive significance, i.e. opposition to the Romish doctrine of merits; original sin was for him only hereditary moral sickness, a naturalis defectus, which is not itself sin, and virtuous heathens, like Hercules, Theseus, Socrates, and Cato were admitted as such into the society of the blessed, without apparently sharing in the redemption of Christ. His speculations, which led on one side almost to pantheism, favoured a theory of predestination, according to which the moral will has no freedom over against Providence.[365]

§ 130.2. The Reformation in Zürich, A.D. 1519-1525.—In A.D. 1518 a trafficker in indulgences, the Franciscan Bernard Samson, of Milan, carried on his disreputable business in Switzerland. At Zwingli’s desire Zürich’s gates were closed against him. In A.D. 1520 the council gave permission to priests and preachers in the city and canton to preach only from the O. and N.T. All this happened under the eyes of the two papal nuncios staying in Zürich; but they did not interfere, because the curia was extremely anxious to get auxiliaries for the papal army for an attack on Milan. Zwingli was promised a rich living if he would no more preach against the pope. He refused the bait, and went on his way as a reformer. The continued indulgence of the curia allowed the Reformation to take even firmer root. Zwingli published, in A.D. 1522, his first work, “Of Election, and Freedom in Use of Food,” and the Zürichers ate flesh and eggs during Lent of A.D. 1522. He also claimed liberty to marry for the clergy. At this time Lambert came from Avignon to Zürich (§ 127, 2). He preached against the new views, disputed in July with Zwingli, and confessed himself defeated and convinced. Zwingli’s opponents had placed great hopes in Lambert’s eloquence and dialectic skill. All the greater was the effect of the unexpected result of the disputation. The council, now impressed, commanded that the word of God should be preached without human additions. But when the adherents of the Romish party protested, it arranged a public disputation on 29th Jan., A.D. 1523, on sixty-seven theses or conclusiones drawn up by Zwingli: “All who say, The gospel is nothing without the guarantee of the Church, blaspheme God;—Christ is the one way to salvation;—Our righteousness and our works are good so far as they are Christ’s, neither right nor good so far as they are our own,” etc. A former friend of Zwingli, John Faber, but quite changed since he had made a visit to Rome, and now vicar-general of the Bishop of Constance, undertook to support the old doctrines and customs against Zwingli. Being restricted to Scripture proof he was forced to yield. The cloisters were forsaken, violent polemics were published against the canon of the mass and the worship of saints and images. The council resolved to decide the question of the mass and images by a second disputation in October, A.D. 1523. Leo Judä, Lent priest at St. Peter’s in Zürich, contended against image worship, Zwingli against the mass. Scarcely any opposition was offered to either of them. At Pentecost, A.D. 1524, the council had all images withdrawn from the churches, the frescoes cut down, and the walls whitewashed. Organ playing and bell ringing were forbidden as superstitious. A new simple biblical formula of baptism was introduced, and the abolition of the mass, in A.D. 1525, completed the work. At Easter of this year Zwingli celebrated a lovefeast, at which bread was carried in wooden trenchers, and wine drunk from wooden cups. Thus he thought the genuine Christian apostolic rite was restored. In A.D. 1522 he had married a widow of forty-three years of age, but he publicly acknowledged it only in A.D. 1524. He penitently confesses that his pre-Reformation celibate life, like that of most priests of his age, had not been blameless; but the moral purity of his later life is beyond suspicion.

§ 130.3. Reformation in Basel, A.D. 1520-1525.—In Basel, at an early period, Capito and Hedio wrought as biblical preachers. But so soon as they had laid a good foundation they accepted a call to Mainz, in A.D. 1520, which they soon again quitted for Strassburg, where they carried on the work of the Reformation along with Bucer. Their work at Basel was zealously and successfully continued by Röublin. He preached against the mass, purgatory, and saint worship, often to 4,000 hearers. On the day of Corpus Christi he produced a Bible instead of the usual relics, which he scornfully called dead bones. He was banished, and afterwards joined the Anabaptists. A new epoch began in Basel in A.D. 1523. Œcolampadius or John Hausschein, born at Weinsberg in A.D. 1482, Zwingli’s Melanchthon, was preacher in Basel in A.D. 1516, and was on intimate terms there with Erasmus. He accepted a call in A.D. 1518 to the cathedral of Augsburg, but a year after withdrew into an Augsburg convent of St. Bridget. There he studied Luther’s writings, and, in A.D. 1522, found shelter from persecution in Sickingen’s castle, where he officiated for some months as chaplain. He then returned to Basel, became preacher at St. Martin’s, and was soon made, along with Conrad Pellican (§ 120, 4 footnote), professor in the university. Around these two a group of younger men soon gathered, who energetically supported the evangelical movement. They dispensed baptism in the German language, administered the communion in both kinds, and were indefatigable in preaching. In A.D. 1524 the council allowed monks and nuns, if they so wished, to leave their cloisters. Of special importance for the progress of the Reformation in Basel was the arrival in A.D. 1524 of William Farel from Dauphiné (§ 138, 1). He had been obliged to fly from France, and was kindly received by Œcolampadius, with whom he stayed for some months. In February he had a public disputation with the opponents of the Reformation. University and bishop had interdicted it, but all the more decided was the council that it should come off. Its result was a great impulse to the Reformation, though Farel in this same year, probably at the suggestion of Erasmus, whom he had described as a new Balaam, was banished by the council (§ 138, 1).[366]

§ 130.4. The Reformation in the other Cantons, A.D. 1520-1525.—In Bern, from A.D. 1518 Haller, Kolb, and Mayer carried on the work of the Reformation as political and religious reformers after the style of Zwingli. Nic. Manuel, poet, satirist, and painter, supported their preaching by his satirical writings against pope, priests, and superstition generally. Also in his Dance of Death, which he painted on the walls of a cloister at Bern, he covered the clergy with ridicule. In A.D. 1523 the council allowed departures from the convents, and several monks and nuns withdrew and married. The opposition called in the Dominican John Haim, as their spokesman, in A.D. 1524. Between him and the Franciscan Mayer there arose a passionate discussion, and the council exiled both. But Haller continued his work, and the Reformation took firmer root from day to day.—In Muhlhausen [Mühlhausen], where Ulr. von Hutten spent his last days, the council issued a mandate in A.D. 1524 which gave free course to the Reformation. At Biel, too, it was allowed unrestricted freedom. In East Switzerland, St. Gall was specially prominent under its burgomaster Joachim v. Watt, who zealously advanced the interests of the Reformation by word, writing, and action. John Karsler, who had studied theology in Wittenberg in A.D. 1522, and was then obliged, in order to avoid reading the mass, to learn and practise the trade of a saddler, preached the gospel here in the Trades’ Hall in his saddler’s apron in A.D. 1524, and took the office of reformed pastor and Latin preceptor in A.D. 1537. He died in A.D. 1574 as President of St. Gall. In Schaffhausen Erasmus Ritter, called upon to oppose in discussion the reformed pastor Hofmeister, owned himself defeated, and joined the reform party. In the canton Vaud Thos. Platter, the original and learned sailor, afterwards rector of the high school at Burg, laid the foundations of the Reformation. In Appenzel and Glarus the work gradually advanced. But in the Swiss midlands the nobles raised opposition in behalf of their revenues, and the people of Berg, whose whole religion lay in pilgrimages, images, and saints, constantly opposed the introduction of the new views. Lucerne and Freiburg were the main bulwarks of the papacy in Switzerland.

§ 130.5. Anabaptist Outbreak, A.D. 1525.—In Switzerland, though the reformers there had taken very advanced ground, a number of ultra-reformers arose, who thought they did not go far enough. Their leaders were Hätzer (§ 148, 1), Grebel, Manz, Röublin, Hubmeier, and Stör. They began disturbances at Zolticon near Zürich. Hubmeier held a council at Waldshut, Easter Eve, A.D. 1525, and was rebaptized by Röublin. During Easter week 110 received baptism, and subsequently more than 300 besides. The Basel Canton, where Münzer had been living, broke out in open revolt against the city. St. Gall alone had 800 Anabaptists. Zürich at Zwingli’s request at once took decided measures. Many were banished, some were mercilessly drowned. Bern, Basel, and St. Gall followed this example.[367]

§ 130.6. Disputation at Baden, A.D. 1526.—The reactionary party could not decline the challenge to a disputation, but in the face of all protests it was determined to be held in the Catholic district of Baden. The champions and representatives of the cantons and bishops appeared there in May, A.D. 1526, Faber and Eck leading the papists and Haller of Bern and Œcolampadius of Basel representing the party of reform. Zwingli was forbidden by the Zürich council to attend, but he was kept daily informed by Thos. Platter. Eck’s theses were combatted one after another. It lasted eight days. Eck outcried Œcolampadius’ weak voice, but the latter was immensely superior in intellectual power. At last Thomas Murner (§ 125, 4) appeared with forty abusive articles against Zwingli. Œcolampadius and ten of his friends persisted in rejecting Eck’s theses; all the rest accepted them. The Assembly of the States pronounced the reformers heretics, and ordered the cantons to have them banished.

§ 130.7. Disputation at Bern, A.D. 1528.—The result of the Bern disputation was ill received by the democrats of Bern and Basel. A final disputation was arranged for at Bern, which was attended by 350 of the clergy and many noblemen. Zwingli, Œcolampadius, Haller, Capito, Bucer, and Farel were there. It continued from 7th to 27th January, A.D. 1528. The Catholics were sadly wanting in able disputants, and they sustained an utter defeat. Worship and constitution were radically reformed. Cloisters were secularized; preachers gave their official oath to the civil magistrates. There were serious riots over the removal of the images. The valuable organ in the minster of St. Vincent was broken up by the ruthless iconoclasts. A political reformation was carried out along with the religious, and all stipendiaries received their warning.

§ 130.8. Complete Victory of the Reformation at Basel, St. Gall, and Schaffhausen, A.D. 1529.—The Burgomaster von Watt brought to St. Gall the news of the victorious issue of the disputation at Bern. This gave the finishing blow to the Catholic party. Thus in A.D. 1528, certainly not without some iconoclastic excesses, the Reformation triumphed.—In Basel, the council was divided, and so it took but half measures. On Good Friday, A.D. 1528, some citizens broke the images in St. Martin’s Church. They were apprehended. But a rising of citizens obliged the council to set them free, and several churches from which the images had been withdrawn were given over to the reformers. In December, A.D. 1528, the trades presented a petition asking for the final abolition of idolatry. The Catholic party and the reformed took to arms, and a civil war seemed imminent. The council, however, succeeded in quelling the disturbance by announcing a disputation where the majority of the citizens should decide by their votes. But the Catholic minority protested so energetically that the council had again recourse to half measures. The dissatisfaction of the reformed led to an explosion of violent image breaking in Lent, A.D. 1529. Huge bonfires of images and altars were set a blaze. The strict Catholic members of the council fled, the rest quelled the revolt by an unconditional surrender. Even Erasmus gave way (§ 120, 6). Œcolampadius had married in A.D. 1528. He died in A.D. 1531. In Schaffhausen up to A.D. 1529 matters were undecided, but the proceedings at Basel and Bern gave victory to the reformed party. The drama here ended with a double marriage. The abbot of All Saints married a nun, and Erasmus Ritter married the abbot’s sister. Images were removed without tumult and the mass abolished.

§ 130.9. The first Treaty of Cappel, A.D. 1529.—In the five forest cantons the Catholics had the upper hand, and there every attempted political as well as religious reform was relentlessly put down. Zürich and Bern could stand this no longer. Unterwalden now revolted, and found considerable support in the other four cantons, and the position of the cities became serious. The forest cantons now turned to Austria, the old enemy of Swiss freedom, and concluded at Innsbrück in A.D. 1529 a formal league with King Ferdinand for mutual assistance in matters touching the faith. Trusting to this league, they increased their cruel persecutions of the reformed, and burnt alive a Zürich preacher, Keyser, whom they had seized on the public highway on neutral territory. Then the Zürichers rose up in revolt. With their decided preponderance they might certainly have crushed the five cantons, and then all Switzerland would have surrounded Zwingli in the support of reform. But Bern was jealous of Zürich’s growing importance, and even many Zürichers for fear of war urged negotiations for peace with the old members of the league. Thus came about the First Treaty of Cappel in A.D. 1529. The five cantons gave up the Austrian league document to be destroyed, undertook to defray the costs of the war, and agreed that the majority in each canton should determine the faith of that canton. As to freedom of belief it was only said that no party should make the faith of the other penal. This was less than Zwingli wished, yet it was a considerable gain. Thurgau, Baden, Schaffhausen, Solothurn, Neuenburg, Toggenburg, etc., on the basis of this treaty, abolished mass, images, and altars.

§ 130.10. The Second Treaty of Cappel, A.D. 1531.—Even after the treaty the five cantons continued to persecute the reformed, and renewed their alliance with Austria. Their undue preponderance in the assembly led Zürich to demand a revision of the federation. This led the forest cantons to increase their cruelties upon the reformed. Zürich declared for immediate hostilities, but Bern decided to refuse all commercial intercourse with the five cantons. At the diet at Lucerne, the five cantons resolved in September, A.D. 1531, to avert famine by immediately declaring war. They made their arrangements so secretly that the reformed party was not the least prepared, when suddenly, on the 9th October, an army of 8,000 men, bent on revenge, rushed down on the Zürich Canton. In all haste 2,000 men were mustered, who were almost annihilated in the battle of Cappel on 11th October. There, too, Zwingli fell. His body was quartered and burnt, and the ashes scattered to the winds. Zürich and Bern soon brought a force of 20,000 men into the field, but the courage of their enemies had grown in proportion as all confidence and spirit departed from the reformed. Further successes led the forest cantons, which had hitherto acted only on the defensive, to proceed on the offensive, and the reformed were constrained to accept on humbling terms the Second Treaty of Cappel of A.D. 1531. This granted freedom of worship to the reformed in their own cantons, but secured the restoration of Catholicism in the five cantons. The defeated had also to bear the costs of the war, and to renounce their league with Strassburg, Constance, and Hesse. The hitherto oppressed Catholic minority began now to assert itself on all hands, and in many places were more or less successful in securing the ascendency. So it was in Aargau, Thurgau, Rapperschwyl, St. Gall, Rheinthal, Solothurn, Glarus, etc.

§ 131. THE SACRAMENTARIAN CONTROVERSY, A.D. 1525-1529.[368]

Luther in his “Babylonish Captivity of the Church,” of A.D. 1520, had, in opposition to prevailing views, which made the efficacy of the sacraments dependent on the objective receiving without regard to the faith of the receiver, opus operatum, pressed forward the subjective side in a somewhat extreme manner. During the earlier period of his career as a reformer, and indeed even at a later period, as his letter to the men of Strassburg shows, he was in danger of going to the extreme of overlooking or denying the real objective and Divine contents of the sacrament. But decided as the opposition was to the scholastic theory of transubstantiation, and convinced as he was that the bread and wine were to be regarded as mere symbols, the text of Scripture seemed clearly to say to him that he must recognise there the presence of the true body and blood of Christ. His anxiety to avoid the errors of the fanatics, and his simple acceptance of the word of Scripture, led him to that conviction which inspired him to the end, that IN, WITH, and UNDER the bread and wine the true body and blood of the Lord are received, by believers unto salvation, by unbelievers unto condemnation.

Carlstadt (§ 124, 3) had denied utterly the presence of the body and blood of the Lord in the sacrament. He sought to set aside the force of the words of institution by giving to τοῦτο an absurd meaning: Christ had pointed to His own present body, and said, “This here is My body, which in death I will give for you, and in memory thereof eat this bread.” When Carlstadt, expelled from Saxony, came to Strassburg, he sought to interest the preachers there, Bucer and Capito, in himself and his sacramental view. But Luther was not moved by their attempts at conciliation. Zwingli, too, took the side of Carlstadt. In essential agreement with Carlstadt, but putting the matter on another basis, Zwingli interpreted the words of institution, “This is,” by “This signifies,” and reduced the significance of the sacrament to a symbolical memorial of Christ’s suffering and death. In an epistle to the Lutheran Matthew Alber at Reutlingen in A.D. 1524 he set forth this theory, and sided with Carlstadt against Luther. He developed his views more fully in his dogmatic treatise, Commentarius de vera et falsa relig., A.D. 1525, where he characterizes Luther’s doctrine as an opinio non solum rustica sed etiam impia et frivola. Œcolampadius, too, took part in the controversy as supporter of his friend Zwingli when attacked by Bugenhagen, and wrote in A.D. 1525 his De genuina verborum Domini, Hoc est corpus meum, expositione. He wished to understand the σῶμα of the words of institution as equivalent to “sign of the body.” Œcolampadius laid his treatise before the Swabian reformers Brenz and Schnepf; but these, in concert with twelve other preachers, answered in the Syngramma Suevicum of A.D. 1525 quite in accordance with Luther’s doctrine. The controversy continued to spread. Luther first openly appeared against the Swiss in A.D. 1526 in his “Sermon on the Sacrament against the Fanatics,” and to this Zwingli replied. Luther answered again in his tract, “That the words, This is My body, stand firm;” and in A.D. 1528 he issued his great manifesto, “Confession in regard to the Lord’s Supper” (§ 144, 2, note). Notwithstanding the endeavours of the Strassburgers at conciliation the controversy still continued. Zwingli’s statement was the shibboleth of the Swiss Reformation, and was adopted also in many of the upland cities. Strassburg, Lindau, Meiningen, and Constance accepted it; even in Ulm, Augsburg, Reutlingen, etc., it had its supporters.—Continuation, § 132, 4.

§ 132. THE PROTEST AND CONFESSION OF THE EVANGELICAL NOBLES, A.D. 1527-1530.

For three years after the diet at Spires in A.D. 1526 no public proceedings were taken on religious questions. The success of the Reformation however during these years roused the Catholic party to make a great effort. At the next diet at Spires, in A.D. 1529, the Catholics were in the majority, and measures were passed which, it was hoped, would put an end to the Reformation. The evangelicals tabled a formal protest (hence the name Protestants), and strove hard to have effect given to it. The union negotiations with the Swiss and uplanders were not indeed successful, but in the Augsburg Confession of A.D. 1530 they raised before emperor and empire a standard, around which they henceforth gathered with hearty goodwill.

§ 132.1. The Pack Incident, A.D. 1527, 1528.—In A.D. 1527 dark rumours of dangers to the evangelicals began to spread. The landgrave, suspecting the existence of a conspiracy of the German Catholic princes, gave to an officer in Duke George’s government, Otto von Pack, 10,000 florins to secure documents proving its existence. He produced one with the ducal seal, which bound the Catholic princes of Germany to fall upon the elector’s territories and Hesse, and to divide the lands among them, etc. The landgrave was all fire and fury, and even the Elector John joined him in a league to make a vigorous demonstration against the purposed attack. But Luther and Melanchthon pressed upon the elector our Lord’s words, “All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword,” and convinced him that he ought to abide the attack and restrict himself to simple defence. The landgrave, highly offended at the failure of his project, sent a copy of the document to Duke George, who declared the whole affair a tissue of lies. Philip had begun operations against the elector, but was heartily ashamed of himself when he came to his sober senses. Pack when interrogated became involved in contradictions, and was found to be a thoroughly bad subject, who had been before convicted of falsehood and intrigues. The landgrave expelled him from his territories. He wandered long a homeless exile, and at last, in A.D. 1536, was executed by Duke George’s orders in the Netherlands. All this seriously injured the interests of the gospel. Mutual distrust among the Protestant leaders continued, and sympathy was created for the Catholic princes as men who had been unjustly accused.

§ 132.2. The Emperor’s Attitude, A.D. 1527-1529.—The faithlessness of the king of France and the ratification of the League of Cognac (§ 126, 6) led to very strained relations between the pope and the emperor. Old Frundsberg raised an army in Germany, and the German peasants, without pay or reward, crossed the Alps, burning with desire to humiliate the pope. On 6th May, A.D. 1527, the imperial army of Spaniards and Germans stormed Rome. The so-called sack of Rome presented a scene of plunder and spoliation scarcely ever paralleled. Clement VII., besieged in St. Angelo, was obliged to surrender himself prisoner. But once again Germany’s hopes were cast to the ground by the emperor. Considering the opinion that prevailed in Spain, and influenced by his own antipathy to the Saxon heresy, besides other political combinations, he forgot that he had been saved by Lutheran soldiers. In June, A.D. 1528, at Barcelona, he concluded a peace with the pope and promised to use his whole power in suppressing heresy. By the Treaty of Cambray, in July, A.D. 1529, the French war also was finally brought to a conclusion. In this treaty both potentates promised to uphold the papal chair, and Francis I. renewed his undertaking to furnish aid against heretics and Turks. Charles now hastened to Italy to be crowned by the pope, meaning then by his personal attentions to settle the affairs of Germany.

§ 132.3. The Diet at Spires, A.D. 1529.—In the end of A.D. 1528 the emperor issued a summons for another diet at Spires, which met on 21st Feb., A.D. 1529. Things had changed since A.D. 1526. The Catholics were roused by the Pack episode, halting nobles were terrorized by the emperor, the prelates were present in great numbers, and the Catholics, for the first time since the Diet at Worms, were in a decided majority. The proposition of the imperial commissioners to rescind the conclusions of the diet of A.D. 1526 was adopted by a majority, and formulated as the diet’s decision. No innovations were to be introduced until at least a council had been convened, mass was everywhere to be tolerated, the jurisdiction and revenues of the bishops were in all cases to be fully restored. It was the death-knell of the Reformation, as it gave the bishops the right of deposing and punishing preachers at their will. As Ferdinand was deaf to all remonstrances, the evangelicals presented a solemn protest, with the demand that it should be incorporated in the imperial statute book. But Ferdinand refused to receive it. The Protestants now took no further steps, but drew up a formal statement of their case for the emperor, appealed to a free council and German national assembly, and declared their constant adherence to the decisions of the previous diet. This document was signed by the Elector of Saxony, the Landgrave of Hesse, George of Brandenburg, the two dukes of Lüneburg, and Prince Wolfgang of Anholt [Anhalt]. Of the upland cities fourteen subscribed it.

§ 132.4. The Marburg Conference, A.D. 1529.—The Elector of Saxony and Hesse entered into a defensive league with Strassburg, Ulm, and Nuremberg at Spires. The theologians present agreed only with hesitation to admit the Zwinglian Strassburg. The landgrave at the same time formed an alliance with Zürich, which attached itself to the interests of Francis I. of France. Thus began the most formidable coalition which had ever yet been formed against the house of Austria. But one point had been overlooked which broke it all up again, viz. the religious differences between the Lutheran and Zwinglian confessions. Melanchthon returned to Wittenburg [Wittenberg] with serious qualms of conscience; Luther had declared against any league, most of all against any fraternising with the “Sacramentarians,” and the elector to some extent agreed with him. Even the Nuremberg theologians had their scruples. The proposed league was to have been ratified at Rotach in June. The meeting took place, but no conclusion was reached. The landgrave was furious, but the elector was resolute. Philip now summoned leading theologians on both sides to a conference at Marburg in his castle, which lasted from 1st till 3rd Oct., A.D. 1529. On the one side were Luther, Melanchthon, Justus Jonas, from Wittenberg, Brenz from Swabia, and Osiander from Nuremberg; on the other side, Zwingli from Zürich, Œcolampadius from Basel, Bucer and Hadio [Hedio] from Strassburg. After, by the landgrave’s well-meant arrangement, Zwingli had discussed privately with Melanchthon, and Luther with Œcolampadius, during the first day, the public conference began on the second. First of all several points were discussed on the divinity of Christ, original sin, baptism, the word of God, etc., in reference to which suspicions of Zwingli’s orthodoxy had been current in Wittenberg. On all these Zwingli willingly abandoned his peculiar theories and accepted the doctrines of the œcumenical church. But his views of the Lord’s Supper he stoutly maintained. He took his stand upon John vi. 63, “The flesh profiteth nothing;” but Luther wrote with chalk on the table before him, “This is My body,” as the word of God which no one may explain away. No agreement could be reached. Zwingli declared that notwithstanding he was ready for brotherly fellowship, but this Luther and his party unanimously refused. Luther said, “You are of another spirit than we.” Still Luther had found his opponents not so bad as he expected, and also the Swiss found that Luther’s doctrine was not so gross and capernaitic as they had imagined. They agreed on fifteen articles, in the fourteenth of which they determined on the basis of the œcumenical church doctrine to oppose the errors of Papists and Anabaptists, and in the fifteenth the Swiss admitted that the true body and blood of Christ are in the sacrament, but they could not admit that they were corporeally in the bread and wine. Three copies of these Marburg articles were signed by the theologians present.—Continuation, § 133, 8.

§ 132.5. The Convention of Schwabach and the Landgrave Philip.—A convention met at Schwabach in Oct., A.D. 1529, at which a confession of seventeen articles was proposed to the representatives of the Swiss, but rejected by them. Meanwhile the imperial answer to the decisions of the diet had arrived from Spain, containing very ungracious expressions against the Protestants. The evangelical nobles sent an embassy to the emperor to Italy; but he refused to receive the protest, and treated the ambassadors almost as prisoners. They returned to Germany with a bad report. Hitherto there had been only a defensive federation against attacks of the Swabian League or other Catholic princes. Luther’s hope that the emperor might yet be won was shattered. The question now was, what should be done if an onslaught upon the reformed should be made by the emperor himself. The jurists indeed were of opinion that the German princes were not unconditionally subject to the emperor; they too have authority by God’s grace, and in the exercise of this are bound to protect their subjects. But Luther did not hesitate for a moment to compare the relation of the elector to the emperor with that of the burgomaster of Torgau to the elector; for he maintained the idea of the empire as firmly as that of the church. He insisted that the princes should not withstand the emperor, and that they should bear everything patiently for God’s sake. Only if the emperor should proceed to persecute their own subjects for their faith should they renounce their obedience. The landgrave’s negotiations with Zwingli also led to no result. For political purposes, notwithstanding the opposition of Wittenberg, there was formed a coalition of all the Protestants of the north with the exception of Denmark, extending also to the south and embracing even Venice and France. The Swiss would stop the way of the emperor over the Alps; Venice would be of service with her fleet, and the most Christian king of France was to be summoned as the protector of political and religious freedom of Germany. But these fine plans were seen to be vain dreams when the time for putting them in practice came round.

§ 132.6. The Diet of Augsburg, A.D. 1530.—From Boulogne, where the pope crowned him, the emperor summoned a diet to meet at Augsburg, at which for the first time in nine he was to be personally present. He would once again seek to induce the Protestants quietly to return to the old faith, and so his missive was very conciliatory. But before its arrival new irritations had arisen at Augsburg. The Elector John allowed the preachers accompanying him, Spalatin and Agricola, to engage freely in preaching. The emperor was greatly displeased at this, and sent him a request to withdraw this permission, which, however, he did not regard. On 15th June, accompanied by the papal legate Campegius (§ 126, 2, 3), he made a brilliant entrance, the Protestants, on the ground of 2 Kings v. 17, 18, offering no opposition to all the civil and ecclesiastical reception ceremonies. This gave the emperor greater confidence in renewing the demand to stop the preaching. But the Protestants stood firm, and Margrave George called down the unmeasured wrath of the emperor by his decided but humble declaration, that before he would deny God’s word, he would kneel where he stood and have his head struck off. Just as decidedly he refused the emperor’s call to join the Corpus Christi procession on the following day, even with the addition that it was “to the glory of Almighty God.” At last they yielded the matter of the preaching so far as to discontinue it during the emperor’s stay, on the other party undertaking to discontinue controversial discourses. On 20th June the diet opened. The matter of the Turkish war was on the emperor’s motion postponed, to allow of the thorough discussion of the religious questions.

§ 132.7. The Augsburg Confession, 25th June, A.D. 1530.—In view of the diet the evangelical theologians prepared for the elector a short confession in the form of a revision of the seventeen Schwabach Articles, the so called Torgau Articles. Melanchthon employed the days that preceded the opening of the diet in drawing up on the basis of the Torgau Articles, in constant correspondence with the evangelical theologians, the Augsburg Confession, Confessio Augustana. This concise, clear, and decided though temperate document received the hearty approval of Luther, who, as still under the ban, was kept back by the elector at Coburg. It contained twenty-one Articuli fidei præcipui, and also seven Articuli in quibus recensentur abusus mutati. On 24th June the Protestants said they desired their confession to be publicly read. But it was with difficulty that they obtained the emperor’s consent to allow its being read on the 25th June, and even then not in the public hall, but in a much smaller episcopal chapel, where only members of the diet could find room. The two chancellors of the electorate, Baier and Brück, appeared, the one with a German, the other with a Latin copy of the confession. The emperor wished the Latin, but the elector insisted that on German soil the German copy should be read. When this was done Dr. Brück handed both copies to the emperor, who kept the Latin one and gave the German one to the Elector of Mainz. Both were subscribed by Elector John, Margrave George, Duke Ernest of Lüneburg, Landgrave Philip, Prince Wolfgang of Anhalt, and the cities of Nuremberg and Reutlingen. The confession made a favourable impression on many of the assembled princes, and many prejudices were dissipated; while the evangelicals were greatly strengthened by the unanimous confession of their faith before the emperor and the empire. The Catholic theologians Faber, Eck, Cochlæus, and Wimpina were ordered by the emperor to controvert the confession. Meanwhile Melanchthon entered into negotiations with the legate Campegius, in which his love of peace went so far as to withdraw all demands for marriage of the clergy, and the giving of the cup to the laity, and to allow the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the bishops, reserving the question about the mass to the decision of a council. But these weak concessions found little or no favour among the other Protestants, and the legate could make no binding engagement until he consulted Rome. On 3rd Aug. the confutation of the Catholic theologians was read. The emperor declared that it maintained the views by which he would stand. He expected the princes would do the same. He was defender of the Church, and was not disposed to suffer ecclesiastical schism in Germany. The Protestants demanded for closer inspection a copy of the confutation. This was refused. The landgrave now left the diet. To the elector he said that he gave over to him and to God’s word body and goods, land and people; and to the representatives of the cities he wrote: “Say to the cities that they are not women, but men. There is no fear; God is on our side.” The zealous Papist Duke William of Bavaria declared to Eck, “If I hear well, the Lutherans sit upon the Scripture and we alongside of it.” The cities siding with Zwingli, Strassburg, Memmingen, Constance, and Lindau, presented their own confession drawn up by Bucer and Capilo [Capito], the Confessio Tetrapolitana. In its eighteenth article it taught that Christ gives in the sacrament His true body and His true blood to be eaten and drunk for the feeding of the soul. The emperor had a Catholic reply read, with which he expressed satisfaction. Luther had meanwhile from Coburg supported those contending for the confession by prayer, counsel, and comfort. He preached frequently, wrote many letters, negotiated with Bucer (§ 133, 8), wrought at the translation of the prophets, and composed several evangelical works of edification.

§ 132.8. The Conclusions of the Diet of Augsburg.—The firm bright spirit of the minority made it seem to the Catholic majority too considerable to allow of an open breach. A further attempt was therefore made to reach some agreement. A commission was appointed, comprising from either side two princes, two doctors of canon law, and three theologians. On the twenty-one doctrinal articles, with the exception of that on the sacraments, they were practically agreed, but the Protestants were called upon to abandon everything in regard to constitution and customs. Thus the attempt failed. Five imperial cities took the side of the emperor, the rest attached themselves to the Protestant princes. The Protestants wished to read Melanchthon’s apology for the Augsburg Confession against the charge of the Catholic confutation, but the emperor with unbending stubbornness refused. This was the most decided piece of work Melanchthon ever did. At the close of the diet, 22nd Sept., the Protestant princes were informed that time for reflection would be allowed them till 15th April of the following year; meanwhile they should not enforce any innovations and should allow confession and the mass in their territories. The early calling of a council was expressly promised. The princes of the church had all their rights restored. The emperor declared his firm determination to enforce in its full rigour the edict of Worms, and commissioned the public prosecutor to proceed against the disobedient even to the length of putting them under the ban. The judicature was formally and expressly empowered to carry out the conclusions of the diet. Finally, the emperor expressed the wish that on account of his frequent absence his brother Ferdinand should be chosen King of Rome. The election was accordingly soon carried out at Frankfort; but the elector lodged a protest against it.

§ 133. INCIDENTS OF THE YEARS A.D. 1531-1536.

The Protestants now made an earnest effort to effect a union by forming in A.D. 1531 the Schmalcald League. To this decided action and the political difficulties of the emperor we owe the Peace of Nuremburg [Nuremberg] of A.D. 1532. The bold step of the landgrave freed Württemberg from the Austrian yoke and papal oppression. At the same time the Reformation triumphed in Anhalt, Pomerania, and several Westphalian cities. All Westphalia might have been one but for the Anabaptists. Bucer’s unwearied efforts at last succeeded by the Wittenberg concordat in opening the way for the Schmalcald League into the cities of the Uplands. The league now comprised an imposing array of powerful members.

§ 133.1. The Founding of the Schmalcald League, A.D. 1530, 1531.—The conferring upon the court of justiciary the power to execute the decrees of the Diet of Augsburg was most dangerous to the Protestants. For protection against this design, the Protestant nobles at a convention at Schmalcald in Dec., A.D. 1530, formed the bold resolution, that all should stand as one in resisting every attack of the court. But when the question came to be discussed, whether in case of need they should go the length of armed resistance to the emperor opinion was divided. The views of the jurists finally prevailed over those of the theologians, and the elector insisted on a league against every aggressor, even should it be the emperor himself. At a new convention at Schmalcald in March, A.D. 1531, a league on these terms was concluded for six years. The members of it were the electorate of Saxony, Hesse, Lüneburg, Anhalt, Mansfeld, and eleven cities.

§ 133.2. The Peace of Nuremberg, A.D. 1532.—The energetic combination of the Protestants had now rendered them formidable, and the Sultan Soliman was threatening a new attack. If the Protestants were to be conquered, an agreement must be come to with the Turks; if the Turks were to be humbled, a peaceable settlement with the Protestants was indispensable. Ferdinand’s policy at first inclined to the latter direction, and by his advice the emperor summoned a diet at Regensburg, and till the meeting forbade any prosecutions on the basis of the decrees of the Diet of Augsburg. But soon the catastrophe in Switzerland (§ 130, 10) changed Ferdinand’s policy. It seemed to him now the fittest time to deal a similar blow to the evangelicals in Germany. He therefore sent an embassy to the sultan, empowered to make the most humiliating conditions of peace. But Soliman rejected all proposals with scorn, and in April, A.D. 1532, advanced with an army of 300,000 men. Meanwhile the Diet of Regensburg had opened on 17th April, A.D. 1532. The Protestants no longer presented a humble petition, as they had done two years before, but they firmly made their demands. There was no longer talk of compromise or suffrance. They demanded peace in matters of religion; the annulling of all religious prosecutions; and, finally, a free general council, where matters should be decided solely by God’s word. So long as Ferdinand had any hope of getting a favourable answer from the Turks, he would not seriously consider proposals for peace. But when that hope was shattered, and Soliman’s terrible host approached, there was no time to lose. At Nuremberg the peace was concluded on 23rd July, A.D. 1532. The faithful elector was allowed to see the happy day, but died in that same year. He was succeeded by his son, John Frederick the Magnanimous, A.D. 1532-1547. A noble army was soon raised from the imperial guards. Soliman suffered various misfortunes on land and water, and withdrew without accomplishing anything. The emperor now went to Italy, and insisted on the pope calling a general council. But the pope thought the time had not come for that. Also the annulling of prosecutions promised in the treaty remained long unfulfilled. Pending prosecutions, mostly about restitution of ecclesiastical goods and jurisdiction, were pronounced to be not matters of religion, but of spoliation and breach of the peace. The Protestants made a formal complaint in Jan., A.D. 1534. This was disregarded, and arrangements were being made to put certain nobles under the ban when events occurred at Württemberg which changed the aspect of affairs.

§ 133.3. The Evangelization of Württemberg, A.D. 1534, 1535.—The Swabian League in the interest of Austria had obtained the banishment of Duke Ulrich in A.D. 1528, and frustrated every attempt to secure his return. His son Christopher had been educated at the court of Ferdinand, and in A.D. 1532 accompanied the emperor to Spain. He made his escape into the Alps, and publicly claimed his German inheritance. The Landgrave Philip, Ulrich’s personal friend, had long resolved to reconquer Württemberg for him. At last, in the spring of A.D. 1534, with aid of French gold, he carried out his plan. At Laufen Ferdinand’s army was almost annihilated, and he himself was obliged in the Peace of Cadau of A.D. 1534 to restore Ulrich to Württemberg as an under-feudatory, but with seat and vote in the imperial diet, and to allow him a free hand in carrying out the Reformation in his territory. Luther’s views had from the first found hearty reception in Württemberg. The oldest and most distinguished of the Swabian reformers, whose reputation had spread far beyond Württemberg, was John Brenz (§§ 131, 1; 132, 4; 135, 2; 136, 6, 8). He was preacher in Swabian Halle from A.D. 1522, provost in Stuttgart from A.D. 1553, and died in A.D. 1570. But Ferdinand’s government had stretched its arm so far as to visit with death all manifestations of sympathy with the Reformation. All the more rapidly did the work of evangelization now proceed. Ulrich brought with him Ambrose Blaurer, a disciple of Zwingli and friend of Bucer, and Erhard Schnapf, a decided supporter of Luther; to the former he assigned the evangelization of the upper, and to the latter the evangelization of the lower division of his territories. Both had agreed in accepting a common formula of Reformation principles. By the founding of the University of Tübingen, organized after the pattern of Marburg, Ulrich rendered important service to the cause of Protestant learning. Several neighbouring courts and cities were encouraged to follow Württemberg’s example.

§ 133.4. The Reformation in Anhalt and Pomerania, A.D. 1532-1534.—Wolfgang of Anhalt had at an early date introduced the Reformation on the banks of the Saale and into Zerbst. Another prince of Anhalt, George, at first an opponent of Luther, but converted by means of his writings, began in A.D. 1532 the Reformation of the country east of the Elbe. And when the Bishop of Brandenburg refused to ordain his married priests, he sent them to be ordained by Luther in Wittenberg. Much more violent was the Reformation of Pomerania. Nobles and clergy sought to rouse the people against Lutheranism. Prince Barnim was an ardent supporter of Luther, but his brother George was bitterly opposed. On George’s death, his son Philip joined with Barnim in introducing the Reformation into the land. At the Assembly of Treptow, in Dec., A.D. 1534, they presented a scheme of Reformation, which the nobles heartily accepted. It was carried into operation by Bugenhagen by a church visitation after the pattern of that of Saxony.

§ 133.5. The Reformation in Westphalia, A.D. 1532-1534.—In the Westphalian cities much was accomplished by Luther’s hymns. Pideritz, priest of Lamgo, was a supporter of Eck; but wishing to see the working of the new views for himself, he went to Brunswick, and returned to inaugurate the Reformation in his own city. At Soest, the Catholic council condemned to death a workman who had spoken of it with disrespect. Two blundering attempts were made upon the scaffold, and the victim at last was conducted home by the crowd in triumph. He died next day. The council precipitately fled from the city. And thus in July, A.D. 1533, Catholicism lost its last prop in that place. In Paderborn, where liberty of preaching had been enjoyed, the Elector of Cologne (§ 135, 7) had some of the leading Lutherans imprisoned; and when some on the rack confessed to a treasonable correspondence with the Landgrave of Hesse, of which they had been falsely accused, he condemned them to death. But moved by the request of an old man to share their death, and by the weeping of the wives and maidens, Hermann spared their lives. In Münster, Luther’s doctrines were preached as early as A.D. 1531 by Rottmann, and soon the evangelicals won the ascendency, so that council and clergy left the city. The Bishop of Waldeck, after an unsuccessful attempt by force of arms, was obliged in A.D. 1533 to grant unconditional religious freedom. The neighbouring cities were about to follow the example of the capital, when a catastrophe occurred which resulted in the complete restoration of Catholicism.

§ 133.6. Disturbances at Münster, A.D. 1534, 1535.—Rottmann had added to his Zwinglian creed the renunciation of infant baptism, and prepared the way for Anabaptist excesses. John of Leyden appeared in A.D. 1534, gained great popularity as a preacher, and the council was weak enough to grant legal recognition to the fanatics. Mad enthusiasts flocked into the city. One of their prophets proclaimed it as God’s will that unbelievers should be expelled. This was done on 27th February, A.D. 1534. Seven deacons divided what was left among the believers. In May the bishop laid siege to the city. This had the effect of confining the mad disorder to Münster. After the destruction of all images, organs, and books, with exception only of the Bible, community of goods was introduced. John of Leyden got the council set aside as required by his revelations, and appointed a theocratic government of twelve elders, who took their inspiration from the prophet. He proclaimed polygamy, himself taking seventeen wives, while Rottmann contented himself with four. In vain did the moral conscience of the inhabitants protest. The objectors were executed. One of his fellow prophets proclaimed John king of the whole world. He set up a showy and expensive establishment, and committed the most frightful abominations. He regarded himself as called to inaugurate the millennium, sent out twenty-eight apostles to extend his kingdom, and named twelve dukes who should rule the world under him. The besiegers made an unsuccessful attempt in August, A.D. 1534, to storm the city. Had not aid been sent them before the end of the year from Hesse, Treves, Cleves, Mainz, and Cologne, they would have been obliged to raise the siege. Even then they could only think of reducing the city by famine. It was already in great straits. On St. John’s night, A.D. 1535, a deserter led the troops to the walls. After a stubborn resistance the Anabaptists were beaten. Rottmann threw himself into the hottest of the fight, and there perished. John, with his chief officers, was taken prisoner, put to death with frightful tortures on 22nd Jan., A.D. 1536, and then hung in chains from St. Lambert’s tower. Catholicism was thus restored to absolute supremacy.

§ 133.7. Extension of the Schmalcald league, A.D. 1536.—A war with France had broken out in A.D. 1536, which taxed all the emperor’s resources. Francis I. had made a league with Soliman for a combined attack upon the emperor. Instead therefore of punishing the Protestant princes for their proceedings in Württemberg, he was obliged to do all he could to conciliate them, as Francis was bidding for their alliance. Ferdinand therefore, from the summer of A.D. 1535, sought to ingratiate himself with the Protestants. In November he received a visit of the elector in Vienna, and granted the extension of the Peace of Nuremberg to all nobles who since its ratification had become Protestants. The elector then went to an assembly at Schmalcald, where the Schmalcald League was extended for ten years, the French embassy dismissed, and the opposition to Austria abandoned. On the basis of the Vienna compact Württemberg, Pomerania, Anhalt, and several cities were added to the league. Signature of the Augsburg Confession was the indispensable condition of reception. Bucer managed to win over the upland cities to accept this condition.

§ 133.8. The Wittenberg Concordat of A.D. 1536.—Bucer and ultimately Œcolampadius, made such concessions on the doctrine of the sacraments as satisfied Luther, but they were rejected by Bullinger of Zürich. In December, A.D. 1535, there was a conference at Cassel between Bucer and Melanchthon. A larger conference was afterward held at Wittenberg, at which Bucer and Capito from Strassburg, and eight other distinguished theologians from the uplands, were present. As they accepted the formula “in, with, and under,” the only question remaining was whether unbelievers partook of the body of Christ. They admitted this in regard to the unworthy, but not, as Luther wished, in regard to the godless and unbelieving. Luther was satisfied. On 25th May, A.D. 1536, Melanchthon composed the “Wittenberg Concord,” which was signed by all, and ratified by the common partaking of the sacrament. In consequence of this union effort, three of the Swiss theologians, Bullinger, Myconius, and Grynæus seceded, and produced the Confessio Helvetica prior, in which the Zwinglian doctrine of the sacraments was moderately but firmly maintained.

§ 134. INCIDENTS OF THE YEARS A.D. 1537-1539.

Clement VII. made many excuses for postponing the calling of a council. At last, in A.D. 1533, he declared himself willing to do so in the course of the year; but he required of the Protestants unconditional acceptance of its decisions, to which they would not agree. His successor, Paul III., A.D. 1534-1549, called one to meet at Mantua in A.D. 1537. Luther composed for it as a manifesto the Schmalcald Articles; but finally the Protestants renewed their demand for a free council in a German city. In A.D. 1538 the Catholic nobles concluded the Holy Alliance at Nuremberg for carrying out the decrees of the Diet of Augsburg; but the political difficulties of the emperor compelled him to make new concessions to the Protestants in the Frankfort Interim of A.D. 1539. But in the same year the duchy of Saxony and the electorate of Brandenburg went over to the Reformation. By the beginning of A.D. 1540 almost all North Germany was won. Duke Henry of Brunswick alone held out for the old faith.

§ 134.1. The Schmalcald Articles, A.D. 1537.—In A.D. 1535 Paul III. sent his legate Vergerius (§ 139, 24) into Germany to fix a place of meeting for the council. At Wittenberg he conferred with Luther and Bugenhagen, who scarcely expecting the council were indifferent as to the place. The council was formally summoned to meet at Mantua on May 23rd, A.D. 1537. At a diet at Schmalcald in Feb., A.D. 1537, the Protestants stated their demands. Luther, by the elector’s orders, had drawn up the articles of which the council must treat. These Schmalcald Articles are distinctly polemical, and indicate boldly the limits of the papal hierarchy demanded by evangelicals. The first part states briefly four uncontested positions on the Trinity and the Person of Christ; the second part deals with the office and work of Christ or our redemption, and marks abruptly the points of difference between the two confessions; the third part treats of those points which the council may further discuss. In the second part Luther unconditionally rejected the primacy of the pope, as not of Divine right and inconsistent with the character of a true evangelical Church. When the articles had been subscribed by the theologians, Melanchthon added under his name: “As to the pope, I hold that if he will not oppress the gospel, for the sake of the peace and unity of those Christians who are or may be under him, his superiority over bishops jure humano might be allowed by us.” Melanchthon’s tracts on “The Power of the Pope” and the “Jurisdiction of Bishops” were also subscribed by the theologians and added to the Schmalcald Articles. It was then decided that in order to secure a free Christian council it must be held in a German city. The elector even made the bold proposal to have a counter-council summoned, say, at Augsburg, by Luther and his fellow bishops.

§ 134.2. The League of Nuremberg, A.D. 1538.—The Protestant princes were astonished at the close of the Schmalcald convention to be told by Vice-Chancellor Held, on behalf of the emperor, that he did not recognise the Peace of Cadau or the Vienna Compact, and that the prosecutions would be resumed. They therefore resumed their old attitude of opposition. But Held visited all the Catholic courts in order to complete the formation of a Catholic league for the suppression of Protestantism. Ferdinand, who knew well that Held exceeded his instructions, was very angry, for the emperor was in the greatest straits, but he could not offer direct opposition without offending the Catholic princes. So on July 10th, A.D. 1538, the Holy Alliance was actually formed at Nuremberg, embracing George of Saxony, Albert of Brandenburg, Henry and Eric of Brunswick, King Ferdinand, and the Archbishop of Salzburg. The Schmalcald nobles prepared to meet force with force. A general bloody engagement seemed unavoidable.

§ 134.3. The Frankfort Interim, A.D. 1539.—As the emperor needed help against Soliman, he recalled Held, and sent in his place John, formerly Archbishop of Leyden. The electors of Brandenburg and the Palatinate went as mediators with the new envoy to Frankfort, where negotiations were opened with the Protestants present, who demanded an unconditional, lasting peace, and a judiciary court with Protestant as well as Catholic members. These demands were at first refused, but pressing need obliged the emperor to reopen negotiations, proposing that a diet should be held, consisting of learned theologians and simple, peaceable laymen, to effect a final union of Christians in faith and worship. He would also grant suspension of all proceedings against the Protestants for eighteen months. The Protestants accepted in this “Frankfort Interim” what had been greatly sought for at the Diet of Nuremberg. It was a victory of the Schmalcald over the Nuremberg League. The public confidence in Protestantism grew, and the cause rapidly spread into new regions.

§ 134.4. The Reformation in Albertine Saxony, A.D. 1539.—Duke George of Saxony, A.D. 1500-1539, was a devoted adherent of the old faith. Of his four sons only one survived, and he almost imbecile. He had him married, but he died two months after the marriage. The old prince was in perplexity, for his brother Henry, an ardent supporter of the Reformation, was his next heir. He could ill brook the idea of having the whole work of his life immediately undone. On the day of the death of his last son he proposed to his nobles a scheme of succession, according to which his brother Henry should succeed him only if he joined the Nuremberg League; otherwise it should go to the emperor or the King of Rome. Duke Henry rejected the proposal, and Duke George died before he could produce another scheme. With loud rejoicing the people received their new prince, and their allegiance was sworn to him at Leipzig. Luther was there, for the first time for twenty years, and preached with extraordinary success. The Reformation proceeded rapidly throughout the whole district. The King of Rome wished indeed to question George’s claim, but the Schmalcald League resolved to stand by him, so that Ferdinand thought it prudent to take no further steps.

§ 134.5. The Reformation in Brandenburg and Neighbouring States, A.D. 1539.—Henry of Neumark joined the Schmalcald League, and introduced the Reformation into his territories; but his brother Joachim II. of Brandenburg, A.D. 1535-1571, for several years adhered to the old faith without forbidding evangelical preaching, which gradually made an impression on his own mind. In the beginning of A.D. 1539, with the approval of his nobles, he gave his adhesion to the reformed doctrines. The city of Berlin asked for communion in both kinds, and a considerable section of the nobles of Brandenburg expressed a hearty longing for the pure gospel. On November 1st, A.D. 1539, Joachim assembled all the preachers of his land in the Nicolai Church at Spandau, the Bishop of Brandenburg held the first evangelical communion, and the whole court and many knights received the communion in both kinds. The people followed the example of the prince. Joachim sketched a service which let several of the old ceremonies remain, but justification by faith was the central point of the doctrine, and communion in both kinds the centre of the worship. The Duchess Elizabeth of Calenberg-Brunswick followed her brother’s example. After the death of her husband Eric, who was otherwise minded, she exercised her influence as regent for the spread of the reformed religion. The Cardinal-archbishop and Elector of Mainz, Albert of Brandenburg, sought to preserve his archiepiscopal diocese of Magdeburg, but his constant calls for money would be responded to only on condition that he granted liberty of preaching. At his Halle residence he made vigorous resistance, but there too was obliged to yield. Before his eyes, Justus Jonas, Luther’s most trusted friend and fellow labourer, Prof. and Provost of Wittenberg since A.D. 1521, carried on the work of Reformation in the city. The cardinal, in a rage, left Halle and the “idol of Halle” (§ 123, 8) for Mainz.—Mecklenburg also about this time adopted the evangelical constitution, mainly promoted by one of its princes, Magnus Bishop of Schwerin. The Abbess of Quedlinburg, Anna von Stolberg, had not ventured, so long as Duke George of Saxony lived, to bring forward her evangelical confession; but now without opposition she reformed her convent and the city.

§ 135. UNION ATTEMPTS OF A.D. 1540-1546.

The Frankfort Interim revived the idea of a free union among those who in the main agreed upon matters of faith and worship. With the object of realizing this idea a whole series of religious conferences were held. But near as its realization at one time seemed to be all the measures taken proved one after another abortive, because the emperor would not recognise the conclusions of any conference at which a papal legate was not present. And just at this time, when the imposing might of the Protestant nobles excited the brightest hopes, the Protestant princes themselves laid the grounds of their deepest humiliation: the landgrave by his double marriage, and the elector by his quarrels with the ducal Saxon court.

§ 135.1. The Double Marriage of the Landgrave, A.D. 1540.—Landgrave Philip of Hesse had married Christina, a daughter of the deceased Duke George of Saxony. Various causes had led to an estrangement between them, and a strong sensuous nature, which he had been unable to control, had driven him to repeated acts of unfaithfulness. His conscience reproved him; he felt himself unworthy to be admitted to communion, great as his desire for it was, and doubted of his soul’s salvation. From regard to his wife he could not think of a divorce. Then came the idea, suggested by the O.T. polygamy that had not been abrogated in the N.T., that with consent of his wife he might enter into a regular second marriage with Margaret von der Saale, one of his sister’s lady’s-maids. In Nov., A.D. 1539, he sent Bucer to Wittenberg in order to get the advice of Luther and Melanchthon. The alternative was either continued adultery, or an honourable married life with a second wife taken with consent of the first. Luther and Melanchthon entreated him earnestly for his own and for the gospel’s sake to avoid this terrible scandal, but haltingly admitted that the latter alternative was less heinously wicked than the former. They added, however, that in order to avoid scandal the marriage should be private, and their answer regarded not as a theological opinion, but confidential counsel. The landgrave had the marriage consummated in May, A.D. 1540. But the story soon spread. The court of Albertine Saxony was deeply incensed, the elector beside himself with rage, the theologians in most extreme embarrassment. Melanchthon started to attend a religious conference at Hagenau, but the excitement over the unhappy business prostrated him on a sick-bed at Weimar. The emperor threatened Philip with the infliction of capital punishment, which by the law of the empire was attached to the crime of bigamy. At last the elector called a convention of Saxon and Hessian theologians at Eisenach to consult about the matter. Luther refused to treat it as a question of law, and demanded absolute privacy as the condition of permission. Among the opponents of the Reformation, it was Duke Henry of Brunswick who insisted upon exacting the utmost penalties of the law. He indeed was least fitted by his own character to assume the part of defender of morals. It was well known that he was then living in adultery with Eva von Trott, after her pretended death and burial. In his perplexity, Philip turned to the imperial chancellor Granvella, who was willing to intercede for him, but on conditions to which the landgrave could not accede. At last, at the Diet of Regensburg, in A.D. 1541, Philip undertook to further the imperial interests and to join no union in any way inimical to these; and upon these terms the emperor agreed to grant him a full indemnity.

§ 135.2. The Religious Conference at Worms, A.D. 1540.—Negotiations for peace with France having failed, the emperor still required the support of the Protestant party. He therefore agreed to the holding of a religious conference at Worms, in order to reach if possible a good mutual understanding on the basis of Holy Scripture. It was held in Nov., A.D. 1540, under the presidency of Granvella. On one side were Melanchthon, Bucer, Capito, Brenz, and Calvin; on the other, Eck, Gropper, canon of Cologne, the Spaniard Malvenda, etc. But the emperor had insisted on the papal nuncio Marone taking part, and this, contrary to his intention, brought the whole affair to naught. For Marone first of all presented a number of formal objections, and when at last, in Jan., A.D. 1541, the conference began, and awakened the utmost apprehensions for the papacy, he rested not till Granvella, even before the first article on original sin had been discussed, dissolved the conference in the name and by command of the emperor. But the emperor did not give up the idea of conciliation, and called a diet at Regensburg, at which the negotiations were to be renewed.

§ 135.3. The Religious Conference at Regensburg, A.D. 1541.—The diet at Regensburg was opened on April 5th, A.D. 1541. The emperor, anxious to reach a peaceable conclusion, named as members of the conference Eck, Gropper, and Julius von Pflugk, Dean of Meissen, on the one side; and Melanchthon, Bucer, and Pistorius, on the other side; with Granvella and Frederick, count-palatine, as presidents. The nuncio Contarini was representative of the curia. By such a gathering the emperor hoped to reach the wished for conclusion. In Italy (§ 139, 22) there had sprung up a number of men well instructed in Scripture, who sought to reform the doctrine of the church by adopting the principle of justification by faith without touching the primacy of the pope and the whole hierarchical system. Contarini was one of the leaders of this party. He had come to an understanding with the emperor that justification by faith, the use of the cup in communion by the laity, and marriage of priests should be allowed for Germany, and that, on the other hand, the Protestants were to agree to the primacy of the pope. The justitia imputativa was acknowledged by both parties; and even when Contarini, on the basis of that imputation, insisted upon a justitia inhærens, i.e. not merely a declaring but a making righteous, seeing that he grounded it solely on the merits of Christ, the Protestants acquiesced. Differences arose over the doctrine of the church, which were reserved for another occasion. And now they came to the sacrament of the altar. Communion in both kinds was agreed to by both; but trouble arose over the word transubstantiation. Not only Eck, who had opposed all concessions, but even Contarini, who had his orders from Rome, would not yield. No more would the Protestants. The conference had therefore to be dissolved. The emperor wished both parties to accept the articles agreed on as a common standard, and to have toleration granted upon the disputed points; but the Catholic majority would not agree to this. The Regensburg Interim, therefore, as the decision of the diet is usually called, extends the Nuremberg Peace (§ 133, 2) to all presently members of the Schmalcald League, and enforced upon Protestants only the accepted articles.

§ 135.4. The Regensburg Declaration, A.D. 1541.—The emperor, in order to satisfy the naturally dissatisfied Protestants, made a special declaration, annulling the prosecutions decree of the Augsburg Diet and relieving the adherents of the Augsburg Confession from all disabilities. Also the injunction that no one should withhold their dues from the clergy was extended to the Protestant ministers. But on the very day when the declaration was issued the emperor held a private session with the Catholic majority, in which the Nuremberg League was renewed and the pope received into it. Thus he hoped to receive help from all parties and to ward off internecine conflict till a more convenient season. He concluded a separate treaty with the landgrave and the Elector Joachim II., both undertaking to support imperial interests. The elector expressly promised not to join the Schmalcald League; and the landgrave promised to oppose all consorting of the league not only with foreign powers (England and France), but also with the Duke of Cleves, with whom the emperor had a standing feud. In return the landgrave was granted an amnesty for all previous delinquencies and undisturbed liberty in matters of religion. The emperor’s negotiations with the Elector of Saxony broke down over the Cleves dispute, for the Duke of Cleves was his brother-in-law.

§ 135.5. The Naumburg Bishopric, A.D. 1541, 1542.—Since A.D. 1520 the Lutheran doctrines had spread in the diocese of Naumburg. When the bishop died, in A.D. 1511, the chapter elected the learned and mild provost Julius von Pflugk. But the elector regarded it as proper in a Lutheran state to have a Lutheran bishop, and so refused to confirm Pflugk’s appointment, and had Nic. von Arnsdorf (§ 127, 4) ordained bishop by Luther, in A.D. 1542, “without chrism, butter, suet, lard, tar, grease, incense, and coals.” The civil administration of the diocese was committed to an electoral officer; Arnsdorf was satisfied with the small income of 600 florins and the rest of the revenues were applied to pious uses. After the battle of Mühlberg, in A.D. 1547, Arnsdorf was expelled and Pflugk restored. On his death in 1564, the chapter, though then Lutheran, did not restore Arnsdorf, but gave over the administration to a Saxon prince. The elector’s violent procedure in this case caused great offence to the Albertine court. Duke Henry had died in A.D. 1541, and was succeeded by his son Maurice. The elector and the young duke quarrelled over a question of jurisdiction, and it was only with great difficulty that Luther and the landgrave managed to effect a peaceful solution of the dispute. But the mutual estrangement and rivalry between the courts soon afterwards broke out in a violent form.

§ 135.6. The Reformation in Brunswick and the Palatinate, A.D. 1542-1546.—Duke Henry of Brunswick accused the city of Goslar of the destruction of two monasteries, and in spite of all the concessions to Protestants the court pronounced the ban against the city, and empowered Henry to carry it out. The elector and the landgrave, acting for the Schmalcald League in defence of the city, entered Henry’s territory in A.D. 1542 and conquered it. The gospel was now preached, and an evangelical constitution was given to Brunswick by Bugenhagen. This completed the conquest of North Germany for the gospel.—In South Germany Regensburg received the Reformation in A.D. 1542; but Bavaria, owing to Ferdinand’s influence, gave no place to the heretics. In the Upper Palatinate evangelical preachers had for a long time been tolerated. The young prince of the Neuburg Palatinate in A.D. 1543 called Osiander from Nuremburg [Nuremberg], and joined the Schmalcald League. The Elector-palatine Louis died in A.D. 1543. His brother Frederick II., who succeeded him was not unfavourable to the Reformation, and formally introduced it into his dominions in A.D. 1546. Even in Austria evangelical views made such advance that Ferdinand neither could nor would attempt those violent measures that he had previously tried.

§ 135.7. The Reformation in the Electorate of Cologne, A.D. 1542-1544.—Hermann von Weid (§ 133, 5), Archbishop and Elector of Cologne, now far advanced in life, by the study of Luther’s Bible had convinced himself of the scripturalness of the Augsburg Confession. He resolved to reform his province in accordance with God’s word. At the Bonn Assembly of March, A.D. 1542, he made known his plan, and found himself supported by his nobles. He invited Bucer to inaugurate the work, and he was soon joined by Melanchthon. In July, A.D. 1543, the elector laid before the nobles his Reformation scheme, and they unanimously accepted it. The cathedral chapter and the university opposed it in the interests of the papacy; also the Cologne council from fear of losing their authority. Nevertheless the movement advanced, and it was hoped that the opposition would gradually be overcome. Cologne was to remain after as before an ecclesiastical principality, but with an evangelical constitution. The Bishop of Münster prepared to follow the example, and had the work in Cologne been lasting, certainly many others would have pursued the same course.

§ 135.8. The Emperor’s Difficulties, A.D. 1543, 1544.—Soliman in A.D. 1541 had overrun Hungary, converted the principal church into a mosque, and set a pasha over the whole land, which now became a Turkish province. Aid against the Turks was voted at a diet at Spires in the beginning of A.D. 1542, and the Protestants were left unmolested for five years after the conclusion of the war. The campaign against the Turks led by Joachim II. was unsuccessful. Meanwhile new troubles arose with France, and Soliman prepared for a second campaign. The emperor now summoned a diet to meet at Nuremberg, Jan., A.D. 1543. Ferdinand was willing to grant to the Protestants the Regensburg Declaration, but William of Bavaria would rather see the whole world perish or the crescent ruling over all Germany. In summer of A.D. 1543 the emperor was beset with dangers from every side; France attacked the Netherlands, Soliman conquered Grau, the Danes closed the Sound against the subjects of the emperor, a Turco-French fleet held sway in the Mediterranean and had already taken Nizza, and the Protestants were assuming a threatening attitude. Christian III. of Denmark and Gustavus Vasa of Sweden asked to be received into the Schmalcald League. The Duke of Cleves, too, broke his truce. This roused the emperor most of all. He rushed down upon Cleves and Gelderland, and conquered them, and restored Catholicism. The emperor’s circumstances now improved: Cleves was quieted; Denmark and England came to terms with him. But his most dangerous enemies, Soliman and Francis I., were still in arms. He could not yet dispense with the powerful support of the Protestants.

§ 135.9. Diet at Spires, A.D. 1544.—In order to get help against the Turks and French, at the Diet of Spires, in Feb., A.D. 1544, the emperor relieved the Protestants of all disabilities, promised a genuine, free Christian council to settle matters in dispute, and, in case this should not succeed, in next autumn a national assembly to determine matters definitely without pope or council. The emperor promised to propose a scheme of Reformation, and invited the other nobles to bring forward schemes. After such concessions the Protestants went in heartily with the emperor’s political projects. He wished first of all help against the French. In the same year the emperor led against France an army composed mostly of Protestants, and in Sept., A.D. 1544, obliged the king to conclude the Peace of Crespy. The Turks had next to be dealt with, and the Protestants were eager to show their devotion to the emperor. In prospect of the national assembly the Elector of Saxony set his theologians to the composition of a plan of Reformation. This document, known as the “Wittenberg Reformation,” allows to the prelates their spiritual and civil functions, their revenues, goods, and jurisdiction, the right of ordination, visitation, and discipline, on condition that these be exercised in an evangelical spirit.

§ 135.10. Differences between the Emperor and the Protestant Nobles, A.D. 1545, 1546.—The pope by calling a council to meet at Trent sowed seeds of discord between the emperor and the Protestants. The emperor’s proposals of reform were so far short of the demands of the Protestants that they were unanimously rejected. The Reformation movement in Cologne had seriously imperilled the imperial government of the Netherlands. An attempt of Henry to reconquer Brunswick was frustrated by the combined action of the Landgrave of Hesse and the Duke of Saxony. Frederick II., elector-palatine, began to reform his provinces and to seek admission to the Schmalcald League. Four of the six electors had gone over, and the fifth, Sebastian, who after Albert’s death in A.D. 1545 had been, by Hessian and Palatine influence, made Elector of Mainz, had just resolved to follow their example. All these things had greatly irritated the emperor. He concluded a truce with the Turks in Oct., A.D. 1545, and arranged with the pope, who pledged his whole possessions and crown, for the campaign against the heretics. On 13th Dec., A.D. 1545, the pope opened the Council of Trent, and made it no secret that it was intended for the destruction of the Protestants. The emperor attempted to get the Protestants to take part. In Jan., A.D. 1546, a conference was held in which Cochlæus (§ 129, 1) and others met with Bucer, Brenz, and Major; but it was soon dissolved, owing to initial differences. The horrible fratricide committed at Neuburg upon a Spaniard, Juan Diaz, showed the Protestants how good Catholics thought heretics must be dealt with. The murderer was seized, but by order of the pope to the Bishop of Trent set again at liberty. He remained unpunished, but hanged himself at Trent A.D. 1551.

§ 135.11. Luther’s Death, A.D. 1546.—Luther died at Eisleben in his 63rd year on 18th Feb., 1546. During his last years he was harassed with heavy trials. The political turn that affairs had taken was wholly distasteful to him, but he was powerless to prevent it. In Wittenberg itself much was done not in accordance with his will. Wearied with his daily toils, suffering severe pain and consequent bodily weakness, he often longed to die in peace. In the beginning of A.D. 1546 the Counts of Mansfeld called him to Eisleben in order to compose differences between them by his impartial judgment. In order to perform this business he spent the three last weeks of his life in his birthplace, and, with scarcely any previous illness, on the night of the 18th Feb., he peacefully fell asleep in Jesus. His body was taken to Wittenberg and there buried in the castle church.

§ 136. THE SCHMALCALD WAR, THE INTERIM, AND THE COUNCIL, A.D. 1546-1551.

All attempts at agreement in matters of religion were at an end. The pope, however, had at last convened a council in a German city. The emperor hoped to conciliate the Protestants by bringing about a reformation after a fashion, removing many hierarchical abuses, conceding the marriage of the clergy, the cup to the laity, and even perhaps accepting the doctrine of justification. But he soon came to a rupture with the Protestants, and war broke out before the Schmalcald Leaguers were prepared for it. Their power, however, was far superior to that of the emperor; but through needless scruples, delays, and indecision they let slip the opportunity of certain victory. The power of the league was utterly destroyed, and the emperor’s power reached the summit of its strength. All Southern Germany was forced to submit to the hated interim, and in North Germany only the outlawed Magdeburg ventured to maintain, in spite of the emperor, a pure Protestant profession.

§ 136.1. Preparations for the Schmalcald War, A.D. 1546.—In consequence of variances among the members of the league the emperor conceived a plan of securing allies from among the Protestants themselves by a judicious distribution of favours. The Margrave Hans of Cüstrin and Duke Eric of Brunswick, the one cousin, the other son-in-law, of the exiled and imprisoned Duke of Wolfenbüttel, were ready to take part in war against the robbers of their friend’s dominions. Much more eager, however, was the emperor to win over the young Duke Maurice of Saxony. He tempted him with the promise of the electorate and the greater part of the elector’s territory, and was successful. The emperor could not indeed formally release any of them from submission to the council, but he promised in any case to reserve for their countries the doctrine of justification, the cup in lay communion, and the marriage of priests. Now when he was sure of Maurice the emperor proceeded openly with his preparations, and made no secret of his intention to punish those princes who had despised his imperial authority and taken to themselves the possessions of others. The Schmalcald Leaguers could no longer deceive themselves, and so they began their preparations. With such an open breach the Diet of Regensburg ended in June, A.D. 1546.

§ 136.2. The Campaign on the Danube, A.D. 1546.—Schärtlin, at the head of a powerful army, could have attacked the emperor or taken the Tyrol; but the council of war, listening to William of Bavaria, who professed neutrality, and hoping to win over Ferdinand, foolishly ordered delay. Thus the emperor gained time to collect an army. On 20th June, A.D. 1546, he issued from Regensburg a ban against the Landgrave Philip and the Elector John Frederick as oath-breaking vassals. These princes at the head of their forces had joined Schärtlin at Donauwörth [Donauwört]. Papal despatches fell into their hands, in which the pope proclaimed a crusade for the rooting out of heretics, promising indulgence to all who would aid in the work. Fatal indecision still prevailed in the council of war, and winter came on without a battle being fought. The news that Maurice had taken possession of the elector’s domains led the landgrave and the ex-elector to return home, and Schärtlin, for want of money and ammunition, was unable to face a winter campaign in Franconia. Thus the whole country lay open to the emperor. One city after another accepted terms more or less severe. In the beginning of A.D. 1547 he was master of all Southern Germany. Now at last he put an end to the Cologne movement (§ 135, 7). The pope had issued the ban against the archbishop in A.D. 1546, and now the emperor had the former coadjutor proclaimed archbishop and elector, in spite of the opposition of the nobles. Hermann was willing to secure the religious peace of his dominions by resignation, but this was refused, and being too weak to offer resistance, he resigned unconditionally. Thus the Rhine provinces were irretrievably lost to Protestantism.

§ 136.3. The Campaign on the Elbe, A.D. 1547.—After rapidly reconquering his own territories, the Elector John Frederick hastened with a considerable army to meet his enemy. At Mühlberg he suddenly came upon the emperor’s forces. There scarcely was a battle. His comparatively small armament melted away before the superior numbers of the imperial host, and the elector was taken prisoner on 24th April, A.D. 1547. He had already been sentenced to death as a rebel and heretic. It was deemed more prudent to require of him only the surrender of his fortresses. The pious prince willingly resigned all temporal dignities, but in matters of religion he was inflexible. He was sentenced to life-long imprisonment and his possessions were mostly given to Maurice. The Landgrave Philip, for want of money, ammunition, and troops, had been prevented from doing anything. The news of John Frederick’s misfortunes brought him almost to despair. Too powerless to offer opposition, he surrendered at discretion to the emperor. He was to prostrate himself before the emperor, surrender all his fortresses, neither now nor in future suffer enemies of the emperor in his lands, and for all his life to renounce all leagues, to liberate Henry of Brunswick and restore him to his dominions. The ceremony of prostration was performed at Halle on 19th July. The two electors with the landgrave then went by invitation to a supper with the Duke of Alba. After supper the duke declared the landgrave his prisoner. The elector’s remonstrances then with Alba and next day with the imperial councillors were all in vain. The emperor was equally deaf to all representations.

§ 136.4. The Council of Trent, A.D. 1545-1547.—The Council of Trent opened in Dec., A.D. 1545 (§ 149, 2). At the outset, contrary to the emperor’s wishes, the pope laid down conditions that excluded Protestants from taking part in it. Scripture and tradition were first discussed. The O.T. Apocrypha (§§ 59, 1; 161, 8) had equal authority assigned it with the other books of the O. and N.T., and the Vulgate was declared to be the only authentic text for theological discussions and sermons. Tradition was placed on equal terms alongside of Scripture, but its contents were carefully defined. Original sin was extinguished by baptism, and after baptism there is only actual transgression. The scholastic doctrine of justification was sanctioned anew, but accommodated as far as possible to Scripture phraseology; justification is the inward actual change of a sinner into a righteous man, not merely the forgiveness of sins, but pre-eminently the sanctification and renewal of the inner man. It is effected, not so much by the imputation of Christ’s merits, as by the infusion of habitual righteousness, which enables men to win salvation by works. It is not forensic, but a physical act of God, is wrought not once for all, and not by faith alone, but gradually by the free co-operation of the man. The emperor, who saw in these decisions the overthrow of his attempts at conciliation, was highly displeased, and wished at least to postpone their promulgation. The pope obeyed for a time; but when the emperor threatened to interfere in the proceedings of the council, he had the decrees published, Jan., A.D. 1547, and some weeks after, on the plea of a dangerous plague having broken out, removed the council to Bologna, where for the time proceedings were suspended.

§ 136.5. The Augsburg Interim, A.D. 1548.—At a diet at Augsburg in Sept., A.D. 1547, the Protestants declared themselves willing to submit to a council meeting again at Trent, and beginning afresh; but as the pope refused this, the emperor was obliged to plan an interim, which should form a standard for all parties till a settlement at a proper council should be reached. It granted the cup to the laity and marriage of priests, but held by the Tridentine doctrine of justification. It represented the pope as simply the highest bishop, in whom the unity of the church is visibly set forth. The right of interpreting Scripture was given exclusively to the church. The sacraments were enumerated as seven, and the doctrine of transubstantiation emphatically maintained. The duty of fasting, and seeking the intercession of the mother of God and the saints, observing all Catholic ceremonies of worship, processions, festivals, etc., was strictly insisted upon. The emperor was satisfied, and so too some of the Protestant princes. Maurice, however, felt that his people would not agree to its adoption. He gave at last a half assent, which the emperor accepted as approval. The emperor took no notice of those who opposed it, the presence of his Spaniards in their dominions would prevent all trouble. The emperor was not strong enough to force the Catholic nobles to accept his interim, and so its observance was to be binding only on the Protestants. Landgrave Philip, whose power was for ever broken, gave in, but nothing in the world would induce the noble John Frederick to submit. The pope too refused persistently to recognise the interim, and only in Aug., A.D. 1549, did he allow the bishops to agree to the concessions made by it to the Protestants.

§ 136.6. The Execution of the Interim had on all sides to be compulsorily enforced. Nuremberg, Augsburg, Ulm were one after another coerced into adopting it. Constance resisted, was put under the ban, and lost all privileges, till at last instead of the interim the papacy found entrance, and evangelical Protestantism got its death-blow. The other cities submitted to the inevitable. All preachers refusing the interim were exiled and persecuted. Over 400 true servants of the word wandered with wives and children through South Germany homeless and without bread. Frecht of Ulm was taken in chains to the emperor’s camp. Brenz, one of the most determined opponents of the interim, during his wanderings often by a miracle escaped capture. Much more lasting was the opposition in North Germany. In Magdeburg, still lying under the imperial ban, the fugitive opponents of the interim gathered from all sides, and there alone was the press still free in its utterances against the interim. A flood of controversial tracts, satires, and caricatures were sent out over all Germany. In Hesse and Brandenburg the princes were unable to enforce the obnoxious measures; still less could Maurice do so in the electorate.

§ 136.7. The Leipzig or Little Interim, A.D. 1549.—Maurice in his difficulties sent for Melanchthon. Since the death of Luther and the overthrow of John Frederick of Saxony, Melanchthon’s tendency to yield largely for peace’ sake had lost its wholesome checks. In writing to the minister Carlowitz, the bitterest foe of Luther and the elector, he even went so far as to complain of Luther’s combativeness. The result of various negotiations was the drawing up of a document at the assembly in Leipzig, 22nd December, A.D. 1548, by the Wittenberg theologians in accordance with the views of Melanchthon. This modified interim became the standard for religious practice in Saxony, and a directory of worship in harmony with it was drawn up by the theologians, and published in July, A.D. 1549. Calvin and Brenz wrote letters that cut Melanchthon to the heart. The measure was everywhere viewed by zealous Lutherans with indignation, and the Interim of Leipzig was even more hateful to the people than that of Augsburg. Imprisonment and exile were vigorously carried out by means of it, yet the revolution and ferment continued to increase.—The Leipzig Interim treated Romish customs and ceremonies almost as things indifferent, passed over many less essential doctrinal differences, and gave to fundamental differences such a setting as might be applied equally to the pure evangelical doctrine as to that of the Augsburg Interim. The evangelical doctrine of justification was essentially there, but it was not decidedly and unambiguously expressed; and still less were Romish errors sharply and unmistakably repudiated. Good works were said to be necessary, but not in the sense that one could win salvation by means of them. Whether good works in excess of the law’s demands could be performed was not explicitly determined. On church and hierarchy, the positions of the Augsburg Interim were simply restated. To the pope as the highest bishop, as well as to the other bishops, who performed their duties according to God’s will for edification and not destruction, all churchmen were to yield obedience. The seven sacraments were acknowledged, though in another than the Romish sense. In the mass the Latin language was again introduced. Images of saints were allowed, but not for worship; so too the festivals of Mary and of Corpus Christi, but without processions, etc.

§ 136.8. The Council again at Trent, A.D. 1551.—In September, A.D. 1549, Paul III. dissolved the council at Bologna, where it had done nothing. His successor, Julius III., A.D. 1550-1555, the nominee of the imperial party, acceded to the emperor’s wishes to have the council again held at Trent. The Protestant nobles declared their willingness to recognise it, but demanded the cancelling of the earlier proceedings, a seat and vote for their representatives. This the emperor was prepared to grant, but the pope and prelates would not agree. The council began its proceedings on 1st May, A.D. 1551, with the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. Meanwhile the Protestants prepared a new confession, which might form the basis of their discussions in the council. Melanchthon, who was beginning to take courage again, sketched the Confessio Saxonica, or, as it has been rightly named, the Repetitio Confessionis Augustanæ, in which no trace of the indecision and ambiguity of the Leipzig Interim is to be found. The pure doctrine is set forth firmly, with even a polemical tone, though in a moderate and conciliatory manner. Brenz, who had been in hiding up to this time, by order of Duke Christopher of Württemberg, sketched for a like purpose the “Württemberg Confession.” In November, A.D. 1551, the first Protestants, lay delegates from Württemberg and Strassburg, appeared in Trent. They were followed in January by Saxon statesmen. On 24th January, A.D. 1552, these laid their credentials before the council, but, notwithstanding all the effort of the imperial commissioners, they could not gain admission. In March the Württemberg and Strassburg theologians arrived, with Brenz at their head, and Melanchthon, with two Leipzig preachers, was on the way, when suddenly Maurice put an end to all their well concerted plans.

§ 137A. MAURICE AND THE PEACE OF AUGSBURG A.D. 1550-1555.

In the beginning of A.D. 1550 the affairs of the Reformation were in a worse condition than ever before. In the fetters of the interim, it was like a felon on whom the death sentence was about to be passed. Then just at the right time appeared the Elector Maurice as the man who could break the fetters and lead on again to power and honour. His betrayal of the cause had brought Protestantism to the verge of destruction; his betrayal of the emperor proved its salvation. The Compact of Passau guaranteed to Protestants full religious liberty and equal rights with Catholics until a new council should meet. The Religious Peace of Augsburg removed even this limitation, and brought to a conclusion the history of the German Reformation.

§ 137.1. The State of Matters in A.D. 1550.—It was a doleful time for Germany. The emperor at the height of his power was laying his plans for securing the succession in the imperial dignity to his son Philip of Spain. In a bold, autocratic spirit he trampled on all the rights of the imperial nobles, and contrary to treaty he retained the presence of Spanish troops in the empire, which daily committed deeds of atrocious violence. The deliverance of the landgrave was stubbornly refused, though all the conditions thereof were long ago fulfilled. Protestant Germany groaned under the yoke of the interim; the council would only confirm this, if not rather enforce something even worse. Only one bulwark of evangelical liberty stood in the emperor’s way, the brave, outlawed Magdeburg. But how could it continue to hold out? Down to autumn, A.D. 1552, all attempts to storm the city had failed. Then Maurice undertook, by the order of the emperor and at the cost of the empire, to execute the ban.

§ 137.2. The Elector Maurice, A.D. 1551.—Maurice had lost the hearts of his own people, and was regarded with detestation by the Protestants of Germany, and notwithstanding imperial favour his position was by no means secure. Yet he was too much of the German and Protestant prince to view with favour the emperor’s proceedings, while he felt indignant at the illegal detention of his father-in-law. In these circumstances he resolved to betray the emperor, as before he had betrayed to him the cause of Protestantism. A master in dissimulation, he continued the siege of Magdeburg with all diligence, but at the same time joined a secret league with the Margrave Hans of Cüstrin and Albert of Franconian Brandenburg, as also with the sons of the landgrave, for the restoration of evangelical and civil liberty, and entered into negotiations with Henry II. of France, who undertook to aid him with money. Magdeburg at last capitulated, and Maurice entered on 4th November, A.D. 1551. Arrears of pay formed an excuse for not disbanding the imperial troops, and, strengthened by the Magdeburg garrison and the auxiliary troops of his allies, he threw off the mask, and issued public proclamations in which he brought bitter charges against the emperor, and declared that he could no longer lie under the feet of priests and Spaniards. The emperor in vain appealed for help to the Catholic princes. He found himself without troops or money at Innsbrück, which could not stand a siege, and every road to his hereditary territories seemed closed, for where the leagued German princes were not the Ottomans on sea and the French on land were ready to oppose him. Maurice was already on the way to Innsbrück “to seek out the fox in his hole.” But his troops’ demands for pay detained him, and the emperor gained time. On a cold, wet night he fled, though not yet recovered from fever, over the mountains covered with snow, and found refuge in Villach. Three days after Maurice entered Innsbrück; the council had already dissolved.

§ 137.3. The Compact of Passau, A.D. 1552.—Before the flight of the emperor from Innsbrück, Maurice had an interview with Ferdinand at Linz, where, besides the liberation of the landgrave, he demanded a German national assembly for religious union, and till it met unconditional toleration. The emperor, notwithstanding all his embarrassments, would not listen to the proposal. Negotiations were reopened at Passau, and Maurice’s proposals were in the main accepted. Ferdinand consented, but the emperor would not. Ferdinand himself travelled to Villach and employed all his eloquence, but unconditional toleration the emperor would not grant. His stubbornness conquered; the majority gave in, and accepted a compact which gave to the Protestants a full amnesty, general peace, and equal rights, till the meeting of a national or œcumenical council, to be arranged for at the next diet. Meanwhile the emperor had made great preparations. Frankfort was his main stronghold, and against it Maurice now advanced, and began the siege. Matters were not promising, when the Passau delegate appeared in his camp with the draft of the terms of peace. Had he refused his signature, the ban would have been pronounced against him, and his cousin would have been restored to the electorate. He therefore subscribed the document. With difficulty Ferdinand secured the subscription of the emperor, who believed himself to be sufficiently strong to carry on the battle. The two imprisoned princes were now at last liberated, and the preachers exiled by the interim were allowed to return. John Frederick died in A.D. 1554, and the Landgrave Philip in A.D. 1567.

§ 137.4. Death of Maurice, A.D. 1553.—The Margrave Albert of Brandenburg had been Maurice’s comrade in the Schmalcald war, and with him also he turned against the emperor. But after the ratification of the Passau Compact, to which he was not a party, Albert continued the war against the prelates and their principalities. He now fell out with Maurice, and was taken into his service by the emperor, who not only granted him an amnesty for all his acts of spoliation and breaches of the truce, but promised to enforce recognition of him from all the bishops. Albert therefore helped the emperor against the French, and then carried his conquests into Germany. Soon an open rupture occurred between him and Maurice. In the battle of Sievershausen Maurice gained a brilliant victory, but received a mortal wound, of which he died in two days. Albert fled to France. The rude soldier was broken down by misfortune, the religious convictions of his youth awakened, and the composition of a beautiful and well-known German hymn marks the turning point in his life. He died in A.D. 1557.—The year 1554 was wholly occupied with internal troubles. A desire for a lasting peace prevailed, and the calamities of both parties brought Protestants and Catholics nearer to one another. Even Henry of Brunswick was willing to tolerate Protestantism in his dominions.

§ 137.5. The Religious Peace of Augsburg, A.D. 1555.—When the diet met at Augsburg in February, A.D. 1555, the emperor’s power was gone. To save his pride and conscience he renounced all share in its proceedings in favour of his brother. The Protestant members stood well together in claiming unconditional religious freedom, and Ferdinand inclined to their side. Meanwhile Pope Julius died, and the cardinals Morone and Truchsess hasted from the diet to Rome to take part in the papal election. The Catholic opposition was thus weakened in the diet. The Protestants insisted that the peace should apply to all who might in future join this confession. This demand gave occasion to strong contests. At last the simple formula was agreed upon, that no one should be interfered with on account of the Augsburg Confession. But a more vehement dispute arose as to what should happen if prelates or spiritual princes should join the Protestant party. This was a vital question for Catholicism, and acceptance of the Protestant view would be its deathblow. It was therefore proposed that every prelate who went over would lose, not only his spiritual rank, but also his civil dominion. But the opposition would not give in. Both parties appealed to Ferdinand, and he delayed giving a decision. Advice was also asked about the peace proclamation. The Protestants claimed that the judges of the imperial court should be sworn to observe the Religious Peace, and should be chosen in equal numbers from both religious parties. On 30th Aug. Ferdinand stated his resolution. As was expected, he went with the Catholics in regard to prelates becoming Protestants, but, contrary to all expectations, he also refused lasting unconditional peace. On this last point, however, he declared himself on 6th Sept. willing to yield if the Protestants would concede the point about the prelates. They sought to sell their concession as dearly as possible by securing to evangelical subjects of Catholic princes the right to the free exercise of their religion. But the Catholic prelates, on the ground of the territorial system (§ 126, 6) advocated by the Protestants themselves, would not give in. It was finally agreed that every noble in matters of religion had territorial authority, but that subjects of another faith, in case of the free exercise of their religion being refused, should have guaranteed unrestricted liberty to withdraw without loss of honour, property, or freedom. On 25th Sept., A.D. 1555, the decrees of the diet were promulgated. The Reformed were not included in the Religious Peace; this was first done in the Peace of Westphalia (§ 153, 2).

§ 137B. GERMANY AFTER THE RELIGIOUS PEACE.

The political importance of the Protestant princes was about equal to that of the Catholics; the Electors of Cologne, Mainz, and Treves were not more powerful than those of Saxony, the Palatinate, and Brandenburg; and the great array of Protestant cities, with almost all the minor princes, were not behind the combined forces of Austria and Bavaria. The maintenance of the peace was assigned to a legally constituted corporation of Catholic and Protestant nobles, which held power down to A.D. 1806. The hope of reaching a mutual understanding on matters of religion was by no means abandoned, but the continuance of the peace was to be in no way dependent upon its realization. A new attempt to effect a union, which like all previous efforts ended in failure, was soon made in the Worms Consultation. Equally unsuccessful was a union project of the emperor Ferdinand I. Protestantism could get no more out of the Catholic princes. A second attempt to protestantize the Cologne electorate broke down as the first had done (§ 136, 2).

§ 137.6. The Worms Consultation, A.D. 1557.—Another effort was made after the failure of the council in the interests of union. Catholic and Protestant delegates under the presidency of Pflugk met at Worms in A.D. 1557. At a preliminary meeting the princes of Hesse, Württemburg [Württemberg], and the Palatinate adopted the Augsburg Confession as bond of union and standard for negotiations. The Saxon delegates insisted upon a distinct repudiation of the interim and the insertion of other details, which gave the Catholics an excuse for putting an end to the negotiations. They had previously expressly refused to acknowledge Scripture as the unconditional and sole judge of controversies, as that was itself a matter in dispute (§ 136, 4).

§ 137.7. Second Attempt at Reformation in the Electorate of Cologne, A.D. 1582.—The Archbishop and Elector of Cologne, Gebhard Truchsess of Waldburg went over in A.D. 1582 to the Protestant Church, married the Countess Agnes of Mansfeld, proclaimed religious freedom, and sought to convert his ecclesiastical principality into a temporal dominion. His plan was acceptable to nobles and people, but the clergy of his diocese opposed it with all their might. The pope thundered the ban against him, and Emperor Rudolph II. deposed him. The Protestant princes at last deserted him, and the newly elected archbishop, Duke Ernest of Bavaria, overpowered him by an armed force. The issue of Gebhard’s attempt struck terror into other prelates who had been contemplating similar moves.

§ 137.8. The German Emperor.—Ferdinand I., A.D. 1556-1564, conciliatory toward Protestantism, thoroughly dissatisfied with the Tridentine Council, once and again made attempts to secure a union, which all ended in failure. Maximilian II., A.D. 1564-1576, imbued by his tutor, Wolfgang Severus, with an evangelical spirit, which was deepened under the influence of his physician Crato von Crafftheim (§ 141, 10), gave perfect liberty to the Protestants in his dominions, admitted them to many of the higher and lower offices of state, kept down the Jesuits, and was prevented from himself formally going over to Protestantism only by his political relations with Spain and the Catholic princes of the empire. These relations, however, led to the adoption of half measures, out of which afterwards sprang the Thirty Years’ War. His son Rudolph II., A.D. 1576-1612, educated by Jesuits at the Spanish court, gave again to that order unlimited scope, injured the Protestants on every side, and was only prevented by indecision and cowardice from attempting the complete suppression of Protestantism.

§ 138. THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.[369]

In French Switzerland the Reformation appeared somewhat later, but in essentially the same form as in German Switzerland. Its special character was given it by Farel and Viret, the predecessors of Calvin. The powerful genius of Calvin secured for his views victory over Zwinglianism in Switzerland, and won the ascendency for them in the other Reformed Churches.

§ 138.1. Calvin’s Predecessors, A.D. 1526-1535.—William Farel, the pupil and friend of the liberal exegete Faber Stapulensis (§ 120, 8), was born in A.D. 1489 at Gap in Dauphiné. When in A.D. 1521 the Sorbonne condemned Luther’s doctrines and writings, he was obliged, as a suspected adherent of Luther, to quit Paris. He retired to Meaux, where he was well received by Bishop Briçonnet, but so boldly preached the reformed doctrines, that even the bishop, on renewed complaints being made, neither could nor would protect him. He then withdrew to Basel (§ 130, 3). His first permanent residence was at Neuchatel, where in November, A.D. 1530, the Reformation was introduced by his influence. He left Neuchatel in A.D. 1532 in order to work in Geneva. But the civil authorities there could not protect him against the bishop and clergy. He was obliged to leave the city, but Saunier, Fromant, and Olivetan (§ 143, 5) continued the work in his spirit. A revolution took place; the bishop thundered his ban against the refractory council, and the senate replied by declaring his office forfeited. Farel now returned to Geneva, A.D. 1535, and there accompanied him Peter Viret, afterwards the reformer of Lausanne. Viret was born at Orbe in A.D. 1511, and had attached himself to the Protestant cause during his studies in Paris. He therefore had also been obliged to quit the capital. He retired to his native town, and sought there diligently to spread the knowledge of the gospel. The arrival of these two enthusiastic reformers in Geneva led to a life and death struggle, from which the evangelicals went forth triumphant. As the result of a public disputation in August, A.D. 1535, the magistracy declared in their favour, and Farel gave the movement a doctrinal basis by the issuing of a confession. In the following year Calvin was passing through Geneva. Farel adjured him in God’s name to remain there. Farel indeed needed a fellow labourer of such genius and power, for he had a hard battle to fight.

§ 138.2. Calvin before his Genevan Ministry.—John Calvin, son of diocesan procurator Gerhard Cauvin, was born on 10th July, A.D. 1509, at Noyou in Picardy. Intended for the church, he was, from his twelfth year, in possession of a benefice. Meeting with his relation Olivetan, he had his first doubts of the truth of the Catholic system awakened. With his father’s consent he now turned to the study of law, which he eagerly prosecuted for four years at Orleans and Bourges. At Bourges, Melchior Wolmar, a German professor of Greek, exercised so powerful an influence over him, especially through the study of the Scriptures, that he decided, after the death of his father, to devote himself exclusively to theology. With this intention he went to Paris in A.D. 1532, and there enthusiastically adopted the principles of the Reformation. The newly appointed rector of the university, Nic. Cop, had to deliver an address on the Feast of All Saints. Calvin prepared it for him, and expressed therein such liberal and evangelical views, as had never before been uttered in that place. Cop read it boldly, and escaped the outburst of wrath only by a timely flight. Calvin, too, found it prudent to quit Paris. The bloody persecution of the Protestants by Francis I. led him at last to leave France altogether. So he went, in A.D. 1535, to Basel, where he became acquainted with Capito and Grynæus. In the following year he issued the first sketch of the Institutio Religionis Christianæ. It was made as a defence of the Protestants of France, persecuted by Francis on the pretext that they held Anabaptist and revolutionary views. He therefore dedicated the book to the king, with a noble and firm address. He soon left Basel, and went to the court of the evangelical-minded Duchess Renata of Ferrara (§ 139, 22), in order to secure her good offices for his fellow countrymen suffering for their faith. He won the full confidence of the duchess, but after some weeks was banished the country by her husband. On his journey back to Basel, Farel and Viret detained him in Geneva in A.D. 1536, and declared that he was called to be a preacher and teacher of theology. On 1st October, A.D. 1536, the three reformers, at a public disputation in Lausanne, defended the principles of the Reformation. Viret remained in Lausanne, and perfected the work of Reformation there. As a confession of faith, a catechism, not in dialogue form, was composed by Calvin as a popular summary of his Institutio in the French language, and was sworn to, in A.D. 1536, by all the citizens of Geneva. The Catechismus Genevensis, highly prized in all the Reformed churches, was a later redaction, which appeared first in French in A.D. 1542, and then in Latin, in A.D. 1545.[370]

§ 138.3. Calvin’s First Ministry in Geneva, A.D. 1536-1538.—In Geneva, as in other places, there sprang up alongside of the Reformation, and soon in deadly opposition to it, an antinomian libertine sect, which strove for freedom from all restraint and order (§ 146, 4). In the struggle against this dangerous development, which found special favour among the aristocratic youth of Geneva, Calvin put forth all the power of his logical mind and unbending will, and sought to break its force by the exercise of an excessively strict church discipline. He created a spiritual consistory which arrogated to itself the exclusive right of church discipline and excommunication, and wished to lay upon the magistrates the duty of inflicting civil punishments on all persons condemned by it. But not only did the libertine sections offer the most strenuous opposition, but also the magistrates regarded with jealousy and suspicion the erection of such a tribunal. Magistrates and libertines therefore combined to overthrow the consistory. A welcome pretext was found in a synod at Lausanne in A.D. 1538, which condemned the abolition of all festivals but the Sundays, the removal of baptismal fonts from the churches, and the introduction of leavened bread at the Lord’s Supper by the Genevan church as uncalled for innovations. The magistrates now demanded the withdrawal of these, and banished the preachers who would not obey. Farel went to Neuchatel, where he remained till his death in A.D. 1565; Calvin went to Strassburg, where Bucer, Capito, and Hedio gave him the office of a professor and preacher. During his three years’ residence there Calvin, as a Strassburg delegate, was frequently brought into close relationship with the German reformers, especially with Melanchthon (§§ 134, 135). But he ever remained closely associated with Geneva, and when Cardinal Sadolet (§ 139, 12) issued from Lyons in A.D. 1539 an appeal to the Genevese to return to the bosom of the Romish church, Calvin thundered against him an annihilating reply. His Genevan friends, too, spared no pains to win for him the favour of the council and the citizens. They succeeded all the more easily because since the overthrow of the theocratic consistory the libertine party had run into all manner of riotous excesses. By a decree of council of 20th Oct., A.D. 1540, Calvin was most honourably recalled. After long consideration he accepted the call in Sept., A.D. 1541, and now, with redoubled energy, set himself to carry out most strictly the work that had been interrupted.

§ 138.4. Calvin’s Second Ministry in Geneva, A.D. 1541-1564.—Calvin set up again, after his return, the consistory, consisting of six ministers and twelve lay elders, and by it ruled with almost absolute power. It was a thoroughly organized inquisition tribunal, which regulated in all details the moral, religious, domestic, and social life of the citizens, called them to account on every suspicion of a fault, had the incorrigible banished by the civil authorities, and the more dangerous of them put to death. The Ciceronian Bible translator, Sebastian Castellio, appointed rector of the Genevan school by Calvin, got out of sympathy with the rigorous moral strictures and compulsory prescriptions of matters of faith under the Calvinistic rule, and charged the clergy with intolerance and pride. He also contested the doctrine of the descent into hell, and described the Canticles as a love poem. He was deposed, and in order to escape further penalties he fled to Basel in A.D. 1544. A libertine called Gruet was executed in A.D. 1547, because he had circulated an abusive tract against the clergy, and blasphemous references were found in his papers; e.g. that Christianity is only a fable, that Christ was a deceiver and His mother a prostitute, that all ends with death, that neither heaven nor hell exists, etc. The physician, Jerome Bolsec, previously a Carmelite monk in Paris, was imprisoned in A.D. 1551, and then banished, because of his opposition to Calvin’s doctrine of predestination. He afterwards returned to the Romish church, and revenged himself by a biography of Calvin full of spiteful calumnies. On the execution of Servetus in A.D. 1533, see § 148, 2. Between the years 1542 and 1546 there were in Geneva, with a population of only 20,000, no less than fifty-seven death sentences carried out with Calvin’s approval, and seventy-six sentences of banishment. The magistrates faithfully supported him in all his measures. But under the inquisitorial reign of terror of his consistory, the libertine party gained strength for a vehement struggle, and among the magistrates, from about A.D. 1546, there arose a powerful opposition, and fanatical mobs repeatedly threatened to throw him into the Rhone. This struggle lasted for nine years. But Calvin abated not a single iota from the strictness of his earlier demands, and so great was the fear of his powerful personality that neither the rage of riotous mobs nor the hostility of the magistracy could secure his banishment. In A.D. 1555 his party again won the ascendency in the elections, mainly by the aid of crowds of refugees from France, England, and Scotland, who had obtained residence and thus the rights of citizens in Geneva. From this time till his death on 27th March, A.D. 1564, his influence was supreme. The impress of his strong mind was more and more distinctly stamped upon every institution of the commonwealth, the demands of his rigorous discipline were willingly and heartily adopted as the moral code, and secured for Geneva that pre-eminence which for two centuries it retained among all the Reformed churches as an honourable, pious, and strictly moral city. In spite of a weak body and frequent attacks of sickness Calvin, during the twenty-three years of his two residences in Geneva, performed an amazing amount of work. He had married in A.D. 1540, at Strassburg, Idaletta de Bures, the widow of an Anabaptist converted by him. His wife died in A.D. 1549. He preached almost daily, attended all the sittings of the consistory and the preachers’ association, inspired all their deliberations and resolutions, delivered lectures in the academy founded by his orders in A.D. 1559, composed numerous doctrinal, controversial, and apologetical works, conducted an extensive correspondence, etc.

§ 138.5. Calvin’s Writings.—The most important of the writings of Calvin is his already mentioned Institutio Religionis Christianæ, of which the best and most complete edition appeared in A.D. 1559, a companion volume to Melanchthon’s Loci, but much more thorough and complete as a formal and scientific treatise. In this work Calvin elaborates his profound doctrinal system with great speculative power and bold, relentless logic, combined with the peculiar grace of a clear and charming style. Next in order of importance came his commentaries on almost all the books of Scripture. Here also he shows himself everywhere possessed of brilliant acuteness, religious geniality, profound Christian sympathy, and remarkable exegetical talent, but also a stickler for small points or seriously fettered by dogmatic prejudices. His exegetical productions want the warmth and childlike identification of the commentator with his text, which in so high a degree distinguishes Luther, while in form they are incomparably superior for conciseness and scientific precision. In the pulpit Calvin was the same strict and consistent logician as in his systematic and polemical works. Of Luther’s popular eloquence he had not the slightest trace.[371]

§ 138.6. Calvin’s Doctrine.—Calvin set Zwingli far below Luther, and had no hesitation in characterizing the Zwinglian doctrine of the sacraments as profane. With Luther, who highly respected him, he never came into close personal contact, but his intercourse with Melanchthon had a powerful influence upon the latter. But decidedly as he approached Luther’s doctrine, he was in principle rather on the same platform with Zwingli. His view of the Protestant principles is essentially Zwinglian. Just as decidedly as Zwingli had he broken with ecclesiastical tradition. In the doctrine of the person of Christ he inclined to Nestorianism, and could not therefore reach the same believing fulness as Luther in his doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. He taught, as Berengar before had done, that the believer by means of faith partakes in the sacrament only spiritually, but yet really, of the body and blood of the Lord, through a power issuing from the glorified body of Christ, whereas the unbeliever receives only bread and wine. In his doctrine of justification he formally agrees with Luther, but introduced a very marked difference by his strict, almost Old Testament, legalism. His predestination doctrine goes beyond even that of Augustine in its rigid consistency and unbending severity.[372]

§ 138.7. The Victory of Calvinism over Zwinglianism.—By his extensive correspondence and numerous writings Calvin’s influence extended far beyond the limits of Switzerland. Geneva became the place of refuge for all who were exiled on account of their faith, and the university founded there by Calvin furnished almost all Reformed churches with teachers, who were moulded after a strict Calvinistic pattern. Bern, not uninfluenced by political jealousies, showed most reluctance in adopting the Calvinistic doctrine. Zürich was more compliant. After Zwingli’s death, Henry Bullinger stood at the head of the Zürich clergy. With him Calvin entered into doctrinal negotiations, and succeeded in at last bringing him over to his views of the Lord’s Supper. In the Consensus Tigurinus of A.D. 1549, drawn up by Calvin, a union was brought about on a Calvinistic basis; but Bern, where the Zwinglians contending with the Lutheranised friends of Calvin had the majority, refused subscription. The Consensus pastorum Genevensium, of A.D. 1554, called forth by the conflict with Bolsec, in which the predestination doctrine of Calvin had similar prominence, not only Bern, but also Zürich refused to accept. Yet these two confessions gradually rose in repute throughout German Switzerland. Even Bullinger’s personal objection to the predestination doctrine was more and more overcome from A.D. 1556 by the influence of his colleague Peter Martyr (§ 139, 24), though he never accepted the Calvinistic system in all its severity and harshness. When even the Elector-palatine Frederick III. (§ 144, 1) wished to lay a justificatory confession before the Diet of Augsburg in A.D. 1566, which threatened to exclude him from the peace on account of his going over to the Reformed church, Bullinger, who was entrusted with its composition, sent him, as an appendix to the testament he had composed, a confession, which came to be known as the Confessio Helvetica posterior (§ 133, 8). This confession, not only obtained recognition in all the Swiss cantons, with the exception of Basel, which likewise after eighty years adopted it, but also gained great consideration in the Reformed churches of other lands. Its doctrine of the sacraments is Calvinistic, with not unimportant leanings toward the Zwinglian theory. Its doctrine of predestination is Calvinism, very considerably modified.

§ 138.8. Calvin’s Successor in Geneva.—Theodore Beza was from A.D. 1559 Calvin’s most zealous fellow labourer, and after his death succeeded him in his offices. He soon came to be regarded at home and abroad with something of the same reverence which his great master had won. He died in A.D. 1605. Born in A.D. 1519 of an old noble family at Vezelay in Burgundy, he was sent for his education in his ninth year to the humanist Melchior Wolmar of Orleans, and accompanied his teacher when he accepted a call to the Academy of Bourges, until in A.D. 1534 Wolmar was obliged to return to his Swabian home to escape persecution as a friend and promoter of the Reformation. Beza now applied himself to the study of law at the University of Orleans, and obtained the rank of a licentiate in A.D. 1539. He then spent several years in Paris as a man of the world, where he gained the reputation of a poet and wit, and wasted a considerable patrimony in a loose and reckless life. A secret marriage with a young woman of the city in humble circumstances, in A.D. 1544, put an end to his extravagances, and a serious illness gave a religious direction to his moral change. He had made the acquaintance of Calvin at Bourges, and in A.D. 1543 he went to Geneva, was publicly married, and in the following year received, on Viret’s recommendation, the professorship of Greek at Lausanne. Thoroughly in sympathy with all Calvin’s views, he supported his doctrine of predestination against the attacks of Bolsec, justified the execution of Servetus in his tract De hæreticis a civili magistratu puniendis, zealously befriended the persecuted Waldensians, along with Farel made court to the German Protestant princes in order to secure their intercession for the French Huguenots, and negotiated with the South German theologians for a union in regard to the doctrine of the supper. In A.D. 1558 Calvin called him to Geneva as a preacher and professor of theology in the academy erected there. In A.D. 1559 he vindicated Calvin’s doctrine of the supper against Westphal’s attacks (§ 141, 10) in pretty moderate language; but in A.D. 1560 he thundered forth two violent polemical dialogues against Hesshus (§ 144, 1). The next two years he spent in France (§ 139, 14) as theological defender and advocate of the Huguenots. After Calvin’s death the whole burden of the government of the Genevan church fell upon his shoulders, and for forty years the Reformed churches of all lands looked with confidence to him as their well-tried patriarch. Next to the church of Geneva, that of his native land lay nearest to his heart. Repeatedly we find him called to France to direct the meetings of synod. But scarcely less lively was the interest which he took in the controversies of the German Reformed with their Lutheran opponents. At the Religious Conference of Mömpelgard, which the Lutheran Count Frederick of Württemberg called in A.D. 1586, to make terms if possible whereby the Calvinistic refugees might have the communion together with their Lutheran brethren, Beza himself in person took the field in defence of the palladium of Calvinistic orthodoxy against Andreä, whose theory of ubiquity (§ 141, 9, 10) he had already contested in his writings. Very near the close of his life the Catholic Church, through its experienced converter of heretics, Francis de Sales (§ 156, 1), made a vain attempt to win him back to the Church in which alone is salvation. To a foolish report that this effort had been successful Beza himself answered in a satirical poem full of all his youthful fire.[373]

§ 139. THE REFORMATION IN OTHER LANDS.

The need of reform was so great and widespread, that the movement begun in Germany and Switzerland soon spread to every country in Europe. The Catholic Church opposed the Reformation everywhere with fire and sword, and succeeded in some countries in utterly suppressing it; while in others it was restricted within the limits of a merely tolerated sect. The German Lutheran Confession found acceptance generally among the Scandinavians of the north of Europe, the Swiss Reformed among the Romanic races of the south and west; while in the east, among the Slavs and Magyars, both confessions were received. Calvin’s powerful personal influence had done much to drive the Lutheran Confession out of those Romance countries where it had before obtained a footing. The presence of many refugees from the various western lands for a time in Switzerland, as well as the natural intercourse between it and such countries as Italy and France, contributed to the same result. But deeper grounds than these are required to account for this fact. On the one hand, the Romance people are inclined to extremes, and they found more thorough satisfaction in the radical reformation of Geneva than in the more moderate reformation of Wittenberg; and, on the other hand, they have a love for democratic and republican forms of government which the former, but not the latter, gratified.—Outside of the limits of the German empire the Lutheran Reformation first took root, from A.D. 1525, in Prussia, the seat of the Teutonic Knights (§ 127, 3); then in the Scandinavian countries. In Sweden it gained ascendency in A.D. 1527, and in Denmark and Norway in A.D. 1537. Also in the Baltic Provinces the Reformation had found entrance in A.D. 1520; by A.D. 1539 it had overcome all opposition in Livonia and Esthonia, but in Courland it took other ten years before it was thoroughly organized. The Reformed church got almost exclusive possession of England in A.D. 1562, of Scotland in A.D. 1560, and of the Netherlands in A.D. 1579. The Reformed Confession obtained mere toleration in France in A.D. 1598; the Reformed alongside of the Lutheran gained a footing in Poland in A.D. 1573, in Bohemia and Moravia in A.D. 1609, in Hungary in A.D. 1606, and in Transylvania in A.D. 1557. Only in Spain and Italy did the Catholic Church succeed in utterly crushing the Reformation. Some attempts to interest the Greek church in the Lutheran Confession were unsuccessful, but the remnants of the Waldensians were completely won over to the Reformed Confession.

§ 139.1. Sweden.—For fifty years Sweden had been free from the Danish yoke which had been imposed upon it by the Calmar union of A.D. 1397. The higher clergy, who possessed two-thirds of the land, had continuously conspired in favour of Denmark. The Archbishop of Upsala, Gustavus Trolle, fell out with the chancellor, Sten Sture, and was deposed. Pope Leo X. pronounced the ban and interdict against Sweden. Christian II. of Denmark conquered the country in A.D. 1520, and in the frightful massacre of Stockholm during the coronation festivities, in spite of his sworn assurances, 600 of the noblest in the land, marked out by the archbishop as enemies of Denmark, were slain. But scarcely had Christian reached home when Gustavus Vasa landed from Lübeck, whither he had fled, drove out the Danes, and was elected king, A.D. 1523. In his exile he had become favourably inclined to the Reformation, and now he joined the Protestants to have their help against the opposing clergy. Olaf Peterson, who had studied from A.D. 1516 in Wittenberg, soon after his return home, in A.D. 1519, began as deacon in Strengnæs, along with Lawrence Anderson, afterwards administrator of the diocese of Strengnæs, to spread the reformed doctrines. Subsequently they were joined by Olaf’s younger brother, Laurence Peterson. During the king’s absence in A.D. 1524, two Anabaptists visited Stockholm, and even the calm-minded Olaf was for a time carried away by them. The king quickly suppressed the disturbances, and entered heartily upon the work of reformation. Anderson, appointed chancellor by Vasa, in A.D. 1526 translated the N.T., and Olaf with the help of his learned brother undertook the O.T. The people, however, still clung to the old faith, till at the Diet of Westnæs, in A.D. 1527, the king set before them the alternative of accepting his resignation or the Reformation. The people’s love for their king overcame all clerical opposition. Church property was used to supply revenues to kings and nobles, and to provide salaries for pastors who should preach the gospel in its purity. The Reformation was peacefully introduced into all parts of the land, and the diets at Örebro, in A.D. 1529, 1537, and at Westnæs, in A.D. 1544, carried out the work to completion. The new organization adopted the episcopal constitution, and also in worship, by connivance of the people, many Catholic ceremonies were allowed to remain. Most of the bishops accepted the inevitable. The Archbishop Magnus of Upsala, papal legate, went to Poland, and Bishop Brask of Linköping fled with all the treasures of his church to Danzig. Laurence Peterson was made in A.D. 1531 first evangelical Archbishop of Upsala, and married a relative of the royal house. But his brother Olaf fell into disfavour on account of his protest against the king’s real or supposed acts of rapacity. He and Anderson, because they had failed to report a conspiracy which came to their knowledge in the confessional, were condemned to death, but were pardoned by the king. Gustavus died in A.D. 1560. Under his son Eric a Catholic reaction set in, and his brother John III., in A.D. 1578, made secret confession of Catholicism to the Jesuit Possevin, urged thereto by his Catholic queen and the prospect of the Polish throne. John’s son Sigismund, also king of Poland, openly joined the Romish Church. But his uncle Charles of Sodermanland, a zealous Protestant, as governor after John’s death, called together the nobles at Upsala in A.D. 1593, when the Latin mass-book introduced by John was forbidden, and the acknowledgment of the Augsburg Confession was renewed. But as Sigismund continued to favour Catholicism, the peers of the realm declared, in A.D. 1604, that he had forfeited the throne, which his uncle now ascended as Charles IX.—The Reformation had been already carried from Sweden into Finland.[374]

§ 139.2. Denmark and Norway.—Christian II., nephew of the Elector of Saxony and brother-in-law of the Emperor Charles V., although he had associated himself with the Romish hierarchy in Sweden for the overthrow of the national party, had in Denmark taken the side of the Reformation against the clergy, who were there supreme. In A.D. 1521 he succeeded in getting Carlstadt to come to his assistance, but he was soon forced to quit the country. In A.D. 1523 the clergy and nobles formally renounced their allegiance, and gave the crown to his uncle Frederick I., Duke of Schleswig and Holstein. Christian fled to Saxony, was there completely won over to the Reformation by Luther, converted also his wife, the emperor’s sister, and had the first Danish N.T., by Hans Michelson, printed at Leipzig and circulated in Denmark. To secure the emperor’s aid, however, he abjured the evangelical faith at Augsburg in A.D. 1530. In the following year he conquered Norway, and bound himself on his coronation to maintain the Catholic religion. But in A.D. 1532 he was obliged to surrender to Frederick, and spent the remaining twenty-seven years of his life in prison, where he repented his apostasy, and had the opportunity of instructing himself by the study of the Danish Bible.—Frederick I. had been previously favourable to the Reformation, yet his hands were bound by the express terms of his election. His son Christian III. unreservedly introduced the Reformation into his duchies. In this he was encouraged by his father. In A.D. 1526 he openly professed the evangelical faith, and invited the Danish reformer Hans Tausen, a disciple of Luther, who had preached the gospel amid much persecution since A.D. 1524, to settle as preacher in Copenhagen. At a diet at Odensee [Odense] in A.D. 1527 he restricted episcopal jurisdiction, proclaimed universal religious toleration, gave priests liberty to marry and to leave their cloisters, and thus laid the foundations of the Reformation. Tausen in A.D. 1530 submitted to the nobles his own confession, Confessio Hafinca, and the Reformation rapidly advanced. Frederick died in A.D. 1533. The bishops now rose in a body, and insisted that the estates should refuse to acknowledge his son Christian III. But when the burgomaster of Lübeck, taking advantage of the anarchy, plotted to subject Denmark to the proud commercial city, and in A.D. 1534 actually laid siege to Copenhagen, the Jutland nobles hastened to swear fealty to Christian. He drove out the Lübeckers, and by A.D. 1536 had possession of the whole land. He resolved now to put an end for ever to the machinations of the clergy. In August, A.D. 1536, he had all bishops imprisoned in one day, and at a diet at Copenhagen had them formally deposed. Their property fell into the royal exchequer, all monasteries were secularized, some presented to the nobles, some converted into hospitals and schools. In order to complete the organization of the church Bugenhagen was called in in A.D. 1537. He crowned the king and queen, sketched a directory of worship, which was adopted at the Diet of Odensee [Odense] in A.D. 1539, and returned to Wittenberg in A.D. 1542. In place of bishops Lutheran superintendents were appointed, to whom subsequently the title of bishop was given, and the Augsburg Confession accepted as the standard. The Reformation was contemporaneously introduced into Norway, which acknowledged the king in A.D. 1536. The Archbishop of Drontheim, Olaf Engelbrechtzen, fled with the church treasures to the Netherlands. Iceland stood out longer, but yielded in A.D. 1551, when the power of the rebel bishops was broken.[375]

§ 139.3. Courland, Livonia, and Esthonia.—Livonia had seceded from the dominion of the Teutonic knights in A.D. 1521, and under the grand-master Walter of Plattenburg assumed the position of an independent principality. In that same year a Lutheran archdeacon, Andr. Knöpken, expelled from Pomerania, came to Riga, and preached the gospel with moderation. Soon after Tegetmaier came from Rostock, and so vigorously denounced image worship that excited mobs entered the churches and tore down the images; yet he was protected by the council and the grand-master. The third reformer Briesmann was the immediate scholar of Luther. The able town clerk of Riga, Lohmüller, heartily wrought with them, and the Reformation spread through city and country. At Wolmar and Dorpat, in A.D. 1524, the work was carried on by Melchior Hoffmann, whose Lutheranism was seriously tinged with Anabaptist extravagances (§ 147, 1). The diocese of Oesel adopted the reformed doctrines, and at the same time a Lutheran church was formed in Reval. After strong opposition had been offered, at last, in A.D. 1538, Riga accepted the evangelical confession, joined the Schmalcald League, and in a short time all Livonia and Esthonia accepted the Augsburg Confession. Political troubles, occasioned mainly by Russia, obliged the last grand-master, Kettler, in A.D. 1561 to surrender Livonia to Sigismund Augustus of Poland, but with the formal assurance that the rights of the evangelicals should be preserved. He himself retained Courland as an hereditary duchy under the suzerainty of Poland, and gave himself unweariedly to the evangelical organization of his country, powerfully assisted by Bülau, first superintendent of Courland.—The Lutheran church of Livonia had in consequence to pass through severe trials. Under Polish protection a Jesuit college was established in Riga in A.D. 1584. Two city churches had to be given over to the Catholics, and Possevin conducted an active Catholic propaganda, which was ended only when Livonia, in A.D. 1629, as also Esthonia somewhat earlier, came under the rule of Sweden. In consequence of the Norse war both countries were incorporated into the Russian empire, and by the Peace of Nystadt, of A.D. 1721, its Lutheran church retained all its privileges, on condition that it did not interfere in any way with the Greek Orthodox Church in the province. In A.D. 1795 Courland also came under Russian sway, and all these are now known as the Baltic Provinces.

§ 139.4. England.[376]—Henry VIII., A.D. 1509-1547, after the literary feud with Luther (§ 125, 3), sought to justify his title, “Defender of the Faith,” by the use of sword and gibbet. Luther’s writings were eagerly read in England, where in many circles Wiclif’s movements were regarded with favour, and two noble Englishmen, John Fryth and William Tyndal, gave to their native land a translation of the N.T. in A.D. 1526. Fryth was rewarded with the stake in A.D. 1533, and Tyndal was beheaded in the Netherlands in A.D. 1535.[377] But meanwhile the king quarrelled with the pope. On assuming the government he had married Catharine of Arragon, daughter of Ferdinand the Catholic and Isabella, six years older than himself, the widow of his brother Arthur, who had died in his 16th year, for which he got a papal dispensation on the ground that the former marriage had not been consummated. His adulterous love for Anne Boleyn, the fair maid of honour to his queen, and Cranmer’s biblical opinion (Lev. xviii. 16; xx. 21) convinced him in A.D. 1527 of the sinfulness of his uncanonical marriage. Clement VII., at first not indisposed to grant his request for a divorce, refused after he had been reconciled to the emperor, Catharine’s nephew (§ 132, 2). Thoroughly roused, the king now threw off the authority of the pope. Convocation was forced to recognise him in A.D. 1531 as head of the English Church, and in 1532 Parliament forbade the paying of annats to the pope. In the same year Henry married Anne, and had a formal divorce from Catharine granted by a spiritual court. Parliament in A.D. 1534 formally abolished papal jurisdiction in the land, and transferred all ecclesiastical rights and revenues to the king. The venerable Bishop Fisher of Rochester and the resolute chancellor, Sir Thomas More (§ 120, 7), in A.D. 1535 paid the price of their opposition on the scaffold. Now came the long threatened ban. Under pretext of a highly necessary reform no less than 376 monasteries were closed during the years 1536-1538, their occupiers, monks and nuns, expelled, and their rich property confiscated.[378] Nevertheless in doctrine the king wished to remain a good Catholic, and for this end passed in the Parliament of A.D. 1539 the law of the Six Articles, which made any contradiction of the doctrines of transubstantiation, the withholding of the cup, celibacy of the clergy, the mass, and auricular confession, a capital offence. Persecution raged equally against Lutherans and Papists, sometimes more against the one, sometimes more against the other, according as he was moved by his own caprice, or the influence of his wives and favourites of the day. On the one side, at the head of the Papists, stood Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, and Bonner, Bishop of London; and on the other, Thomas Cranmer, whom the king had raised in A.D. 1533 to the see of Canterbury, in order to carry out his reforms in the ecclesiastical constitution. But Cranmer, who as the king’s agent in the divorce negotiations had often treated with foreign Protestant theologians, and at Nuremberg had secretly married Osiander’s niece, was in heart a zealous adherent of the Swiss Reformation, and furthered as far as he could with safety its introduction into England. Among other things, he secured the introduction in A.D. 1539, into all the churches of England, of an English translation of the Bible, revised by himself. He was supported in his efforts by the king’s second wife, Anne Boleyn; but she, having fallen under suspicion of unfaithfulness, was executed in A.D. 1536. The third wife, Jane Seymour, died in A.D. 1537 on the death of a son. The fourth, Anne of Cleves, was after six months, in A.D. 1540, cast aside, and the promoter of the marriage, the chancellor, Thomas Cromwell, was brought to the scaffold. The king now in the same year married Catharine Howard, with whom the Catholic party got to the helm again, and had the Act of the Six Articles rigorously enforced. But she, too, in A.D. 1543, was charged with repeated adulteries, and fell, together with her friends and those reputed as guilty with her, under the executioner’s axe. The sixth wife, Catharine Parr, who again favoured the Protestants, escaped a like fate by the death of the tyrant.[379]

§ 139.5. Edward VI., A.D. 1547-1553, son of Henry VIII. and Jane Seymour, succeeded his father in his tenth year. At the head of the regency stood his mother’s brother, the Duke of Somerset. Cranmer had now a free hand. Private masses and image worship were forbidden, the supper was administered in both kinds, marriage of priests was made legitimate, and a general church visitation appointed for the introduction of the Reformation. Gardiner and Bonner, who opposed these changes, were sent to the Tower. Somerset corresponded with Calvin, and invited at Cranmer’s request distinguished foreign theologians to help in the visitation of the churches. Martin Bucer and Paul Fagius from Strassburg came to Cambridge, and Peter Martyr to Oxford.[380] Bernardino Ochino was preacher to a congregation of Italian refugees in London. A commission under Cranmer’s presidency drew up for reading in the churches a collection of Homilies, for the instruction of the young a Catechism, and for the service a liturgy mediate between the Catholic and Protestant form, the so-called Book of Common Prayer of A.D. 1549; but from the second edition of which were left out chrism and exorcism, auricular confession, anointing the sick, and prayer for the dead. Then followed, in A.D. 1553, a confession of faith, consisting of forty-two articles, drawn up by Cranmer and Bishop Ridley of Rochester, which was distinctly of the reformed type, and set forward the ecclesiastical supremacy of the king as an article of faith. The young king, who supported the Reformation with all his heart, died in A.D. 1553, after nominating as his successor Jane Grey, the grand-daughter of a sister of his father. Not she, however, but a fanatical Catholic, Mary, A.D. 1553-1558, daughter of Henry VIII. and Catharine of Spain, actually ascended the throne. The compliant Parliament now abrogated all the ecclesiastical laws of Edward VI., which it had itself sanctioned, reverted to Henry’s law of the Six Articles, and entrusted Gardiner as chancellor with its execution. The Protestant leaders were thrown into the Tower, the bones of Bucer and Fagius were publicly burnt, married priests with wives and children were driven in thousands from the land. In the following year, A.D. 1554, Cardinal Reginald Pole, who had fled during Henry’s reign, returned as papal legate, absolved the repentant Parliament, and received all England back again into the fold of the Romish church.[381] The noble and innocent Lady Jane Grey, only in her sixteenth year, though she had voluntarily and cheerfully resigned the crown, was put to death with her husband and father. In the course of the next year, A.D. 1555, Bishops Ridley, Latimer, Ferrar, and Hooper with noble constancy endured death at the stake.[382] In prison, Cranmer had renounced his evangelical faith, but abundantly atoned for this weakness by the heroic firmness with which he retracted his retractation, and held the hand which had subscribed it in the flames, that it might be first consumed. He suffered in A.D. 1556.—The queen had married in A.D. 1554 Philip II. of Spain, eleven years her junior, and when in A.D. 1555 he returned to Spain, she fell into deep melancholy, and under its pressure her hatred of Protestantism was shown in the most bloody and cruel deeds. A heretic tribunal, after the fashion of the Spanish Inquisition, was created, which under the presidency of the “Bloody Bonner,” consigned to the flames crowds of confessors of the gospel, clergymen and laymen, men and women, old and young. After the persecution had raged for five years, “Bloody Mary” died of heart-break and dropsy.[383]

§ 139.6. Elizabeth, A.D. 1558-1603, the daughter of Anne Boleyn, though previously branded by the Parliament as a bastard, now ascended the throne unopposed as the last living member of the family of Henry VIII. Educated under the supervision of Cranmer in the Protestant faith of her mother, she had been obliged during the reign of her sister outwardly to conform to the Romish church. She proceeded with great prudence and moderation; but when Paul IV. pronounced her illegitimate, and the Scottish princess Mary Stuart, grand-daughter of Henry’s sister, assumed the title of queen of England, Elizabeth more heartily espoused the cause of Protestantism. In A.D. 1559 the Parliament passed the Act of Uniformity, which reasserted the royal supremacy over the national church, prescribed a revision of the Book of Common Prayer, which set aside the prayer for deliverance from the “detestable enormities” of the papacy, etc., and practically reproduced the earlier, less perfect of the Prayer Books of Edward VI., while every perversion to papacy was threatened with confiscation of goods, imprisonment, banishment, and in cases of repetition with death, as an act of treason. At the head of the clergy was Matthew Parker, consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury by some bishops exiled under Mary. He had formerly been chaplain to Anne Boleyn. Under his direction Cranmer’s forty-two articles were reduced to thirty-nine, giving a type of doctrine midway between Lutheranism and Calvinism; these were confirmed by convocation in A.D. 1562, and were adopted as a fundamental statute of England by Act of Parliament in A.D. 1571. This brings to a close the first stage in the history of the English Reformation,—the setting up by law of the Anglican State Church with episcopal constitution, with apostolical succession, under royal supremacy, as the Established Church.[384] (For the Puritan opposition to it see § 143, 3.) The somewhat indulgent manner in which the Act of Uniformity was at first enforced against the Catholics encouraged them more and more in attempts to secure a restoration. Even in A.D. 1568 William Allen founded at Douay a seminary to train Catholic Englishmen for a mission at home, and Gregory XIII. some years later, for a similar purpose, founded in Rome the “English College.” His predecessor, Pius V., had in A.D. 1570 deposed and issued the ban against the queen, and threatened all with the greater excommunication who should yield her obedience. Parliament now punished every withdrawal from the State church as high treason. Day and night houses were searched, and suspected persons inquisitorially examined by torture, and if found guilty they were not infrequently put to death as traitors.[385]—Continuation, §§ 153, 6; 154, 3.

§ 139.7. Ireland.—Hadrian IV., himself an Englishman (§ 96, 14), on the plea that the donation of Constantine (§ 87, 4) embraced also the “islands,” gave over Ireland to King Henry II. as a papal fief in A.D. 1154. Yet the king only managed to conquer the eastern border, the Pale, during the years 1171-1175. Henry VIII. introduced the Reformation into this province in A.D. 1535, by the help of his Archbishop of Dublin, George Brown. The ecclesiastical supremacy of the Crown was proclaimed, monasteries closed and their property impropriated, partly divided among Irish and English peers. But in matters of faith there was little change. More opposition was shown to the sweeping reformation of faith and worship of Edward VI. The bishops, Brown included, resisted, and the inferior clergy, who now were required to read the Book of Common Prayer in a language to most of them strange, diligently fostered the popular attachment to the old faith. The ascension of Queen Mary therefore was welcomed in Ireland, while Elizabeth’s attempt to reintroduce the Reformation met with opposition. Repeated outbreaks, in which also the people of the western districts took part, ended in A.D. 1601 in the complete subjugation of the whole island. By wholesale confiscation of estates the entire nobility was impoverished and the church property was made over to the Anglican clergy; but the masses of the Irish people continued Catholic, and willingly supported their priests out of their own scanty resources.[386]—Continuation, § 153, 6.

§ 139.8. Scotland.—Patrick Hamilton, who had studied in Wittenberg and Marburg, first preached the gospel in Scotland, and died at the stake in his twenty-fourth year in A.D. 1528.[387] Amid the political confusions of the regency during the minority of James V., A.D. 1513-1542, a sister’s son of Henry VIII. of England, the Reformation obtained firm root among the nobles, who hated the clergy, and among the oppressed people, notwithstanding that the bishops, with David Beaton, Archbishop of St. Andrew’s at their head, sought to crush it by the most violent persecution. When Henry VIII. called on his nephew to assist him in his Reformation work, James refused, and yielding to Beaton’s advice formed an alliance with France and married Mary of Guise. This occasioned a war in A.D. 1540, the disastrous issue of which led to the king’s death of a broken heart. According to the king’s will Beaton was to undertake the regency, for Mary Stuart was only seven days old. But the nobles transferred it to the Protestant Earl of Arran, who imprisoned Beaton and had the royal child affianced to Henry’s son Edward. Beaton escaped, by connivance of the queen-mother got possession of the child, and compelled the weak regent, in A.D. 1543, to abjure the English alliance. The persecution of the Protestants by fire and sword now began afresh. After many others had fallen victims to his persecuting rage, Beaton had a famous Protestant preacher, George Wishart, burnt before his eyes; but was soon after, in A.D. 1546, surprised in his castle and slain. When in A.D. 1548 Somerset, the English regent after Henry’s death, sought to renew negotiations about the marriage of Mary, now five years old, with Edward VI., her mother had her taken for safety to France, where she was educated in a convent and affianced to the dauphin, afterwards Francis II. By hypocritical acts she contrived to have the regency transferred in A.D. 1554 from Arran to herself. For two years the Reformation progressed without much opposition. In December, A.D. 1557, its most devoted promoters made a “covenant,” pledging themselves in life and death to advance the word of God and uproot the idolatry of the Romish church. The queen-regent, however, after the marriage of her daughter with the dauphin in A.D. 1558, felt herself strong enough to defy the Protestant nobles. The old strict laws against heretics were renewed, and a tribunal established for the punishment of apostatizing priests. The last victim of the persecution was Walter Mill, a priest eighty-two years old, who died at the stake at Perth (?) in A.D. 1559.[388] The country now rose in open revolt. The regent was thus obliged to make proclamation of universal religious toleration. But instead of keeping her promise to have all French troops withdrawn, their number was actually increased after Francis II. ascended the French throne. Elizabeth, too, was indignant at the assumption by the French king and queen of the English royal title, so that she aided the insurgents with an army and a fleet. During the victorious progress of the English the regent died, in A.D. 1560. The French were obliged to withdraw, and the victory of the Scotch Protestants was decisive.

§ 139.9. There was one man, whose unbending opposition to the constitution, worship, doctrine, and discipline of the Church of Rome, manifested with a rigid determination that has scarcely ever been equalled, left its indelible impress upon the Scottish Reformation. John Knox, born in A.D. 1505, was by the study of Augustine and the Bible led to adopt evangelical views, which in A.D. 1542 he preached in the south of Scotland. Persecuted in consequence by Archbishop Beaton, he joined the conspirators after that prelate’s assassination, in A.D. 1546, was taken prisoner, and in A.D. 1547 served as slave in the French galleys. The ill treatment he thus endured developed his naturally strong and resolute character and that fearlessness which so characterized all his subsequent life. By English mediation he was set free in A.D. 1549, and became in A.D. 1551 chaplain to Edward VI., but took offence at the popish leaven allowed to remain in the English Reformation, and consequently declined an offered bishopric. When the Catholic Mary ascended the throne in A.D. 1553, he fled to Geneva, where he enjoyed the closest intimacy with Calvin, whose doctrine of predestination, rigid presbyterianism, and rigorous discipline he thoroughly approved. After presiding for some time over a congregation of English refugees at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, he returned in A.D. 1555 to Scotland, but in the following year accepted a call to the church of English refugees at Geneva that had meanwhile been formed. The Scottish bishops, who had not ventured to touch him while present, condemned him to death after his departure, and burned him in effigy. But Knox kept up a lively correspondence with his native land by letters, proclamations, and controversial tracts, and with the help of several friends translated the Scriptures into English. In A.D. 1558 he published with the title, “The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women,” the most violent of all his controversial works, directed mainly against the English Queen Mary, who was now dead. It roused against him the unconquerable dislike of her successor, and increased the hatred of the other two Maries against him to the utmost pitch. Yet he accepted the call of the Protestant lords, and returned next year to Scotland, and was the heart and soul of the revolution that soon thereafter broke out. Images and mass-books were burnt, altars in churches broken in pieces, and 150 monasteries were destroyed; for said Knox, “If the nests be pulled down, the crows will not come back.” After the death of the regent in A.D. 1560, the Parliament proclaimed the abolition of the papacy, ratified the strictly Calvinistic Confessio Scotica, and forbade celebrating the mass on pain of death. Then in December, the first General Assembly prescribed, in the “First Book of Discipline,” a strictly presbyterial constitution under Christ as only head, with a rigidly puritan order of worship (§ 163, 3).

§ 139.10. In Aug., A.D. 1561, Queen Mary Stuart, highly cultured and high-spirited, returned from France to Scotland, a young widow in her 19th year. Brought up in a French convent in fanatical attachment to the Romish Church, and at the French court, with absolutist ideas as well as easy-going morals, the severe Calvinism and moral strictness of Scottish Puritanism were to her as distasteful as its assertion of political independence. At the instigation of her half-brother James Stuart, whom she raised to the earldom of Moray, and who was head of the ministry as one of the leaders of the reformed party, she promised on her arrival not to interfere with the ecclesiastical arrangements of the country, but refused to give royal sanction to the proceedings of A.D. 1560, held Catholic service in her court chapel, and on all hands favoured the Romanists. By her marriage, in A.D. 1565, with the young Catholic Lord Darnley, grandson by a second marriage of her grandmother Margaret of England, who now assumed the title of king, Moray was driven from his position, and the restoration of Catholicism was vigorously and openly prosecuted by negotiations with Spain, France, and the pope. The director of all those intrigues was the Italian musician David Rizzio, who came to the country as papal agent, and had become Mary’s favourite and private secretary. The rudeness and profligacy of the young king had soon estranged from him the heart of the queen. He therefore took part in a conspiracy of the Protestant lords, promising to go over to their faith. Their first victim was the hated Rizzio. He was fallen upon and slain on 9th March, A.D. 1566, while he sat beside the queen, already far advanced in pregnancy. Darnley soon repented his deed, was reconciled to the queen, fled with her to the Castle of Dunbar, and an army gathered by the Protestant Earl of Bothwell soon suppressed the rising. The rebels and assassins were at Mary’s entreaty almost all pardoned. Darnley, now living in mortal enmity with the heads of the Protestant nobility, and again on bad terms with the queen, fell sick in Dec., A.D. 1566, at Glasgow. On his sick-bed a reconciliation with his wife was effected, and apparently in order that she might the better nurse him, he was brought to a villa near Edinburgh. But on the night of 9th Feb., A.D. 1567, while Mary was present at the marriage of a servant, the house with its inhabitants was blown up by an explosion of gunpowder. Public opinion charged Bothwell and the queen with contriving the horrible crime. Bothwell was tried, but acquitted by the lords. Suspicion increased when soon after Bothwell carried off the queen to his castle, and married her on 15th May. In the civil war that now broke out Mary was taken prisoner, and on 24th July obliged to abdicate in favour of her one-year old son James VI., for whom Mary undertook the regency. Bothwell fled to Denmark, where he died in misery and want; but Mary was allowed to escape from prison by the young George Douglas. He also raised on her behalf a small army, which, however, in May, A.D. 1568, was completely destroyed by Moray at the village of Langside. The unhappy queen could now only seek protection with her deadly enemy Elizabeth of England, who, after twenty years’ imprisonment, sent her to the scaffold in A.D. 1587, on the plea that she was guilty of murdering her own husband and of high treason in plotting the death of the English queen.—Mary’s guilt would be conclusively established, if a correspondence with Bothwell, said to have been found in her desk, should be accepted as genuine. But all her apologists, with apparently strong conviction, have sought to prove that these letters are fabrications of her enemies. The thorough investigation given to original documents, however, by Bresslau [Breslau], has resulted in recognising only the second of these as a forgery, and so proving, not indeed Mary’s complicity in the murder of her husband, but her adulterous love for Bothwell, and showing too that her apparent reconciliation with Darnley on his sick-bed was only hypocritical.[389]

§ 139.11. The young queen had at first sought to win by her fair speeches the bold and influential reformer John Knox, who was then preacher in Edinburgh. But his heart was cased in sevenfold armour against all her flatteries, as afterwards against her threats; even her tears found him as stern and cold as her wrath. When he called an assembly of nobles to put a stop to the Catholic worship introduced by her at court, he was charged with high treason, but acquitted by the lords. The marriage with Darnley and all that followed from this unhappy union only increased his boldness. He publicly preached without reserve against the papacy and the light carriage of the queen, on the outbreak of the civil war urged her deposition, and demanded her execution for adultery and the murder of her husband. The assassination of Regent Moray in A.D. 1570 threw the country into further confusion, which was only overcome by his third successor, Morton. The fugitive Knox now returned to Edinburgh, and soon after died, on 24th Nov., A.D. 1572. Of his extant writings the most important is his “History of the Reformation,” reaching down to A.D. 1567. Morton’s vigorous government completely destroyed Mary’s party, but also restricted the pretensions of Presbyterianism. After his overthrow in A.D. 1578, James VI., now in his 12th year, himself undertook the government at the head of a council of state. His weakness of character showed itself in his vacillating between an alliance with Catholic Spain and one with Protestant England, as well as between secret favouring of Catholicism and open endeavouring to supersede puritan Presbyterianism by Anglican-Protestant episcopacy. In A.D. 1584 the parliament, enlarged by the introduction of the lower orders of the nobility, so defined the royal supremacy as to deprive the Presbyterian church of several of her rights and privileges. But in A.D. 1592 the king was obliged absolutely to restore these. After Elizabeth’s death in A.D. 1603, as the great-grandson of Henry VII., he united the kingdoms of England and Scotland under the title of James I.[390]—Continuation, § 153, 6.

§ 139.12. The Netherlands.—By the marriage of Mary of Burgundy, the heiress of Charles the Bald, with Maximilian I., in A.D. 1478, the Netherlands passed over to the house of Hapsburg, and after Maximilian’s death, in A.D. 1519, went to his grandson Charles V. Even in the previous period the ground was broken in these regions for the introduction of the Reformation of the 16th century by means of the Brothers of the Common Life (§ 112, 9) and the Dutch precursors of the Reformation (§ 119, 10), working as they did among an intrepid and liberty loving people. The writings of Luther were introduced at a very early date into Holland, and the first martyrs from the Lutheran Confession (§ 128, 1) were led to the stake at Antwerp, in A.D. 1523. The alliance with France and Switzerland, however, was the occasion of subsequently securing the triumph of the Reformed Confession (see § 160, 1). But fanatical Anabaptists soon followed in the wake of the reform movement, and sent forth their emissaries into Germany and Switzerland. As the emperor had here an authority as absolute as his heart could desire, he proceeded to execute unrelentingly the edict of Worms, and multitudes of witnesses for the gospel as well as fanatical sectaries were put to death by the sword and at the stake. Still more dreadful was the havoc committed by the Inquisition after Charles’ abdication, in A.D. 1555, under his son and successor Philip II. of Spain, which had for its aim the overthrow alike of ecclesiastical and political liberty. In order the more successfully to withstand the Reformation, the four original bishoprics were increased by the addition of fourteen new bishoprics, and three were raised into archbishoprics, Utrecht, Mechlin, and Cambray. But even these measures failed in securing the end desired, because the Dutch, even those who hitherto had remained faithful to the Romish Church, saw in them simply an instrument for advancing Spanish despotism.—In A.D. 1523 Luther’s translation of the N.T. had already been rendered into Dutch and printed at Amsterdam. In A.D. 1545 Jacob van Liesfield translated the whole Bible, and was for this sent to the scaffold in A.D. 1545. A Calvinistic symbol was set forth in A.D. 1562 in the Belgic Confession. The league formed by the nobles, in A.D. 1566, to offer resistance to the tyranny of the Spaniards, to which their oppressors gave the contemptuous designation of the Beggars—a name which they themselves adopted as a title of honour—increased in strength and importance from day to day, and the people, thirsting for revenge, tore down churches, images, and altars. The prudent regent, however, Margaret of Parma, Philip’s half-sister, would have been more successful in preventing an outburst of rebellion by her conciliatory manœuvres, had her brother given her greater freedom of action. Instead of doing so he sent to her aid, in A.D. 1587, the terrible Duke of Alva, with a standing army of 10,000 Spaniards. The “Bloody Council” instituted by him for stamping out the revolt now began its horrible proceedings, sending thousands upon thousands to the rack and the scaffold. The regent, protesting against such acts, demanded her recall, and Alva was put in her place. The bloody tribunal moved now from city to city; all the leading throughfares were covered with victims hanging from gibbets, and when Alva at last, in A.D. 1573, was at his own request recalled, he could boast of having carried out in six years 18,600 executions. Meanwhile the great Prince of Orange, William the Silent, formerly royal governor of the Dutch Provinces, but since A.D. 1568 a fugitive under the ban, had now openly signified his adhesion to Protestantism, and in 1572 placed himself at the head of the revolt. After gaining several victories by land and by sea, he succeeded, in the so called Pacification of Ghent, of A.D. 1576, in uniting almost all the provinces, Protestant and Catholic, under a resolution to exercise toleration to one another and show resistance to the common foe. The new governor, Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, managed indeed to detach the southern Catholic provinces from the league, but all the more closely did the seven northern provinces bind themselves together in the Union of Utrecht of A.D. 1579, promising to fight to the end for their religious and political liberty. William’s truest friend, counsellor, and director of his political actions, since the formation of the league of A.D. 1566, was Philip van Marnix, Count of St. Aldegonde. He had drawn up the articles of the league, and was equally celebrated as a statesman and soldier, and as theologian, satirist, orator, and poet. He was pre-eminently an ardent patriot, and an enthusiastic adherent of Calvin’s Reformation. He had been himself a pupil of the great Genevan. Besides a spirited material version of the Psalter, his chief satirico-theological work was “The Beehive of the Holy Roman Church,” written in the Flemish dialect.—After William’s assassination by the hand of a Catholic, in A.D. 1584, he was succeeded by his son Maurice, who after long years of bloody conflict succeeded, in A.D. 1609, in completely freeing his country from the Spanish yoke.[391]

§ 139.13. France.—The Reformation in France had its beginning from Wittenberg, but subsequently the Genevan reformers obtained a dominating influence. Even in A.D. 1521, the Sorbonne issued a Determinatio super doctr. Luth., pronouncing Luther’s teaching and writings heretical, which Melanchthon in the same year answered with unusual vigour in his Apologia adv. furiosum Parisiensium theologastrorum decretum. Everything depended upon the attitude which the young king Francis I., A.D. 1515-1547, might assume in reference to the various religious parties. His love of humanist studies, now flourishing in France, whose zealous promoter and protector he was against the attacks of the scholastic Sorbonne (§ 120, 8), as well as the traditional policy of his family in ecclesiastical matters since the time of St. Louis (§ 96, 21), seemed to favour the hope that he would not prove altogether hostile to the ideas of the Reformation. But even as early as A.D. 1516 he had, in his concordat with the pope (§ 110, 14), surrendered the acquisitions of the Basel Council by the revocation of the Pragmatic Sanction of Charles VII., and in this way, by the right given him to nominate all the bishops and abbots, he obtained a power over all the clergy of his realm which was too much in accordance with his dynastic ideas to allow of his sacrificing it in favour of the Lutheran autonomy in the management of the church, let alone the yet more radical demands of the Calvinistic constitution. Even in his antagonism to the emperor (§§ 126, 5, 6; 133, 7), which led him to befriend in a very decided manner the German Protestants, his interests crossed one another, inasmuch as he required to retain the goodwill of the pope. Suppression of Protestantism in his own land and the fostering of it in Germany were thus the aims of his crooked policy. He did indeed for a time entertain the idea of introducing a moderate Reformation into France after the Erasmian model, in order to secure closer attachment to and union with German Protestantism. He entered into negotiations with Philip the Magnanimous, and had Melanchthon invited in A.D. 1535 to attend a conference on these matters in France. Melanchthon was not indisposed to go, but was interdicted by his prince the elector, who feared lest he might make too great concessions. And just about this time fanatically violent pamphlets and placards were published, which were even thrown into the royal apartments, and thus the anger of the king was roused to the utmost pitch. The persecutions, which, from A.D. 1524, had already brought many isolated witnesses to the scaffold and the stake, now assumed a systematic and general character. In A.D. 1535, an Inquisition tribunal was set up, with members nominated by the pope, and as supplementary thereto there was instituted in the Parliament of Paris the so-called chambre ardente: the former drew up the process against the heretics, the latter pronounced and executed the sentence. Thousands of heroic confessors died under torture, on the gallows, by sword, or by fire. Under Henry II., A.D. 1547-1559, who continued his father’s crooked policy, the chambre ardente became more and more active, and the cruelty of the persecution increased. Among the sworn foes of the Reformation, Diana of Poitiers, an old love of his father’s, had for a time the greatest influence over the king. He raised her to the rank of duchess. With diabolic satisfaction she gloated upon the spectacle of autos-de-fé carried out at her request, and enriched herself with the confiscated goods of the victims. Side by side with her, inspired by a like hate of Protestantism, stood the great marshal and all-powerful minister of state, the Constable Montmorency. These two were further backed up by all the influence of the powerful ducal family of the Guises, a branch of a Lorraine house naturalized in France, consisting of six brothers, at their head the two eldest, the Cardinal Charles of Lorraine, Archbishop of Rheims, who died in A.D. 1574, and Francis, the conqueror of Calais. The least influential in the league at that time was the queen, Catharine de Medici.

§ 139.14. In spite of all persecutions, the Reformed church made rapid progress, especially in the southern districts. Its adherents came to be known by the name of Huguenots, meaning originally Leaguers, Covenanters, on account of their connection with Geneva. A popular etymology of the word derives it from the nightly assemblies in a locality haunted by the spirit of King Hugo. Calvin and Beza, as sons of France, assisted the young church with counsel and help. But even within the bounds of the kingdom it had very important political supporters. Certain members of the house of Bourbon, a powerful branch of the royal family, Anton, who married the brilliant heiress of Navarre, Jeanne d’Albret, and his brother Louis de Condé, had attached themselves to the Protestant cause. Also other distinguished personages, e.g. the noble Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, a nephew of Montmorency, and several prominent members of Parliament, were enthusiastically devoted to Protestantism, and, withdrawing from the frivolous and licentious court, gave to the profession of the reformed faith a wide reputation for strict morality and deep piety. The first general synod of the reformed church was held in Paris from 25th to 28th May, A.D. 1559. It adopted a Calvinistic symbol, the Confessio Gallicana, and, as a directory for the constitution and discipline of the church, forty articles, also inspired by the spirit of Calvin.—Henry II. was followed in succession by his three sons, Francis, Charles, and Henry, all of whom died without issue. Under Francis II., A.D. 1559, 1560, who ascended the throne in his sixteenth year, the two Guises, the uncles of his queen Mary Stuart, held unlimited sway and gave abundance of work to the chambre ardente. A conspiracy directed against them in A.D. 1560 led to the execution of 1,200 persons implicated in it. Even the two Bourbons were cast into prison, and the younger condemned to death. The king’s early death, however, prevented the execution of the sentence. The queen-mother, Catharine de Medici, now succeeded in breaking off the yoke of the Guises and securing to herself the regency during the minority of her son Charles IX., A.D. 1560-1574. But the attempts of the Guises to undermine her authority obliged her to seek supporters meanwhile among the Protestants. Coligny was able in A.D. 1560 to demand religious toleration of the imperial Parliament, and succeeded at last so far that in A.D. 1561 an edict was issued abolishing capital punishment for heresy. In order to bring about wherever that was possible an understanding between the two great religious parties, a five weeks’ religious conference was held in September of that same year in the Abbey of Poissy, near Paris, to which on the evangelical side Beza from Geneva and Peter Martyr from Zürich, besides many other theologians, were invited. On the Catholic side, the Cardinal of Lorraine represented the doctrine of his church, and subsequently also the general of the Jesuits, Lainez. The proceedings, in which Beza’s learning, eloquence, and praiseworthy courtesy toward his opponents had great weight, were concentrated on the doctrines of the Church and the Lord’s Supper, but yielded no result. In order that they might be able to inflame the Lutherans and the Reformed against one another, the Catholics endeavoured to bring forward supporters of the Augsburg Confession into the discussions on those points. Five German theologians were actually brought forward, among them Jac. Andreä of Württemberg, but too late to take part in the conference. On 17th January, A.D. 1562, the regent issued an edict, by which the Protestants were allowed to hold religious services outside of the towns, and also to have meetings of synod under the supervision of royal commissioners.

§ 139.15. The rage of the Guises and their fanatical party at this edict knew no bounds. Francis of Guise swore to cut it up with his sword, and on 1st March, A.D. 1562, at Passy in Champagne, he fell upon the Huguenots assembled there for worship in a barn, and slew them almost to a man. At Cahors, a Huguenot place of worship was surrounded by a Catholic mob and set on fire. None of those gathered together there survived, for those who escaped the flames were waylaid and murdered. At Toulouse, the oppressed Protestants, with wives and children, to the number of 4,000, had betaken themselves to the capitol. They were promised a free outlet, and were then slaughtered, because no one, it was said, should keep his word with a heretic (§ 200, 3). Louis Condé summoned his fellow Protestants to take up arms in their own defence against such atrocities, entrenched himself in Orleans, and obtained, by the help of the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, German auxiliaries. The Guises, on the other hand, won over to their side the king and his mother. And now the strict legitimist Coligny placed himself at the head of the Huguenot movement. The battle of Dreux in Dec., A.D. 1562, resulted unfavourably to the Protestants, but during the siege of Orleans Francis of Guise was assassinated by a Huguenot nobleman. The regent now, in the peace edict of Amboise, of 19th Nov., A.D. 1563, allowed to the Protestants liberty of worship except in certain districts and cities, of which Paris was one. After securing emancipation from the yoke of the Guises, however, she soon began openly to show her old hatred of the Protestants. She joined in a league with Spain for the extirpating of heresy, restricted in A.D. 1564 by the Edict of Roussillon her previous concessions, and laid incessant plots in order to effect the capture or murder of the two great leaders of the Huguenot party. The threatening incursions of the Duke of Alva upon the neighbouring provinces of the Netherlands, in A.D. 1567, occasioned the outbreak of the second religious war. The projected removal of the court to Monceaux fell through indeed, in consequence of the hasty flight of the king to Paris, but the overthrow of the royal army in the battle of St. Denys, in Nov., A.D. 1567, in which Montmorency fell, as well as the reinforcement of the Huguenot army by an auxiliary corps under the leadership of John Casimir, the prince of the Palatinate, led Catharine to conclude the Peace of Longjumeau, of March, A.D. 1568, which guaranteed anew all previous concessions. But when the persecution of the Huguenots was continued in numberless executions, before the year was out they had again, for the third time, to have recourse to arms. England supported them with money and ammunition, and Protestant Germany gave them 11,000 auxiliaries; while Spain helped their opponents. Louis Condé fell by the hand of an assassin in A.D. 1569, but the Huguenots had so evidently the best of it, that the king and his mother found themselves obliged to grant them complete liberty of conscience and of worship in the peace treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye, on 8th of Aug., A.D. 1570, excepting in Paris and in the immediate surroundings of the palace. As a guarantee for the treaty, four strongholds in southern France were surrendered to them. It was further stipulated, in order to confirm for ever the good undertaking, that Henry of Navarre, son of Jeanne d’Albret, should marry Margaret, the sister of Charles IX.

§ 139.16. At the marriage, consummated on 18th of August, A.D. 1572, subsequently known as the Bloody Marriage, the chiefs of the Huguenot party were gathered together at Paris. Jeanne d’Albret had died at the court, probably by poison, on 9th June, and Coligny had been fatally wounded by a shot on 22nd August. On the night of St. Bartholomew, between the 23rd and 24th August, the castle bell tolled. This was the concerted signal for the destruction of all the Huguenots present in Paris. For four days the carnage was unweariedly carried on by the city militia appointed for the purpose, the royal Swiss guards, and crowds of fanatical artisans. Coligny fell praying amid the blows of his murderers. No Huguenot was spared, neither children, nor women, nor the aged. Their princely chiefs, Henry of Navarre and Henry Condé, the son of Louis, were offered the choice between death and taking part in the celebration of mass. They decided for the latter. Meanwhile messengers had hasted into the provinces with the death-warrants, and there the slaughter began afresh. The whole number of victims is variously estimated at from 10,000 to 100,000; in Paris alone there fell from 1,000 to 10,000.—The death decree was not indeed so much the result of long planned and regularly conceived conspiracy, as a sudden resolve suggested by political circumstances. The queen-mother was at variance with her son with respect to his anti-Spanish policy, which had always inclined him favourably to Coligny; and so, in concert with her favourite son, Henry of Anjou, she succeeded in dealing a deadly stroke at the great admiral by the hand of an assassin. The king swore to take fearful vengeance on the unknown perpetrators of this crime. Catharine now made every effort to avert the threatened blow. She managed to convince the king, by means of her fellow conspirators, that the Huguenots regarded him as an accomplice in the perpetrating of the outrage, and that so his life was in danger because of them. He now swore by God’s death that not merely the chiefs, to whom Catharine and her auxiliaries had directed special attention, but all the Huguenots in France, should die, in order that not one should remain to bring this charge against him. On the other hand, it is all but certain that the thought of such a diabolical deed had previously suggested itself, if indeed expression had not been explicitly given to it. To the Spanish and Romish courts, the French government represented the deed as an acte prémédité, to the German court as an acte non prémédité. But even before this a letter from Rome to the Emperor Maximilian II. (§ 137, 8) had contained the following: “At that hour (referring to the marriage festivities) when all the birds are in the cage, they can seize upon them altogether, and can have any one that they desire.” He was profoundly excited about the villany of the transaction, while Philip II. of Spain on hearing of it is said to have laughed for the first time in his life. Pope Gregory XIII. indeed feared the worst consequences, but soon changed his mind, and had Rome illuminated, all the bells rung, the cannons fired, a Te Deum performed, processions made, and a medal struck, with the inscription, Ugonottorum strages. He instructed the French ambassador to inform his king that this performance was a hundred times more grateful to him than fifty victories over the Turks.[392]

§ 139.17. The dreadful deed, however, completely failed in accomplishing the end in view. Even after 100,000 had been slaughtered there still remained more than ten times that number of Huguenots, who, in possession of their strongholds, occupied positions of great strategical importance. After a brief breathing time of peace, therefore, they were able, on five occasions, in A.D. 1573, 1576, 1577, 1580, to renew the religious civil war, when once and again the truce had been broken by the Catholics. Charles IX. was succeeded by Catharine’s favourite son, Henry III., A.D. 1574-1589, who, joining the most shameless immorality to the narrowest bigotry and asceticism (§ 149, 17), was no way behind his brother in dissoluteness, and was still more conspicuous for dastardliness and cowardice. Henry Condé had, just immediately after Charles’s death, abjured again the Catholic confession, and put himself at the head of the Huguenot revolt. Henry of Navarre rejoined his old friends two years later, after having in the meantime vied with his brother-in-law and his incestuous wife in frivolity and immorality. He was able to take part successfully in the fifth religious war, in which the Huguenots, supported once more by the German auxiliaries under the Count-palatine John Casimir, secured such advantages, that the court, in the Treaty of Beaulieu, of A.D. 1576, were obliged to grant them complete religious freedom and a larger number of strongholds. But now Henry of Guise, in concert with his brothers Louis, cardinal and Archbishop of Rheims, and Charles, Duke of Mayenne, formed the Holy League, which he compelled the king to join, and renewed the war with increased vigour. In the eighth war since A.D. 1584, which on the part of the Guises was really as much directed against the king’s Huguenot policy as against the Huguenots themselves, Henry was obliged, by the Treaty of Nemours, of A.D. 1585, to declare that the Protestants were deprived of all rights and privileges. In the battle of Coutras, however, in A.D. 1587, Henry of Navarre annihilated the opposing forces. But as he failed to follow up the advantages then secured, the Guises again recruited their strength to such a degree that they were able openly to work for the dethronement of the king. Henry could save himself only by the murder of both the elder Guises at the Diet of Blois. There was now no alternative left him but to cast himself into the arms of the Huguenots, and on this account, at the siege of the capital, he was murdered by the Dominican Clement. Henry of Navarre, as the only legitimate heir, now ascended the throne as Henry IV., A.D. 1589-1610. After a hard struggle, lasting for four years, in which he was supported by England and Germany, while his opponents, headed by the Duke of Mayenne, were aided with money and men by Spain, Savoy, and the pope, he at last decided, in A.D. 1593, to pass over to Catholicism, because, as he said, “Paris is well worth a mass.” He secured, however, for his former co-religionists, by the Edict of Nantes, of 13th April, A.D. 1598, complete liberty of holding religious services in all the cities where previously there had been reformed congregations, as well as thorough equality with the Catholics in all civil rights and privileges, especially in regard to eligibility for all civil and military offices. The fortresses and strongholds hitherto held by them were to be left with them for eight years, and in the Parliament a special “Chamber of the Edict” was instituted, with eight Catholic and eight Protestant members. But, on the other hand, they continued to be under the Catholic marriage laws, were obliged to cease from work on the Catholic festivals, and to pay tithes to the Catholic clergy. After a stubborn resistance on the part of the Parliament of Paris, the university, and the Sorbonne, as well as on that of the bishops, the king, in February, A.D. 1599, secured the incorporation of the edict among the laws of France. On 14th May, A.D. 1610, he was struck down by the dagger of the Feuillant Ravaillac, a fanatical Jesuit. Notwithstanding his many moral shortcomings, France has rightly celebrated him as one of the greatest and best of her kings. With wisdom, prudence, and humanity he wrought unweariedly for the advancement of a commonwealth that had been reduced to the lowest depths. He protected the Protestants in the enjoyment of privileges guaranteed to them, and though he did indeed put upon his old Huguenot friends some gentle pressure to get them to follow his example, he yet honoured those who steadfastly refused. His minister Sully, although it is supposed that he had felt obliged to advise the king to go over to Catholicism, stood himself unhesitatingly true to his profession of the Huguenot faith, while he retained the king’s confidence, and proved his most faithful adviser and administrator during all the negotiations of peace and war. Philip du Plessis Mornay, on the other hand, distinguished even more as a statesman, diplomatist, and field marshal than as a theologian and author,[393] but above all as a Christian and a man in the noblest sense of the word, who, in the belief that evangelical truth would, even in the Catholic church, assert its conquering power, had agreed with the Catholic League to instruct the king in the Catholic faith, and had thus made the act of apostasy appear to him less offensive. But just because the mere presence of a friend of high moral character and true religious principles acted as too sharp a sting to the king’s conscience, he had to submit to be relegated to an honorary post as governor of Saumur, where he became founder of the famous academy which Louis XIV. suppressed in A.D. 1685. Theodore Agrippa d’Aubigné, too, distinguished as a brave warrior in the army of the Huguenots, as well as a historian, poet, and satirist, stood high in favour with the king, though Henry, often roused by his unbending pride, repeatedly expelled him from the court. After Henry’s death D’Aubigné returned to Geneva, where he died in A.D. 1630.[394]

§ 139.18. Poland.—The Reformation had been introduced into Poland first of all by the exiled Bohemian Brethren, and Luther’s writings soon after their appearance were eagerly read in that region. Sigismund I., A.D. 1506-1548, opposed it with all his might. It met with most success in Prussian Poland. Dantzig, in A.D. 1525, drove out the Catholic council. Sigismund went down there himself, had several citizens executed, and restored the old mode of worship in A.D. 1526. But scarcely had he left the town when it again went back to the profession of the Lutheran faith. Elbing and Thorn followed its example. In Poland proper also the new doctrines made way. In spite of all prohibitions many young Poles flocked to Wittenberg, and brought away from it to their native country a glowing enthusiasm for Luther and his teaching. The Swiss Confession had already found entrance there, and the persecutions which Ferdinand of Austria carried on after the Schmalcald war in Bohemia and Moravia led great numbers of Bohemian Brethren to cross over into the Polish territories. Sigismund Augustus, A.D. 1548-1572, was personally favourable to the Reformation. He studied Calvin’s “Institutes,” received letters from him and from Melanchthon, and, in accordance with the decisions of a national assembly at Petrican in A.D. 1555 demanded of the pope a national council, as well as permission for the marriage of priests, the communion in both kinds, the celebration of mass in the vernacular, and abolition of annats. The pope naturally refused to yield, but in A.D. 1556 sent into the country a legate of a despotic and violent temper, called Aloysius Lippomanus, who was replaced in A.D. 1563 by the bland and eloquent Commendone. Both were powerfully supported in their struggle against heresy by the fanatically Catholic cardinal Stanislaus Hosius, Bishop of Ermeland. The Protestant nobility then recalled, in A.D. 1556, their celebrated countryman John à Lasco, who twenty years before had, on account of his evangelical faith, resigned his office as provost of Gnesen and left his fatherland. He had meanwhile taken part in the Reformation of East Friesland, and had acted for several years as preacher at Emden. After that, he had gone, at the call of Cranmer, in A.D. 1550, to England; upon the death of Edward VI., along with a part of his London flock of foreign exiles, had sought refuge in Denmark, which, however, was refused on account of his attachment to Zwingli’s doctrine; and at last settled down at Frankfort-on-the-Maine as pastor to a congregation of French, English, and Dutch exiles. After his return home he endeavoured to bring about a union of the Lutherans and Reformed, in concert with several friends made a translation of the Bible, and died in A.D. 1560. At a general synod at Sendomir, in A.D. 1570, a union was at last effected between the three dissentient parties, by which the Lutheran doctrine of the Lord’s Supper was acknowledged, yet in so indefinite a form that Calvin’s view might also be entertained. The Lutheran opposition at the synod had been suppressed by urgent entreaty, but afterwards broke out again in a still more violent form. At the Synod of Thorn, in A.D. 1595, the Lutheran pastor Paul Gericke was the leader of it; but one of the nobles present held a dagger to his heart, and the synod suspended him from his office as a disturber of the peace. Sigismund Augustus had meanwhile died, in A.D. 1572. During the interregnum that followed, the Protestant nobles formed a confederation, which before the election of a new king succeeded in obtaining a comprehensive religious peace, the Pax dissidentium of A.D. 1573, by means of which Catholics and Protestants were for all time to live together in peace and enjoy equal civil rights. The newly elected king, Henry of Anjou, sought to avoid binding himself by oath to the observance of this peace, but the imperial marshal addressed him in firm and decided language, Si non jurabis, non regnabis. In the following year, however, the new king left Poland in order to mount the French throne as Henry III. Stephen Bathori, A.D. 1576-1586, swore without hesitation to observe the peace, and kept his oath. Under his successor, Sigismund III., a Swedish prince, A.D. 1587-1632, the Protestants had to complain of the infringement of many of their rights, which from this time down to the overthrow of the Polish kingdom, in A.D. 1772, they never again enjoyed.[395]—Continuation, § 164, 4.

§ 139.19. Bohemia and Moravia.—The numerous Bohemian and Moravian Brethren (§ 119, 8), at whose head was the elder Luke of Prague, greeted the appearance of Luther with the most hopeful joy. By messages and writings, however, which in A.D. 1522-1524 were interchanged between them, some important diversities of view were discovered. Luke disliked Luther’s realistic theory of the Lord’s Supper, continued to hold by the seven sacraments, rejected the doctrine of justification by faith alone, and took special offence at Luther’s view of Christian freedom, which seemed to him to want the necessary rigour of the apostolic discipline of the life and to under-estimate the importance and worth of celibacy and virginity. Luther, on the other hand, charged them with a want of grasp of the doctrine and a Novatian over-estimation of mere outward exercises and discipline. And so these negotiations ended in mutual recrimination, and only after Luke’s death, in A.D. 1528, and the glorious Diet of Augsburg, in A.D. 1530, were they reopened. The Lutheranizing tendency, for which especially the two elders John Roh and John Augusta laboured, now gained the upper hand for two decades. In A.D. 1532 the Brethren presented to the Margrave George of Brandenburg an apology of the doctrine and customs, which was printed at Wittenberg, and had a preface by Luther, in which he expressed himself in very favourable terms about the doctrine of the “Picards,” and only objected to their spiritualizing tendency, of which their doctrine of the supper and of baptism was not altogether free, inasmuch as they, while practising infant baptism, required that each one should on reaching maturity take the vows upon himself and have baptism repeated. Still more favourably did he speak of their confession presented in A.D. 1535 to King Ferdinand, in which they had left out the rebaptizing, substituting for it the solemn imposition of hands as confirmation. When the Brethren at Luther’s request had modified the two articles at which he took offence, their unsatisfactory theory of justification, and that of the wholesomeness, though not necessity, of clerical celibacy, he declared himself thoroughly satisfied, and at their last personal conference, in A.D. 1542, he stretched his hand over the table to Augusta and his companions as the pledge of indissoluble brotherly fellowship, although not agreed in regard to various matters of constitution and discipline. The refusal of the Brethren to fight against their German fellow Protestants in the Schmalcald war led to their king Ferdinand upon its close issuing some penal statutes against them. Driven away into exile in A.D. 1548, many of them went to Poland, the larger number to Prussia, from whence they returned to their native land in A.D. 1574. Meantime matters had there in many respects taken an altogether new turn. In the later years of his reign Ferdinand had become more favourable to the evangelical movement in his hereditary dominions, and Maximilian II., A.D. 1564-1576, gave it an absolutely free course (§ 137, 8). Thus the Brethren could not only go on from day to day increasing in numbers and in influence, but alongside of them there grew up a genuine Lutheran community and an independent Calvinist body. The Crypto-calvinism which was also at the same time gaining the victory in Saxony (§ 141, 10) cast its shadow upon the Lutheranizing movement among the Brethren. And this movement told all the more against the Lutheran party there from the circumstance that at an earlier period there had been powerful influences at work, inspired by a national Bohemian spirit, to resist German interference in matters of religion. Since the death of the elder Luke the national party had succeeded more and more in working back to the genuine Bohemian constitution, discipline, and confession of their fathers. At the head of this movement stood John Blahoslaw, from A.D. 1553 deacon of Jungbunzlau, after Luke of Prague and before Amos Comenius (§ 167, 2) the most important champion of the Bohemian-Moravian Confession. To him chiefly are the Brethren indebted for the high development of literary and scientific activity which they manifested during the second half of the century, and his numerous writings, but pre-eminently his translation of the N.T., proved almost as influential and epoch-making for the Bohemian language as Luther’s translation of the Bible did for the written language of Germany. Himself one of the ablest among the very numerous writers of spiritual songs in Bohemian, he was the restorer of the simple and majestic Bohemian chorales. As he had himself, in A.D. 1568, translated the N.T. from the original Greek text, he also undertook, with the help of several younger men of noble gifts, a similar translation of the O.T. and a commentary on the whole Bible. But he died in A.D. 1571, in his forty-eighth year, before the issue of his great work, upon the inception of which he had expended so much thought and care. This great undertaking was completed and published in six volumes between A.D. 1579-1593. The strong spiritual affinity between the society of the Brethren and the Calvinistic church, especially in its doctrine of the supper and in its zeal for rigid church discipline, was meanwhile again brought into prominence, and had led to a more and more decided loosening of attachment to the Lutheran church, and, in spite of the antagonism of its episcopalianism to the Calvinistic presbyterianism, to the formation of closer ties with Calvinism. But now, on the other hand, the common danger that threatened them from Rudolph II., who had been king of Bohemia from A.D. 1575, at the instigation of Jesuits through the Spanish court, led all non-Catholics, of whatever special confession, to draw as closely together as possible. Thus a league came to be formed in the same year in which the Brethren were far outnumbered by Lutherans, Reformed, and Calixtines (§ 119, 7), by means of which, in the Confessio Bohemica of A.D. 1575, a common symbol was drawn up, and all the four parties were placed under the management of a common consistory. But when, after Maximilian’s death, Rudolph II. proceeded more and more rigorously in his efforts to completely suppress all heresy, the Bohemians rose with one heart, and at last, in A.D. 1609, extorted from him the rescript which gave them absolute religious liberty according to the Bohemian Confession, a common consistory of their own, and an academy at Prague. Bohemia was now an almost completely evangelical country, and scarcely a tenth part of its inhabitants professed attachment to the Catholic faith.[396]—Continuation, §§ 153, 2; 167, 2.

§ 139.20. Hungary and Transylvania.—From A.D. 1524, Martin Cyriaci, a student of Wittenberg, wrought in Hungary for the spread of the true doctrine. King Louis II. threatened its adherents with all possible penalties. But in A.D. 1526 he fell in battle against the Turks at Mohacz. The election of a new king resulted in two claimants taking possession of the field; Ferdinand of Austria secured a footing in the western, and the Woiwode John Zapolya in the eastern provinces. Both sought to suppress the Reformation, in order to win over the clergy to support them. But it nevertheless gained the ascendency, favoured by the political confusions of the time. Matthias Devay, a scholar of Luther, and for a time a resident in his house, from A.D. 1521 preached the gospel at Ofen, having been called thither by several of the leading inhabitants on Melanchthon’s recommendation, and in A.D. 1533 had a Hungarian translation of the Pauline epistles printed at Cracow. In A.D. 1541 Erdösy issued the complete New Testament, which was also the first book printed in Hungary. At a synod at Erdöd, in A.D. 1545, twenty-nine ministers drew up a confession of faith in twelve articles, in agreement with the Augsburg Confession. But also the Swiss doctrine had now found entrance, and won more and more adherents from day to day. These adopted at a council at Czengar, in A.D. 1557, a Calvinistic confession, with decided repudiation of the Zwinglian as well as the Lutheran theory of the Lord’s Supper, describing the latter as an insania sarcophagica. The government of Maximilian II. did not interfere with the progress of the Reformation; but when Rudolph II. attempted to interfere with violent measures, the Protestants rose in revolt under Stephen Bocskai, and compelled the king to grant them complete religious liberty by the Vienna Peace of A.D. 1606. Among the native Hungarians the Reformed confession prevailed, but the German residents remained true to Lutheranism. (Continuation § 153, 3.)—As early as A.D. 1521 merchants had brought into Transylvania from Hermanstadt copies of Luther’s writings. King Louis II. of Hungary, however, carried his persecution of the evangelicals even into this territory, which was continued after his death by Zapolya. In A.D. 1529, however, Hermanstadt ventured to expel all adherents of the Romish church from within its walls. In Cronstadt, the work of the Reformation was carried on from A.D. 1533 by Jac. Honter, who had studied at Basel. Since Zapolya through an agreement with Ferdinand, in A.D. 1538, was assured of possession for his lifetime of Transylvania, he acted more mildly toward the Protestants. After his death the monk Martinuzzi, as Bishop of Grosswardein, assumed the helm of affairs for Zapolya’s son during his minority, oppressing the Protestants with bloody persecutions, while Isabella, Zapolya’s widow, was favourable to them. Martinuzzi therefore handed over the country to Ferdinand, but was assassinated in A.D. 1551. After some years Isabella returned with her son, and a national assembly at Clausenburg, in A.D. 1557, gave an organization to the country as an independent principality, and proclaimed universal religious liberty. The Saxon population continued attached to the Lutheran confession, and the Czecks and Magyars preferred to adopt the Reformed.[397]

§ 139.21. Spain.—The connection brought about between Spain and Germany through the election of Charles V. as emperor led to the very early introduction into the Peninsula of Luther’s doctrine and writings. Indeed many of the theologians and statesmen who went in Charles’ train into Germany returned with evangelical convictions in their hearts, as, e.g., the Benedictine Alphonso de Virves, the fiery Ponce de la Fuente, both court chaplains of the emperor, and his private secretary Alphonso Valdez. A layman, Roderigo de Valer, by earnest study of the Bible attained unto a knowledge of the gospel, and became the instrument of leading many others into the way of salvation. The Inquisition confiscated his goods and condemned him to wear the san benito (§ 117, 2). Juan Gil, a friend of Valer, Bishop of Tortosa, founded a society for the study of the Bible. The Inquisition deposed him, and only Charles’ favour protected him from the stake; but subsequently his bones were dug up and burnt. Many other prelates also, such as Carranza of Toledo, Guerrero of Granada, Guesta of Leon, Carrubias of Ciudad Roderigo, Agostino of Lerida, Ayala of Segovia, etc., admitted the necessity for a thoroughgoing revision of doctrine, without detaching themselves from the pope and the Romish church; and in this direction they laboured with zeal and success amid the threatenings of the Inquisition. The first Protestant martyr in Spain was Francisco san Romano, a merchant who had become acquainted with Luther’s doctrine at Antwerp. He was led to the stake at Valladolid, in A.D. 1544. Francis Enzina, in A.D. 1543, translated the New Testament. He was cast into prison, and the book prohibited. A complete Spanish Bible was printed by Cassiod. de Reyna at Basel, in A.D. 1569. In Seville and Valladolid first of all, and at a later period also in many other Spanish cities, evangelical congregations held secret services. Even so soon as about A.D. 1550, the Reformation movement threatened to become so general and widespread, that a Spanish historian of that age, Ilesca, in his history of the popes, expresses the conviction that all Spain would have become overrun with heresy if the Inquisition had delayed for three months longer to put an end to the pestilence. But it now applied that remedy in the largest and strongest doses possible. The measures of the Inquisition were specially prompt and vigorous during the reign of Philip II., A.D. 1555-1598. Scarcely a year passed in which there were not at each of the twelve Inquisition courts one or more great autos-de-fé, in which crowds of heretics were burnt. And the remedy was effectual. After two decades the evangelical movement was stamped out. How determinedly the crusade was carried out is shown by the proceedings in the case of the Archbishop of Toledo, Barthol. Carranza. This prelate had published a “Commentary on the Catechism,” in which he expressed a wish to see “the ancient spirit of our forefathers and of the early church revived in its simplicity and purity.” The grand-inquisitor discerned therein Lutheran heresy, and though he bore one of the highest positions in the Spanish church, Carranza was kept close prisoner for eight years in the dungeons of the Inquisition, and after he had at last reached the pope with his appeal, he was kept for nine years in the castle of St. Angelo at Rome. There at last, upon his abjuring sixteen heretical propositions, especially about justification, saint and image worship, he was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in the Dominican cloister at Orvieto, but died some weeks after, in A.D. 1576, in his seventy-third year. At the Quemadero, the scene of the autos-de-fé of the Madrid Inquisition court, there were till quite recently discernible the traces of the human hecatombs that had there been offered up to the insatiable Moloch of religious fanaticism. The official newspaper of the capital of the 12th April, A.D. 1869, reports how on the removal of the soil for the purpose of lengthening a street, the grim geological archives of the burnings of the Inquisition were laid bare, while with horrifying minuteness it proceeds to describe the maximum reached, and the gradual diminution of these papal atrocities.[398]

§ 139.22. Italy.—The Reformation made progress in Italy in various directions. A large number of the humanists (§ 120, 1) had in a self-sufficient paganism lost all interest in Christianity, and were just as indifferent toward the Reformation as toward the old church; but another section were inclined to favour a reformation after the style of Erasmus. Both remained in outward connection with the old church. But besides these there were many learned men of a more decided tendency, some of them attempting reforms at their own hand, and so not infrequently rejecting fundamental doctrines of Christianity, such as the various Anti-trinitarians of that age (§ 148), some who attached themselves to the German, but more frequently to the Swiss reformers. Both brought the reforming ideas before the people by preaching and writing. Almost all the works of the German and Swiss reformers were immediately after their publication circulated in Italy in translations, and under the shield of anonymity scattered broadcast through the land, before the Inquisition laid hold upon them. Among the princely supporters of the Reformation movement, the most prominent was Renata of Este, Duchess of Ferrara, and sister-in-law of the French king Francis, distinguished as much for piety as for culture and learning. Her court was a place of refuge and a rallying point for French and Italian exiles. Calvin stayed some weeks with her in A.D. 1536, and confirmed her in her evangelical faith by personal conversation, and subsequently by epistolary correspondence. Her husband, Hercules of Ferrara, whom she married in A.D. 1534, at first let her do as she liked, but in A.D. 1536 expelled Calvin from his dominions, and had his wife confined, in A.D. 1554, as an obstinate Lutheran heretic, in the old castle of Este. Still she was allowed to return to her husband after she had brought herself to confess to a Romish priest. But when after his death, in A.D. 1560, Alphonso, her son, put before her the alternative of either recanting her faith or leaving the country, she returned to France, and there openly made profession of her faith and attached herself to the Huguenots. Francis of Guise was her son-in-law, and she was subjected on account of her Protestantism to the incessant persecutions of the Guises. She died in A.D. 1575.—We have seen already, in § 135, 3, that the idea had been mooted of a propaganda of Catholic Christians in Italy. With a strong and lively conviction of the importance of the doctrine of justification by faith they made it the central point of religious life and knowledge, and thus, without directly opposing it, they inspired new life into the Catholic church. The first germ of this movement appeared in the so-called Oratory of Divine Love, an association formed in the beginning of A.D. 1520 at Rome, after the apostolic model, for mutual religious edification, consisting of fifty or sixty young, eager men, mostly of the clerical order. One of the original founders was Jac. Sadolet, who in this spirit expounded the Epistle to the Romans. To it also belonged such men as the founder of the Theatine order (§ 149, 7), Cajetan of Thiene, and John Pet. Caraffa, Bishop of Chieta, and afterwards Pope Paul IV., who sought the church’s salvation rather in the practice of a rigorous inquisitorial discipline. The sack of Rome (§ 132, 2) broke up this association in A.D. 1527, but spread its efforts over all Italy. The fugitive English cardinal, Reginald Pole, attached himself in Venice to the party of Sadolet. In Ferrara there was Italy’s most famous poetess, Vittoria Colonna; at Modena the Bishop Morone, who, although as papal legate in Germany, a zealous defender of the papal claims (§§ 135, 2; 137, 5), yet in his own diocese even subsequently aided the evangelical tendencies of his companions with much ardour, and hence under Paul IV. was cast into the Inquisition, to come out only under Pius V., after undergoing a three years’ imprisonment. In Naples there was Juan Valdez, Alphonso’s brother, secretary of the Spanish viceroy of Naples, and author of the “One Hundred and Ten Divine Considerations,” as well as a book of Christian doctrine for the young in the Spanish language. In Siena there was Aonio Paleario, professor of classical literature, famous as poet and orator. In Rome there was the papal notary Carnesecchi, formerly the personal friend of Clement VII. In other places there were many more. The most conspicuous representative of the party was the Venetian Gasparo Contarini (§ 135, 3), who died in A.D. 1542.

§ 139.23. The tendency of the thought of these men is most clearly and fully set forth in the little work, “The Benefit of Christ’s Death.” At Venice, where it first appeared in A.D. 1542, within six years 60,000 copies of this tract were issued, and afterwards innumerable reprints and translations of it were circulated. Since Aonio Paleario had written, according to his own statement, a tract of a similar character, he came to be generally regarded as its author, until Ranke discovered a notice among the acts of the Inquisition, according to which the heretical jewel was to be assigned to a monk of San Severino in Naples, a disciple of Juan Valdez, and afterwards Benrath succeeded in proving his name to be Don Benedetto of Mantŏva. The conciliatory spirit of these friends of moderate reform gave grounds for large expectation, all the more that Paul III. seemed all through his life to favour the movement. He nominated Contarini, Sadolet, Pole, and Caraffa cardinals, instituted in A.D. 1536 a congregatio præparatoria, and made Contarini the representative of the curia at the religious Conference of Regensburg in A.D. 1541 (§ 135, 3), which sought to bring about the conciliation of the German Protestants. But just about this time, probably not without the co-operation of the Jesuit order founded in A.D. 1540, a split occurred which utterly blasted all these grand expectations. The zeal of Caraffa set himself at the head of the opposition, and Paul III., in accordance with his proposal in his bull Licet ab initio of A.D. 1542, reorganized the defunct Roman Inquisition after the Spanish model as the central institution for the uprooting of the Protestant heresy. This “Holy Office” henceforth pursued its violent career under the pontificate of Caraffa himself, who mounted the papal throne in A.D. 1555 as Paul IV. Subsequently, too, under the obstinate, fanatical, and hence canonized monkish pope Pius V., from A.D. 1566 every suspicion of Protestantism was rigorously and mercilessly punished with imprisonment, torture, the galleys, the scaffold, and the stake. So energetically was the persecution carried out against the adherents and the patrons of the Reformation, that by the end of the century no trace of its presence was any longer to be found within the bounds of Italy. One of the last victims of this persecution was Aonio Paleario. After he had been for three years in the prisons of the Inquisition, he was strangled and then burnt. A similar fate had previously befallen Carnesecchi. How thoroughgoing and successful the Holy Office was in the suppression of books suspected of a heretical taint appears from the war of extermination carried on against that liber perniciosissimus, “On the Benefit of Christ’s Death.” In spite of the hundred thousand copies of the book that had been in circulation, the Inquisition so carefully and consistently pursued its task of extirpation, that thirty years after its appearance it was no longer to be found in the original and after a hundred no translation even was supposed to exist. In Rome alone a pile of copies were burnt which reached to the height of a house. In A.D. 1853 a copy of the original was found in Cambridge, and was published in London, 1855, with an English translation made by the Duke of Devonshire in A.D. 1548.[399]

§ 139.24. Among the Italian reformers who shook themselves entirely free from the papacy, and only by flight into foreign lands escaped prison, torture, and the stake, the following are the most important.

1. Bernardino Ochino, from A.D. 1538 general of the Capuchins, became by his glowing eloquence one of the most popular of Italian preachers. The study of the Bible had led him to accept the doctrine of justification when, in A.D. 1536, he was called to Naples as Lenten preacher. He was there brought into close contact with Juan Valdez, who confirmed him in his evangelical tendencies, and made him acquainted with the writings of the German reformers. In order to escape arrest and the Inquisition, he fled in A.D. 1542 to Geneva, and wrought successively at Basel, Augsburg, Strassburg, and London. After the death of Edward VI. he was obliged to make his escape from England, went as preacher to Zürich, adopted Socinian views, and even justified polygamy. He was consequently deposed from his office, fled to Poland, and died in Moravia in A.D. 1565.[400]

2. Peter Martyr Vermilius, an Augustinian monk and popular preacher. The study of the writings of Erasmus, Zwingli, and Bucer led him to quit the Catholic church. He fled to Zürich, became professor in Strassburg, and on Cranmer’s invitation came to England, where he was made professor in Oxford. When Mary came to the throne, he returned to Strassburg, and died as professor at Zürich in A.D. 1562.

3. Peter Paul Vergerius in A.D. 1530 accompanied Campegius to the Diet of Augsburg as papal legate (§ 132, 6); was sent again, in A.D. 1535, to Germany by Paul III., in order to get the German princes to agree to the holding of the council at Mantua (§ 134, 1), and on this point he conferred personally but unsuccessfully with Luther. On his return home, in A.D. 1536 the pope conferred upon him, in recognition of his faithful service, the bishopric of his native city, Capo d’Istria. In A.D. 1540 we find him again present during the religious conference at Worms (§ 135, 2), where his conciliatory efforts called down on him the displeasure of the pope and the suspicion of his enemies as a secret adherent of Luther. In order to clear himself of suspicion he studied Luther’s writings with the intention of controverting them, but had his heart opened to gospel truths, and was obliged to betake himself to flight. At Padua the dreadful end of the jurist Speira, who had abjured his evangelical convictions, and feeling that he had committed the unpardonable sin died amid the most fearful agonies of conscience, made an indelible impression upon him. He now, in A.D. 1548, formally joined the evangelical church, wrought for a long time in the country of the Grisons, not as a member of the Reformed but of the Lutheran church, and died as professor at Tübingen in A.D. 1565.

4. The Piedmontese Cœlius Secundus Curio was the youngest of a family of twenty-three, and was early left an orphan. He studied at Turin, where an Augustinian monk, Jerome Niger, made him acquainted with the writings of Luther and others. Unweariedly devoted to spreading the gospel in the various cities of Italy, he was repeatedly subjected by the persecution of the Inquisition to severe imprisonment, but always managed to escape in almost a miraculous way. At last he found, in A.D. 1542, on the recommendation of the Duchess Renata, an asylum in Switzerland, first of all in Bern; then he taught in Lausanne for four years, and in Basel for twenty-two. He died at Basel in A.D. 1569. His latitudinarian theology gave no offence among the liberal-minded folk of Basel, but he was looked upon with much displeasure by the theologians of Geneva, whose prosecutions of heretics he had condemned; and even from Tübingen, Vergerius, who had been his intimate friend, brought the charge of Pelagianism against him.

5. Galeazzo Carraccioli, Marquis of Vico, on his mother’s side a nephew of Paul IV., was led by intercourse with Juan Valdez and the preaching of Peter Martyr to abandon the gay, worldly life of the Neapolitan court for one of religious earnestness and devotion, and by means of a visit to Germany in company with the emperor he was confirmed in his evangelical convictions. In order to be able to live in the undisturbed profession of his faith, he fled, in A.D. 1551, to Geneva. Neither the tears nor the curses of his aged father, who had hurried after him to that place, nor the promise of indulgence from his papal uncle, nor the complaining, the tears, and despair of his tenderly loved wife and children, whom at great risk he had visited at Vico in A.D. 1558, were able to shake the steadfastness of his faith. But equally in vain were his incessant entreaties and tears to induce his wife and children to come and join him on some neutral territory, where he might be allowed to follow the evangelical and they the Catholic confession. On the ground of this obstinate and persistent refusal, the Genevan consistory, with Calvin at its head, at last granted him the divorce that he claimed, and in A.D. 1560 Carraccioli entered into a second marriage. Down to his death, in A.D. 1586, by his active and industrious life he afforded a pattern, and by his successful labours he proved a powerful support to the Italian congregation in Geneva, whose pastor, Balbani, raised to him a well deserved memorial in the history of his life, which he published in Geneva in A.D. 1587.

6. To the sketch of these noble reformers we may now add the name of a woman who is well deserving of a place alongside of them for her singular classical culture, her rich poetic endowment, and her noble and beautiful life. Fulvia Olympia Morata, of Ferrara, in her sixteenth year began to deliver public lectures in her native city, where she enjoyed the friendship and favour of the Duchess Renata. She married a German physician, Andrew Grunthler, went with him to his home at Schweinfurt, and there attached herself to the Protestant church. When that city was plundered by the Margrave Albert in A.D. 1553 (§ 137, 4), they lost all their property. She died in A.D. 1555 at Heidelberg, where Grunthler had been appointed professor of medicine.[401]

§ 139.25. The Protestantizing of the Waldensians (§ 108, 10).—The news of the Reformation caused great excitement among the Waldensians. Even as early as A.D. 1520 the Piedmontese barba, or minister, Martin of Lucerne, undertook a journey to Germany, and brought back with him several works of the reformers. In A.D. 1530 the French Waldensians sent two delegates, George Morel and Peter Masson, who conferred verbally and in writing with Œcolampadius at Basel, and with Bucer and Capito at Strassburg. The result was, that in A.D. 1532 a synod was held in the Piedmontese village of Chauvoran, in the valley of Angrogna, at which the two Genevan theologians Farel and Saunier were present. A number of narrow-minded prejudices that prevailed among the old Waldensians were now abandoned, such as the prohibition against taking oaths, the holding of magisterial offices, the taking of interest, etc.; and several Catholic notions to which they had formerly adhered, such as auricular confession, the reckoning of the sacraments as seven, the injunction of fasts, compulsory celibacy, the doctrine of merits, etc., were abandoned as unevangelical, while the Reformed doctrine of predestination was adopted. On this foundation the complete Protestantizing of the whole Waldensian community now made rapid progress, but called down upon them from every side bloody persecutions. In Provence and Dauphiné there were, in A.D. 1545, four thousand murdered, and twenty-two districts devastated with fire. Their remnants got mixed up with the French Reformed. When the Waldensian colonies in Calabria were told of the Protestantizing of their Piedmontese brethren, they sent, in A.D. 1559, a delegate to seek a pastor for them from Geneva. Ludovico Pascale, by birth a Piedmontese Catholic, who had studied theology at Geneva, was selected for this mission; but soon after his arrival he was thrown into prison at Naples, and from thence carried off to Rome, where in A.D. 1560 he went with all the martyr’s joy and faith to the stake erected for him by the Inquisition. In the trials of this man Rome for the first time came to understand the significance and the attitude of the Calabrian colonies, and now the grand-inquisitor, Alexandrini, with some Dominicans, was sent for their conversion or extermination. The flourishing churches were in A.D. 1561 completely rooted out, amid scenes of almost incredible atrocity. The men who escaped the stake were made to toil in the Spanish galleys, while their wives and children were sold as slaves. In Piedmont, the duke, after vain military expeditions for their conversion, which the Waldensians, driven to arms had successfully withstood, was obliged to allow them, in the Peace of Cavour of A.D. 1561, a restricted measure of religious liberty. But when the violent attempts to secure conversions did not cease, they bound themselves together, in A.D. 1571, in the so-called “Union of the Valleys,” by which they undertook to defend one another in the exercise of their evangelical worship.—Continuation, § 153, 5.

§ 139.26. Attempt at Protestantizing the Eastern Church.—The opposition to the Roman papacy, which was common to them and the eastern church, led the Protestants of the West to long for and strive after a union with those who were thus far agreed with them. A young Cretan, Jacob Basilicus, whom Heraclides, prince of Samos and Paros, had adopted, on his travels through Germany, Denmark, and Sweden had come into friendly relations with Melanchthon and others of the reformed party, and attempted, after he entered upon the government of his two islands in A.D. 1561, to introduce a reformation of the local church according to evangelical principles. But he was murdered in A.D. 1563, and with him every trace of his movement passed away.—In A.D. 1559 a deacon from Constantinople, Demetrius Mysos, spent some months with Melanchthon at Wittenburg [Wittenberg], and took with him a Greek translation of the Augsburg Confession, of which, however, no result ever came. At a later period, in A.D. 1573, the Tübingen theologians, Andreä, Luc. Osiander, and others, reopened negotiations with the patriarch Jeremiah II. (§ 73, 4), through a Lutheran pastor, Stephen Gerbach, who went to Constantinople in the suite of a zealous Protestant nobleman, David of Ungnad, ambassador of Maximilian II. The Tübingen divines sent with him a Greek translation of the Augsburg Confession, composed by Mart. Crusius, with a request for his judgment upon it. The patriarch, in his reply in A.D. 1576, expressed himself candidly in regard to the errors of the book. The doctors of Tübingen wrote in vindication of their formula, and in a second answer, in A.D. 1579, the patriarch reiterated the objections stated in the first. After a third interchange of letters he declined all further discussion, and allowed a fourth epistle, in A.D. 1581, to remain unanswered.—Continuation, § 152, 2.

II. The Churches of the Reformation.

§ 140. THE DISTINCTIVE CHARACTER OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH.[402]

In the Lutheran Church, that specifically German type of Christianity which from the days of Charlemagne was ever panting after independent expression reached its maturity and full development. The sacred treasure of true catholicity, which the church of early times had nurtured in the form of Greek-Roman culture, is taken over freed from excrescences, and enriched by those acquisitions of the Middle Ages that had stood the proof. Its vocation was to set forth the “happy mean” between the antagonistic ecclesiastical movements and struggles of the West, and to give its strength mainly to the development of sound doctrine. And if it has not exerted an equal influence in all departments, paying most attention to the worship and least to matters of constitution, it cannot, on the other hand, be denied that even in those directions an effort has been made to modify the violent contradiction of extremes (§ 142, 1, 2).

The Mediate and Mediating Attitude of the Lutheran Church shows itself in its fundamental conception of the essence of Christianity as the union of the Divine and human, of which the prototype is found in the Person of Christ, and illustrations of it in the Scriptures, the church, the sacraments, the Christian life, etc. In the varied ways in which this union is conceived of lies the deepest and most inward ground of the divergence that exists between the three western churches. The Catholic church wishes to see the union of the Divine and human; the Lutheran, wishes to believe it; the Reformed, wishes to understand it. The tendency prevails in the Catholic church to confound these two, the Divine and the human, and that indeed in such a way that the human loses its human character, and its union with the Divine is regarded as constituting identity. The Reformed church, again, is prone to separate the two, to look upon the Divine by itself and the human by itself, and to regard the union as a placing of the one alongside of the other, as having not an objective but a merely subjective, not a real but a merely ideal, connection. But the Lutheran church, guarding itself against any confusion as well as any separation of the two elements, had sought to view the union as the most vital, rich, and inward communion, interpenetration, and reciprocity. In the view of the Catholic church the human and earthly, which is so often a very imperfect vehicle of the Divine, in which the Divine often attained to a very incomplete development, is to be regarded as in and by itself already the Divine. So is it in the idea of the church, and hence the doctrine of a merely external and visible church, which as such is only the channel of salvation. So is it in the historical development of the church, and hence the absolute authority of tradition and the reversal of the true relations between Scripture and tradition. So too is it with the doctrine of the sacraments, and hence the idea of an opus operatum and of transubstantiation. So in regard to the priesthood, hence hierarchism; so in regard to the idea of sanctification, and hence semipelagianism and the doctrine of merits. Thoroughly antagonistic to all this was the view of the Reformed church. It was inclined rather to sever completely the Divine in Christianity from its earthly, visible vehicle, and to think of the operation of the Divine upon man as merely spiritual and communicated only through subjective faith. It renounced all tradition, and thereby broke off from all historical development, whether normal or abnormal. In its doctrine of Scripture, the literal significance of the word was often exalted above the spirit; in its doctrine of the church, the significance of the visible church over that of the invisible. In its doctrine of the Person of Christ, the human nature of the glorified Saviour was excluded from a personal full share in all the attributes of His divinity. In the doctrine of the sacraments, supernatural grace and the earthly elements were separated from one another; and in the doctrine of predestination the Divine foreknowledge of man’s volitions was isolated, etc. The Lutheran church, on the other hand, had at least made the effort to steer between those two extremes, and to bind into a living unity the truth that lies at the foundation of both. In the Scripture it wishes as little to see the spirit without the word, as the word without the spirit; in history it recognises the rule and operation of the Spirit of God within the human and ecclesiastical developments; and it rejects only the false tradition which has not had its growth organically from Holy Scripture, but rather contradicts it. In its doctrine of the church it holds with equal tenacity to the importance of the visible church and that of the invisible. In its doctrine of the Person of Christ it affirms the perfect humanity and the perfect divinity in the living union and richly communicating reciprocity of the two natures. In its doctrine of the sacraments it gives full weight as well to the objective Divine fact which heavenly grace presents in earthly elements as to the subjective condition of the man, to whom the sacrament will prove saving or condemning according as he is a believer or an unbeliever. And, finally, it expresses the belief that in the Divine decree the apparent contradiction between God’s foreknowledge and man’s self-determination is solved, while it regards predestination as conditioned by the foreknowledge of God; whereas Calvinism reverses that relation.

§ 141. DOCTRINAL CONTROVERSIES IN THE LUTHERAN CHURCH.[403]

Even during Luther’s lifetime, but much more after his death, various doctrinal controversies broke out in the Lutheran church. They arose for the most part upon the borderlands either of Calvinism or of Catholicism, and were generally occasioned by offence taken at the attitude of the more stiff and dogged of Luther’s adherents by those of the Melanchthonian or Philippist school, who had irenical and unionistic feelings in regard to both sides. The scene of these conflicts was partly in the electorate of Albertine Saxony and in the duchy of Ernestine Saxony. Wittenberg and Leipzig were the headquarters of the Philippists, and Weimar and Jena of the strict Lutherans. There was no lack on either side of rancour and bitterness. But if the Gnesio-Lutherans went far beyond the Melanchthonians in stiffnecked irreconcilableness, slanderous denunciation, and outrageous abuse, they yet showed a most praiseworthy strength of conviction, steadfastness, and martyrlike devotion; whereas their opponents not infrequently laid themselves open to the charge, on the one hand, of a pusillanimous and mischievous pliability, and, on the other hand, of using unworthy means and covert, deceitful ways. Their controversies reached a conclusion after various alternations of victory and defeat, with often very tragic consequences to the worsted party, in the composition of a new confessional document, the so called Formula Concordiæ.

§ 141.1. The Antinomian Controversy, A.D. 1537-1541, which turned upon the place and significance of the law under the Christian dispensation, lay outside the range of the Philippist wranglings. John Agricola, for a time pastor in his native town of Eisleben, and so often called Master Eisleben, in A.D. 1527 took offence at Melanchthon for having in his visitation articles (§ 127, 1) urged the pastors so earnestly to enjoin upon their people the observance of the law. He professed, indeed, for the time to be satisfied with Melanchthon’s answer, which had also the approval of Luther, but soon after he had, in A.D. 1536, become a colleague of both in Wittenberg, he renewed his opposition by publishing adverse theses. He did not contest the pedagogical and civil-political use of the law outside of the church, but starting from the principle that an enjoined morality could not help man, he maintained that the law has no more significance or authority for the Christian, and that the gospel, which by the power of Divine love works repentance, is alone to be preached. Melanchthon and Luther, on the contrary, held that anguish and sorrow for sin are the fruits of the law, while the saving resolution to reform is the effect of the gospel, and insisted upon a continued preaching of the law, because from the incompleteness of the believer’s sanctification in this world a daily renewing of repentance is necessary. After several years of oral and written discussion, Agricola took his departure from Wittenberg in A.D. 1540, charging Luther with having offered him a personal insult, and was made court preacher at Berlin, where, in A.D. 1541, having discovered his error, he repudiated it in a conciliatory exposition. The reputation in which he was held at the court of Brandenburg led to his being at a subsequent period made a collaborateur in drawing up the hated Augsburg Interim (§ 136, 5). As his antinomianism every now and again cropped up afresh, the Formula Concordiæ at last settled the controversy by the statement that we must ascribe to the law, not only a usus politicus and usus elenchticus for terrorizing and arresting the sinner, but also a usus didacticus for the sanctifying of the Christian life.

§ 141.2. The Osiander Controversy, A.D. 1549-1556.—Luther had, in opposition to the Romish doctrine of merits, defined justification as purely an act of God, whose fruit can be appropriated by man only by the exercise of faith. But he distinguished from justification as an act of God for man, sanctification as the operation of God in man. The former consists in this, that Christ once for all has offered Himself up on the cross for the sins of the whole world, and that now God ascribes the merit of the sacrificial death of Christ for every individual as though it had been his own, i.e. juridically; the believer is thus declared, but not made righteous. The believer, on the ground of his having been declared righteous, is made righteous by means of a sanctifying process penetrating the whole earthly life and constantly advancing, but in this world never absolutely perfect, which is effected by the communication of the new life which Christ has created and brought to light. Andrew Osiander proposed a theory that diverged from this doctrine, and inclined toward that set forth in the Tridentine Council (§ 136, 4), but distinguished from the Romish view by decided attachment to the Protestant principle of justification by faith alone. He had been from A.D. 1522 pastor and reformer at Nuremberg, and had proclaimed his ideas without thereby giving offence. This first happened when, after his expulsion from Nuremberg on account of the interim, he had begun to announce his peculiar doctrine in the newly founded University of Königsberg, where he had been appointed professor by Duke Albert of Prussia in A.D. 1549 (§ 126, 4). Confounding sanctification with justification, he wished to define the latter, not as a declaring righteous but as a making righteous, not as a juridical but as a medicinal act, wrought by an infusion, i.e. a continuous influx of the righteousness of Christ. The sacrificial death of Christ is for him only the negative condition of justification, its positive condition rests upon the incarnation of Christ, the reproduction of which in the believer is justification, which is therefore to be referred not to the human but rather to the Divine nature in Christ. Along with this, he also held by the conviction that the incarnation of God in Christ would have taken place in order to complete the creation of the image of God in man even had the fall never happened. The main point of his opposition was grounded upon this: that he believed the juridical theory to have overlooked the religious subjective element, which, however, is still present in faith as the subjective condition of declaring righteous. The keen and bitter controversy over these questions spread from the university among the clergy, and thence to the citizens and families, and soon came to be carried on on both sides with great passionateness and heat. The favour publicly shown to Osiander by the duke, who set him as Bishop of Samland at the head of the Prussian clergy, increased the bitterness felt toward him by his opponents. Among these was Martin Chemnitz, a scholar of Melanchthon, and from A.D. 1548 rector of the High School at Königsberg. Also Professor Joachim Mörlin, a favourite pupil of Luther, Francis Staphylus, who afterwards went back to the Romish church (§ 137, 8), and Francis Stancarus of Mantua, a man who bears a very bad reputation for his fomenting of quarrels, were among Osiander’s most inveterate foes. Stancarus carried his opposition to Osiander so far as to maintain that Christ has become our righteousness only in respect of His human nature. The opinions received from abroad were for the inmost part against Osiander. John Brenz, of Württemburg [Württemberg], however, clined rather to favour Osiander’s view than that of his opponents, while Melanchthon, in giving utterance to the Wittenberg opinion, endeavoured by removing misunderstandings to reconcile the opposing parties, but on the main point decided against him. Even Osiander’s death in A.D. 1552 did not put an end to the controversy. At the head of his party now appeared the court preacher, John Funck, who, standing equally high in favour with the duke, filled all positions with his own followers. In his overweening conceit he mixed himself up in political affairs, and put himself in antagonism with the nobles and men of importance in the State. A commission of investigation on the Polish sovereignty at their instigation found him guilty of high treason, and had him beheaded in A.D. 1566. The other Osiandrianists were deposed and exiled. Mörlin, from A.D. 1533 general superintendent of Brunswick, was now honourably recalled as Bishop of Samland, reorganized the Prussian church, and in conjunction with Chemnitz, who had been from A.D. 1554 preacher in Brunswick, where he died in A.D. 1586 as general superintendent, composed for Prussia a new doctrinal standard in the Corpus doctrinæ Pruthenicum of A.D. 1567.[404]

§ 141.3. Of much less importance was the Æpinus Controversy about Christ’s descent into hell, which John Æpinus, first Lutheran superintendent at Hamburg, in his exposition of the 16th Psalm, in A.D. 1542, interpreted, after the manner of the Reformed theologians, of His state of humiliation, and as the completion of the passive obedience of Christ in the endurance of the pains of hell; whereas the usual Lutheran understanding of it was, that it referred to Christ’s triumphing over the powers of hell and death in His state of exaltation. An opinion sent from Wittenberg, in A.D. 1550, left the matter undetermined, and even the Formula of Concord was satisfied with teaching that Christ in His full personality descended into hell in order to deliver men from death and the power of the devil.—An equally peaceful settlement was brought about in the Kargian Controversy, A.D. 1563-1570, about the significance of the active obedience of Christ, which the pastor of Anspach, George Karg or Parsimonius, for a long time made a subject of dispute; but afterwards he retracted, being convinced of his error by the Wittenberg theologians.

§ 141.4. The Philippists and their Opponents.—Not long after the Augsburg Confession had been accepted as the common standard of the Lutheran church two parties arose, in which tendencies of a thoroughly diversant character were gradually developed. The real basis of this opposition lay in the diverse intellectual disposition and development of the two great leaders of the Reformation, which the scholars of both inherited in a very exaggerated form. Melanchthon’s disciples, the so-called Philippists, strove in accordance with their master’s example to make as much as possible of what they had in common, on the one hand, with the Reformed and, on the other hand, with the Catholics, and to maintain a conciliatory attitude that might aid toward effecting union. The personal friends, scholars, and adherents of Luther, on the contrary, for the most part more Lutheran than Luther himself, emulating the rugged decision of their great leader and carrying it out in a one-sided manner, were anxious rather to emphasise and widen as far as possible the gulf that lay between them and their opponents, Reformed and Catholics alike, and thus to make any reconciliation and union by way of compromise impossible. Luther attached himself to neither of these parties, but tried to restrain both from rushing to extremes, and to maintain as far as he could the peace between them.—The modification of strict Augustinianism which Melanchthon’s further study led him to adopt in the editions of his Loci later than A.D. 1535 was denounced by the strict Lutherans as Catholicizing, but still more strongly did they object to the modification of the tenth article of the Augsburg Confession which he introduced into a new rendering of it, the so-called Variata, in A.D. 1540. In its original form it stood thus: Docent, quod corpus et sanguis Domini vere adsint et distribuantur vescentibus in cœna Domini et improbant secus docentes. For these words he now substituted the following: Quod cum pane et vino vere exhibeantur corpus et sanguis Christi vescentibus in cœna Domini. This statement was indeed by no means Calvinistic, for instead of vescentibus the Calvinists would have said credentibus. Yet the arbitrary and in any case Calvinizing change amazed the strict Lutherans, and Luther himself bade its author remember that the book was not his but the church’s creed. After Luther’s death the Philippist party, in the Leipzig Interim of A.D. 1519, made several other very important concessions to the Catholics (§ 136, 7), and this led their opponents to denounce them as open traitors to their church. Magdeburg, which stubbornly refused to acknowledge the interim, became the city of refuge for all zealous Lutherans; while in opposition to the Philippist Wittenberg, the University of Jena, founded in A.D. 1548 by the sons of the ex-elector John Frederick according to his desire, became the stronghold of strict Lutheranism. The leaders on the Philippist side were Paul Eber, George Major, Justus Menius, John Pfeffinger, Caspar Cruciger, Victorin Strigel, etc. At the head of the strict Lutheran party stood Nicholas Amsdorf and Matthias Flacius. The former lived, after his expulsion from Naumburg (§ 135, 5), an “exul Christi,” along with the young dukes at Weimar. On account of his violent opposition to the interim, he was obliged, in A.D. 1548, to flee to Magdeburg, and after the surrender of the city he was placed by his ducal patrons in Eisenach, where he died in A.D. 1565. The latter, a native of Istria, and hence known as Illyricus, was appointed professor of the Hebrew language in Wittenberg in A.D. 1544, fled to Magdeburg in A.D. 1549, from whence he went to Weimar in A.D. 1556, and was called to Jena in A.D. 1557.

§ 141.5. The Adiaphorist Controversy, A.D. 1548-1555, as to the permissibility of Catholic forms in constitution and worship, was connected with the drawing up of the Leipzig Interim. That document described most of the Catholic forms of worship as adiaphora, or matters of indifference, which, in order to avoid more serious dangers, might be treated as allowable or unessential. The Lutherans, on the contrary, maintained that even a matter in itself unessential under circumstances like the present could not be treated as permissible. From Magdeburg there was poured out a flood of violent controversial and abusive literature against the Wittenberg renegades and the Saxon apostates. The altered position of the latter from A.D. 1551 hushed up in some measure the wrath of the zealots, and the religious Peace of Augsburg removed all occasion for the continuance of the strife.

§ 141.6. The Majorist Controversy, A.D. 1551-1562.—The strict Lutherans from the passing of the interim showed toward the Philippist party unqualified disfavour and regarded them with deep suspicion. When in A.D. 1551, George Major, at that time superintendent at Eisleben, in essential agreement with the interim, one of whose authors he was, and with Melanchthon’s later doctrinal views, maintained the position, that good works are necessary to salvation, and refused to retract the statement, though he somewhat modified his expressions by saying that it was not a necessitas meriti, but only a necessitas conjunctionis s. consequentiæ; and when also Justus Menius, the reformer of Thuringia, superintendent at Gotha, vindicated him in two tractates,—Amsdorf in the heat of the controversy set up in opposition the extreme and objectionable thesis, that good works are injurious to salvation, and even in A.D. 1559 justified it as “a truly Christian proposition preached by St. Paul and Luther.” Notwithstanding all the passionate bitterness that had mixed itself up with the discussion, the more sensible friends of Amsdorf, including even Flacius, saw that the ambiguity and indefiniteness of the expression was leading to error on both sides. They acknowledged, on the one hand, that only faith, not good works in themselves, is necessary to salvation, but that good works are the inevitable fruit and necessary evidence of true, saving faith; and, on the other hand, that not good works in themselves, but only trusting to them instead of the merits of Christ alone, can be regarded as injurious to salvation. Major for the sake of peace recalled his statement in A.D. 1562.

§ 141.7. The Synergistic Controversy, A.D. 1555-1567.—Luther in his controversy with Erasmus (§ 125, 3), as well as Melanchthon in the first edition of his Loci, in A.D. 1521, had unconditionally denied the capacity of human nature for independently laying hold upon salvation, and taught an absolute sovereignty of Divine grace in conversion. In his later edition of the Loci, from A.D. 1535, and in the Augsburg Confession of A.D. 1540, however, Melanchthon had admitted a certain co-operation or synergism of a remnant of freewill in conversion, and more exactly defined this in the edition of the Loci of A.D. 1548 as the ability to lay hold by its own impulse of the offered salvation, facultas se applicandi ad gratiam; and though even in the Leipzig Interim of A.D. 1549 the Lutheran shibboleth solê was constantly recurring, it was simply with the object of thoroughly excluding any claim of merit on man’s part in conversion. Luther with indulgent tolerance had borne with the change in Melanchthon’s convictions, and only objected to the incorporation of it in the creed of the church. But from the date of the interim the suspicion and opposition of the strict Lutherans increased from day to day, and burst forth in a violent controversy when John Pfeffinger, superintendent at Leipzig, also one of the authors of the detested interim, published, in A.D. 1555, his Propositiones de libero arbitrio, in defence of Melanchthon’s synergism. The leaders of the Gnesio-Lutherans, Arnsdorf in Eisenach, Flacius in Jena, and Musacus in Weimar, felt that they durst not remain silent, and so they maintained, as alone the genuine Lutheran doctrine, that the natural man cannot co-operate with the workings of Divine grace upon him, but can only oppose them. By order of the Duke John Frederick they prepared at Weimar, in A.D. 1559, as a new manifesto of the restored Lutheranism, a treatise containing a refutation of all the heresies that had hitherto cropped up within the Lutheran church. One of those invited to take part in the work, Victorin Strigel, professor at Jena, was made to suffer for the sympathy which he evinced for synergism by enduring close and severe imprisonment. The duke, however, soon again became more favourable to Strigel, who in A.D. 1560 vindicated himself at a public disputation in Weimar against Flacius, and was soon afterwards called to Leipzig. When in A.D. 1561 the duke set up a consistory in Weimar, and transferred to it the right hitherto exclusively exercised in Jena of ecclesiastical excommunication and the censorship of theological books, and the Flacian party opposed this “Cæsaro-papism” with unmeasured violence, all the adherents of the party were driven out of Jena and out of the whole territory, and their places filled with Melanchthonians. This victory of Philippism, however, was of but short duration. In order to regain the lost electoral rank, the duke allowed himself to be beguiled into taking part in the so-called Grumbach affair. He was cast into the imperial prison, and his brother John William, who now assumed the government, hastened, in A.D. 1567, to restore the overthrown theological party. Even in electoral Saxony interest in the Catholicizing synergism, at least, after Melanchthon’s death, in A.D. 1560, was gradually lost sight of in proportion as the controversy about the Calvinistic doctrine of the Lord’s Supper gradually gained prominence.

§ 141.8. The Flacian Controversy about Original Sin, A.D. 1560-1575.—In the heat of the controversy with Strigel at the conference at Weimar, in A.D. 1560, Flacius had committed himself to the statement that original sin in man is not something accidental, but something substantial. His own friends now urged him to retract this proposition, which his opponents had branded as Manichæan. Its author had not indeed intended it in the bad sense which it might be supposed to bear. Flacius, however, was of a character too dogged and obstinate to agree to recall what he had uttered. Expelled with the rest of the Lutherans in A.D. 1562, and not recalled with them in A.D. 1567, he wandered without any fixed place of abode, driven away from almost every place that he entered, until shortly before his death he recalled his overhasty expression. He died in the hospital at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, in A.D. 1575. In him a powerful character and an amazing wealth of learning were utterly lost in consequence of unpropitious circumstances, which were partly his fault and partly his misfortune.

§ 141.9. The Lutheran Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper.—The union effected by the Wittenberg Concord of A.D. 1536 (§ 133, 8) with the South German cities, which originally favoured Zwinglian views, had been in many cases threatening to dissolve again, and the attacks of the men of Zürich obliged Luther in A.D. 1544 to compose his last “Confession of the Holy Sacrament against the Fanatics.” The breach with the Zwinglians was now seen to be irreparable, but it appeared as if it were yet possible to come to an understanding with the more profound theory of the Lord’s Supper set forth by Calvin. To carry out this union was a thought very dear to the heart of Melanchthon. He had the conviction, not indeed that the Lutheran doctrine of the real presence of the body and blood in the bread and wine is erroneous, but rather that by the Calvinistic doctrine of a spiritual enjoyment of the body and blood of Christ in the supper by means of faith no essential element of religious truth was lost, and so he sought thereby to get over the difference in confession and doctrine. But with this explanation the strict Lutherans were by no means satisfied, and long continued and extremely passionate discussions were carried on in the various Lutheran countries, especially in Lower Saxony, in the Palatinate, and in the electorate. But the controversy was not restricted to the question of the supper; it rather went back upon a deeper foundation. Luther, carrying out the principles of the third and fourth œcumenical councils, had taught that the personal connection of the two natures in Christ implies a communication of the attributes of the one to the other, communicatio idiomatum, that therefore Christ, since He has by His ascension entered again upon the full exercise of His attributes, is, as God-Man, even in respect of His body, omnipresent, ubiquitas corporis Christi, and refused to allow himself to be perplexed by the incomprehensibility for the human understanding of an omnipresent body. It is here that we come upon the radical distinction between Luther’s view and that of Zwingli and Calvin, according to which the body of Christ cannot be at one and the same time in heaven at God’s right hand and on the earth in bread and wine. But Calvin, as well as Zwingli, from his very intellectual constitution, could only regard the Lutheran doctrine of the ubiquity of the glorified body of Christ as an utter absurdity, and so, repudiating the communicatio idiomatum, he taught that the glorification of Christ’s body is restricted to its transfiguration, and that now in heaven, as before upon the earth, it can be present only in one place. A necessary consequence of this view was the rejection of His corporeal presence in the supper, and at the very most the admission of a communication in the sacrament to believers of a spiritual influence from the glorified body of Christ.—The ablest vindicator of the Lutheran doctrine of the supper in this aspect of its development was the Württemberg reformer John Brenz (§ 133, 3). In the Syngramma Suevicum of A.D. 1525 (§ 131, 1), he has taken his place most decidedly on the side of Luther, and this he had also done again, in A.D. 1529, at the Marburg Conference (§ 132, 4). Then in A.D. 1559, as provost in Stuttgart, in consequence of the doubtful attitude of a Swabian pastor on the question of the supper, he summoned a synod at Stuttgart, before which he laid a confession which expressed the doctrine of the supper and the ubiquity in strict accordance with Lutheran views. In defence of the idea of ubiquity he quoted Ephesians iv. 10, as affording sufficient Scripture support. The synod unanimously adopted it, and the duke gave approval to this Confessio et doctr. theologor. et ministror. Verbi Dei in Ducatu Wirtb. de vera præsentia Corp. et sang, J. Chr. in Cœna Domini, by ordering that all preachers should adopt it, and that it should have symbolic authority throughout the Württemberg church. Melanchthon, who had hitherto been on particularly intimate terms with Brenz, was very indignant at this “unseasonable” creed-making in “barbarous Latin.” Brenz, however, would not be deterred from giving more adequate expression and development to the objectionable dogma, and for this purpose published, in A.D. 1560, his book, De personali unione duarum natur. in Christo.

§ 141.10. Cryptocalvinism in its First Stage, A.D. 1552-1574.—The struggle of the Gnesio-Lutherans against Calvin’s doctrine of the supper, and the secret favour shown toward it by several Lutheran theologians, was begun in A.D. 1552 by Joachim Westphal, pastor in Hamburg. Calvin and Bullinger were not slow in giving him a sharp rejoinder. In a yet more violent form the dispute broke out in Bremen, where the cathedral preacher Hardenberg, and in Heidelberg, where the deacon Klebitz, entered the lists against the Lutheran dogma. In both cases the struggle ended in the defeat of Lutheranism (§ 144, 1, 2). In Wittenberg, too, the Philippists George Major, Paul Eber, Paul Crell, etc., supported by the very influential court physician of the electoral court of Saxony, Caspar Peucer, Melanchthon’s son-in-law, from A.D. 1559 successfully advanced the interests of Cryptocalvinism. Melanchthon himself, however, was not to live to see the troubles that arose over this, a truly gracious dispensation of Providence on behalf of a man already sorely borne down and trembling with hypochondriac fears, to have him thus delivered a rabie theologicorum. He died on 19th April, A.D. 1560. While the Elector Augustus, A.D. 1553-1586, intended that his Wittenberg should always be the main stronghold of strict Lutheranism, the Philippists were always coming forward with more and more boldness, and sought to prepare the way for themselves by getting all places filled with members of their party. They persuaded the elector to give a nominative authority throughout Saxony to a collection of Melanchthonian doctrinal and confessional documents compiled by them, Corpus doctrinæ Philippicum s. Misnicum, 1560. The Wittenberg Catechism, Catechesis, etc., ad usum scholar. puerilium, 1571, set forth a doctrine of the sacraments and the person of Christ so manifestly Calvinistic, that even the elector was obliged to give way on account of the strong objections brought against it. The Philippists, however, succeeded in satisfying him by the Consensus Dresdensis, of 10th Oct., A.D. 1571, to this extent, that after the death of Duke John William, in the exercise of his authority as regent, he was induced to expel the Lutheran zealots Wigand and Hesshus from Jena, and in A.D. 1573 had more than a hundred clergymen of the duchy of Saxony deposed. In Breslau their interests were also zealously advanced by the influential imperial physician, John Krafft, to whom the Emperor Maximilian II. had granted a patent of nobility in A.D. 1568, with the new name of Crato von Crafftheim. Another Silesian physician, Joachim Curæus, also a scholar of Melanchthon, published in A.D. 1574, without any indication of author’s name, place of publication, or date of issue, his Exegesis perspicua controversiæ de cœna, which represented Melanchthon’s doctrine of the Lord’s Supper as the only tenable one, controverted that of the Lutherans as popish, eulogized that of the Reformed church as one most honouring to God, and urgently counselled union with the Calvinists. The warm recommendation of this treatise on the part of the Wittenberg Philippists, however, rather contributed to its failure. For now, at last, even the elector had become convinced of the danger that threatened Lutheranism through hints given him by the princes, and information obtained from intercepted letters. The Philippists were banished, their chiefs thrown into prison, Peucer being confined for twelve years, A.D. 1574-1586. A thanksgiving service in all the churches and memorial medal celebrated the rooting out in A.D. 1574 of Calvinism, and the final victory of restored Lutheranism.—In Denmark, Nicholas Hemming, pastor and professor at Copenhagen, distinguished alike by adequate scholarship and rich literary activity, and by mildness and temperateness of character, and hence designated the Preceptor of Denmark, was the recognised head of the Melanchthonian school. As a decided opponent of the doctrine of ubiquity, though otherwise on all points, and especially in his doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, a good Lutheran, he fell under the suspicion of the German Gnesio-Lutherans as a Cryptocalvinist, and was accordingly opposed by them. In A.D. 1579, by order of the Elector Augustus, his brother-in-law, the King of Denmark removed him from his offices in Copenhagen, appointing him to a canonry in the cathedral at Roeskilde, where in A.D. 1600 he died.

§ 141.11. The Frankfort Compact, A.D. 1558, and the Naumburg Assembly of Princes, A.D. 1561.—After the disgraceful issue of the Worms Conference of A.D. 1557 (§ 137, 6), the Protestant princes, the electors Augustus of Saxony, Joachim of Brandenburg, and Ottheinrich of the Palatinate, with Philip of Hesse, Christopher of Württemberg, and the Count-palatine Wolfgang, who were gathered together about the Emperor Ferdinand, consulted as to the means which they should employ to insure and confirm the threatened unity of the evangelical church of Germany. The result of their deliberations was, that they agreed to sign a statement drawn up by Melanchthon and known by the name of the Frankfort Compact, in which they declared anew their unanimous attachment to the doctrine set forth in the Augustana, the Variata, and the Saxonica (§ 136, 8), and in regard to controversial questions that had been discussed within the church expressed themselves in moderate terms as inclined to the views of Melanchthon. The Flacian party in Jena hastened to set forth their opposing sentiments in the manifesto of A.D. 1559, already referred to, in which the strict Gnesio-Lutheranism was laid down in the hardest and boldest manner possible.—The divisions that arose within the Lutheran church after Melanchthon’s death and the imminent reassembling of the Tridentine Council led the evangelical princes of Germany, who, with the exception of Philip of Hesse, all belonged to a new generation, once more to put forth every effort to restore unity by adoption of a common evangelical confession. At the Assembly of Princes appointed to meet for this purpose at Naumburg in A.D. 1561, most of them appeared personally. There was no thought of preparing a new confession, because it was feared that in those times of agitation it might be impossible to draw up such a document, or that, even if they succeeded in doing so, it might not close the breach, but rather widen it. Thus the only alternative remaining was to attempt the healing of the schism by reverting to the standpoint of the Augsburg Confession. But then the question arose whether the original form of statement of A.D. 1530, or its later elaboration of A.D. 1540, should be taken as the basis of union negotiations.—This at least was to be said in favour of the latter, that it had been unanimously adopted as the common confession of all the evangelicals of Germany at the peace Conference of Worms in A.D. 1540, where even Calvin had signed it, and at Regensburg in A.D. 1541 (§ 135, 2, 3); and now Philip of Hesse and Frederick III. of the Palatinate came forward decidedly in its favour. But all the more persistently did the Duke John Frederick of Saxony oppose it, and make every endeavour to get the rest of the princes to give their votes in favour of the Augsburg Confession of A.D. 1530. But the duke’s further wish to have added to it the Schmalcald Articles found very little favour. Finally a compromise was effected, in accordance with which, in a newly drawn up preface, the Apology of the Augustana, as well as the edition of A.D. 1540, was acknowledged, while the Schmalcald Articles, as well as the Confessio Saxonica (§ 136, 8) and the Frankfort Compact, were passed over in silence. John Frederick now demanded the adoption of an express condemnation of the Calvinising Sacramentarians. This led to a hot discussion between him and his father-in-law, the elector-palatine. He took his departure on the following day without having received his dismissal, leaving behind him a sharply worded protest. Ulrich of Mecklenburg also refused to subscribe, but allowed himself at last to be persuaded into doing so. At the sixteenth session two papal legates personally delivered to the princes a brief inviting them to attend the council. This latter, however, was returned unopened when they discovered in the address the usual but artfully concealed formula “dilecto filio.” Also the demand of the imperial embassy accompanying the legates to take part in the council was determinedly rejected, because that would mean not revision but simply a continuation of the previous sessions of the council, at which the evangelical doctrine had already been definitely condemned.

§ 141.12. The Formula of Concord, A.D. 1577.—Already for a long time had the learned chancellor Jac. Andreä of Tübingen wrought unweariedly for the restoration of peace among the theologians of the Lutheran church. In order also to win over the general membership in favour of peace, he attempted in six popular discourses, delivered in A.D. 1573, to instruct them in reference to the points in dispute and proper means for overcoming these differences. He was so successful in his efforts, that he soon ventured to propose that these lectures should be made the basis of further negotiations. But when Martin Chemnitz, the most distinguished theologian of his age, pronounced them unsuitable for that purpose, Andreä wrought them up anew in accordance with Chemnitz’s critical suggestions into the so called “Swabian Concord.” But even in this form they did not satisfy the theologians of Lower Saxony. The Swabian theologians, however, in their criticisms and emendations, had answered various statements in it, and in A.D. 1576 they produced a new union scheme, drafted by Luc. Osiander, called the “Maulbronn Formula.” The Elector Augustus of Saxony then summoned a theological convention at Torgau, at which, besides Andreä and Chemnitz, there were also present Chytræus from Rostock, as well as Körner and Andr. Musculus from Frankfort-on-the-Oder. They wrought up the material thus accumulated before them into the “Book of Torgau,” of A.D. 1576. In regard to this book also the evangelical princes delivered numerous opinions, and now at last, in obedience to the order of the princes, Andreä, Chemnitz, Selnecker (§ 142, 4), Chytræus, Musculus, and Körner retired into the cloister of Berg at Magdeburg in order to make a final revision of all that was before them. Thus originated, in A.D. 1577, the Book of Berg or the Formula of Concord, in two different forms, first in the most compressed style possible in what is known as the Epitome, and then more completely in the document known as the Solida declaratio. This document dealt with all the controverted questions that had been agitated since A.D. 1530 in twelve articles. It set forth the doctrine of the Person of Christ, giving prominence to the theory of ubiquity, as the basis of the doctrine of the supper, leaving it, however, undetermined in accordance with the teaching of Brenz, whether the ubiquity is to be regarded as an absolute or as a relative one, if only it be maintained that Christ in respect of His human nature, therefore in respect of His body, is present “ubicunque velit,” more particularly in the holy supper. An opportunity was also found in treating of the synergistic questions to set forth the doctrine of predestination, although within the Lutheran church no real controversy on this subject had ever arisen. Luther, who at first (§ 125, 3) had himself given expression to a particularist doctrine of election, had gradually receded from that position. It was so too with Melanchthon, only with this important difference, that whereas Luther, afterwards as well as before, excluded every sort of co-operation of man in conversion, Melanchthon felt himself obliged to admit a certain degree of co-operation, which even the censure of Calvin himself could not lead him to repudiate. When now the Formula of Concord, rejecting synergism in the most decided manner, affirmed that since the fall there was in men not even a spark remaining, ne scintillula quidem, of spiritual power for the independent free appropriation of offered grace, it had gone over from the platform of Melanchthon to that which Calvin, following the course of hard, logical consistency, had been driven to adopt, in the assertion of a doctrine of absolute predestination. The formula was thus in the main in agreement with the speculation of Calvin. But it declined to accept the conclusions arrived at in Calvinism by declaring that while man indeed of himself wanted the power to lay hold upon Divine grace and co-operate with it in any way, he was yet able to withstand it and refuse to accept it. In this way it was able to hold by the express statements of Scripture which represent God as willing that all men should be saved, and salvation as an absolute work of grace, but condemnation as the consequence of man’s own guilt. It regards the salvation of men as the only object of Divine predestination, condemnation as merely an object of the Divine foreknowledge.—At a later period an attempt was made to set at rest the scruples that prevailed here and there by securing at Berg, in February, A.D. 1580, the adoption of an addition to it in the form of a Præfatio drawn up by Andreä as a final determination of the controversy. The character of this new symbolical document, in accordance with its occasion and its aim, was not so much that of a popular exposition for the church, but rather that of a scientific theological treatise. For that period of excitement and controversy it is quite remarkable and worthy of high praise for its good sense, moderation, and circumspection, as well as for the accuracy and clearness with which it performed its task. The fact that nine thousand of the teachers of the church subscribed it affords sufficient proof of it having fulfilled the end contemplated. Denmark and Sweden, Holstein, Pomerania, Hesse, and Anhalt, besides eight cities, Magdeburg, Dantzig, Nuremberg, Strassburg, etc., refused to sign from various and often conflicting motives. In A.D. 1581 Frederick II. of Denmark is said indeed to have thrown it into the fire. Yet in later years it was adopted in not a few of these regions, e.g. in Sweden, Holstein, Pommerania [Pomerania], etc. The Elector Augustus of Saxony, in the Book of Concord, brought out a collection of all general Lutheran confessional writings which, signed by fifty-one princes and thirty-five cities, was solemnly promulgated on the anniversary of the Augsburg Confession, 25th June, A.D. 1580. By this means the whole Lutheran church of Germany obtained a common corpus doctrinæ, and the numerous collections of confessional and doctrinal documents acknowledged by the church, which hitherto separate national churches had drawn up for this purpose, henceforth lost their authority.

§ 141.13. Second Stage of Cryptocalvinism, A.D. 1586-1592.—Yet once more the Calvinising endeavours of the Philippists were renewed in the electorate of Saxony under Augustus’ successor Christian I., who had obtained this position in A.D. 1586, through his relationship with the family of the count-palatine. His chancellor Nicholas Crell filled the offices of pastors and teachers with men of his own views, abolished exorcism at baptism, and had even begun the publication of a Bible with a Calvinising commentary when Christian died, in A.D. 1591. The Duke Frederick William of Altenburg, as regent during the minority, immediately re-introduced strict Lutheranism, and, preparatory to a church visitation, had a new anti-Calvinistic standard of doctrine compiled in the so called Articles of Visitation of A.D. 1592, which all civil and ecclesiastical officers in Saxony were required to accept. In short, clear, and well defined theses and antitheses the doctrinal differences on the supper, the Person of Christ, baptism, and election were there set forth. In reference to baptism, the anti-Calvinistic doctrine was promulgated, that regeneration takes place through baptism, and that therefore every baptized person is regenerate. The most important among the compilers of these Articles of Visitation was Ægidius Hunnius, shortly before called to Wittenberg, after having, from A.D. 1576 to 1592, as professor at Marburg, laboured with all his might in opposition to the Calvinising of Hesse. He had also, by his defence of the doctrine of ubiquity, in his “Confession of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ” in German, in A.D. 1577, and his Latin treatise, “Libelli IV. de pers. Chr. ejusque ad dexteram sedentes divina majestate,” in A.D. 1585, shown himself an energetic champion of strict Lutheranism. He died in A.D. 1603.—The unfortunate chancellor Crell, however, who had made himself hateful to the Lutherans as the promoter and chief instigator of all the Calvinising measures of the deceased elector, and yet more so by his energetic interference with the usurpations of the nobles, suffered an imprisonment of ten years in the fortress of Königstein, and was then, after a trial conducted in the most arbitrary manner, declared to be a traitor and an enemy of the public peace, and executed in A.D. 1601.

§ 141.14. The Huber Controversy, A.D. 1588-1595.—Samuel Huber, reformed pastor in the Canton Bern, became involved in a controversy with Wolfgang Musculus over the doctrine of election. Going even beyond the Lutheran doctrine, he affirmed that all men are predestinated to salvation, although through their own fault not all are saved. Banished from Bern in A.D. 1588, after a disputation with Beza, he entered the Lutheran church and became pastor at Württemberg. Here he charged the Professor Gerlach with Cryptocalvinism, because he taught that only believers are predestinated to salvation. The controversy was broken off by his call to Wittenberg. But even his Wittenberg colleagues, Polic. Leyser and Ægidius Hunnius, fell under the suspicion of Cryptocalvinism, and were accordingly opposed by him. When all disputation and conferences had failed to get him to abandon his doctrine, and parties began to be formed among the students, he was, in A.D. 1594, removed from Wittenberg. With increasing rancour he continued the controversy, and wandered about Germany for many years in order to secure a following for his theory, but without success. He died in A.D. 1624.

§ 141.15. The Hofmann Controversy in Helmstadt, A.D. 1598.—The great influence which the study of the Aristotelian philosophy in connection with that of humanism obtained in the Julius University founded at Helmstadt in A.D. 1576, seemed to its theological professor, Daniel Hofmann, to threaten injury to theological study, and to be prejudicial to pure Lutheran doctrine. He therefore attached himself to the Romists (§ 143, 6), and took advantage of the occasion of the conferring of doctor’s degrees to deliver a violent invective against the incursions of reason and philosophy into the region of religion and revelation. In consequence of this his philosophical colleagues complained of him to the senate as a reproacher of reason, and as one injurious to their faculty. That court obliged him to retract and apologise, and then deprived him of his office as professor of theology.

§ 142. CONSTITUTION, WORSHIP, LIFE, AND SCIENCE IN THE LUTHERAN CHURCH.

In reference also to the ecclesiastical constitution, by holding firmly to the standpoint and to the working out of the system which it had sketched out in its confession and doctrinal teaching, the Lutheran church sought to mediate between extremes, although, amid the storms from without and from within by which it was threatened, it was just at this point that it was least successful. It reflected its character more clearly and decidedly in its order of worship than in its constitution.—The Reformation at last relaxed that hierarchical ban which for centuries had put an absolute restraint upon congregational singing, and had excluded the use of the vernacular in the services of the church. Even within the limits of the Reformation era, the German church song attained unto such a wonderful degree of excellence, as affords the most convincing evidence of the fulness, power, and spirituality, the genuine elevation and fresh enthusiasm, of the spiritual life of that age. The sacred poetry of the church is the confession of the Lutheran people, and has accomplished even more than preaching for extending and deepening the Christian life of the evangelical church. No sooner had a sacred song of this sort burst forth from the poet’s heart, than it was everywhere taken up by the Christian people of the land, and became familiar to every lip. It found entrance into all houses and churches, was sung before the doors, in the workshops, in the market-places, streets, and fields, and won at a single blow whole cities to the evangelical faith.—The Christian life of the people in the Lutheran church combined deep, penitential earnestness and a joyfully confident consciousness of justification by faith with the most nobly steadfast cheerfulness and heartiness natural to the German citizen. Faithful attention to the spiritual interests of their people, vigorous ethical preaching, and zealous efforts to promote the instruction of the young on the part of their pastors, created among them a healthy and hearty fear of God, without the application of any very severe system of church discipline, a thorough and genuine attachment to the church, strict morality in domestic life, and loyal submission to civil authority.—Theological science flourished especially at the universities of Wittenberg, Tübingen, Strassburg, Marburg, and Jena.

§ 142.1. The Ecclesiastical Constitution.—As a mean between hierarchism and Cæsaro-papism, between the intrusion of the State into the province of the church, and the intrusion of the church into the province of the State, the ecclesiastical constitution of the Lutheran church was theoretically right in the main, though in practice and even in theory many defects might be pointed out. It presented at least a protest against all commingling or subordinating of one or the other in these two spheres. Owing to the urgent needs of the church, the princes and magistrates, in the character of emergency-bishops, undertook the supreme administration and management of ecclesiastical affairs, and transferred the exercise of these rights and duties to special boards called consistories, made up of lay and clerical members, which were to have jurisdiction over the clergy, the administration of discipline, and the arranging and enforcing of the marriage laws. What had been introduced simply as a necessity in the troubled condition of the church in those times came gradually to be claimed as a prescriptive right. According to the Episcopal System, the territorial lord as such claimed to rank and act as summus episcopus. After introducing some cautious modifications that were absolutely indispensable, the canon law actually left the foundation of jurisprudence untouched. The restoration of the biblical idea of a universal priesthood of all believers would not tolerate the retaining of the theory of an essential distinction between the clergy and the laity. The clergy were properly designated the servants, ministri, of the church, of the word, of the altar, and all restrictions that had been imposed upon the clergy, and distinguished them as an order, were removed. Hierarchical distinctions among the clergy were renounced, as opposed to the spirit of Christianity; but the advantage of a superordination and subordination in respect of merely human rights, in the institution of such offices as those of superintendents, provosts, etc., was recognised.—Ecclesiastical property was in many cases diverted from the church and arbitrarily appropriated by the greed and rapacity of princes and nobles, but still in great part, especially in Germany, it continued in the possession of the church, except in so far as it was applied to the endowment of schools, universities, and charitable institutions. The monasteries fell under a doom which by reason of their corruptions they had richly deserved. A restoration of such establishments in an evangelical spirit was not to be thought of during a period of convulsion and revolution.—Continuation, § 165, 5.

§ 142.2. Public Worship and Art.—While the Roman Catholic order of worship was dominated almost wholly by fancy and feeling, and that of the reformed church chiefly by the reason, the Lutheran church sought to combine these two features in her services. In Romish worship all appealed to the senses, and in that of the Calvinistic churches all appealed to the understanding; but in the Lutheran worship both sides of human nature were fully recognised, and a proportionate place assigned to each. The unity of the church was not regarded as lying in the rigid uniformity of forms of worship, but in the unity of the confession. Altars ornamented with candles and crucifixes, as well as all the images that might be in churches, were allowed to remain, not as objects of worship, but rather to aid in exciting and deepening devotion. The liturgy was closely modelled upon the Romish ritual of the mass, with the exclusion of all unevangelical elements. The preaching of the word was made the central point of the whole public service. Luther’s style of preaching, the noble and powerful popularity of which has probably never since been equalled, certainly never surpassed, was the model and pattern which the other Lutheran preachers set before themselves. Among these, the most celebrated were Ant. Corvin, Justus Jonas, George Spalatin, Bugenhagen, Jerome Weller, John Brenz, Veit Dietrich, J. Mathesius, Martin Chemnitz. It was laid down as absolutely essential to the idea of public worship, that the congregation should take part in it, and that the common language of the people should be exclusively employed. The adoration of the sacrament on the altar, as well as the Romish service of the mass, were set aside as unevangelical, and the sacrament of the supper was to be administered to the whole congregation in both kinds. On the other hand, it was admitted that baptism was necessary, and might and should be administered in case of need by laymen. The customary formulary of exorcism in baptism was at first continued without dispute, and though Luther himself attached no great importance to it, yet every attempt to secure its discontinuance was resisted by the later Gnesio-Lutherans as savouring of Cryptocalvinism. Yet it should be remembered that such orthodox representatives of Lutheranism as Hesshus, Ægidius Hunnius, and Martin Chemnitz, as well as afterwards John Gerhard, Quenstedt, and Hollaz, were only in favour of its being allowed, but not of its being regarded as necessary. Spener again declared himself decidedly in favour of its being removed, and in the eighteenth century it passed without any serious opposition into disuse throughout almost the whole of the Lutheran church, until re-introduced in the nineteenth century by the Old Lutherans (§ 176, 2).—The church festivals were restricted to celebrations of the facts of redemption; only such of the feasts of Mary and the saints were retained as had legitimate ground in the Bible history; e.g. the days of the apostles, the annunciation of Mary, Michael’s Day, St. John’s Day, etc. Art was held by Luther in high esteem, especially music. Lucas Cranach, who died in A.D. 1553, Hans Holbein, father and son, and Albert Dürer, who died in A.D. 1528, placed their art as painters at the service of the gospel, and adorned the churches with beautiful and thoughtful pictures.

§ 142.3. Church Song.—The character common to the sacred songs of the Lutheran church of the sixteenth century is that they are thoroughly suited for congregational purposes, and are truly popular. They are songs of faith and the creed, with a clear impress of objectivity. The writers of them do not describe their subjective feelings, nor their individual experiences, but they let the church herself by their mouths express her faith, her comfort, her thanksgiving, and adoration. But they are also genuinely songs of the people; true, simple, hearty, bright, and bold in expression, rapid in movement, no standing still and looking back, no elaborate painting and describing, no subtle demonstrating and teaching. Even in outward form they closely resemble the old German epics and the popular historical ballad, and were intended above all not merely to be read, but to be sung, and that by the whole congregation. The ecclesiastical authorities began to introduce hymn-books into the several provinces toward the end of the seventeenth century. Previously there had only been private collections of sacred songs, and the hymns were distinguished only by the words of the opening line; and so widely known were they, that the mentioning of them was sufficient to secure the hymn so designated being sung by the congregation present at the public service.—The sacred songs of the Reformation age possess all these characteristics in remarkable degree. Among all the sacred poets of that time Luther stands forth pre-eminent. His thirty-six hymns or sacred poems belong to five different classes.

1. There are free translations of Latin hymns: “Praised be Thou, O Jesus Christ;” “Thou who art Three in unity;” “In our true God we all believe;” “Lord God, we praise do Thee;” “In the midst of life we are aye in death’s embraces;” “Come God, Creator, Holy Ghost,” etc.

2. There are reproductions of original German songs: “Death held our Lord in prison;” “Now pray we to the Holy Ghost;” “God the Father with us be;” “Let God be praised, blessed, and uplifted.”

3. We have also paraphrastic renderings of certain psalms: “Ah, God in heaven, look down anew” (Ps. xii.); “Although the mouth say of the unwise” (Ps. xiv.); “Our God, He is a castle strong” (Ps. xlvi.); “God, unto us right gracious be” (Ps. lxvii.); “Had God not been with us this time” (Ps. cxxiv.); “From trouble deep I cry to Thee” (Ps. cxxx.), etc.

4. We have also songs composed on particular Scripture themes: “There are the holy ten commands;” “To Isaiah the prophet this was given” (Isa. vi.); “From heaven on high I come to you” (Luke ii.); “To Jordan, where our Lord has gone,” etc.

5. There are, finally, poems original in form and contents: “Dear Christians, let us now rejoice;” “Jesus Christ, our Saviour true;” “Lord, keep us by Thy word in hope.”[405]

After Luther, the most celebrated hymn-writers in the Lutheran church of the sixteenth century are Paul Speratus, reformer in Prussia, who died in A.D. 1554; Nicholas Decius, first a monk, then evangelical pastor at Stettin about A.D. 1524. Paul Eber, professor and superintendent in Wittenberg, who died in A.D. 1569, author of the hymns, “When in the hour of utmost need;” “Lord Jesus Christ, true Man and God;” and one of which our well-known “Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness,” is a paraphrase.[406] Hans Sachs, shoemaker in Nuremberg, who died in A.D. 1567, wrote during the famine in that city in A.D. 1552 the hymn, “Why art thou thus cast down, my heart?” John Schneesing, pastor in Gothaschen, who died in A.D. 1567, wrote “Lord Jesus Christ, in Thee alone.” John Mathesius, rector and deacon in Joachimsthal, who also delivered sermons on Luther’s life, died in A.D. 1565, wrote a beautiful morning hymn, and other sweet sacred pieces. Nicholas Hermann, who died in A.D. 1561, precentor at Joachimsthal, wrote out Mathesius’ sermons in hymns, “The happy sunshine all is gone,” the burial hymn, “Now hush your cries, and shed no tear,” etc. Michael Weisse closes the series of hymn-writers of the Reformation age. He was a German pastor in Bohemia, translator and editor of the sacred songs of the Bohemian Hussites, and died in A.D. 1540. He wrote “Christ the Lord is risen again,” and the burial hymn to which Luther added a verse, “Now lay we calmly in the grave.”[407]

§ 142.4. In the period immediately following, from A.D. 1560 to A.D. 1618, we meet with many poetasters who write on sacred themes in doggerel rhymes. Even those who are poets by natural endowment, and inspired with Divine grace, are much too prolific; but they have bequeathed to us a genuine wealth of beautiful church songs, characterized by healthful objectivity, childlike simplicity, and a singular power of appealing to the hearts of the great masses of the people. But a tendency already begins to manifest itself in the direction of that excessive subjectivity which was the vice of hymn-writers in the succeeding period; the doctrinal element too becomes more and more prominent, as well as application to particular circumstances and occasions in life; but the objective confession of faith is always still predominant. Among the sacred poets of this period the most important are Bartholmaus Ringwaldt, pastor in Brandenburg, who died in A.D. 1597, author of “’Tis sure that awful time will come;” Nicholas Selnecker, at last superintendent in Leipzig, who died in A.D. 1592, as Melanchthon’s scholar suspected at one time of Cryptocalvinism, but, after he had taken part in the composition of the Formula of Concord, the object of the most bitter hatred and constant persecution on the part of the Cryptocalvinists of Saxony: he wrote, “O Lord my God, I cry to Thee;” Martin Schalling, pastor at Regensburg and Nuremberg, who died in A.D. 1608, wrote, “Lord, all my heart is fixed on Thee;” Martin Böhme or Behemb, pastor in Lusatia, who died in A.D. 1621, author of “Lord Jesus Christ, my Life, my Light.” The series closes with Philip Nicolai, a violent and determined opponent of Calvinism, who was latterly pastor in Hamburg, and died in A.D. 1608. His vigorous and rhythmical poetry, with its deep undertone of sweetness, is to some extent modelled on the Song of Songs. He wrote “Awake, awake, for night is flying;” the chorale in Mendelssohn’s “St. Paul,” “Sleepers, wake, a voice is calling,” is a rendering of the same piece.—Continuation, § 159, 3.

§ 142.5. Chorale Singing.—The congregational singing, which the Reformation made an integral part of evangelical worship, was essentially a reproduction of the Ambrosian mode (§ 59, 5) in a purer form and with richer fulness. It was distinguished from the Gregorian style preeminently by this, that it was not the singing of a choir of priests, but the popular singing of the whole congregation. The name chorale singing, however, was still continued, and has come to be the technical and appropriate designation of the new mode. It is further distinguished from the Gregorian mode by this other characteristic, that instead of singing in a uniform monotone of simple notes of equal length, it introduces a richer rhythm with more lively modulation. And, finally, it is characterized by the introduction of harmony in place of the customary unison. But, on the other hand, the chorale singing may be regarded as a renewal of the old cantus firmus, while at the same time it sets aside the secular music style and the artificialities of counterpoint and the elaborate ornamentation with which the false taste of the Middle Ages had overlaid it. The congregation sang the cantus firmus or melody in unison, the singers in the choir gave it the accompaniment of a harmony. The organ during the Reformation age was used for support, and accompanied only in elaborate, high-class music. But the melody was pitched in a medium key, which as the leading voice was called Tenor. The melodies for the new church hymns were obtained, partly by adaptation of the old tunes for the Latin hymns and sequences, partly by appropriation of popular mediæval airs, especially among the Bohemian Brethren, partly also and mainly by the free use of the popular song tunes of the day, to which no one made any objection, since indeed the spiritual songs were often parodies of the popular songs whose airs were laid hold upon for church use. The few original melodies of this age were for the most part composed by the authors of the hymns themselves or by the singers, and were the outflow of the same inspiration as had called forth the poems. They have therefore been rarely equalled in impressiveness, spiritual glow, and power by any of the more artistic productions of later times. Acquaintance with the new melodies was spread among the people by itinerant singers, chorister boys in the streets, and the city cornet players. From the singers or those who adapted the melodies are to be distinguished the composers, who as technical musicians arranged the harmony and set it in a form suitable for church use. George Rhaw, precentor in Leipzig, afterwards printer in Wittenberg, and Hans Walter, choirmaster to the elector, both intimate friends of Luther, were amongst the most celebrated composers of their day. The evangelical church music reaches its highest point of excellence toward the end of the sixteenth century. The great musical composer, John Eccart, who was latterly choirmaster in Berlin, and died in A.D. 1611, was the most active agent in securing this perfection of his art. In order to make the melody clearer and more distinctly heard, it was transferred from the middle voice, the tenor, to the higher voice or treble. The other voices now came in as simple concords alongside of the melody, and the organ, which had now been almost perfected by the introduction of many important improvements, now came into general use with its pure, rich, and accurate full harmony, as a support and accompaniment of the congregational singing. The distinction too between singers and composers passed more and more out of view. The skilled artistic singing was thus brought into closer relations with the congregational singing, and the creative power, out of which an abundant supply of original melodies was produced, grew and developed from year to year.

§ 142.6. Theological Science.—Inasmuch as the Reformation had its origin in the word of God, and supported itself upon that foundation alone the theologians of the Reformation were obliged to give special attention to biblical studies. John Förster, who died in A.D. 1556, and John Avenarius, who died in A.D. 1576, both of Wittenberg, compiled Hebrew lexicons, which embodied the results of independent investigations. Matthias Flacius, in his Clavis Scr. s., provided what for that time was a very serviceable aid to the study of Scripture. The first part gives in alphabetical order an explanation of Scripture words and forms of speech, the second forms a system of biblical hermeneutics. Exegesis proper found numerous representatives. Luther himself beyond dispute holds the front rank in this department. After him the most important Lutheran exegetes of that age are for the New Testament, Melanchthon; Victorin Strigel, who wrote Hyponm. in Novum Testamentum; Flacius, with his Glossa compendiaria in Novum Testamentum; Joachim Camerarius, with his Notationes in Nov. Testamentum; Martin Chemnitz, with his Harmonia IV. Evangeliorum, continued by Polic. Leyser, and completed at last by John Gerhard: for the Old Testament, especially John Brenz, whose commentaries are still worthy of being consulted. Of less consequence are the numerous commentaries of the comprehensive order, compiled by the once scarcely less influential David Chytræus of Rostock, who died in A.D. 1600. The series of Lutheran dogmatists opens with Melanchthon, who published his Loci communes in A.D. 1521. Martin Chemnitz, in his Loci theologici, contributed an admirable commentary to Melanchthon’s work, and it soon became the recognised standard dogmatic treatise in the Lutheran church. In A.D. 1562 he published his Examen Conc. Trident., in which he combated the Romish doctrine with as much learning and thoroughness as good sense, mildness, and moderation. Polemical theology was engaged upon with great vigour amid the many internal and external controversies, conducted often with intense passion and bitterness. In the department of church history we have the gigantic work of the Magdeburg centuriators, the result of the bold scheme of Matthias Flacius. By his Catalogus testium veritatis he had previously advanced evidence to show that at no point in her history had the church been without enlightened and pious heroes of faith, who had carried on the uninterrupted historical continuity of evangelical truth, and so secured an unbroken succession from the early apostolic church till that of the sixteenth century.—Continuation, § 159, 4.

§ 142.7. German National Literature.—The Reformation occurred at a time when the poetry and national literature of Germany was in a condition of profound prostration, if not utter collapse. But it brought with it a reawakening of creative powers in the national and intellectual life of the people. Under the influence and stimulus of Luther’s own example there arose a new prose literature, inspired by a broad, liberal spirit, as the expression of a new view of the world, which led the Germans both to think and teach in German. It was mainly the intellectual friction from the contact of one fresh mind with another in regard to questions agitated in the Reformation movement that gave to the satirical writings of the age that brilliancy, point, and popularity which in the history of German literature was not attained before and never has been reached since. In innumerable fugitive sheets, in the most diverse forms of style and language, in poetry and prose, in Latin and German, these satires poured forth contempt and scorn against and in favour of the Reformation. As we have on the Catholic side Thomas Murner (§ 125, 4), and on the Reformed side Nicholas Manuel (§ 130, 4), so we have on the Lutheran side John Fischart, far excelling the former two, and indeed the greatest satirist that Germany has yet produced. To him we are mainly indebted for the almost incessant stream of anonymous satires of the sixteenth century. He belonged, like Sebastian Brandt and Thomas Murner, to Strassburg, was for a long time advocate at the royal court of justice at Spires, and died in A.D. 1589. His satirical vein was exercised first of all upon ecclesiastical matters: “The Night Raven (Rabe) and the Hooded Crow,” against a certain J. Rabe, who had become a Roman Catholic. “On the Pretty Life of St. Dominic and St. Francis,” an abusive effusion against the Dominicans and Francisans [Franciscan]. “The Beehive of the Romish Swarm,” the best known of all his satires, an independent and original working up of the theme of the book bearing the same name by Philip von Marnix (§ 139, 12). “The Four-horned Bat of the Jesuits,” in rhyme, the most stinging, witty, and scathing satire which has ever been written against the Jesuits. Then he turned his attention to secular subjects. His “Beehive” may be regarded as a companion piece to Murner’s “Lutheran Buffoon;” but excelling this passionately severe production in spirit, wit, and bright, laughing sarcasm, it is as certain to win the pre-eminence and be awarded the victory. Among the secular poets of that century the shoemaker of Nuremberg, Hans Sachs, who died in A.D. 1576, an admirable specimen of the Lutheran burgher, holds the first rank. As a minstrel he is almost as unimportant as any of his contemporaries, but conspicuously excelling in the poetic rendering of many tales, legends, and traditions by his naïve drollery, honest good-heartedness, and fresh, lively vigour and style. He left behind him 208 comedies and tragedies, 1,700 humorous tales, 4,200 lays and ballads. He gave a bright and cheery greeting to the Reformation in A.D. 1523 in his poem, “The Wittenberg Nightingale,” and by this he also contributed very much to further and recommend the introduction of the teachings of the Reformation among his fellow citizens.

§ 142.8. For Missions to the Heathen very little was done during this period. The reason of this indeed is not far to seek. The Lutheran church felt that home affairs had the first and in the meantime an all-engrossing claim upon her attention and energies. She had not the call which the Roman Catholic church had, in consequence of political and mercantile relations with distant countries, to prosecute missions in heathen lands, nor had she the means for conducting such enterprises as those on which the monkish orders were engaged. Yet we find the beginnings of a Lutheran mission even in this early period, for Gustavus Vasa of Sweden founded, in A.D. 1559, an association for carrying the gospel to the neglected and benighted Lapps.[408]

§ 143. THE INNER DEVELOPMENT OF THE REFORMED CHURCH.

The close connection which all Lutheran national churches had obtained in their possession of one common confession was wanting to the Reformed church, inasmuch as there each national church had drawn up its own confession. The victory of Calvinistic dogmatic over the Zwinglian in the Swiss mother church (§ 138, 7) was not without influence upon the other Reformed national churches; and Calvinism, partly in its entire stringency and severity, partly in a form more or less modified, without expressing itself in one common symbol, formed henceforth a bond of union and a common standard for attacks on Lutheran dogmatics. Quite similar was the origin of the divergence that arose between Zwinglianism and Calvinism in the department of the ecclesiastical constitution. In this case also the victory was with the Calvinistic organization. Its ideal embraced the restoration of the primitive apostolic presbyterial and synodal constitution, together with the church’s unconditional independence of the State. This proved much more acceptable than the theory which, under Zwingli’s auspices, had been adopted in German Switzerland, according to which church government and the administration of discipline were put in the hands of the Christian civil magistrates. A rigid system of ecclesiastical penitential discipline, however, was on all sides applied to the public and private lives of all church members. Under such discipline the community came generally to present a picture of singularly pure and correct morality, and not infrequently we see exhibited a remarkable development of high moral character. It fostered the noble confidence of the martyr spirit, which indeed only too often ran out into extremes and made an unjustifiable use of Old Testament precedents and patterns.—In reference to worship, the Reformed church, with its simplest possible form of service, stripped of all pomp and ceremony, presents the most thorough and marked contrast to the gorgeous and richly ceremonial worship of the Roman Catholic church.—Yet the episcopal Anglican national church (§ 139, 6), in almost all particulars relating to constitution, worship, discipline, and customs, completely severed its connection with the distinctive characteristics of the Reformed church, and allied itself to the traditional forms and ceremonies of the Roman Catholic church. On the other hand, in reference to dogma it approaches in its mediating attitude nearer in several respects to the view of the Lutheran church. But all the more rigidly and exclusively did the Puritans who separated themselves from the Anglican church, as well as the strict Presbyterian church of Scotland, appropriate, and even carry out to further extremes, the rigorism of the Genevan model in regard both to worship and to doctrine.

§ 143.1. The Ecclesiastical Constitution.—Just as in the Lutheran church, the ecclesiastical leaders had been driven by necessity to submit to the so-called super-episcopate of the princes, it also happened here in German Switzerland that, under pressure of circumstances, this power, as well as church discipline and infliction of ecclesiastical censures, was put in the hands of the magistrates. By order of Zwingli and Œcolampadius there were founded in Zürich, in A.D. 1528, and in Basel in A.D. 1530, synods to be held yearly for church visitation. These were to be attended by all the pastors of the city and district, and one or more honourable men should be appointed from each congregation, in order to take up and dispose of any complaints that might be made against the life and doctrine of their pastors. But the intention of both reformers to give this institution a controlling influence in church government and ecclesiastical organization was thwarted in consequence of the jealousy with which the ruling magistrates clung to the authority that had been assigned them in ecclesiastical matters. In Geneva, on the contrary, Calvin’s unbending energy succeeded, after long and painful contendings (§ 138, 3, 4), in transferring from the magistrates the government of the church, together with church discipline and the imposition of censures, to which here also they laid claim, to a consistory founded by him, composed of six pastors and twelve lay elders or presbyters, which was supreme in its own domain, and free from all interference on the part of the civil authorities, while the magistrates were bound to execute civil penalties upon those excommunicated by the ecclesiastical tribunal. The introduction of this presbyterial constitution into Reformed national churches of large extent must have contributed to their further extension and to the maintenance of the national church unity. At the head of each congregation now stood a presbytery, called in French consistoire, composed of pastor and elders, the latter having been chosen either directly by the congregation, or by the local magistrate in accordance with the votes of the congregation, subsequently they were also allowed to add to their own number. Then, again, the presbyters of a particular circuit were grouped into so-called classes, with a moderator chosen for the occasion; and then, also, an annual classical synod, consisting of one pastor and one lay elder chosen from each of the presbyteries. In a similar way, at longer intervals, or just as necessity called for it, provincial synods were convened, composed of deputies from several classical synods; and from its members were chosen representatives to the general or national synod, which constituted the highest legislative authority for the whole national church.[409]

§ 143.2. Public Worship.—Zwingli wished at first to do away with church bells, organ playing, and church psalmody, and even Calvin would not tolerate altars, crucifixes, images, and candles in the churches. These he regarded as contrary to the Divine law revealed in the decalogue, inasmuch as the commandment that properly stood second as a distinct and separate statute, though it had slipped out of the enumeration usual among the Catholics and Lutherans, was understood to forbid the use of images. The churches were reduced to bare and unadorned places for prayer and assembly rooms for preaching, and simple communion tables took the place of altars. Kneeling, as savouring of ceremonialism, was discountenanced; the breaking of bread was again introduced in the administration of the Lord’s Supper as forming an important part of the symbolism; private confession was abolished; exorcism at baptism, as well as baptism in emergencies as a necessary thing, was discontinued; the liturgy was reduced to simple prayers spoken, not sung, and from a literalist purism the usual Vater unser was changed into Unser Vater. The festivals were reduced to the smallest number possible, and only the principal Christian feasts were celebrated, Christmas, Easter, Pentecost; while the Sunday festival was observed with almost the Old Testament strictness of Sabbath keeping.—In securing the introduction of psalmody into the worship of the German Reformed church, John Zwick, pastor at Constance, who died in A.D. 1542, was particularly active. In A.D. 1536 he published a small psalmody, with some Bible psalms set to Lutheran melodies. At Calvin’s request, Clement Marot set a good number of the Psalms to popular French airs in A.D. 1541-1543; Beza completed it, and then Calvin introduced this French psalter into the church of Geneva. Claude Goudimel (§ 149, 15) in A.D. 1562 published sixteen of these psalms with four-part harmonies. He was murdered in the massacre of St. Bartholomew at Lyons, in A.D. 1572. A professor of law at Königsberg, Ambrose Lobwasser, in A.D. 1573 made an arrangement of the Psalter in the German language after the style of Marot. This psalter, notwithstanding its poetical deficiencies, continued in use for a long time in Germany and Switzerland. Zwingli’s aversion to congregational singing was given effect to only in Zürich, but even there the service of praise was introduced by a decree of the council in A.D. 1598. In the other German Swiss cantons they did not confine themselves to the use of the Psalms, but adopted unhesitatingly spiritual songs by both Reformed and Lutheran poets. Among the former, who neither in number nor in ability could approach the latter, the most important were John Zwick and Ambrose Blaurer (§ 133, 3). It was only in the seventeenth century that the Lutheran sister church abandoned her rigid adherence to the exclusive use of Lobwasser’s psalms in congregational singing, when the rise of Pietism, and afterwards the spread of rationalism, overcame this narrow-mindedness.[410]

§ 143.3. The English Puritans.—The Reformation under Elizabeth (§ 139, 6), with its Lutheranizing doctrinal standpoint and Catholicizing forms of constitution and worship, had been sanctioned in A.D. 1559 by the Act of Uniformity in the exercise of the royal supremacy that was claimed over the whole ecclesiastical institutions of the country. But the Protestants who had fled from the persecutions of Bloody Mary and had returned in vast troops when Elizabeth ascended the throne brought with them from their foreign resorts, in Switzerland from Geneva, Zürich, Basel, in Germany from Strassburg, Frankfort, Emden, entirely different notions about the nature of genuine evangelical Christianity; and now with all the assumption of confessors they sought to have these ideas realized in their native land. Inspired for the most part with the rigorist spirit of the Genevan Reformation, they desired, instead of the royal supremacy, to have the independence of the church proclaimed, and instead of the hierarchical episcopal system a presbyterial constitution with strict church discipline, arranged in accordance with the Genevan model. They also gave a one-sided prominence to the formal principle of the Holy Scripture, adhered rigidly to the doctrinal theory of Calvin and to a mode of worship as bare as possible, stripped of every vestige of popish superstition, such as priestly dress, altars, candles, crucifixes, sign of the cross, forms of prayer, godfathers, confirmation, kneeling at the sacrament, bowing the head at the mention of the name of Jesus, bells, organs, etc. On account of their opposition to the Act of Uniformity, these were designated Nonconformists or Dissenters. They were also called Puritans, because they insisted upon an organization of the church purified from every human invention, and ordered strictly in accordance with the word of God. Their principles, which were enunciated first of all in private conventicles, found a very wide acceptance amongst ministers and people. This movement proved too strong to be suppressed, even by the frequent deprivation and banishment of the ministers, or the fining and imprisonment of their adherents. Amid the severity of persecution and oppression Puritanism continued to grow, and in A.D. 1572 numerous separatist congregations provided themselves with a presbyterial and synodal constitution; the former for the management of the affairs of particular congregations, the latter for the settlement of questions affecting the whole church. Specially offensive to the queen, and therefore strictly forbidden by her and rigorously suppressed, were the prophesyings introduced into many English churches after the pattern of the prophesyings of the church of Zürich. These were week-day meetings of the congregation, at which the Sunday sermons were further explained and illustrated from Scripture by the preachers, and applied to the circumstances and needs of the church of that day.[411]

§ 143.4. Even before the sixteenth century had come to an end an ultra-puritan tendency had been developed, the adherents of which were called Brownists, from their leader Robert Brown. As chaplain of the Duke of Norfolk, he was brought into contact at Norwich with Dutch Anabaptist refugees; and stirred up by them, he began a violent and bitter polemic, not only against the Cæsaro-papism and episcopacy of the State church, but also against the aristocratic element in the presbyterial and synodal constitution. He taught that church and congregation were to be completely identified; that every separate congregation, because subject to no other authority than that of Christ and His word, has the right of independently arranging and administering its own affairs according to the decisions of the majority. Having been cast into prison, but again liberated through the powerful influence of his friends, he retired in A.D. 1581 to Holland, and founded a small congregation there at Middleburg in Zealand. When this soon became reduced to a mere handful, he returned to England in A.D. 1589, and there renewed his agitation; but afterwards submitted to the hierarchical State church, and died in A.D. 1630 in the enjoyment of a rich living. After his apostasy, the jurist Henry Barrow took his place as leader of the Brownists, who still numbered many thousands, and were now called after him Barrowists. Persecuted by the government and harassed by severe measures from A.D. 1594, whole troops of them retreated to the Netherlands, where in several of the principal cities they formed considerable congregations, and issued, in A.D. 1598, their first symbolical document, “The Confession of Faith of certain English People exiled.”—The second founder of the party, a more trustworthy leader and more vigorous apologist, was the pastor John Robinson, who, in A.D. 1608, with his Norwich congregation settled at Amsterdam, and in A.D. 1610 moved to Leyden. He died in A.D. 1625. The fundamental points in the constitution under his leadership were these:

1. Complete equality of all the members of the church among themselves, and consequently the setting aside of all clerical prerogatives;

2. Thorough subordination of the college of presbyters to the will of the majority of the congregation, from which circumstance they obtained the name of Congregationalists; and

3. The perfect autonomy of separate congregations and their independence alike of every civil authority and of every synodal judicature, from which characteristic they obtained the name of Independents.

Synodal assemblies were allowed merely for the purpose of mutual consultation and advice, and when so restricted were regarded as beneficial. With this end in view a Congregational board was appointed to sit in London, which formed a common centre of union. And as in constitution, so also in worship there was a complete breach made with all the traditions and developments of church history. With the exception of Sunday all feast days were abolished. In the assemblies for public worship each individual had the right of free speech for the edification of the congregation. All liturgical formularies and prescribed prayers, even the Lord’s Prayer not excepted, were set aside, as hindering the mission of the Holy Spirit in the congregation.—In order to preserve for their descendants the sacred heritage of their faith, and their native English language and nationality, and in order to save them from the moral dangers to which they were exposed in large cities, but to an equal extent at least inspired by the wish to break new ground for the kingdom of God in the New World, many of their families set out, in A.D. 1620, from Holland for North America, and there, as “Pilgrim Fathers,” amid indescribable hardships, established a colony in the wastes of Massachusetts, and laid the foundations of that Congregational denomination which has now grown into so powerful and influential a church.[412]

§ 143.5. Theological Science.—In A.D. 1523, the grand council at Zürich set up the peculiar institution of prophesying (1 Cor. xiv. 29) or biblical conferences. Pastors along with students, as well as certain scholars specially called for the purpose, were required to meet together every morning, with the exception of Sundays and Fridays, in the choir of the cathedral, where, after a short opening prayer, public exegetical expositions of the Old Testament were given in the regular order of books and chapters, with a strict and detailed comparison of the Vulgate, the LXX. and the original text; and then at the close one of the professors stated the results of the conference in a practical discourse for the edification of the congregation. At a later period theological studies flourished at Geneva and Basel, in the French church at the academy of Saumur and the theological seminaries of Montauban, Sedan, and Montpellier. Sebastian Münster, formerly at Heidelberg, afterwards at Basel, issued, in A.D. 1523, a complete Hebrew lexicon. The Zürich theologians, Leo Judä and others, in A.D. 1524-1529 translated Luther’s Bible into the Swiss dialect, making, however, an independent revision in accordance with the original text. At the instigation of the Waldensians, Robert Olivetan of Geneva (§ 138, 1) undertook, in A.D. 1535, a translation of the Holy Scriptures from the original into the French language; but in so far as the New Testament is concerned he followed almost literally the translation of Faber (§ 120, 8). In subsequent editions it was in various particulars greatly improved, although even to this day it remains very unsatisfactory. Theodore Beza gave an improved recension of the New Testament text and a new Latin translation of it. Sebastian Münster edited the Old Testament text with an independent Latin translation. Also Leo Judä in Zürich undertook a similar work, for which he was well qualified by a competent knowledge of languages. Sebastian Castellio in Geneva endeavoured to make the prophets and apostles speak in classical Latin and in full Ciceronian periods. Most successful was the Latin translation of the Old Testament which Immanuel Tremellius at Heidelberg, in connection with his son-in-law Francis Junius, produced. John Piscator, dismissed from Heidelberg under the Elector Louis VI. (§ 144, 1), from A.D. 1584 professor in the academy founded at Herborn during that same year, published a new German translation of the Bible, which was authoritatively introduced into the churches at Bern and in other Reformed communities. Commentators on Holy Scripture were also numerous during this age. Besides Calvin, who far outstrips them all (§ 138, 5), the following were distinguished for their exegetical performances: Zwingli, Œcolampadius, Conrad Pellican (§ 120, 4 footnote), Theodore Beza, Francis Junius, John Piscator, John Mercer, and the Frenchman Marloratus.—As a dogmatist Calvin, again beyond all question occupies the very front rank. In speculative power and thorough mastery of his materials he excels all his contemporaries. Leo Judä’s catechisms, two in German and one in Latin, in which the scholar puts the question and the teacher gives the answer and explanation, continued long in use in the Zürich church. Among the German Reformed theologians Andrew Hyperius of Marburg, who died in A.D. 1564, takes an honourable place as an exegete by his expositions of the Pauline epistles, as a dogmatist by his Methodus theologiæ, as a homilist by his De formandis concionibus s., and as the first founder of theological encyclopædia by his De recte formando theolog. studio.—The pietistic efforts of the English Puritan party found a fit nursery in the University of Cambridge, where William Whitaker, who died in A.D. 1598, the author of Catechismus s. institutio pietatis, and especially William Perkins, who died in A.D. 1602, author of De casibus conscientiæ, besides many other English works of edification, laboured unweariedly in endeavouring to infuse a pious spirit into the theological studies. Both were also eager and enthusiastic supporters of the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination; but the attempt, through the “Nine Lambeth Articles,” laid before Archbishop Whitgift in his palace in A.D. 1598, and accepted and approved by him, to make this doctrine an absolute doctrinal test for the university was frustrated by the decided veto of Queen Elizabeth.—Continuation, § 160, 6.

§ 143.6. Philosophy.—For the formal scientific construction of systematic theology the Aristotelian dialectic, as the heritage bequeathed by the mediæval scholasticism, continued to exercise upon the occupants of the Reformed professorial chairs, as well as in Lutheran seminaries, a dominating influence far down into the seventeenth century. To emancipate philosophy, and with it also in the same degree theology, from these fetters, which hindered every free movement, and inaugurate a simpler scientific method, was an attempt made first of all by Peter Ramus, who from A.D. 1551 was professor of dialectic and rhetoric in Paris, distinguished also as a polyhistor, humanist, and mathematician, and diligent in disseminating his views from the platform and by the press. As he had openly declared himself a Calvinist, he had repeatedly to seek refuge in flight. After a long residence in Switzerland and Germany, where he gained many adherents, who were known by the name of Ramists, he thought that after the Peace of St. Germain (§ 139, 15), in A.D. 1571, he might with safety return to Paris; but there, in A.D. 1572, he fell a victim to Romish fanaticism on the night of St. Bartholomew.—Continuation, § 163, 1.

§ 143.7. The Reformed church made one missionary attempt in A.D. 1557. A French adventurer, Villegagnon, laid before Admiral Coligny a plan for the colonization of the persecuted Huguenots in Brazil. With this proposal there was linked a scheme for conducting a mission among the heathen aborigines. He sailed under Coligny’s patronage in A.D. 1555 with a number of Huguenot artisans, and founded Fort Coligny at Rio de Janeiro. At his request Calvin sent him two Geneva pastors in A.D. 1557. The intolerable tyranny which Villegagnon exercised over the unprotected colonists, the failure of their efforts among the natives, famine, and want impelled them in the following year to seek again their native shores, which they reached after a most disastrous voyage. All were not able to secure a place in the returning ships, and even of those who started several died of starvation on the way.—Continuation, § 161, 7.[413]

§ 144. CALVINIZING OF GERMAN LUTHERAN NATIONAL CHURCHES.

The Cryptocalvinist controversies conducted with such party violence proved indeed in vain so far as winning over to Philippist Calvinism the Lutheran church as a whole was concerned (§ 141, 10, 13); but they did not succeed in hindering, but rather fostered and advanced, the public adoption of the Reformed Confession on the part of several national churches in Germany or their being driven by force to accept the Calvinistic constitution and creed. The first instance of a procedure of this sort is to be found in the Palatinate. It was followed by Bremen, Anhalt, and in the beginning of the next century by Hesse Cassel and the electoral dynasty of Brandenburg (§ 154, 3).

§ 144.1. The Palatinate, A.D. 1560.—Tilemann Hesshus, formerly the scholar and devoted admirer of Melanchthon, had been banished by the magistrates as a disturber of the peace from Goslar, and then from Rostock, on account of his reckless and severe administration of church discipline. At Melanchthon’s recommendation, the Elector Ottheinrich of the Palatinate called him as professor and general superintendent to Heidelberg, in A.D. 1558. Here he came into collision with his deacon William Klebitz. The latter had produced, on the occasion of his receiving his bachelor’s degree, a thesis in which he vindicated a Calvinizing theory of the Lord’s Supper, whereupon Hesshus condemned and suspended him, in A.D. 1559. But Klebitz would not move. Passion on both sides developed into senseless fury, which found expression in the pulpit and at the altar. The new elector, Frederick III. the Pious, A.D. 1559-1576, sent both into exile, and obtained an opinion from Melanchthon, which advised him to hold by the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians x. 16, “the bread is the communion of the body of Christ.” The elector, who had long been favourably inclined to the Reformed doctrine and worship, now introduced, in A.D. 1560, into all the churches of his domains a Reformed order of service, had altars, baptismal fonts, images, and even organs removed from the churches, filled the professors’ chairs with foreign Calvinistic teachers, and in A.D. 1562 had the “Heidelberg Catechism” composed by two Heidelberg professors, Zach. Ursinus and Gaspar Olevianus, for use in the schools throughout his territories.[414] In respect of that simplicity which befits a popular manual, in power and spirituality, it is not to be compared to Luther’s “Short Catechism,” but it is certainly distinguished by learning, theological genius, Christian fervour, and moderate, peaceful spirit, and deserves in an eminent degree the acceptance which it has found, not only among the German, but also among the foreign Reformed churches. Calvin’s doctrine of predestination is avoided, and his theory of the Lord’s Supper is taught in a form approaching as near as possible to the Lutheran view, but the Roman Catholic mass is characterized as execrable idolatry. The introduction of this catechism, however, completed the severance of the Palatinate from the Lutheran church. Brenz in Stuttgart attacked its doctrine of the supper; Bullinger in Zürich and Beza in Geneva defended it with passionate eagerness; and the conference arranged by the elector to be held at Maulbronn, in A.D. 1564, between the theologians of the Palatinate and of Württemberg, during its six days’ discussions increased the bitterness of parties, and made the split perpetual. The Lutheran German states, irritated by the secession of the elector, complained of him to the Diet of Augsburg, in A.D. 1564, that he had broken the religious Peace of Augsburg by the forcible introduction of Calvinism. He answered in defence, that he had not himself read Calvin’s works, and was therefore not in a position to know what Calvinism was; that at Naumburg, in A.D. 1561 (§ 141, 11), he had subscribed the Augustana, more correctly the Variata, and still adhered to the confession he then made. The diet then did not venture to interfere with him, and was satisfied with a simple expression of disapproval. By the introduction of presbyteries by the order of the elector, in A.D. 1570, for the administration of church discipline, Olevianus embroiled himself in controversy with the electoral councillor and professor of medicine at Heidelberg, Thomas Erastus (§ 117, 4), who would much rather have the Zürich church order introduced (§ 143) than the Zwinglian theory of the supper. This idea he very persistently pressed, but without success. Although himself a member of the ecclesiastical council, he yet fell under its ban, along with Neuser and Sylvanus (§ 148, 3) as suspected of unitarianism, but this charge has never been proved against him. In A.D. 1510 he settled in Basel, and died there, in A.D. 1583, as professor of moral philosophy. His controversial treatise, “Explicatio gravissimæ quæstionis, utrum excommunicatio mandato nitatur divino, an excogitata sit ab hominibus,” was published after his death. Beza answered in two dissertations: “De presbyteriis” and “De excommunicatione.” Notice of his theory was now taken in England and Scotland, and among the names of sects in these countries during the seventeenth century we find that of Erastians. At this very day all subordinating of church government under the authority of the State is commonly styled Erastianism.[415]—The reign of Louis VI., A.D. 1576-1583, a zealous friend of the Formula of Concord, was of too short duration to secure the complete restoration of Lutheranism throughout his dominions. The count-palatine, John Casimir, who conducted the government as regent during the minority, systematically drove out all Lutheran pastors and trained up his ward Frederick IV. in Calvinism.—Continuation, § 153, 3.

§ 144.2. Bremen, A.D. 1562.—In Bremen the cathedral preacher, Albert Rizæus von Hardenberg, long lay under suspicion of favouring the Zwinglian theory of the sacraments. He publicly repudiated the Lutheran doctrine of the ubiquity of the body of Christ, which his colleague John Timann had defended in his treatise, “Farrago sententiarum ... de cœna Domini,” of A.D. 1555. Upon this there began a lively controversy between them. All the pastors took Timann’s side, but Hardenberg had a powerful supporter in the burgomaster Daniel van Büren, and an opinion obtained from Melanchthon in A.D. 1557 also favoured him by counselling concession. Through his refusal to subscribe a confession of faith in reference to the supper submitted to him by the council, the excitement in Bremen was increased, and spread from thence over all the provinces of Lower Saxony. Timann died in A.D. 1557. His place as champion of the Lutheran doctrine of the supper was taken by Hesshus, who had been driven out of Heidelberg in A.D. 1559, and had almost immediately afterward been called to Bremen. He challenged Hardenberg to a public disputation, which, however, did not come off, because the new Archbishop of Bremen, Duke George of Brunswick-Lüneberg [Lüneburg], forbade Hardenberg to take part in it, and instead of this brought the matter before the league of the cities of Lower Saxony. The league held a provincial diet at Brunswick, in A.D. 1561, where Hardenberg was removed from his office, yet without detracting from his honour. He went now to Oldenburg, and died in A.D. 1574 as pastor at Emden. Hesshus had left Bremen in A.D. 1560, having accepted a call to Magdeburg, and from thence continued his controversy with Hardenberg. His successor in Bremen, Simon Musæus, no less passionately than he insisted upon the expulsion of all adherents of Hardenberg, and had indeed managed to get the council to agree to the proposal when things took a turn in an altogether different direction. Büren, in spite of all opposition, became the chief burgomaster in A.D. 1562. Musæus and other twelve pastors were now expelled, and also the councillors who were in favour of Lutheranism felt that they could do nothing else than quit the city. By foreign mediation an understanding was come to in A.D. 1568, by which those who had been driven out were allowed to return to the city, but not to their offices. All the churches of Bremen, with the exception of the cathedral, which obtained a Lutheran pastor again in A.D. 1568, continued in the possession of the Reformed party.—But Hesshus was in A.D. 1562 expelled also from Magdeburg, as well as afterwards from his position as court preacher in Neuburg, in A.D. 1569, and from his professorship at Jena in A.D. 1573 (§ 141, 10), on account of his passionate and violent polemics. He was also expelled from his bishopric of Samland, in A.D. 1577, as a teacher of error, because he had ascribed omnipotence, etc., to the human nature of Christ etiam in abstracto. He died in A.D. 1588 as professor in Helmstadt.

§ 144.3. Anhalt, A.D. 1597.—After the death of Prince Joachim Ernest four Anhalt dynasties were formed by his sons, Dessau, Bemburg, Köthen, Zerbst. John George, first head of the family of Anhalt-Dessau, reigned on behalf of his brothers, who had not yet come of age, from A.D. 1587 till A.D. 1603, and married a daughter of John Casimir, the count-palatine. After having refused to sign the Formula of Concord, he began the Calvinization of the land in A.D. 1589 by striking out the exorcism, and then, in A.D. 1596, he put the Reformed church order in place of the Lutheran. Soon after this Luther’s catechism was set aside, and in A.D. 1597 a document was produced, consisting of twenty-eight Calvinistic articles with a modified doctrine of predestination, which all the pastors under pain of banishment from the country, were required to subscribe. The most active agents in this movement were Caspar Peucer (§ 141, 10), who had been expelled from Wittenberg, and the superintendent Wolfgang Amling of Zerbst. In A.D. 1644, however, Anhalt-Zerbst returned to the old Lutheran Confession, under Prince John, who had been trained up by his mother in the Lutheran faith.

III. The Deformation.

§ 145. CHARACTER OF THE DEFORMATION.

That in a spiritual movement so powerful as that which the Reformation called forth enthusiasts and extremists of various sorts should seek to push forward their fancies and vagaries is nothing more than might have been expected. But that such excrescences are not to be charged against the Reformation, as constituting an essential part of it, may be shown from the way in which the Reformation and the Deformation are constantly put in antagonism with one another. The starting point is clearly the same in the one case as in the other; namely, opposition to and revolt against the debased condition of the church of the age. But the Reformation distinguishes itself completely from the very first from the Deformation, often joins its forces even with those of Catholicism in order to secure the overthrow of what it regarded as a false and dangerous development; and so generally we find the champions of that movement manifesting as bitter a hatred toward the Protestant reformers as toward the Romanists. Its origin is to be explained by the tendency inherent in human nature, when once embarked on a course of opposition, to rush to the extreme of radicalism, which showed itself in this case partly in the form of rationalism, partly in the form of mysticism. The Reformation recognised the word of God in Holy Scripture as the only rule and standard in matters of religion, and as a judge and arbiter over tradition. The rationalistic spirit in the deformatory movement, on the other hand, subordinates Holy Scripture to reason, and estimates revealed truth in accordance with the supposed requirement of logical thought. The Reformation offers opposition to the Catholic deification of the church, but the Deformation goes the length of contesting the divinity of Christ (Antitrinitarians and Unitarians). On the other hand, the mystical side of the Deformation, which not infrequently amounts to a more or less clearly expressed pantheism, may be regarded as an extreme and exaggerated statement of the reformers’ demand for a more spiritual conception of the religious life in opposition to the externalism of Romanism. It places alongside of the word as expressed in Holy Scripture what it calls an inner illumination by the Holy Spirit as an equally high or even a higher kind of revelation, despises the sacraments, as well as all public or external forms of Divine worship. A third deformatory tendency, and that indeed which during the Reformation era was most powerful, is represented by Anabaptism. The ultra-reformatory endeavours of the movement aimed, not only at directing the private and ecclesiastical life of the individual Christian, but also at reconstructing, according to what it regarded as the apostolic standard, the whole fabric of the social and civil life. It derived its name from the demand for rebaptism which was made as a consequence of the denial of the usefulness and validity of infant baptism. This was, indeed, the one common term of its confession, in which its members, giving way in many directions to individualistic subjective peculiarities, were required to agree. Adult baptism was thus made the characteristic note of their community as a distinct sect.

The Catholic notions prevailing during the Middle Ages as to the manner in which heretics ought to be treated were so firmly held by the Protestants, that even Calvin without hesitation, in A.D. 1553, delivered over one who denied the doctrine of the Trinity (§ 148, 2) to be punished by the civil authorities. Their sentence of death by fire at the stake was carried out under his sanction and that of almost all the notable reformers of the day, Bullinger and Farel, Beza and Viret, Œcolampadius, Bucer, and Peter Martyr, even Melanchthon and Urbanus Rhegius. At an earlier period indeed Luther had occasionally, roused to indignation by what he beheld of the horrors of the Inquisition, opposed the idea that heretics as such should be punished with torture and death, and gradually he secured the victory in Protestant theory and practice for the view that heretics as such should neither be compelled to retract nor be put to death, but rather should be brought to a better mind and put out of the way of doing harm by imprisonment or banishment.

§ 146. MYSTICISM AND PANTHEISM.

Besides the true evangelical mysticism within the church, which Luther throughout his whole life esteemed very highly as a deepening of the Christian religious life, and which the Lutheran church had never ruled out of its pale, an unevangelical as well as thoroughly anti-ecclesiastical mysticism broke out at a very early period in quite a multitude of different forms. In the case of Schwenkfeld this tendency, though characterized by very decided hostility to the church, occupied an advantageous position, as well by the attitude which it assumed to theology as from the quiet and sober manner in which it conducted its propaganda. Agrippa and Paracelsus are representatives of a mysticism with a basis in natural philosophy, which was wrought out into fantastic forms by Valentine Weigel in his theosophy. Sebastian Franck drew his mysticism from the fountains of Eckhart’s and Tauler’s writings; and Giordano Bruno, by his wild, almost delirious mysticism, culminating in the boldest pantheism, won for himself the fiery stake. The French Libertins spirituels embraced a sublime antinomian pantheism, while the Familists, who appeared at a later period in England, were banded together in the service of an apotheosis of love like the members of one family.

§ 146.1. Schwenkfeld and his Followers.—Among the mystics of the Reformation period hostile to the church, Caspar Schwenkfeld, a Silesian nobleman of an old family, of the line of Ossingk, holds a prominent and honourable place as a man of deep and genuine piety. At first he attached himself with enthusiasm to the Wittenberg Reformation; but as it advanced his heart, which was exclusively set upon an inward, mystical Christianity, became dissatisfied. In A.D. 1525 he met personally with Luther at Wittenberg. The friendly relations that were maintained there, notwithstanding all the divergences that became apparent on fundamental matters and in the way of looking at things, soon gave place on Schwenkfeld’s side to open antagonism. He expressed himself strongly in reference to his dissatisfaction with the Wittenberg reformers, saying that he would rather join the papists than the Lutherans. Even in A.D. 1528 he had been expelled from his native land, and now began operations at Strassburg, where Bucer opposed him; and then, in A.D. 1534, in Swabia, where he encountered the vigorous opposition of Jac. Andreä. In every place he set himself in direct antagonism, not only to the German, but also to the Swiss reformers, and engaged in incessant controversies with the theologians, working steadily in the interests of a reformation in accordance with his own peculiar views. He died in A.D. 1561 at Ulm, and left behind him in Swabia and Silesia a handful of followers, who, in A.D. 1563, issued a complete edition of the “Christian Orthodox Books and Writings of the Noble and Faithful Man, Caspar Schwenkfeld,” in four folio volumes. Expelled from Silesia in A.D. 1728, many of them fled into the neighbouring state of Lausitz, others to Pennsylvania in North America, where they found some small communities. What Schwenkfeld so keenly objected to in the Lutheran Reformation was nothing else than its firm biblico-ecclesiastical objectivity. Luther’s adherence to the unconditional authority of the word of God he declared to be a worship of the letter. He himself gave to the inner word of God’s Spirit in men a place superior to the outward word of God in Scripture. All external institutions of the church met with his most uncompromising opposition. In a manner similar to that of Osiander (§ 141, 2), he identified justification and sanctification, and explained it as an incarnation of Christ in the believer. Rejecting the doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum, he taught a thorough “deifying of the flesh of Christ,” having its foundation in the birth by the Virgin Mary, regenerated in faith and completed by suffering, death, and resurrection; so that in His state of exaltation His Divine and human natures are perfectly combined into one. Infant baptism he condemned, and affirmed that a regenerate person can live without sin. In the Lord’s Supper according to him everything depended upon the inward operation of the Spirit. The bread in the sacrament is only a symbol of the spiritual truth that Christ is the true bread for the soul. He laid special emphasis on John vi. 51, and regarded the τοῦτο of the words of institution not as the subject but as the predicate: “My body is this;” i.e. is bread unto eternal life.[416]

§ 146.2. Agrippa, Paracelsus, and Weigel.—Agrippa von Nettesheim, who died in A.D. 1535, a man of extensive and varied scholarship, who boasted of his knowledge of secret things, led an exceedingly changeful and adventurous career as a statesman and soldier, taught medicine, theology, and jurisprudence, lashed the monks with his biting satires, so that they had him persecuted as a heretic, contended against the belief in witchcraft, exposed mercilessly in his treatise De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum the weak points of the dominant scholasticism, and in opposition to it wrought out in his book De occulta philosophia his own system of cabbalistic mystical philosophy.—A man of a quite similar type was the learned Swiss physician Philip Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus Paracelsus of Hohenheim, who died in A.D. 1541; a man of genius and a profound thinker, but with an ill-regulated imagination and an over-luxuriant fancy, which led him to profess that he had found the solution of all the mysteries of the Divine nature, as well as of terrestrial and super-terrestrial nature, and that he had discovered the philosopher’s stone. These two continued to retain their position within the limits of the Catholic church.—Valentine Weigel, on the contrary, who died in A.D. 1588, was a Lutheran pastor at Schopau in Saxony, universally respected for his consistent, godly character and his earnest, devoted labours. His mystico-theosophical tendency, influenced by Tauler and Paracelsus, came to be fully understood only long after his death by the publication of his practical works, “Church and House Postils on the Gospels,” “A Book on Prayer,” “A Directory for Attaining the Knowledge of all things without Error,” etc.; and down to the nineteenth century he had many followers among the quiet and contemplative throughout the land. While utterly depreciating as well the theology of the church as all sorts of external forms in worship, he placed all the more weight upon the inner light and the anointing with the Spirit of God, without which all teaching and prayer will be vain. In man he sees a microcosmus of the universe, and man’s growth in holiness he regarded as a continuation of the incarnation of God in him. He still allowed a place to the doctrine of the church as an allegorical shell for the knowledge of the soul to God and the world, and from this it may be explained how he was able unhesitatingly to subscribe the Formula of Concord. Bened. Biedermann, who was for a long time his deacon, and then his successor in the pastoral office, sympathised with his master’s views, and subsequently made vigorous attempts to disseminate them in his writings. On this account he was deposed in A.D. 1660.[417]

§ 146.3. Franck, Thamer, and Bruno.—Sebastian Franck of Donauwört, in Swabia, a learned printer and voluminous writer in German and Latin, for some time also a soap-boiler, had attached himself enthusiastically to the Reformation, which for several years he served as an evangelical pastor. Subsequently, however, he broke off from it, condemned and abused with sharp criticism and biting satire all the theological movements of his age, demanded unrestricted religious liberty, defended the Anabaptists against the intolerance of the theologians, and sought satisfaction for himself in a mysticism tending toward pantheism constructed out of Erigena, Eckhart, and Tauler. Among his theologico-philosophical writings, the most important are the “Golden Ark, or Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil,” and especially the 280 spirited “Paradoxa, i.e. Wonderful Words out of Holy Scripture.” Against what he regarded as the idolatrous worship of the letter in Luther’s theology he directed “The Book sealed with Seven Seals.” In unreconciled contradictions collected in this tract out of Scripture he thinks to be able to prove that God Himself wished to warn us against the deifying of the letter. The letter is the devil’s seat, the sword of antichrist; he has the letter on his side, the spirit against him. With the letter the old Pharisees slew Christ, and their modern representatives are doing the same to-day. The letter killeth, the spirit alone giveth life. He also attached very little importance to the sacrament and external ordinances. He makes no distinction, or at most only one of degree, between God and nature. God, God’s Word, God’s Son, the Holy Spirit, and nature are with him only various aspects or manifestations of the same power, which is all in all; and his theory of evil inclines strongly to dualism. On the other side, he deserves the heartiest recognition as a German prose writer in respect of the purity, copiousness, and refinement of his style, and as the author of the first text books of history and geography in the German language. After a changeful and eventful life in several cities of South Germany, having been expelled successively from Nuremberg, Strassburg, and Ulm, he died at Basel in A.D. 1542.—A career in every point resembling his was that of Theobald Thamer, of Alsace. After having sat at the feet of Luther in Wittenberg as an enthusiastic disciple, he took up an attitude of opposition to the Reformation by giving absolute determining authority to the subjective principle of conscience, and by the rejection of the Lutheran doctrine of justification. He went over ultimately to the Roman Catholic church in A.D. 1557, to seek there the peace of soul that he had lost, and died as professor of theology at Freiburg, in A.D. 1569.—A far more powerful thinker than either of these two was the Italian Dominican monk, Giordano Bruno of Nola. His violent and abusive invectives against monkery, transubstantiation, and the immaculate conception obliged him, in A.D. 1580, to flee to Geneva. From thence he betook himself to Paris, where he delivered lectures on the ars magna of Lullus (§ 103, 7); afterwards spent several years in London engaged in literary work, from A.D. 1586 to A.D. 1588 taught at Wittenberg, and on leaving that place delivered an impassioned eulogy on Luther. After a further continued life of adventure during some years in Germany, he returned to Italy, and was burnt in Rome in A.D. 1600 as a heretic. A complete edition of his numerous writings in the Italian language does not exist. These are partly allegorico-satirical, partly metaphysical, on the idea of the Divine unity and universality, in which the poetical and philosophical are blended together. He adopted the doctrine of God set forth by Nicholas of Cusa (§ 113, 6), representing the deity as at once the maximum and the minimum, and carried out this idea to its logical conclusion in pantheism. Bruno deserves special recognition as a consistent protester against the geocentric theories of ecclesiastical scholastic science, and for this merits a place among the first apologists of the Copernican system.[418]

§ 146.4. The Pantheistic Libertine Sects of the Spirituals in France, reminding us in theory and practice of the mediæval Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit (§ 116, 5), had their origin in the Walloon provinces of the Netherlands. As early as A.D. 1529 a certain Coppin preached their gospel in his native city of Lille or Ryssel. Quintin and Pocquet, both from the province of Hennegau, transplanted it to France in A.D. 1530. At the court of the liberal-minded and talented Queen Margaret of Navarre (§ 120, 8), they found at first a hearty welcome, and from this centre carried on secretly a successful propaganda, until Calvin’s influence over the queen, as well as his energetic polemic, “Against the Fantastic and Mad Sect of the Libertines, who call themselves Spirituals, A.D. 1545,” put a stop to their further progress. The contemporary Libertines of Geneva (§ 138, 3, 4), who rose up against the rigoristic church discipline of Calvin, are not to be confounded with these Netherland-French Libertines, although their apostle Pocquet also lived and laboured for a long time in Geneva. The impudent immorality of the Genevan Libertines was quite different from the moral levity of the Spirituels, which had always a spiritualistic-pantheistic significance, their characteristics consisting rather in a broad denial of and contempt for Christian doctrines and the facts of gospel history.

§ 146.5. Under the name of Familists, Familia charitatis, Henry Nicolai or Nicholas of Münster, who had previously been closely related to David Joris (§ 148, 1), founded a new mystical sect in England during the reign of Elizabeth. They were distinguished from the Anabaptists by treating with indifference the question of infant baptism. Nicholas appeared as the apostle of love in and through which the mystical deification of man is accomplished. Although uneducated, he composed several works, and in one of these designated himself as “endowed with God in the spirit of His love.” His followers have been charged with immoral practices, and the doctrine has been ascribed to them that Christ is nothing more than a Divine condition communicating itself to all the saints.[419]

§ 147. ANABAPTISM.[420]

The fanatical ultra-reforming tendencies which characterize the later so called Anabaptism, first made their appearance within the area of the Saxon reformation. They now broke forth in wild revolutionary tumults, and were fundamentally the same as the earlier Wittenberg exhibitions (§ 124). In this instance, too, passionate opposition was shown to the continuance of infant baptism, without, however, proceeding so far as decidedly to insist upon rebaptism, and making that a common bond and badge to distinguish and hold together separate communities of their own, inspired by that fundamental tendency. This was done first in A.D. 1525 among the representatives of ultra-reform movements, who soon secured a position for themselves on Swiss soil. And thus, while in central Germany this movement was being utterly crushed in the Peasant War, Switzerland became the nursery and hotbed of Anabaptism. Its leaders when driven out spread through southern and south-eastern Germany as far as the Tyrol and Moravia, and founded communities in all the larger and in many of the smaller towns. And although in A.D. 1531 the Anabaptists, with the exception of some very small and insignificant remnants, were rooted out of Switzerland, yet in A.D. 1540 they were able to send out a new colony to settle in Venice, in order to carry on the work of proselytising in Italy.—Chiefly through the instrumentality of the south German apostles, Anabaptist communities and conventicles were sown broadcast over the whole of the north-west as far as the Baltic and the North Sea. And even as early as the beginning of A.D. 1530 there issued from the Netherlands an independent movement of a peculiarly violent, fanatical, and revolutionary character, which spread far and wide. In A.D. 1534, John of Leyden set up his Anabaptist kingdom in Münster with endless glitter and display, and sent out messengers over all the world to gather the “people of God” together into the “new Zion.” The unfortunate termination of his short reign, however, had a sobering influence upon the excited enthusiasts, so that they resolved to abandon those revolutionary and socialistic tendencies, to which their brethren in south and east Germany had never given way, or, if at all, only in isolated cases where they had been carried away by chiliastic expectations. Yet were they in the north as well as in the south, afterwards as well as before, mercilessly persecuted on all hands, almost as severely by the Protestant as by the Catholic governments, and often imprisoned in crowds, banished, scourged, drowned, hanged, beheaded, burnt. Under all these tribulations they developed a truly wonderful persistency of belief, and exhibited a heroic martyr spirit. To collect their scattered remnants, and to save them from destruction by a calm and sensible reformation, was the work to which from A.D. 1536 Menno Simons unweariedly applied himself.

§ 147.1. The Anabaptist Movement in General.—The name of Anabaptists has always been repudiated by those so designated as a calumnious nickname and term of reproach. And, in fact, it is clearly inadequate, inasmuch as it does not characterize either the regulating principle or the essential core and nature of the aim of the party, which had been already fully developed before rebaptism had been set up as a term of membership. Within their own constituted congregations no second baptism found place, but only one baptism of adults on the ground of a personal profession of faith. Nevertheless, the rejected designation had, at the time at which it had originated, this justification, that then all the members of this community actually were rebaptizers or had been rebaptized; and the introduction of a second baptism, as it was the result and consequence of their fundamental principle, became also the occasion, means, and basis for their incorporation into an independent denomination.—The representatives of the Anabaptist movement showed their ultra-reforming character by this, that while at one with Luther and Zwingli in seeking the overthrow of all views and practices of the Roman Catholic church regarded by them as unevangelical, they characterized the position of the reformers as a halting half way, and so denounced them as still deeply rooted in the antichristian errors of the papacy. And because the reformers firmly repudiated them, and vigorously opposed and refused to countenance those radical demands and fanatical chiliastic expectations of theirs that went so much further, they turned upon them and their reformed institutions often with a fury and bitterness even more intense than they manifested to their Romish opponents. Most offensive to them was the attitude of the reformers toward the civil authorities. They were especially indignant at the reformers for not rejecting with scorn the help of magistrates in carrying out the Reformation movement, for recognising, not only the right, but the duty of civil rulers to co-operate in the reconstruction of the church, to exercise control over the ecclesiastical and religious life of the community as well as of each individual, to see to the maintenance of church order, and to visit the refractory with civil penalties. Then their innermost principle was the endeavour to make a complete and thorough distinction between the kingdom of nature and the kingdom of grace, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world, of the converted and the unconverted, so as to restore a visible kingdom of saints by gathering together all true believers from all sections of the utterly corrupted church into a new holy communion of the regenerate. Thus they would prepare the way for the promised millennium, when the saints shall rule the world. The State, with its penalties and punishments, belongs essentially to the domain of evil, and is to be endured only so long as there are unbelievers and unconverted people, who alone are under its jurisdiction. The community of true Christians, on the other hand, is in no need of any secular magistracy, for this law, which the civil power administers, concerns only the unrighteous and evildoers. But in matters of religion and the inner man, the civil authority can have no manner of right to interfere; as, on the other hand, believers ought not to accept any sort of magisterial office or civic rank. Freedom in matters of conscience, religion, worship, and doctrine is a fundamental axiom, which forms the primary privilege of every religious denomination, and the only admissible punishment in connection with religious questions is exclusion from the particular community. The only unconditionally valid legislative code for Christians is the Bible. To the law of the State, however, he is not to submit at all in spiritual things, and even in temporal things only in so far as Holy Scripture and his own conscience, enlightened by the Spirit of God, do not enter a protest; but where the injunction of a magistrate oversteps the limit, he must offer strenuous resistance, and contend even to blood and death.—With respect to the mode of life and activity within the ranks of the community, the peculiarly high claims which they put forth to be regarded as a congregation of chosen saints demanded that they should insist upon the actual personal conversion and regeneration of each individual member, the exclusion of everything sinful and worldly by means of a rigidly strict discipline, and where necessary by expulsion from church fellowship, as well as the avoiding of all needless intercourse with the unconverted and unbelieving, and the exercise of true and perfect brotherly love toward one another, which also, so far as present circumstances might admit, should evidence itself in the voluntary sharing of goods. As a condition of the admission of any individual into the community proof had to be given of repentance and faith, and as an authenticating seal on the one side of the entrance being granted, and on the other side of the obligation being undertaken, baptism was administered, which now, as infant baptism was denounced as an invention of the devil, was understood simply of adult baptism, for the most part administered in the usual way by sprinkling. The ecclesiastical constitution of the regularly formed congregations was modelled after what they regarded as the apostolic type. Their congregational worship was extremely simple, quite free of any ornament or ceremony. Their doctrinal system, owing to the prominence given to the practical and the ethical, was but poorly developed, and was therefore never set forth in a confession of faith obligatory on all the communities. Upon the whole, they inclined more to the Zwinglian than to the Lutheran type of doctrine, especially in their views of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The grand Reformation dogma of justification by faith alone was rejected, as also the idea that even the regenerate may not in this world attain unto perfect sinlessness. Here and there, too, antitrinitarian views found entrance, but the majority firmly adhered to the œcumenical faith of the church, or at least soon returned to it. Chiliastic theories and expectations were widely spread, but the attempts to realize them in the present by means of revolutionary movements were soon recognised and denounced as mischievous, and so, too, the fanatical, pseudo-prophetic craze by which many of the leaders of the movement were carried away came by-and-by to be discredited.

§ 147.2. Keller, in his Reformation und die ält. Reformparteien of 1885, has undertaken to give a historical basis to a view of the origin and character of the Anabaptist movement diverging in several important respects from the one that has hitherto been generally accepted. He sees in the tendency of the Swiss Anabaptist to go beyond the position taken up by Luther and Zwingli not merely, as several earlier investigators had already done, a revival of certain mediæval endeavours at reform, but an actual, uninterrupted continuation of these, involving, not only a relationship, whether conscious or unconscious, but also a close historico-genetic and personal connection with “those old evangelical brotherhoods, which through many centuries, under many names,” in spite of persecutions that raged against them, still survived in secret remnants down into the 16th century. Of these brotherhoods, during the 12th century, the Waldensians formed the heart and core. Their precursors were the Petrubrusians [Petrobrusians], the Apostolic Brothers, the Arnoldists, the Humiliati, etc.; their successors and spiritual kinsmen were the heretical Beghards and Lollards, the Spirituals together with Marsilius of Padua and King Louis of Bavaria, the German mystics, the Friends of God and Winkelers, the Dutch Brethren of the Common Life, and, in specially close association with the German Waldensians, the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren; of like character, too, were John Staupitz, the Zucker family of Nuremberg, Albert Dürer, and a great number of other notables belonging to the first decades of the 16th century. And these all, as belonging to one and the same spiritual family, and forming an unbroken chain, link joined to link, when church and State raged against them with fire and sword, found always nurseries and places of refuge in those “noble corporations of builders and masons,” whose tried organization was made by them the basis of the church constitution, and has thus been handed down to modern times. Luther, who, moved by Staupitz and the study of Tauler and the “Deutsche Theologie,” was at first inclined to throw himself into the spiritual current, from A.D. 1521 more and more withdrew himself from it, and even Zwingli detached himself from it on account of some proceedings which he did not approve. The origin of the so called Anabaptism is thus, not merely traced back to these two great reformers, but rather is conditioned by the firm maintenance of a primitive evangelical tendency, from which those two turned aside. In the one case we have “new evangelicals,” founding a new communion; in the other, “old evangelicals,” conserving and continuing the old communion. And not Zürich, where the Anabaptist movement began to get a footing in A.D. 1524, but Basel, was its true birthplace. There in A.D. 1515 the liberal-minded printers Frobenius, Curio, and Cratander, who first printed the reformatory writings of the Middle Ages, repeatedly gathered the secret representatives and friends of those old brotherhoods from their hidings in the mountains of Switzerland and Savoy, as well as from the south of France and Germany, in their “chapter sessions,” held there in order to consult about the founding of new brotherhoods; and from thence the opposition to infant baptism was first transplanted to Zürich.—But these “chapter sessions” served quite another purpose than the fostering of Waldensian and Anabaptist societies, and were rather devoted to advancing the interests of liberalistic humanism and scholarship. And the embracing together of all the above-named sects as representing one and the same spiritual current, though supported by a great many combinations, guesses, suppositions, and deductions, which from their very boldness and the confidence with which they are stated are often startling, seems to be utterly untenable, and to proceed not so much from an unbiassed study of original sources as from a prejudiced judgment manipulating the facts with great art and skill. In conclusion, then, Keller proceeds to deal with the later actors in the Anabaptist movement, and finds them not only in the Mennonites and Puritans, but also in the freemason lodges, the Rosicrucians, and Pietists. Even the spiritual tendencies of Lessing, Kant, to a certain extent also of Schiller, also of Schleiermacher, through his connection with the Brethren of Herrnhut, seem to him determined and dominated by this same fundamental principle! The baselessness of Keller’s arguments has been thoroughly exposed by Kolde and Carl Müller, yet he continues unweariedly to repeat and set them forth.

§ 147.3. The Swiss Anabaptists.—Even in German Switzerland, although the reformers of that country had proceeded much further than the Saxon reformers in the direction of removing every vestige of Roman Catholicism in constitution, doctrine, worship, and discipline, ultra-reforming tendencies soon made their appearance among those who thought that such changes were not radical and thorough enough. Here, too, the refusal to recognise infant baptism was made specially prominent. Indeed even Zwingli himself at first pronounced against its necessity and serviceableness. According to him, baptism was not, as with Luther, a means of grace, but analogous to the circumcision of the Old Testament—a sign of obligation, by means of which the subject of baptism accepted the Christian faith and life as binding upon him. Thus he was inclined for a time to depreciate infant baptism, without however declaring it absolutely unallowable. But when subsequently it became apparent that the radical opposition to it on the part of its former friends, and their insisting upon the obligation to observe only adult baptism, proceeded from an ultra-reforming tendency, which threatened with ruin much that was necessary to ecclesiastical and civil order, and tended to make the extremest consequences of these views the very foundation of their system, he expressed himself all the more decidedly in favour of having infant baptism obligatorily retained.—The most zealous leaders of the Anabaptist movement in Switzerland were Conrad Grebel, a cultured humanist, son of a distinguished Zürich senator, already designated by Zwingli as “the coryphæus of the Baptists;” Felix Manz, also a humanist, and famous as an earnest promoter of Hebrew studies, but drowned in A.D. 1527 by order of the Zürich council; George Jacobs, a monk of Chur in the Grison country, commonly called Blaurock, on account of his dress; Louis Hätzer of Thurgau, etc. Besides these native Swiss, the following also wrought with equal enthusiasm for the promotion of the Anabaptist cause: William Röubli, a priest banished from Rottenburg on the Neckar on account of his evangelical zeal; Simon Stumpf, who had migrated from Franconia, and Michael Sattler from Breisgau; but above all the famous Balthazar Hubmeier, a scholar of John Eck, distinguished as a popular preacher and an indefatigable apologist and skilful polemical writer on the side of the Anabaptists. He was, in A.D. 1512, professor of theology at Ingolstadt, in A.D. 1516 pastor of the cathedral church of Regensburg; from whence, in A.D. 1522, already powerfully influenced in favour of evangelical truth by Luther’s writings, he removed to Waldshut, and there entered on the work of the Reformation, but afterwards decided against the continuance of infant baptism and in favour of Anabaptism. The Austrian government, under whose protectorate Waldshut was, demanded that he should be delivered up, which the governor steadfastly refused to do. But when, in Dec., 1525, Waldshut was obliged to surrender at discretion, he fled to Zürich, was there taken prisoner, and was driven, through fear of being delivered up to Austria, to make a public recantation. He then left Zürich and passed over into Moravia.—The original home of the Anabaptist movement in Switzerland was Zürich and its neighbourhood. At Wyticon and Zollicon, Röubli publicly preached in A.D. 1524 against infant baptism, and persuaded several parents to refuse to have their young children baptized. When, in Jan., 1525, the Zürich council voted for the expulsion of all ultra-reform agitators, these assembled together on the evening preceding their departure for mutual edification and establishment by prayer and Scripture reading. Then Blaurock rose, and besought Grebel “for God’s sake to baptize him with the true Christian baptism into the true faith,” and, when this was done, imparted it himself to all others present. The same sort of thing happened soon after at Waldshut, where Hubmeier on Easter Eve received baptism by the hand of Röubli, and then on Easter Day conferred it upon 110 and afterwards upon more than 300 individuals. In this way a thorough break was made, not only with the old Catholics, but also with the young reformed Church, and the foundation of an independent Anabaptist community laid, which now with rapid strides spread over the whole of reformed Switzerland. Thus originated, e.g., the twelve Anabaptist congregations that existed in Zürich and neighbourhood as early as A.D. 1527, the twenty-five in the Zürich highlands, and also the sixteen which in A.D. 1531 were to be found in the Zürich lowlands. An attempt was next made to diffuse information among the sectaries and convert them from their errors by means of discussions and controversial tracts, Zwingli lending his aid by word and pen; and then resort was had to fines and imprisonment. In June, 1525, St. Gall, following the example of Zürich, issued sentence of banishment against the Baptists. But as the expulsion of the leaders in no degree contributed to the crushing of the communities, which rather gathered strength in secret, and as the exiles were now for the first time fully able to spread over all lands the seeds of their Anabaptist doctrines, it was finally concluded that capital punishment was a necessity. The Zürich council, in March, 1527, issued an edict, according to which all rebaptizers and rebaptized were without exception to be drowned, and this example was followed by the other magistrates. In consequence of the general persecution that followed the Anabaptist agitation in Switzerland might be regarded as stamped out in A.D. 1531, although here and there little groups meeting in remote and hidden corners, under constant threat of prison and death, dragged out a miserable existence for some twenty years more.[421]

§ 147.4. The South German Anabaptists.—The Anabaptists expelled from Switzerland in A.D. 1525 spread first of all over the neighbouring south German provinces. Blaurock, publicly whipped in Zürich, returned to the Grison country, and, when again driven out of that refuge, to the Tyrol, where the Anabaptist views found uncommonly great favour. Röubli and Sattler retired to Alsace, where Strassburg especially became one of the chief nurseries of Anabaptism, and from thence they carried on a successful mission work in Swabia. Louis Hätzer and John Denck (§ 148, 1) gathered a large following in Nuremberg, Augsburg, and Strassburg; also in Passau, Regensburg, and Munich; then pressing eastward along the Inn and the Danube, their adherents founded Anabaptist communities in Salzburg, Styria, Linz, Stein, and even in Vienna. They found the greatest success of all among the industrial classes, and travelling artisans proved their most zealous apostles. Although, beyond carrying on an unwearied propaganda on behalf of their own religious confession, they almost invariably refused to identify themselves with any other sort of social and political agitation, they were on all hands most cruelly persecuted; no city, no country town, no village was beyond the reach of inquisitorial scrutiny. Their radical extirpation was, by the decision of the diet at Spires in A.D. 1529, represented as a duty to the empire resting upon all; for the sixth section of its decrees enjoined that “each and all of the rebaptizers and rebaptized, both men and women, come to years of discretion, should be brought to the stake and block or suchlike death without any trial before the spiritual judge.” Most blood was indeed shed in lands under Catholic governments. In the Tyrol and in Görz, for example, it is said that, even in A.D. 1531, the number executed was over 1,000, among whom was Blaurock, who was burnt in A.D. 1529. Sebastian Franck, in A.D. 1530, estimated the number of the slain at somewhere about 2,000, and the heat of the persecution only began with that year. Duke William of Bavaria went furthest, with the atrocious order, “Whoever recants, let him be beheaded; whoever refuses to recant, let him be burnt alive.” But also Protestant governments, princes, and magistrates took part more or less zealously in the work of extermination recommended in the interests of the empire. Only the Landgrave Philip of Hesse and the magistrates of Strassburg kept at least their hands clean from blood, although they also by imprisoning and banishing did their best to prevent the spread of this heresy in their domains.

§ 147.5. The Moravian Anabaptists.—Balthazar Hubmeier, banished, in A.D. 1526, from Zürich, had found in Nikolsburg in Moravia a place of refuge. Under the powerful and far-reaching protection of the lords of Liechtenstein, which he obtained for his gospel, Moravia became “a delightsome land,” and Nikolsburg a “New Jerusalem” to the sorely oppressed Anabaptists, who had been hunted like wild beasts and made homeless wanderers. And there they remained, notwithstanding severe hostile attacks, from which they repeatedly suffered, especially between the years 1536 and 1554. This was followed by “the good time,” from A.D. 1554 to 1565, and from A.D. 1565 to 1592 by “the golden age” of the community, now consisting of 15,000 brethren. With A.D. 1592 began again “the times of tribulation,” until their church, as well as Protestantism generally throughout the country, received its deathblow. According to their numerous “chronicles” and “memoirs,” describing to their posterity the fortunes of the community, dating from A.D. 1524, the number of Anabaptists put to death up to A.D. 1581 in Switzerland, South Germany, and throughout the Austrian States was 2,419. Hubmeier had already, by the end of A.D. 1527, after Moravia had come under Austrian rule, been made prisoner in Vienna, along with his wife; and there, in the spring of A.D. 1528, he went to the stake with the heroic spirit of a martyr. Three days later his wife, showing the same bold contempt for death, was drowned in the Danube. In A.D. 1531 James Huter, from the Tyrol, stood at the head of the Moravian Anabaptists. Owing to the persecution which from A.D. 1529 raged there against his companions in the faith, he migrated thence with 150 brethren. He succeeded in composing the many splits and quarrels which had broken out in consequence of these migrations among the various sorts of Anabaptists from Silesia, Bavaria, Swabia, and the Palatinate, and managed to organize them in one united body with the earlier settlers. His reputation and influence were consequently so great that the community took the name from him of the “Huterian Brethren.” During the persecution which was directed against them in A.D. 1535 he fled to the Tyrol, but was there taken prisoner and burnt in March, 1536.—The Moravian Anabaptists, who had been with perfect propriety designated “the quiet of the land,” were characterized by exemplary piety, strict discipline, moral earnestness, industrial diligence, conscientious obedience to the laws, unexampled patience and gentleness amid all sufferings, but, above all, by the astonishing courage of their martyrs and fortitude under torture. In regard to doctrine, with the exception of a few “false brethren” affected with Socinian views, they unanimously and from the first acknowledged their adherence to the œcumenical symbols. Their mode of worship was of an extremely simple character. As sacraments, i.e. as “symbols of a holy thing,” they recognised

1. true Christian baptism, i.e. that of grown up people who professed repentance and faith;

2. the Lord’s Supper as a festival, in memory of the sufferings and death of Christ, as well as a thanksgiving for the grace of God thereby enjoyed, and as expression of the church’s faith in it;

3. Marriage as a symbol of the espousals of Christ and His church (Eph. v. 23-32); and in some fashion

4. the laying on of the hands of the elders in the ordination of the clergy.

Mass, confirmation, extreme unction, confession, and indulgence, worship of images, saints, and relics, as well as infant baptism, were utterly rejected by them. They were equally decided in denying all merit in fasting and observing the feast days, in repudiating the doctrine of purgatory, and many of the ceremonies of the Romish church. They also rejected the Lutheran and Zwinglian doctrine of justification, which they regarded as a remnant of antichristian Romanism. But as the true and only communion of saints they regarded themselves as alone constituting the true church. At the head of their community stood

1. a bishop; and

2. next him the ministers of the Lord, divided into apostles with the missionary calling for the spread of the church, preachers, and pastors over particular congregations, and helpers to give assistance to these;

3. ministers of benevolence, i.e. dispensers to the poor and administrators of the possessions of the church; and

4. the elders, as representatives of the church in conducting its government.

A particularly important factor for maintaining the union of the scattered communities was the synodal constitution introduced by Hubmeier. The superintendents of the smaller circuits met together for consultation weekly, and the deputies from the larger circuits met together once a month; while the general synods, embracing also the brethren beyond the bounds of Moravia, were convened for purposes of administration once a year, when that was possible.—Continuation, § 162, 2.

§ 147.6. The Venetian Anabaptists.—Down to the year 1540 the evangelical reform movement in Italy (§ 139, 22-24) had an essentially Lutheran orthodox character. But after that an Anabaptist current set in, coming probably from Switzerland, and communicated through Italian refugees residing there, which subsequently took the direction of a unitarian rationalistic movement. Its main centre was in the domain of Venice, and its most zealous promoter an Italian, an exile from home on account of his faith, Tiziano, who, with no fixed place of abode, resided sometimes on this side, sometimes on the other side of the Alps. Fuller knowledge of him we owe to the confessions of one of his scholars, Manelfi, recently discovered in the Venetian archives, which he wrote out voluntarily and penitently before the Inquisition, first at Bologna and then at Rome, in Oct. and Nov., 1551. Don Pietro Manelfi, priest at San Vito, was led, in A.D. 1540 or 1541, by the preaching of a Capuchin, Jerome Spinazola, to the conclusion that the Romish church is contrary to Holy Scripture, and is a human, yea, a devilish invention. This same priest also introduced him to Bernardino Ochino (§ 139, 24), who furnished him with several writings of Luther and Melanchthon, and taught him that the pope is antichrist and the mass satanic idolatry. Called by the “Lutherans” of Padua, he now for two years travelled through all northern Italy and Istria as Lutheran “minister of the word.” Then in Florence he made the acquaintance of Tiziano, and after long resistance yielded at last to be baptized by him. During a conversation which, in A.D. 1549, Tiziano had with him and several other friends at Vincenza, the question was raised, over Deuteronomy xviii. 18, whether Christ is God or man. It was agreed in order to decide the matter to summon an Anabaptist council, to meet at Vienna in Sept., 1550. There were somewhere about sixty deputies who responded, of whom between twenty and thirty were from Switzerland, mostly Italian refugees, who at the fortieth session of their secret conclave, “after prayer, fasting, and reading of Scripture,” laid down the following doctrinal propositions as binding upon all their congregations: “Christ is not God, but man, yet a man full of Divine power, son of Joseph and Mary, who after him bore also other sons and daughters: There are neither angels nor devil in the proper sense; but when in Holy Scripture angels appear, they are men sent by God for special purposes, and where the devil is spoken of the fleshly mind of man is meant: There is no other hell than the grave, in which the elect sleep in the Lord till they shall be awaked at the last day; while the souls of the ungodly, as well as their bodies, like those of the beasts, perish in death: To the human seed God has given the capacity of begetting the spirit as well as the body: The elect will be justified only by God’s mercy and love, without the merits, the blood, and the death of Christ: Christ’s death serves merely as a witness to the righteousness, i.e. ‘the mercy and love’ of God.” On their specifically Anabaptist doctrine, because not the subject of controversy, there was no deliverance. The denial of the supernatural birth of Christ, however, led to a limitation of the fundamental doctrine of the absolute authority of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament by the exclusion of the first chapters of the gospels of Matthew and Luke, which it was now affirmed had been forged by Jerome at the command of Pope Damasus. The decrees of the council were adopted by all the communities, with the exception of that of Citadella, which in consequence was cast out of the union. Manelfi, elected bishop, travelled in this capacity during a whole year among the churches assigned to him, always accompanied by a brother. Then he became penitent, and cast himself upon the grace of the papal Inquisition. His confessions, especially as bearing on the names and whereabouts of his former companions, Lutherans as well as Anabaptists, were sent from Rome to the Venetian tribunal of the Inquisition, which now began its work of persecution and vengeance with such zeal and success, that after some decades every trace of Lutheranism and Anabaptism was rooted out. Many escaped imprisonment by opportune flight; many also failed in courage, and retracted; but the steadfast confessors were burnt or drowned in great numbers. Meanwhile this fiery tribulation had proved in most of the communities a purifying fire. The radical heretic tendency that had prevailed since the council gave place by degrees to the more moderate views of earlier days. This change was greatly furthered by the close intimacy existing between the Italian Anabaptists and the Moravian Brethren from about the middle of A.D. 1550. The credit of having effected this alliance, and securing its benefits to their fellow countrymen, belongs especially to two noble-minded men, Francesco della Saga, formerly a student of Rovigo, and Giulio Gherardi, formerly subdeacon at Rome. But the latter, in A.D. 1561, the former a year later, fell into the hands of the Venetian Inquisition. After all attempts at conversion proved in vain, both were thrown by night into the Venice canal, Gherardi in A.D. 1562, and Saga in A.D. 1565.

§ 147.7. The older Apostles of Anabaptism in the North-West of Germany.—In the north-west no less than in the south and east, from the lower Rhine as far as Friesland and Holstein, in Jülich, Cleves, Berg, in Hesse, Westphalia, and Lower Saxony, as well as in Holland and Brabant, where the Reformation had begun to gain some footing, Anabaptism also secured an entrance and some success. Among their older apostles labouring in these regions the most distinguished were Hoffmann and Ring.

1. Melchior Hoffmann, a currier from Swabia, had even in his early home taken part in the religious movements of the age, and in A.D. 1524, in the prosecution of his handicraft, went to Livonia, and became the herald of these views in Wolmar, Dorpat, and Reval. When his followers in Dorpat broke down the images and attacked the monasteries, he was obliged to flee, and carried on his operations for some time in Stockholm (§ 139, 1). Expelled by-and-by from that city, he next made his appearance in Wittenberg. Luther took offence at his prophetic-apocalyptic fanaticism, and pointed him to his handicraft as his legitimate calling. He now went to Holstein, where King Frederick of Denmark afforded him a fixed residence at Kiel, with permission to preach throughout the whole land. By contesting the Lutheran doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, and representing the sacrament as of merely symbolical import, and the partaking as purely spiritual, he caused offence even here, and was, after a public disputation with Bugenhagen at Flensburg in A.D. 1529, driven out of the country. He sought refuge in Strassburg, where Bucer received him with open arms. There for the first time, under the influence of the Swiss Anabaptists, was full and clear expression given to those objections to infant baptism which long before had been cherished in his heart. He had himself baptized, and became from this time forth the most zealous apostle of Anabaptism throughout all North Germany. In this capacity he wrought unweariedly and successfully, issuing forth from Emden in East Friesland, where he had settled in A.D. 1529, and by his travels, preaching, and writings spread his doctrines far and wide. Besides his heterodox doctrine of the sacraments and his apocalyptic-fanaticism, which led him to proclaim that the second coming of Christ would take place within seven years, and ultimately to announce that he himself was the prophet Elias foretold in Malachi iv. 5, 6 as its forerunner, he brought forward his theory about the incarnation of Christ, according to which the eternal Word did not assume from Mary flesh and blood but Himself became flesh and passed through Mary, simply “as the sun shines through glass,” because otherwise not Christ’s but Mary’s flesh would have suffered for us. In other respects he utterly rejected the wild, fantastic notions of the Anabaptists which were some years later developed in Münster. In his own life he was thoughtful, pure, and strictly moral, in disposition mild, benevolent, and charitable. In A.D. 1533 we find him again at Strassburg, where his fanatical-prophetical preaching soon produced such dangerous results that the magistrates felt obliged to shut him up under bolts and bars, where he could be out of the way of doing mischief. He was still in prison in A.D. 1543, and from that time onward nothing more is known of him. But a sect of Melchiorites, by no means few in number, held their ground for a long time in Alsace and Lower Germany.

2. According to other accounts Melchior Ring, a currier of Swabia, is represented as having wrought during the same period and throughout the same places in Sweden, Livonia, Holstein, and East Friesland, entertaining similar christological, prophetico-apocalyptic, and Anabaptist views. The identity of the Christian name, fatherland, handicraft, doctrinal tenets, date, and spheres of labour is so striking, that one is almost tempted to identify him with Melchior Hoffmann, especially as John of Leyden in his later examination is said to have affirmed that Melchior Hoffmann had actually borne the name of Ring. We feel compelled, however, to maintain the distinctness of their personalities, since, according to Hochbuth’s researches in the history of the Anabaptists in the Hessian state, Ring had been actively engaged in Hesse at a time during which it can be proved that Hoffmann was at work elsewhere.

§ 147.8. So far in respect of place and time as the influence of Hoffmann reached,—and it seems down to the time of his imprisonment to have been widely predominant throughout the whole of the north-western district,—the life and movement of the Anabaptists there kept clear of any social revolutionary tendencies, and in their aberrations from the ways of the reformers were restricted to the purely religious domain. In the beginning of the year 1530, however, a movement broke forth again in Holland, in which there was a resurrection of the spirit of Thomas Münzer, and the demand for a thoroughly radical and revolutionary reconstruction of social and political relations was brought into prominence. The most important representative of this tendency was a baker, Jan Matthys of Haarlem, who, claiming to be a prophet, proclaimed the introduction of the millennium of glory as the proper and principal task of the Baptists. For the fulfilment of this task he insisted upon the overthrow of the present order in church and State, resistance to their enemies with weapons in hand, even the destruction of all “the ungodly” from the face of the earth, in order that “the saints,” as promised in Scripture, should rule over the world, and lead to completion the kingdom of God. The doctrine of the new prophets may even already have taken root in the minds of the Baptists, roused and excited by continued persecution, without their having clearly perceived what it would ultimately lead to if successfully carried out. But when in Münster these fanatical theories were shown forth as actual realized facts, when John of Leyden set up his pretentious kingdom in that “New Jerusalem,” and sent out into all the world his numerous apostles with the demand for adhesion, in many cases they found a too willing audience. The miserable collapse of the Münster kingdom was the first thing that again called people back to their senses, and rendered their remnants susceptible to the purification of Anabaptism to which Menno Simons devoted his whole life.

§ 147.9. The Münster Catastrophe, A.D. 1534, 1535.—The preacher Rothmann of Münster had for some time maintained the Zwinglian theory of the Lord’s Supper, and then he took a further step in the repudiation of infant baptism. A public disputation in A.D. 1533 yielded no result, and he refused to obey an order to retire into exile. He now sought, and that successfully, to increase his following, by the adoption of new elements of the Anabaptist creed. On the festival of the Three Holy Kings in A.D. 1534, John of Leyden or John Bockelssohn made his entrance into the city. An illegitimate son of a girl in the Münster province, brought up by relatives in Leyden, whither he returned after several years spent in travelling about as a journeyman tailor, he was in the autumn of A.D. 1533 converted by the prophet Matthys, and soon became his most zealous apostle. In Münster the young man, now in his twenty-fifth year, handsome in appearance and endowed with rich intellectual abilities, was favourably received in the house of a rich and respectable cloth merchant, Bernard Knipperdolling, who had been long interested in the religious movement, and married his daughter. In the meantime Jan Matthys also was called from Amsterdam to Münster. Both now wrought in common among the inhabitants of the city. Their sermons, delivered with glowing eloquence, produced a great impression, especially among the women, and their following grew to such an extent that they believed they might act in defiance of the council. In consequence of a riot the magistrates were weak and yielding enough to enter into an agreement with them by which they obtained legal recognition. Then from all sides Anabaptist fanatics crowded into Münster. After some weeks they secured a majority in the council, and Knipperdolling was made burgomaster. The prophet Matthys declared it to be God’s will that all unbelievers should be expelled. This was done on 27th February, 1534. Seven deacons divided among the believers the property of those who had been banished. In May the bishop began the siege of the city. This much at least resulted from that proceeding, that the epidemic was confined to Münster. After all images, organs, and books, with the exception of the Bible, had been destroyed, they introduced the principle of community of goods. Matthys, who regarded himself as called to slay the besieging foes, in a sortie fell by their swords. Bockelssohn took his place. The council in consequence of his revelations was dissolved, and a theocratical government of twelve elders, who were ready to receive their inspiration from the new prophet, was set up. In order that he might marry Matthys’ beautiful widow, he introduced polygamy. He took seventeen wives; Rothmann satisfied himself with four. In vain did the remnants of moral consciousness existing still among the inhabitants protest. The discontented, who gathered round the smith Mollenhök, were overcome and all of them were put to death. Bockelssohn, proclaimed by one of his fellow prophets, John Dusendschur, king of the whole earth, set up a splendid court, and perpetrated the most revolting iniquities. He regarded himself as called to bring in the millennium, sent out twenty-eight apostles to spread his kingdom, and appointed twelve dukes to govern the world under him. The besiegers had meanwhile, in August, 1534, made an utterly unsuccessful attempt to storm the city. Had they not toward the end of the year received assistance from Treves, Cleves, Mainz, and Cologne, they would have been obliged to raise the siege. Even then they could only think of securing the surrender of the city by famine. It had already been reduced to sore straits. But on St. John’s night, 1535, a deserter led the soldiers to the wall. After a most determined struggle the Anabaptists were utterly overthrown. Rothmann rushed into the hottest of the battle, and there met his death. King John and his premier Knipperdolling and his chancellor Krechting were taken prisoners, and on 22nd January, 1536, were pinched to death with redhot pincers and then hung in iron chains from St. Lambert’s tower. Catholicism was finally restored to absolute and exclusive supremacy.

§ 147.10. Menno Simons and the Mennonites.—Menno Simons, born at Wittmarsum in Friesland in A.D. 1492, from A.D. 1516 a Catholic priest, had from careful study of Holy Scripture come to entertain serious doubts as to the Romish doctrine. The martyr courage of the Baptists called his attention to the Baptist views of this sect, and soon he came to feel convinced of their correctness. He resigned his priest’s office at Wittmarsum in A.D. 1536, and had himself baptized. Amid indescribable difficulties and with unwearied patience he laboured on, wandering from place to place, devoting all his powers to the reorganization of the sect. He gave it a definite doctrinal formula, “The Fundamental Book of the True Christian Faith,” in A.D. 1539, which in point of doctrine attached itself to the Reformed confessions, and was distinguished from these only by the rejection of infant baptism, and by an unconditional spiritualization of the idea of the church as a pure communion of true saints. It distinctly forbade military and civil service, as well as all taking of oaths, introduced feet washing in addition to baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and by severe church discipline maintained a simple manner of life and strict morality. The quiet, pious demeanour of the Mennonites soon secured for them in Holland, and later also in Germany, toleration and religious freedom. Menno died in A.D. 1559.—Even during Menno’s lifetime his Dutch followers split up into two parties, called “the Fine” and “the Coarse.” The former enforced in all its severity Menno’s strict discipline, and indeed went beyond it by prohibiting all intercourse with the excommunicated, even should these be parents or husbands and wives. The latter wished to allow to the ban only ecclesiastical and not civil disabilities, and to have it exercised only after repeated exhortations had proved ineffectual.—Continuation, § 162, 1.

§ 148. ANTITRINITARIANS AND UNITARIANS.[422]

The first to contest the doctrine of the Trinity arose from among the German Anabaptists. The Spaniard Michael Servetus wrought out his Unitarianism into connection with a system that was fundamentally pantheistic. The real home of Antitrinitarianism, however, was Italy, a fruit of the half-pagan humanism that flourished there. Banished the country, its representatives sought refuge in Switzerland. Expelled by-and-by from these regions, they betook themselves mostly to Poland, Hungary, and Transylvania, where they found protection from the princes and nobles. A thoroughly developed system of doctrine, elaborated by Lælius and Faustus Socinus, uncle and nephew, was now accepted by them, and by this means they were consolidated into a corporate society.

§ 148.1. Anabaptist Antitrinitarians in Germany.

1. John Denck from the Upper Palatinate, was, on Œcolampadius’ recommendation, whose lectures he had attended at Basel, made rector of St. Sebald’s school in Nuremberg in A.D. 1523. On account of his maintaining views inconsistent with Lutheran orthodoxy, he came into collision with the reformer of that place, Andrew Osiander, in A.D. 1524, and on the ground of a written confession of faith extorted from him he was deposed from his office and expelled the city. Nor did he find a permanent abode in Augsburg, to which he went in A.D. 1525; for Urbanus Rhegius, who at first received him in a friendly manner, was obliged at last to turn against him on account of his Anabaptist views and the great scandal he caused by maintaining the belief that the devil and all the ungodly would finally repent. He now, in A.D. 1526, went to Strassburg, where Hätzer induced him, as a zealous student of Hebrew, to assist him in his translation of the Old Testament prophets. When here also his influence assumed dangerous proportions, a disputation was arranged for between him and Bucer, in consequence of which he was expelled also from Strassburg. Like treatment awaited him at Bergzahern and also at Landau. He then went to Worms along with Hätzer, who had meanwhile been banished from Strassburg. There they completed their translation of the prophets, but from this retreat also after three months they were again driven out. Denck now once again, through Œcolampadius’ mediation, who unweariedly endeavoured, but in vain, to win him back from his errors, found a fixed abode among the more liberal-minded citizens of Basel; but he died there of the plague in A.D. 1527. Denck was indeed one of the most talented men of his day. His high intellectual endowments and his pure and noble moral life were acknowledged by his most bitterly prejudiced orthodox opponents. Of his numerous tracts and pamphlets only that “On the Law of God, how the Law is Abolished and yet must be Fulfilled,” is still accurately known. It is rich in deep thoughts cleverly put, as is also the confession of faith already mentioned, but in direct antagonism to the Lutheran doctrine on several most vital and cardinal points. He placed the inner word of God above the outward, taught that man had a natural inclination toward good, attached a fundamental importance to the fulfilling of the moral law for the attainment of salvation, gave the person of Christ only the significance of a pattern and exhibition of the Divine love, resolved the doctrine of the Trinity into pantheistic speculative ideas, and by his rejection of infant baptism became the acknowledged head of the whole German Anabaptist movement of his age, so that Bucer could designate him “the pope of the Baptists.”

2. Louis Hätzer, from Bischopzell in Thurgau, was priest at Wädenschwyl, on the Zürich lake. At first an enthusiastic follower of Zwingli and his fellow labourer, he soon transcended the Zwinglian reforming tendencies, and with fanatical radicalism launched out into fierce iconoclasm, and attached himself to the Anabaptists, residing partly in Switzerland, in Zürich, Basel, St. Gall, etc., partly in Germany, in Augsburg, Strassburg, Worms, etc., but soon driven out of every place, and meanwhile leading a wandering, unstable life, until at last, in A.D. 1529, he was beheaded at Constance as a bigamist and adulterer. From Denck, who far excelled him in originality and depth of thought, he derived his peculiar views. Among his literary productions only his German translation of the Old Testament prophets, which he produced in conjunction with Denck, is of any importance. It was published at Worms in A.D. 1527, two years before the Zürich version, and five years before that of Luther, and passed through several editions until it was displaced by Luther’s. He also holds no mean position as a composer of spiritual songs.

3. John Campanus of Jülich was expelled from Cologne, where he had studied, and went to Wittenburg [Wittenberg], as tutor to some young noblemen, in A.D. 1528. He accompanied the reformers to Marburg, where he sought to unite different parties by explaining “This is My body” to mean the body created by Me. But when he began to spread Anabaptist and Arian views in Wittenberg, and to calumniate the reformers by speech and writing, he was obliged, in A.D. 1532, to quit Saxony. He now returned to Jülich, but after labouring there for a considerable time, he was arrested on a charge of preaching revolutionary and chiliastic sermons, and died in prison after twenty years’ confinement at Cleves about A.D. 1578. His Arian-trinitarian doctrine of God was just as peculiar as his doctrine of the supper. He would acknowledge in the Godhead only two Persons, just as its type marriage is a union of only two persons. He regarded the Holy Spirit, on the one hand, as the Divine nature common to both, and, on the other hand, as the operation of these upon man.

4. David Joris, a painter on glass in Delft, received his first impulse from Luther’s writings about A.D. 1524, but soon plunged into wild excesses of iconoclasm and anabaptism. After the overthrow of the short-lived rule of the Münster fanatics (§ 133, 6), he travelled up and down through the whole of Germany, in order to gather together the scattered remnants of the Anabaptists, and to proclaim his revelations. He was not to be deterred or terrified by imprisonment, scourging, or banishment. At last he was pronounced an outlaw, and a price was set upon his head. He went now, in A.D. 1544, to Basel, and lived there under the assumed name of John of Bruges, outwardly professing attachment to the Reformed church, but in secret, by the diligent circulation of letters and treatises, working for his own ends, till his death in A.D. 1556. When afterwards his true name was discovered, the authorities had his bones dug up and burnt by the public hangman. In theory and practice an antinomian, he taught in his fantastic production, “T’Wonderboek” of A.D. 1542, on the ground of the most naked naturalism, how the perfection of the spiritual life and the true reconciliation of all things must be brought about. He conceived of the Trinity as the self-revelation of God in three different ways. That of the Holy Spirit came to pass with himself; the end and aim of that dispensation he represented as consisting in the gathering together of the people of God, i.e. all Anabaptists, who were to take possession of the whole earth, as before Israel had of the land of Canaan.

§ 148.2. Michael Servetus was born in A.D. 1509 at Villanueva in Arragon. He was a man of rich speculative ability, wide knowledge of science, and restless, inquiring spirit. At Toulouse he devoted himself first of all to the study of law, but soon after turned his attention with great eagerness to theological questions. He became convinced that the fundamental Christian doctrine of the Trinity in its accepted ecclesiastical form is equally opposed to Scripture and to reason, and that in this quarter pre-eminently a reformation was needed. At a later period in Paris he gave himself to the study of medicine, and is reputed the first discoverer of the circulation of the blood, and secured for himself an eminent rank as a practical physician and a writer on medical subjects. He began his polemic against the prevailing doctrine of the Church at Strassburg in A.D. 1531 with the treatise De Trinitatis erroribus, ll. vii. Next in order appeared at Hagenau, in A.D. 1532, his palliating and to some extent retractational Dialogorum de Trin., ll. ii. In A.D. 1553 he issued anonymously at Vienne his radical and revolutionary principal work, Christianismi Restitutio, which was the means of bringing him to the stake. As he succeeded in escaping from his prison in Vienne they were able there only to burn him in effigie; but at Geneva he was, at Calvin’s instigation, arrested again, and on his refusing to make a recantation was sent to the stake on 27th Oct., A.D. 1553. The last words heard from the dying man in the flames were, “Jesus, Thou Son of the eternal God, have mercy upon me.”—The reformatory aim of Servetus in his doctrinal system was to raise God as high as possible above the creature. In its very earliest form it was fundamentally pantheistic, yet even here God is thought of as the original substance, and everything existing outside of Him is conceived of as conditioned by a substantial emanation from His being. Those pantheistic principles, however, make their appearance in a much more decided form in the later and more complete developments of his system which are completely dominated by Neoplatonic speculations. In particular he regards the Logos as an emanation of the Divine element of light, which first came into possession of personal existence in the incarnation of Christ. The gross matter of His corporeity He received from His mother; the place of the male seed was taken by the Divine element of light. In both respects he is ὁμοούσιος, for even the earthly matter is only a grosser form of the primal light. Son and Spirit are only different dispositiones Dei, the Father alone is tota substantia et unus Deus. And as the Trinity makes its appearance in connection with the redemption of the world, it will disappear again when that redemption has been completed. The polemic of Servetus, however, extended beyond the doctrine of the Trinity to an attack upon the church doctrine of original sin, and the repudiation of infant baptism. He also set forth a spiritualistic theory of the Lord’s Supper, contended against the Lutheran doctrine of justification and the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination, sketched out a scheme of chiliastic expectations, etc. Amid all these vagaries he maintained his high estimate of Christ as the Logos, become Son of God by the incarnation, and the centre and end of all history; he also continued to reverence Holy Scripture as that which from its first book to its last testifies of Christ. His mystical piety, too, was deep and sincere. But owing to the immoderate violence with which he denounced views opposed to his own as doctrines of devils, among other reproachful terms applying to the church doctrine of the Trinity the name of “triceps Cerberus,” the three-headed dog of hell, his contemporaries were prevented from getting even a glimpse of the bright side of his life and endeavours, so that all the most notable theologians voted for his death as salutary and necessary (§ 145, 1).[423]

§ 148.3. Italian and other Antitrinitarians before Socinus.—Claudius of Savoy in A.D. 1534, at Bern, brought forward the idea that Christ is to be called God only because the fulness of the Divine Spirit has been communicated to Him. He was on this account expelled from that city, and soon after even from Basel, and was very coldly received at Wittenberg. He retracted before a synod at Lausanne in A.D. 1537, afterwards played the part of a popular agitator at Augsburg, and was regarded in Memmingen down to A.D. 1550 as a prophet. After that no further trace of him is found.—Closely connected with the previously named Tiziano, by bonds of friendship and of spiritual affinity, and subsequently also with Lælius Socinus, was the Sicilian exile from his native land, Camillo Renato. In A.D. 1545 he obtained at Chiavenna in Veltlin, which then belonged to the country of the Grisons, a situation as a private tutor, and soon became highly respected. He by-and-by, however, involved himself in a violent controversy with the evangelical pastor there, Agostino Mainardo, about the sacraments, which led to his being excommunicated by the Grison synod in A.D. 1550. The central point in his theology is the doctrine of predestination. Only the elect are by God’s Spirit awakened into life, and while the children of the Spirit only slumber in death, and in the resurrection assume a renewed, purely spiritual form of being, the soul of the non-elect die just like their bodies. Although a decided opponent of infant baptism, he did not go so far as to insist upon rebaptism, because he depreciated baptism generally as a mere outward sign, and therefore not necessary. And although he carefully avoided any express repudiation of the doctrine of the Trinity, it can scarcely be doubted that he and all his friends and followers favoured antitrinitarian views.—Matthew Gribaldo, a jurist of Padua, the physician George Blandrata of Saluzzo in Piedmont, and Valentine Gentilis of Calabria, fugitives from their native lands, took up a position of hostility to Calvin in Geneva after Servetus’ death. When Calvin proposed to have them brought before a legal tribunal Gribaldo and Blandrata retired from Geneva and went to Poland. Only Gentilis remained, and he subscribed a confession of faith which Calvin laid before him, but soon declared that he could not continue to hold by it, and set forth as consistent with Scripture doctrine the opinion that the Father as Essentiator is not a person in the Godhead, but the whole substance of the Godhead, and that the Son as Essentiatus proceeding from Him, is only the perfect reflex and highest image of the one deity of the Father. Having been cast into prison and condemned to death he retracted once again, and then withdrew also to Poland. Subsequently, however, he returned to Switzerland, was arrested at Bern, and beheaded as an apostate in A.D. 1566.[424] Blandrata had meanwhile betaken himself to Transylvania, was there appointed physician to the prince, secured the interest of Zapolya II. and many of the nobles for his Unitarianism, so that public recognition was given to it as a fourth confessional form of religion. According to the doctrine set forth by him worship is rendered to Jesus as the man endowed by God with grace beyond all others and raised to universal dominion. But in A.D. 1588 he was murdered by his own nephew, who had remained a Catholic, as he had not patience to wait for his death in order to secure possession of his property. Besides Blandrata we may also mention as one of the chief founders of the Unitarian sect in Transylvania Franz Davidis of Clausenburg. From A.D. 1552 Lutheran pastor, he became a Calvinist in A.D. 1564, and was made a Reformed superintendent, and, at Blandrata’s recommendation, Zapolya’s court preacher. He then openly attached himself by word and writing to the Unitarians, and became, in A.D. 1571, first Unitarian superintendent of Transylvania. On account of his opposing the doctrine of the supernatural conception of Christ and His right to be worshipped, he was repudiated by Blandrata, and was, in A.D. 1579, condemned by Prince Christopher Bathori, as a blasphemer and enemy of Christ, to imprisonment for life. After three months he died in prison.—The Italian Antitrinitarians who had fled to Poland attached themselves there to the Reformed church, and secured many followers not only among the nobles, but also among the Reformed clergy. At their head in Cracow stood the pastor Gregor Pauli, and in Princzov George Schomann. At the Synod of Patrikaw, in A.D. 1562, they first appeared as a close phalanx, making a regular attempt to have the doctrine of the Trinity set aside. Their attack, however, was repelled. A royal edict of A.D. 1564 enacted that all Italian Antitrinitarians should be banished, and a second synod at Patrikaw, in A.D. 1565, excommunicated all their followers. A final endeavour to arrive at a mutual understanding by means of yet another religious conference, while a diet was summoned in connection with this matter at Patrikaw, led to no successful result. From this time forth the Polish Antitrinitarians, who have generally been called Arians, occupy a distinct position as a separate religious denomination.—In the Reformed church of the Palatinate, too, this Unitarian movement ended in an equally tragical scene. The pastor Adam Neuser and the Reformed inspector John Sylvanus took their place about A.D. 1570 along with the Transylvanian Unitarians. During an investigation into their doctrinal views, a manuscript written out by Sylvanus in his own hand was found: “A Confessional Statement against the Tripersonal Idol and the Two Natures of Christ.” He was beheaded in A.D. 1572 in the market-place of Heidelberg. Neuser fled to Transylvania, and at a subsequent period went over to Mohammedanism.—Out of the Italian infidelity of this age probably also arose that renewal of an idea that had already appeared during the Middle Ages (§ 96, 19) in the book De tribus impostoribus, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed. Of a similar tendency is the Colloquium Heptaplomeres of the French jurist Jean Bodin (§ 117, 4), who died in A.D. 1597. He was one of seven freethinking Venetian scholars who carried on a discussion upon religion, in which he maintained that deficiencies and mistakes are inherent in the same degree in all positive religions. But an ideal deism is commended as the true religion.

§ 148.4. The Two Socini and the Socinians.—Lælius Socinus, member of a celebrated family of lawyers in Siena, and himself a lawyer, became convinced at an early period that the Romish system of doctrine was not in accordance with Scripture. In order to reach an assured and certain knowledge of the truth, he learnt the original languages in which Scripture was written, by travelling made the acquaintance of the most celebrated theologians in Switzerland, Germany, and Poland, and wrought out for himself a complete and consistent theory of Unitarian belief. He died in Zürich in A.D. 1562 in his thirty-seventh year. His nephew, Faustus Socinus, born at Siena in A.D. 1539, was from his early days trained by personal intercourse and epistolary correspondence with his uncle, and adopted similar views. He was obliged in A.D. 1559 to make his escape to Lyons, but returned in A.D. 1562 to Italy, where for twelve years he was loaded with honours and offices at the court of the Grand-duke Francis de Medici. In order that he might carry on his studies undisturbed, he retired in A.D. 1574 to Basel, from whence in A.D. 1578, at Blandrata’s request, he proceeded to Transylvania to combat Davidis’ refusal of adoration to Christ. In the following year he went to Poland in order to unite, if possible, the various sections of the Unitarians in that country. At Cracow they insisted that he should allow them to rebaptize him, and when he firmly refused they declined to admit him to the communion table. But the decision of his character, his unwearied endeavours to secure peace and union, as well as the superiority of his theological scholarship, in the end won for his ideas a complete victory over the opposing party strifes. He succeeded gradually in expelling from the ranks of the Polish Antitrinitarians non-adorationism as well as Anabaptism, and all their ethical, social, and chiliastic outgrowths, and finally at the Synod of Racau, in A.D. 1603, he secured recognition for his own theological views as he had developed them in disputations and in writings. Persecutions and ill-treatment on the part of the Catholics were not wanting; as, e.g., in A.D. 1594 by the Catholic soldiers, and in A.D. 1598 by the Catholic students at Cracow, who dragged him from a sick-bed on Ascension Day, drew him half naked through the city, beat him till the blood flowed, and would have drowned him had not a Catholic professor delivered him out of their hands. He died in A.D. 1604.—The chief symbol of the Socinian denomination is the Racovian Catechism, published in the Polish language in A.D. 1605. Socinus himself, in company with several others, compiled it, mainly from an earlier short treatise, Relig. christ. brevissima institutio. It was subsequently translated into Latin and also into German.[425]—The Socinian system of doctrine therein set forth is essentially as follows: The Scriptures are the only source of knowledge of saving truth, and as God’s word Scripture can contain nothing that is in contradiction to reason. But the doctrine of the Trinity contradicts the Bible and reason; God is only one Person. Jesus was a mere man, but endowed with Divine powers for the accomplishment of salvation, and as a reward for his perfect obedience raised to Divine majesty, entrusted with authority to judge the living and the dead, so that to him also Divine homage should be paid. The Holy Spirit is only a power or attribute of God. The image of God in men consisted merely in dominion over the creatures. Man was by nature mortal, but had he remained without sin he would by the supernatural operation of God have entered into eternal life without death. There is no such thing as original sin, but only hereditary evil and an inherited inclination toward what is bad, which, however, does not include in it any guilt. The idea of a Divine foreknowledge of human action is to be rejected, because it would lead to the acceptance of the idea of an absolute predestination. Redemption consists in this, that Christ by life and teaching pointed out the better way; and God rewards every one who pursues this better way with the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. The death of Christ was no atoning sacrifice, but merely attached a seal to the teaching of Christ and formed for him a pathway to Divine glory. Conversion must begin by the exercise of one’s own powers, but can be perfected only through the assistance of the Holy Spirit. The sacraments are only ceremonies, which may even be dispensed with, though it is more becoming to retain them as old and beautiful customs. The immortality of the pious Christian is conditioned and made possible by the resurrection of Christ. But the ungodly, along with the devil and his angels, are annihilated; and because in this their punishment consists, Holy Scripture designates the annihilation as eternal death and eternal condemnation. There is no resurrection of the flesh; the living indeed have their bodies restored in the resurrection; but these are not fleshly, but, as Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians xv., spiritual.[426]—Continuation, § 163, 1.

IV. The Counter-Reformation.

§ 149. THE INTERNAL STRENGTHENING AND REVIVAL OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.[427]

The strenuous endeavours put forth by the Roman Catholic church to restrict within the narrowest limits possible the victorious course of the Reformation, and so far as might be to reconquer lost ground, bulk so largely in its sixteenth century movement, that we may review that entire era in its history from the standpoint of the counter-reformation. This development was carried out, on the one hand, by means of increased strengthening and revival, and, on the other hand, by polemics and attack on those without, in this latter case advanced by missions to the heathen and by violent persecution and suppression of Protestantism. The Tridentine Council, A.D. 1545-1547, A.D. 1551, 1552, A.D. 1562, 1563, was devoted to the realization of these ends. The curialistic side of mediæval scholastic Catholicism was again presented as the sole representation of the truth, compacted with iron bands into a rigid system of doctrine, and declared to be incapable in all time to come of any alteration or reform; while at the same time it set aside or modified many of the more flagrant abuses. With two long breaks caused by political considerations, it had completed its work between 1545 and 1563 in twenty-five sessions. The first ten sittings were held A.D. 1545-1547, under Paul III.; the next six in A.D. 1551 and 1552, under Julius III.; and the last nine in A.D. 1562, 1563, under Pius IV.—The old and utterly corrupt monkish orders, which had once formed so powerful a support to the papacy, had not proved capable of surviving the shock of the Reformation. In their place there now arose a new order, that of the Jesuits, which for centuries formed a buttress to the severely shaken papacy, and hemmed in on all sides the further advances of the Protestant movement. Besides this great order there arose a crowd of others, partly new, partly old ones under reformed constitutions, mostly of a practical churchly tendency. The strifes and rivalries that prevailed between the different Protestant sects stirred up with the Romish Church a new and remarkable activity in the scientific study of doctrine; and mysticism flourished again in Spain, and succeeded in reaching there a considerable development.

§ 149.1. The Popes before the Council.—Leo X. (§ 110, 14) the accomplished, extravagant, luxurious, and frivolous Medici, was succeeded by one who was in every respect diametrically opposed to his predecessor, Hadrian VI., A.D. 1522, 1523, the only pope who for many centuries before down to the present day retained his own honourable Christian name when he ascended the throne of St. Peter. Hadrian Dedel, the son of a poor ship-carpenter of Utrecht, a pious and learned Dominican, had raised himself to a theological professorship in the University of Louvain, when Maximilian I. chose him to be tutor to his grandson, who afterwards became the Emperor Charles V. He was thus put in the way for obtaining the highest offices in the church. He was made Bishop of Tortosa, grand-inquisitor, cardinal, and viceroy of Spain for Charles during his absence. When, after Leo’s death, neither the imperial candidate Julius Medici nor any other of the cardinals present in conclave secured the necessary votes, the imperial commissioner pointed to Hadrian, and so out of the voting box came the name of a new pope whom no one particularly wished. A thoroughly learned, scholastic commentator on the Lombard, pious and strict in his morals even to rigorism, in his domestic economy practising peasant-like simplicity, and saving even to the extent almost of niggardliness; a zealot for the Thomist system of doctrine, but holding in abhorrence the Renaissance, with all its glitter of classical culture, art, and poetry; mourning bitterly over the worldliness and corruption of the papacy, as well as over the unfathomable depravity throughout the church, and firmly resolved to inaugurate a thorough reformation in the head and members (§ 126, 1),—he seemed in that position and age, and with those surroundings, a Flemish barbarian, who could not even understand Italian, and spoke Latin with an accent intolerable to Roman ears, the greatest anomaly that had ever yet appeared in the history of the popes. The Roman people hated him with a deadly hatred, and Pasquino[428] was inexhaustibly fruitful in stinging epigrams and scurrilous verses on the new pope and his electors. The German reformers were not inclined to view him with favour; for he had previously, in his capacity as grand-inquisitor, condemned, according to Llorente, between 20,000 and 30,000 men under the Spanish Inquisition, and had more than 1,600 burnt alive. Two attempts were made by the Romans to assassinate him by dagger and by poison, but neither succeeded. He died, however, after a short pontificate of one and a half years, the last German and indeed the last non-Italian occupant of the papal throne. But the Romans wrote on the house door of his physician, “To the deliverer of the fatherland,” and enjoyed themselves, when the corpse of the deceased pope was laid between those of Pius I. and Pius II., by repeating the feeble pleasantry, “Impius inter Pios.” The jubilation in Rome, however, was extravagant, when by the next conclave a member of the family of the Medici, the illegitimate son of the murdered Julius (§ 110, 11), the Cardinal Julius Medici, who had been rejected on the former occasion, was now proclaimed under the title of Clement VII., A.D. 1523-1534. The brave Romans did not indeed anticipate that this pope, in consequence of the shiftiness of his policy and the faithlessness of his conduct toward the emperor (§ 126, 6), to whose favour and influence mainly he owed his own elevation, would reduce their city to a condition of wretchedness and depression such as had never been witnessed since the days of Alaric and Genseric (§ 132, 2). The position of a pope like Clement, who regarded himself as called upon, not only as church prince to set right the ecclesiastical institutions of the age, which in every department had been thrown into utter confusion by the storms of the German Reformation (§ 126, 2), but also as a temporal prince to deliver Italy and the States of the church from threatened servitude to Germany and Spain, no less than from France, was one of peculiar difficulty, so that even a much more astute politician than Clement would have found it hardly possible to maintain successfully.

§ 149.2. The Popes of the Time of the Council.—After Clement VII. the papal dignity was conferred upon Alexander Farnese, who took the name of Paul III., A.D. 1534-1549, a man of classical culture and extraordinary cunning. He owed his cardinal’s hat, received some forty years before, to an adulterous intrigue of his sister Julia Orsini with Pope Alexander VI. His entrance upon this ecclesiastical dignity, however, did not lead him to give up his sensual and immoral course of life, and after his elevation to the papal chair he practised nepotism after the example of the Borgias and the Medicis. He was, however, the only pope, at least for a long time, who seemed to be actually in earnest about coming to an understanding on doctrinal points with the German Protestants (§ 139, 23). He at last summoned the œcumenical council, so long in vain demanded by the emperor, to meet at Mantua on 23rd May, A.D. 1537; but afterwards postponed the opening of it, on account of the Turkish war, until 1st Nov. of that year, and then again until 1st May, A.D. 1538. On the latter day it was to meet at Vicenza, and after this date had elapsed, it was suspended indefinitely. The emperor’s continued insistence upon having a final and properly constituted council in a German city led him to fix upon Trent, where a council was summoned to meet on 1st Nov., A.D. 1542, but the troubles that meanwhile arose with France gave a welcome excuse for further postponement. Persistent pressure on the part of the emperor led to the issuing of a new rescript by the pope on 15th March, A.D. 1545; there was the usual delay because of the failure to secure a sufficient number of orthodox and competent bishops and delegates; and thus at last the council opened at Trent on 13th Dec., A.D. 1545. The skilful management of the council by the Cardinal-legate del Monte, the statement carefully prepared beforehand of the distinctly anti-protestant basis upon which they were to proceed (§ 136, 4), and the well arranged scheme of the legates to secure its adoption by having the votes reckoned not according to nations, but by individuals (§ 110, 7), contributed largely during the earlier sessions to neutralize the conciliatory tendencies of the emperor as well as to prevent the possibility of Protestants taking any active share in the proceedings. When the emperor, who had now reached the very summit of his power, forbade the promulgating of these arrangements, the pope declared that he did not think it a convenient and proper thing that the council should be held in a German city; and so, on the pretext of a plague having broken out in Trent, he issued an order at the eighth session that on 11th March, A.D. 1547, it should resume at Bologna. The emperor’s decided protest obliged the German bishops to remain behind in Trent, and the bishops who assembled at Bologna under these circumstances did not venture to continue their proceedings. As the emperor persistently refused to recognise the change of seat, and in consequence the bishops present had one after another left the city, the pope issued a decree in Sept., A.D. 1547, again postponing the meeting indefinitely.—Paul was succeeded by the Cardinal-legate del Monte, who took his place on the papal throne as Julius III., A.D. 1550-1555. He could indulge in nepotism only to a limited extent, but he did in that direction what was possible. Driven to it by necessity, he again opened the Council of Trent on 1st May, A.D. 1551. Protestant delegates were also to be present at it. But without regard to them the council continued to hold firmly by the anti-protestant doctrines (§ 136, 8). The position of matters was suddenly and unexpectedly changed by the appearance of the Elector Maurice. On the approach of his victorious army the council broke up, after it had at its sixteenth session, on 28th April, A.D. 1552, promulgated articles condemning all the Protestants, and resolved to sist further proceedings for two years. After the death of Julius III., Marcellus II. was elected in his stead, one of the noblest popes of all times, who once exclaimed, that he could not understand how a pope could be happy in the strait-jacket of the all-dominating curialism. He occupied the chair of St. Peter only for twenty-one days. He was succeeded by John Peter Caraffa (§ 139, 23), as Paul IV., A.D. 1555-1559. He carried on the operations of the Inquisition, reintroduced into Rome at his instigation under Paul III. for the suppression of all Protestant movements, with the most reckless severity and insistency, was unwearied in searching out and burning all heretical books, and protested against the Religious Peace of Augsburg. He also opposed the elevation of Ferdinand I. to the imperial throne, which led the new emperor to issue a decree of state, which concluded with the words: “And every one may from this judge that his holiness, by reason of age or other causes, is no longer in full possession of his senses.” This pope also in the bull, Cum ex apostolatus officio of A.D. 1558, released subjects from the duty of obedience to heretical princes, and urged orthodox rulers to undertake the conquest of their territories. But he also embittered himself among the Roman populace by his inquisitorial tyranny, so that they upon the report of his death destroyed all the buildings of the Inquisition, broke in pieces the papal statues and arms, and under threat of death forced all the members of the Caraffa family to quit the city.—The mild disposition of his successor, Pius IV., A.D. 1560-1565, moderated and reduced, as far as he thought safe, the fanatical violence and narrowness of the Inquisition, and the reforming influence which he allowed to his talented nephew Charles Borromeo over the affairs of the curia bore many excellent fruits. Without much opposition he again opened the Tridentine Council on 18th Jan., A.D. 1562, which now it appeared could be resumed with less danger, beginning with the seventeenth session and ending with the twenty-fifth on the 3rd or 4th Dec., A.D. 1563. Of the 255 persons who throughout took part in it more than two-thirds were Italians. The papal legates domineered without restraint, and it was an open secret that “the Holy Ghost came from Rome to Trent in the despatch box.” In the doctrinal decisions, the mediæval dogmas, with a more decidedly anti-protestant complexion, but with a careful avoidance of points at issue between Franciscans and Dominicans (§ 113, 2), were set forth, together with a formal condemnation of the opposed doctrines of Protestantism. In the proposals for reformation, decided improvements were introduced in church order and church discipline, in so far as this could be done without prejudice to the interests of the hierarchy. German, Spanish, and especially French bishops, as well as the commissioners for Catholic courts urged at first, in the interests of conciliation and reform, for permission to priests to marry and the granting of the cup to the laity, the limiting of the number of fasts and of the worship of saints, relics, and images, as well as the more extreme hierarchical extravagances. But the legates knew well how to gain time by wily intrigues, to disgust their opponents by exciting subtle theological disputes, and to weary them out with tedious delays; and so when it came at last to the vote, the compact majority of the Italians withstood all opposition that could be shown. At the close of the last session Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine (§ 139, 13), who from the opposition had passed over to the majority, cried out, “Anathema to all heretics!” and the prelates answered in full chorus. The pope confirmed the decrees of the council, but forbade on pain of excommunication any exposition of them, as that pertained solely to the papal chair. They found unhesitating acceptance in Italy, Portugal, and Poland, and in Spain in so far as they were agreeable to the laws of the empire. In Germany, Hungary, and France the governments refused to acknowledge them; but the reforming decrees, which could really be recognised as improvements, were willingly accepted, and even the objection to particular conclusions in matters of faith was soon silenced before the sense of the importance of having the thing settled, and securing at any cost the unity of the church.[429]

§ 149.3. The Popes after the Council.—Pius V., A.D. 1566-1572, is the only pope for many centuries before and down to the present time who has been canonized. This was done by Clement XI. in A.D. 1712. He was previously a Dominican and grand-inquisitor, and even as pope continued to live the life of a monk and an ascetic. He strove hard to raise Roman society out of its deep moral degradation, condemned strict Augustinianism in the person of Baius, made more severe the bull In Cæna Domini (§ 117, 3), and set the Roman Inquisition to work with a fearful activity never before equalled. He also released all the subjects of Queen Elizabeth of England from their oaths of allegiance, threatened the Emperor Maximilian with deposition should he grant religious freedom to the Protestants, and in league with Spain and Venice gained a brilliant naval victory over the Turks at Lepanto in A.D. 1571.[430]—Gregory XIII., A.D. 1572-1585, celebrated the Bloody Marriage as a glorious act of faith, produced an improved edition of the Corpus juris canonici, and carried out in A.D. 1582 the calendar reform that had been already moved for at the Tridentine Council. The new or Gregorian Calendar, which passed over at a bound ten days in order to get rid of the divergence that had arisen between the civil or Julian and the natural year, was only after considerable opposition adopted even by Catholic states. The evangelical governments of Germany introduced it only in A.D. 1700, England in A.D. 1752, and Sweden in A.D. 1753; while Russia and all the countries under the dominion of the Greek church continue to this day their adherence to the old Julian Calendar. Gregory’s successor, Sixtus V., A.D. 1585-1590, was the greatest and most powerful of all the popes since the Reformation, not indeed as a spiritual head of the church, but as a statesman and ruler of the Papal States. Sprung from a thoroughly impoverished family, Felix Peretti was as a boy engaged in herding swine. In his tenth year, however, through the influence of his uncle, a Minorite monk, he obtained admission and elementary education in his cloister at Montalto near Ancona. After completing his studies, he distinguished himself as a pulpit orator by his eloquence, as a teacher and writer by his learning, as a consulter to the Inquisition by his zealot devotion to the interests of orthodoxy, as president of various cloisters by the strictness with which he carried out moral reforms, and, after he had passed through all the stages of the monkish hierarchy and risen to be vicar-general of his order, he was elevated by Pius V. to the rank of bishop and cardinal. He now took the name of Cardinal Montalto, and as such obtained great influence in the administration of the curia. The death of his papal patron and the succession of Gregory XIII., who from an earlier experience as joint commissioner with him to Spain entertained a bitter enmity toward him, condemned him to retirement into private life for thirteen years. He spent the period of his enforced quiet in architectural undertakings, laying out of gardens, editing the works of St. Ambrose, in the exercise of deeds of benevolence, exhibiting toward every one by the whole course of his conduct mildness, gentleness, and friendliness, and, notwithstanding occasional sharp and wicked criticisms about the pope, showing a conciliatory spirit toward his traducers. Thus the cardinals became convinced that he would be a gentle, tractable pope, and so they elected him on Gregory’s death to be his successor. There is still a story current regarding him as to how, on the very day of his elevation, he threw away the stick on which, with all the appearance of the feebleness of age, he had up to that time been wont to lean; but it is an undoubted fact, that from that same day he appeared in the guise of an altogether different man. Cold and reserved, crafty and farseeing in his schemes, recklessly and unhesitatingly determined even to the utmost extremes of harshness in carrying out his devices, greedy and insatiable in amassing treasures, parsimonious toward his dependants and in his own housekeeping, but lavish in his expenditure on great buildings for the adornment of the eternal city and for its public weal. He delivered the States of the Church from the power of the bandits, who had occasioned unspeakable confusion and introduced throughout these dominions a reign of terror. By a series of draconic laws, which were carried out in the execution of many hundreds without respect of person, he spread an indescribable fear among all evil-doers, and secured to the city and the state a security of life and property that had been hitherto unknown. In theological controversies he kept himself for the most part neutral, but in the persecution of heretics at home and abroad there was no remission of his earlier zeal. In the political movements of his time he took a most active share, and the fact that the interests of the Papal States lay nearer to his heart than the interests of the church had the most important and far reaching consequences for the future developments of State and church in Europe. That the Hapsburg universal sovereignty aspired after by Philip II. of Spain threatened also the independence of the Papal States and the political significance of the papacy was perceived by him very distinctly; but he did not perceive, or at least would not admit, that the success of this scheme would have been the one certain way to secure the utter extinction of Protestantism and the restoration of the absolute unity of the church. This was the reason why he was only half-hearted in supporting Philip in the war against the Protestant Elizabeth of England, and also so lukewarm toward the Catholic league of the Guises in France that wrought in the direction of Spanish interests. He did indeed succeed in weakening the Spanish power in Italy and in hindering Spanish aggressions in France, but at the same time he failed through these very devices in obtaining a victory over Protestantism in England and in the Netherlands, while the weakness of the German Hapsburgs over against the German Protestant princes was in great part the result of his policy. The Roman populace, excited against him, not so much by his severity as by the heavy taxes laid upon them, broke down after his death the statue which the senate had erected to his memory in the capitol.[431] The next three popes, who had all been elected in the Spanish interest, died soon after one another. Urban VIII. had a pontificate of only twelve days; Gregory XIV. reigned for ten months; and Innocent IX. survived only for two months. Then Clement VIII., A.D. 1592-1605, ascended the papal throne, his pontificate in respect of civil and ecclesiastical polity, “a weak copy of that of Sixtus.” His successor, Leo XI., died after he had occupied the chair for twenty-seven days.—Continuation, § 155, 1.

§ 149.4. Papal Infallibility.—The counter-reformation during this period exerted itself in bringing again into the foreground the assertion of the infallibility of the pope, which had been postponed or set to one side during the previous century (§ 110, 15). The noble Hadrian VI. indeed had, in his scholastic work, Quæstiones de sacramentis, of A.D. 1516, reissued during his pontificate, laid it down as beyond all doubt that even the popes in matters of faith might err and often had erred, “plures enim fuerunt pontifices Rom. hæretici.” On the other hand, Leo X., in the bull issued against Luther, had distinctly affirmed that the popes of Rome had never erred in their decrees and bulls. Gregory XIII. declared in A.D. 1584, that all papal bulls which contained disciplinary decisions on points of order were infallible. Sixtus V., in the bull Æternus ille, with which he issued his unfortunate edition of the Vulgate in A.D. 1589, claimed for the popes the right of infallibly deciding upon the correctness of the readings of the biblical text; but he hastened by the recalling or suppressing of the bull to have the mistake covered in oblivion. Bellarmine taught that the pope is infallible only when he speaks ex cathedra; i.e. defines a dogma and prescribes it for the belief of all Christendom. But when, in spite of all the efforts of the Jesuit general Lainez, no final decision was come to at Trent upon the question as to whether or how far the pope was to be regarded as infallible, the matter remained undefined and uncertain for more than three centuries (§ 187, 3).

§ 149.5. The Prophecy of St. Malachi.—In his book “Lignum Vitæ,” published at Venice in A.D. 1595, the Benedictine Wion made public for the first time a prophecy ascribed to St. Malachi, Archbishop of Armagh, who died in A.D. 1148, in which all the popes from Cœlestine II., in A.D. 1143, down to the end of the world, embracing in all one hundred and eleven, are characterized by short descriptive sketches. He also issued a paper purporting to be written by the Dominican Ciaconius, who died in A.D. 1599, the author of a history of the popes, which, however, in many particulars does not harmonize with this document. In this additional fragment we have short and frequent characterizations of the first seventy-four popes, reaching down to Urban VII., in A.D. 1590. The devices for the most part correctly represent the coat of arms, the name, the birthplace, the monkish order, etc., of the several popes; but these in every case are derived from the history of the man before he ascended the papal throne. On the other hand, the devices used to designate the three succeeding popes down to A.D. 1595 are utterly inapplicable and arbitrary. The same is true in almost every case of attempts to characterize the later popes. It can therefore be regarded as only the result of a chance coincidence, if now and again there should seem to be some fair measure of correspondence. Thus No. 83, Montium custos, describes Alexander VII., whose arms show six mountains; No. 100, De balneis Etruriæ, answers to Gregory XVI., who belonged to a Tuscan cloister; and No. 102, Lumen in cœlo, designates Leo XIII., who has a star in his coat of arms. If after Leo’s death, as Harnack remarks, a German pope were possible, No. 103, Ignis ardens, might be most exactly realized by the election of the Cardinal Hohenlohe. Still more striking, though breaking through the principle that is rigidly followed with respect to the earlier numbers from 1 to 74, is the way in which under No. 96, Peregrinus apostolicus, ridicule is cast upon the misfortune of Pius VI. (§ 165, 10, 13); and in No. 101 Crux de cruce is applied to Pius IX. (§ 184, 2, 3). Upon the whole, there can be no doubt that the composition of the document belongs to A.D. 1590, and indeed to the period during which the conclave sat for almost two months after the death of Urban VII., and that the author, though unsuccessfully, endeavoured to influence the cardinals in their election by making it appear that the appointment of Cardinal Simoncelli of Orvieto, i.e. Urbs vetus, with the device, De antiquitate urbis, had been thus divinely indicated. He chose the name of St. Malachi, because his friend and biographer, St. Bernard, had ascribed to him the gift of prophecy. His series of popes had, therefore, to begin with a contemporary of St. Malachi; and since the author must speak of him as a pope that has yet to be elected, he gives designations to him, and to all who follow down to his own times, which point exclusively to characteristics and relations belonging to them before their election to the papal dignity. Weingarten thinks that Wion himself is author both of the prophecy and of its explanatory appendix, but Harnack has given weighty reasons for questioning this conclusion.

§ 149.6. Reformation of Old Monkish Orders.

1. The controversies that prevailed within the ranks of the Franciscans (§ 112, 3) were finally put to rest by Pope Leo X. in A.D. 1517. The Conventuals and Observants were allowed to choose respectively their own independent general, and from that time forth maintained on equal terms a more peaceful relation to one another. The general of the Observants, however, who were in number, influence, and reputation greatly the superior, boasted of pre-eminence over his Conventual colleague. Although all Observants under him formed a close and thoroughly united society, there were still distinguished within the same regular, strict, and most strict Observants. Among the regulars the most prominent were the Cordeliers of France, so called because they were girt merely with a cord; to the strict belonged the Barefooted monks; and to the most strict the Alcantarines, founded by Peter of Alcantara in Spain. The founder of the Capuchins was the Italian Observant Minorite Matth. de Bassi. As he reported that St. Francis had worn a cowl with long sharp peak or capouch, and soon thereafter saw the saint himself in a vision dressed in such a garb, he withdrew from his cloister, went to Rome, and obtained from Clement VII., in A.D. 1526, the right of restoring the capouch. Falling out with the Observants over this, his followers attached themselves, in A.D. 1528, to the Conventuals as an independent congregation with their own vicar-general. The unusual style of dress produced a sensation. Whenever one of the brethren appeared the gutter children would run after him, crying out in mockery, Capucino. But the name that was given in reproach they accepted as a title of honour. Their self-denying benevolence upon the outbreak of the pestilence in Italy in A.D. 1528 soon won high reputation to the order, and secured its further spread. In consequence of their vicar-general, Bernardino Ochino (§ 139, 24), going over to the Reformed church, the order came for a long time into disrepute. Thoroughly characteristic of them was their utter deficiency in scientific culture, which often went the length of a relapse in utter rudeness and vulgarity, and debased their preaching into burlesque “capuchinades.”

2. A reformation of the Carmelites was brought about by St. Theresa de Jesus in A.D. 1562. The restored order bore the name of the “Shoeless Carmelites,” and its members distinguished themselves as teachers of the young and in works of charity. Alongside of her, as restorer of the male Carmelites, stood the pious mystic John of the Cross.[432]

3. A reformed congregation of Cistercians was founded in A.D. 1586 by Jean de la Barrière, abbot of the monastery of Feuillans [Feuillants]. The mode of life of these Feuillants was so severe that fourteen brothers sank under the burden within a short time, and this led to the modification of the rules in A.D. 1595. The founder was called by Henry III. to establish a monastery near Paris. He continued faithful to the king after he had withdrawn from the league, and thus drew down upon himself the hatred of the fanatical Catholic members of the order to such a degree that they deposed and banished him in A.D. 1592. A later commission of inquiry, however, under Cardinal Bellarmine pronounced him innocent.

§ 149.7. New Orders for Home Missions.

1. The Theatines had their origin in an association of pious priests at Theate, which Cajetan, at the advice of John Peter Caraffa, bishop of that place, afterwards Pope Paul IV., constituted into an order. In A.D. 1524, having been organized as clerici regulares, they chose to live not by begging but by depending on Divine providence, i.e. on gifts bestowed without asking, and came to be of importance as a training school for the higher clergy. Their statutes expressly required of them to instruct the people by frequent preaching, to attend to the bodies and souls of the sick, to seek the spiritual good of criminals, and to labour for the overthrow of heresy.

2. The Barnabites, also a society of regular clergy, founded by Antonio Maria Zaccaria at Milan, and confirmed by Clement VII. in A.D. 1533. They assigned to themselves the duty of devoting their whole life to works of mercy, pastoral care, education of the young, preaching, hearing confession, and conducting missions. They took the name Barnabites from the church of St. Barnabas, which was given over to them. To them was also attached the order of Angelicals, founded by Louisa Torelli, Countess Guastalla, a rich lady who was widowed for the second time in her twenty-fifth year, and confirmed by Paul III. in A.D. 1534. At first they accompanied the Barnabites on their missions, and wrought for the conversion of women, while the Barnabites devoted their attention to the men. Subsequently, however, on account of loose behaviour, they were obliged to keep within their convents. Each of the nuns in addition to her own name took that of the order, Angelica, which was intended to remind her of her obligation to keep herself pure as the angels.

3. The congregation of the Somaskians, or regular clergy of St. Majolus, trace their origin from Jerome Emiliani of Somascho, a town of Lombardy. While serving as an officer in the army, a thoroughly careless man of the world, he happened to be cast into prison. In his gloomy cell he repented of his past sinful life, and made his escape, it is said, by the assistance of the blessed Virgin, in a manner similar to that recorded in Acts v. 19. Some years after, in A.D. 1518, he entered holy orders, and now devoted his whole life to a self-denying practice of benevolence, by founding orphanages and training schools, asylums for fallen women, etc. In order to secure support, instruction, and pastoral care for his numerous and varied dependants, he joined with himself several like-minded clergymen in A.D. 1532, and formed a benevolent society. Its richly blessed activity extended over all northern Italy as far down as Rome, and was not arrested even by the founder’s early death in A.D. 1537. Pius V. in A.D. 1568 prescribed to the society the rule of St. Augustine, and on the ground of this raised it into an order of St. Majolus, so called from a church gifted to it at Pavia by St. Charles Borromeo.

4. The Brothers of Charity, in Spain called Hospitallers, in France Frères de Charité, were originally a secular fraternity for giving gratuitous attention to the sick, which was founded in Granada, in A.D. 1540, by a Portuguese, Juan Ciudad, poor in goods but rich in love, to whom his bishop gave the honourable title John of God, Juan di Dios, and who was canonized by Pope Alexander VIII. in A.D. 1690.[433] After Pius V. had in A.D. 1572 given the order the character of a monkish order by putting its members under the rule of St. Augustine, it soon spread over Italy, France, Germany, and Poland. Its cloisters were arranged as well-equipped hospitals for the destitute sick, without distinction of religious confession, so that their studies were directed even more to the medical than to the theological sciences.

5. The Ursuline Nuns, founded in A.D. 1537 by a pious virgin, Angela Merici of Brescia, for affording help to needy sufferers of every sort, but especially for the education of girls.

6. The Priests of the Oratory, or the Order of the Holy Trinity, founded by St. Philip Neri of Florence in A.D. 1548, a saint of the most profound piety, possessed at the same time with a bright and genial humour. They combined works of charity with exercises of common prayer and Bible study, which they conducted in the oratory of a hospital erected by them.[434]—Continuation, § 156, 7.

§ 149.8. The Society of Jesus: Founding of the Order.—Ignatius Loyola, Don Inigo Lopez de Recalde, born at the castle of Loyola in A.D. 1491, was descended from a distinguished family of Spanish knights. Seriously wounded at the siege of Pampeluna by the French in A.D. 1521, he sought to relieve the tedium of a prolonged and painful sickness by reading romances of chivalry and, when he had finished these, the legends of the saints. These last made a deep impression upon him, and enkindled in him a glowing zeal for the imitation of the saints in their abandonment of the world, and their superiority to the world’s thoughts and ways. Nervous convulsions and appearances of the queen of heaven gave their Divine consecration to this new tendency. After his recovery he distributed his goods among the poor, and in beggar’s garb subjected himself to the most rigorous asceticism. At the age of thirty-three years he began, in A.D. 1524, sitting among boys, to learn the first elements of Latin, then studied philosophy at Complutum and theology at Salamanca and Paris. With iron determination of will he overcame all difficulties. In Paris, six like-minded men joined together with him: Peter Favre of Savoy, who was already a priest; Francis Xavier, belonging to a family of Spanish grandees; James Lainez, a Castilian; Simon Rodriguez, a Portuguese; Alphonso Salmeron and Nicholas Bobadilla, both Spaniards. With glowing enthusiasm they drew out the plan of a new order, which, by its very name, “Compañia de Jesus,” indicated its character as that of a spiritual army, and by combining in itself all those features which separately were found to characterize the several monkish orders, advanced the bold claim of being the universal and principal order of the Romish church. But pre-eminently they put themselves under obligation, in A.D. 1534, by a solemn vow of absolute poverty and chastity, and promised to devote themselves to the service of the Catholic faith at the bidding of the pope. Practising the strictest asceticism they completed their studies, and obtained ordination as priests. As insurmountable difficulties, arising from the war carried on by Venice with the Turks, prevented the accomplishing of their original intention of a spiritual crusade to the Holy Land, they travelled to Rome, and after some hesitation Paul III., in A.D. 1540, confirmed their association as the Ordo Societatis Jesu. Ignatius was its first general. As such he continued to devote himself with great energy of will to spiritual exercises, to the care of the sick, to pastoral duties, and to the conflict with the heretics. He died in A.D. 1556, and was beatified by Paul V. in A.D. 1609, and canonized by Gregory XV. in A.D. 1622. A collection of his letters was published in three vols. by the Jesuits in A.D. 1874.[435]—Among his disciples who emulated their master in genius, insight, and wide, world-embracing schemes, we must name the versatile Lainez, the energetic Francis Borgia, a Spanish grandee, grandson of the murdered Giovanni Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI. (§ 110, 12), but above all the Neapolitan Claudio Aquaviva, A.D. 1581-1615, who in many respects deserves to be regarded as a new founder of Loyola’s creation. Under these the order entered upon a career of universal significance in history, as a new spiritual army for the defence of the papacy. The popes showed their favour by heaping unheard of privileges upon it, so that it grew from year to year more and more powerful and comprehensive. Never has any human society come to understand better how to prove spirits, and to assign to each individual a place, and to set him to work for ends for which he is best suited; and never has a system of watchful espionage been more consistently and strictly carried out. Everything must be given up to the interests of the order in unconditional obedience to the commands of the superior, even that which is to men most dear and sacred, fatherland, relations, likings and dislikings. One’s own judgment and conscience count for nothing; the order is all in all. They have understood how to use everything that the world affords, science, learning, art, worldly culture, politics, and, in carrying out their foreign missions, colonization, trade, and industry, as means for accomplishing their own ends (§ 156, 13). The order got into its own hands the education of the children of the higher ranks, and thus secured devoted and powerful patrons. By preaching, pastoral work, and the founding of numerous brotherhoods and sisterhoods they wrought upon the people, became advisers of the princes through the confessional, wormed their way into connections and into all secrets. And all these innumerable appliances, all these conspicuous powers and talents, united under the direction of one will, were unwaveringly directed to one end: on the positive side, the furthering and spread of Catholicism; on the negative side, the overthrow and uprooting of Protestantism. On the death of the founder, in A.D. 1556, the order already numbered over 1,000 members in thirteen provinces and 100 colonies; and seventy years later, the number of provinces had increased to thirty-nine, with 15,493 members in 803 houses.[436]—Continuation, §§ 151, 1; 165, 9.

§ 149.9. Constitution of the Jesuit Order.—Required to yield obedience and render an account of their doings only to the pope, exempted from every other kind of ecclesiastical supervision, and therefore scorning to accept any spiritual dignities and benefices, such as bishoprics, canonries, pastorates, etc., this order, thoroughly self-contained, presents a more perfect and compact organization than any large association on this earth has ever been able to show. Only those who had good bodily health and intellectual ability were admitted to the two years’ novitiate. After this period of probation had been passed in a satisfactory manner, the novices were released from the discipline of the novice master and put under the usual three monkish vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity. They now either entered immediately as “secular coadjutors” on the duties assigned to such in administrating and taking care of the outward affairs of the houses of the order, or as “scholastici approbati” for their further intellectual culture were received into collegiate establishments provided for such under the direction of a rector. After completing the prescribed studies and exercises, they proceeded as “scholastici formati” to engage upon their duties as “spiritual coadjutors,” who were required to continue the prosecution of their studies, teach the young, and perform pastoral work. After many years’ trial, the most able and active of them were received into the number of the “professi,” who live purely on alms in a distinct and special kind of institution presided over by a superior. But among the professi, there is a distinction made between those who adopt three and those who adopt four vows. The latter, who, in addition to the other usual vows, take also one of obedience to the pope in regard to any mission among heathens and heretics which he may please to commission them to undertake, as the choice spirits of the order, constitute its very core and form the circle immediately around the general, who with monarchical absolutism stands at the head of all. Even this autocrat however is himself watched over by the four assistants associated with him and by an admonisher, who is at the same time his confessor, so that he may not commit anything contrary to the rules of the order and unduly stretch his own prerogatives; and he is also answerable to the general congregation of all the professi, which is convened every third year. The provincials officiate as his viceroys in different countries in which the order has a footing. Alongside of the spiritual superior of every house of the order stands a procurator, usually of clerical rank, for the administration of the property and the superintendence of the secular coadjutors. Like the general all the other superiors are watched over by the assistants or advisers associated with them, and by the admonishers or father confessors. The Constitutiones Societatis Jesu (Rom., 1583), p. vi., c. i. 1, thus describe the obedience that must be rendered to the superiors: Quisquis sibi persuadeat, quod qui sub obedientia vivunt, se ferri ac regi a divina providentia per superiores suos sinere debent perinde ac si cadaver essent, quod quoquoversus ferri et quacunque ratione tractari se sinit: vel similiter atque senis baculus, qui ubicunque et quacunque in re velit eo uti, qui cum manu tenet, ei inservit. By all members of the order, of every rank of degree, by novices and adepts alike, four weeks were usually devoted once a year under an exercise master chosen for that work to exercitia spiritualia, in which rigid attention was given to prayer, meditation, examination of conscience, mortification, etc., as an effectual means of breaking in and breaking down the individual will. The first sketch of a directory for exercises of this sort was made by the founder himself in his Exercitia Spiritualia (Antwerp, 1638). This work, annotated, enlarged, and completed, was finally adopted by the general congregation in A.D. 1594, and issued under the title Directorium in exer. sp.—The original rule of the Jesuits is set forth in the Constitutiones Societatis Jesu already referred to; their later rule, finally perfected at the eighteenth general congregation, is given in the Institutum Soc. Jesu (2 vols., Prag., 1757). The so called Monita secreta Soc. Jesu, first published at Cracow in A.D. 1612, professing to have been obtained from private instructions communicated by Aquaviva, the fifth general of the order, only to the most trustworthy of the very élite of the professi, which gives without the slightest reserve an account of the devices, often of the most unscrupulous description, to be practised in order to secure an increase to the order of power, reputation, influence, and possessions, have been repudiated with horror by the order as a malevolent calumny, by which probably some offender who had been ejected sought vent for his revenge. The author, who at all events betrays a thorough acquaintance with the internal arrangements of the order, under the fictitious form of a course of instruction given by the general named, may have communicated, with considerable exaggerations, an account of the practices current within the society of his own day.[437]

§ 149.10. The Doctrinal and Moral System of the Jesuits.—In dogmatics Loyola himself and his immediate disciples were firmly attached to the prevailing doctrinal system of Thomas (§ 113, 2). Gradually, however, it came to be seen, that upon this ground their conflict with the Protestants in regard to the fundamental doctrines of sin and grace, justification and sanctification was in various ways precarious, and this occasioned an inclination more and more toward the Scotist side. Their general Aquaviva, in his order of study prescribed in A.D. 1586, publicly announced this departure from the doctrine of the Doctor Angelicus, restricting it, however, to the doctrines of grace and of the immaculate conception. On the other hand, they were the most zealous defenders of the characteristic doctrines of St. Thomas (§ 96, 23) even in their extremest form, the papal infallibility, the pope’s universal episcopate, and his absolute supremacy over every earthly potentate. In the interests of the papacy they thus laid the foundations of a theory of the sovereignty of the people in matters of civil life: Only the papal power is, according to Matthew xvi. 18, immediately from God, that of the princes is from the people. The people therefore, if their prince be a heretic or a tyrant, can rid themselves of him by deposing, banishing, or even putting him to death; i.e. tyrannicide. Thus taught Bellarmine, who died in A.D. 1621, speaking for the whole order, in his treatise De potestate pontificis in temporalibus, and still more decidedly and openly the careful and reliable Spanish historian Juan Mariana, who died in A.D. 1624, in his “Mirror for Princes,” De rege et regis institutione, which was therefore condemned by the parliament of Paris to be burnt; while another work of his, published only after his death, reflecting upon the despotic proceedings of the general of the order, Aquaviva, and mercilessly exposing many other offences of the society, was condemned by Urban VIII. Alongside of the Pelagianizing Jesuit doctrine of grace there was also developed a lax doctrine of morals, which threatened to sap the very foundations of morality. This they made familiar to people generally through the confessional. The following are the principal points upon which their quibbling casuistry has been exercised in such a manner as to bring the morality of the Jesuits into thorough disrepute:

1. Probabilism, which teaches, that in a case where the conscience is undecided as to what should be done or borne in that particular instance, one is not necessarily bound to the more certain and probable meaning, but may even take a less certain and less probable view, if this were supported by weighty reasons, or could be sustained by the authority of some distinguished theologian, a doctor gravis.

2. Intentionalism, or the doctrine that any action, even it be in itself sinful, is to be judged only according to the intention with which it was performed, pointedly expressed in the saying, The end justifies the means, “quia cum finis est licitus etiam media sunt licita” (Busembaum).

3. The distinction between philosophical and theological sin, according to which only the latter, as a sin committed with a clear understanding of the sinfulness of the deed, and with the present consciousness and intention thereby expressly to break a Divine command, is condemnable before God.

4. The doctrine of the permissibility of a secret reserve, reservatio mentalis, and the use of ambiguous language, by means of which, if one, upon giving a solemn affirmation or denial upon oath, has so arranged his words, that besides the meaning naturally to be taken from them that is contrary to the truth or the intention, they admit of another that is in accordance with fact, he is not to be regarded as guilty of giving false witness, of breach of faith, deceit, or perjury.

These and other suchlike moral axioms, not indeed expressed for the first time by the Jesuit order, but already for the most part rooted in the mediæval system of casuistry, were certainly first carried out with reckless consistency in the moral code of the Society of Jesus. In the most frivolous and lighthearted way they were applied to the life, and openly and unreservedly set forth in the confessional, by the most celebrated moralists of the order. They were laid down as well established principles, not merely in learned theological discussion, but in the regularly authorized handbooks of morals, approved by the congregation of the order, of which some fifty or seventy treatises, e.g. those of Escobar and Busembaum (§ 157, 1), are still extant. They cannot therefore be repudiated as the individual opinions of some rash and inconsistent writers. They will also be found to lie at the foundation of the whole scheme and procedure of the order in their prosecution of foreign missions (§§ 150; 156, 12) and in their attempts to proselytise Protestants (§ 151, 1, 2), to supply the principle underlying their ecclesiastical and civil policy, their industrial and commercial activity (§ 156, 13), their pastoral and educational work. They are also thoroughly illustrative of their well known motto, Omnia in majorem Dei gloriam. It need not, however, be denied that the order has at all times numbered among its members many distinguished by deep piety and strict moral principles, and indeed some among them expressly combated from Scripture and experience those doctrines so perilous to moral truth and purity. The most notorious of the Jesuit moralists who taught and defended these pernicious views were Francis Toletus, who died in A.D. 1596, Gabriel Vasquez, who died in A.D. 1604, Thomas Sanchez, who died in A.D. 1610, Francis Suarez, who died in A.D. 1617, the Westphalian Hermann Busembaum, who died in A.D. 1668, and the Spaniard Escobar de Mendoza, who died in A.D. 1699. The name of the last mentioned has obtained an unenviable notoriety by the adoption of the word escobarderie into the French language.[438]

§ 149.11. Jesuit Influence upon Worship and Superstition.—As Jesuitism itself may be described as in every respect a reproduction in an exaggerated form of the Catholicism of the mediæval papacy, with all its unevangelical and anti-evangelical deterioration, all this showed itself pre-eminently and characteristically in reference to worship and superstition. Above all, this appeared in the mariolatry, in which the doctrine and practice of the Jesuits far outstripped all the extravagances of the Middle Ages. In the scheme of worship recommended and practised by the Jesuits the Divine Trinity was supplanted by a quaternity, in which Mary was assigned her place as the adopted daughter of the Father, mother of the Son, and spouse of the Holy Ghost, and thus her fervent devotees made her worship overshadow that of the three Persons of the Godhead. Along with the worship of Mary the order gave a new impetus to the veneration of St. Ann (§ 57, 2), whom Thomas de St. Cyrillo in his book, De laudibus b. Annæ, celebrated as “the grandmother of God and mother-in-law of the Holy Ghost.” In like manner it gave an impulse to worship of saints, images, and relics, to processions, pilgrimages, and rosary devotions, as well as to superstitious beliefs about wonder working scapularies, girdles, medals, amulets, and talismans (§ 186, 2), Ignatius and Xavier-water, endowed with healing properties through contact with the relics or models of these saints. The Jesuits were also making endless discoveries of new miracle legends and relics previously unknown. They originated the worship of the heart of Jesus (§ 156, 6), renewed the practice of flagellation, gave a new vitality to the indulgence nuisance, and diligently fostered belief in sorcery, demoniacal possession, apparitions of the devil, and exorcism. They also encouraged the silly notions of the people about witches, with all their cruel and horrible consequences (§ 117, 4). The Jesuit Delrio, with the approval of his order, published, in A.D. 1599, a book with the title, “Disquisitiones Magicæ,” which, as a worthy companion volume to the “Hammer for Witches,” branded as heresy every doubt as to the truth of witchcraft witnessed to by so many infallible popes, and gave a powerful impetus to witch persecutions throughout Roman Catholic countries. That two noble Jesuits, Tanner, who died in A.D. 1632, and Spee, who died in A.D. 1635, are to be numbered among the first opponents of the gross delusion, does not in the very least affect the indictment brought against the order; for Tanner was persecuted on account of his utterances being contrary to the principles of the society, and Spee’s “Cautio Criminalis” could venture into the light only anonymously, and be printed only in a Protestant town (Ruiteln, 1631).

§ 149.12. Educational Methods and Institutions of the Jesuits.—The Jesuit order never interested itself in elementary and popular education. The pulpit and confessional, as well as the founding and control of spiritual brotherhoods and sisterhoods, afforded ample means and opportunities for impressing their influence upon the lower orders of the people. On the other hand, the order laboured unweariedly to secure professorships in gymnasiums, seminaries for priests, and universities, and that, not merely in the department of theology, but also in all the other faculties. By these means and by the founding of regular Jesuit schools they sought to get into their own hands the education of the higher ranks, so as to secure from among them as large a number as possible of members, friends, and protectors. Under the general Aquaviva this movement obtained an authorized directory and rule in the Ratio et institutio studiorum Soc. J., published in A.D. 1586. And very remarkable although thoroughly one-sided, and thus no doubt most effectually realizing the ends desired, were the results which the order gained in the department of Catholic education, which had been thrown into deep shade by the brilliant advances of Protestant scholarship and educational methods. The study of philology had for its almost sole object the acquiring of the Latin language with Ciceronian elegance, but this only produced fluency in writing and speaking. Greek was studied only by the way; and the knowledge of classical antiquities, as well as the arts and sciences generally, with the exception of mathematics, was utterly neglected. But special attention was devoted to rhetoric, and by means of disputations, public lectures, and dramatic representations readiness in speaking and replying was obtained; but freedom of thought and independent culture were rigorously suppressed. The whole course of instruction, as well as the method of tuition, had for its aim the breaking in and subduing of the pupil’s will. Adherence to rigid order, and unconditional obedience to reasonable demands, and a mild discipline, with strict control, and a regular system by which one was set to watch another, were the means used for arousing to the utmost a spirit of emulation and giving a sharp spur to ambition. The course of study which a scholastic of the order had to pass through in the collegiate establishments was divided into the studia inferiora and superiora. The former, consisting of three classes, embraced the Grammatica as a preliminary basis for the two higher classes of the Humanitas and the Rhetorica. The superiora comprised a three years’ course of Aristotelian philosophy, and a four years’ course of scholastic theology upon the Sentences of the Lombard and the Summa of St. Thomas, together with Bible study upon the Vulgate and the original texts, a little Church history, and, as the crown of the whole curriculum, casuistic ethics.

§ 149.13. Theological Controversies.

1. The old controversy about the immaculate conception of the blessed Virgin had not by any means obtained a final settlement at Trent. By firmly maintaining the decree on the universality of original sin the Franciscans hoped, with the zealous support of the Jesuits Lainez and Salmeron, to obtain express recognition of the pet doctrine of their order (§ 104, 7); but, on the other hand, the Dominicans so vehemently protested, that the council, in order to prevent a threatened schism, was obliged to leave the point in dispute undecided, and was satisfied with renewing the constitution of Sixtus IV., of A.D. 1483 (§ 112, 4), and thus prohibiting the one party from accusing the other of heresy.—Continuation, § 156, 5.

2. The council for the same reason was just as little able to set at rest the burning controversy between Thomists and Scotists on the doctrine of grace (§ 113, 2) by issuing any decisive statement on the subject. When the pious and learned professor Michael Baius of Lyons came forward in lectures and writings as a zealous defender of Augustinianism, the Franciscans extracted from his works seventy-six propositions, which were condemned by Pius V., A.D. 1567. And when again the Jesuits came forward in support of the papal verdict, the theological faculty of Lyons in A.D. 1587, took the field and passed censure upon thirty-four Pelagianizing propositions of the Jesuits Leonard Less and John Hamel as opposed to Holy Scripture and St. Augustine. In the following year the Portuguese Jesuit Louis Molina, in his treatise Liberi arbitrii cum gratiæ donis concordia of A.D. 1588, set forth a semi-pelagian modification of the disputed propositions; the Dominicans, with the learned Dominicus Bañez at their head, opposed with a bitter polemic. But now the whole order of the Jesuits stood together as one man on the side of Molina. Besieged from both sides into complaints and demands, Clement VIII., in A.D. 1597, appointed a commission, the so called congregatio de auxiliis, to make a thorough investigation into the matter, and to give an exhaustive report. After this commission had spent ten years in vainly endeavouring to construct a formula which would give satisfaction to both parties, Paul V. dissolved it in A.D. 1607, promised to make known his decision at a more suitable time, and then in A.D. 1611 forbade all further disputings on that question. But after little more than thirty years the controversy broke out again at another place in a far more threatening and dangerous form (§ 156, 5).

§ 149.14. Theological Literature.—Various kinds of expedients were tried in order thoroughly to secure the establishment of the Tridentine system of belief. Paul IV. had as early as A.D. 1499 drawn up a list of prohibited books, which was again ratified at Trent in A.D. 1562, and has been since then continued and enlarged through some forty editions as the Index librorum prohibitorum et expurgandorum (with the note, donec corrigatur). Pius V. founded in A.D. 1571 a special “Congregation of the Index,” for looking after this business.[439] The Professio fidei Tridentinæ of A.D. 1564, and the Catechismus Romanus of A.D. 1566, were issued as authentic statements of the Tridentine doctrine; and in A.D. 1588 a permanent congregation was instituted for the explaining of that system in all cases of dispute that might arise. Also the new Breviarium Romanum of A.D. 1568 (§ 56, 2), as well as the Missale Romanum of A.D. 1570, served the same end. In A.D. 1566 Pius V. had appointed a commission, the so called Correctores Romani, for the preparing of a new edition of the Corpus juris canonici, which Gregory XIII. issued as the only authentic form in A.D. 1582. Sixtus V. published in A.D. 1589 a new edition of the Vulgate, Editio Sixtina, and, notwithstanding its numerous errata, often only pasted over or scratched out, pronounced it authentic. Clement VIII., however, issued a much altered revision, Editio Clementina, in A.D. 1592, and strictly forbade any alteration of it, but was induced himself to send out next year a second edition, which was guilty of this very fault. Meanwhile Roman Catholics and scholars began, in spite of the Tridentine decree as to the authenticity of the Vulgate, to give diligent attention to the study of the original text of Holy Scripture. The Dominican Santes Pagninus of Lucca, who died in A.D. 1541, a pupil of Savonarola, after careful study of all rabbinical aids, produced a Hebrew lexicon in A.D. 1529, a Hebrew grammar in A.D. 1528, a literally exact rendering of the Old and the New Testaments from the original texts, upon which he was engaged for thirty years, an introduction, with a thorough treatment of the tropical language of Scripture, and commentaries on the Pentateuch and Psalms. The literal meaning was with him palea, folium, cortex; the mystical, triticum, fructus, nucleus suavissimus. More importance was attached to the historical sense by the Dominican Sixtus of Siena, by birth a Jew, who died in A.D. 1569. His Bibliotheca sancta is an introduction to Holy Scripture extremely credible for that age. The Roman Inquisition condemned him to death because of heretical expressions in that work, especially with regard to the deutero-canonical books of the Old Testament; but Pius V. pardoned him, after he had prevailed upon him to retract. The Jesuit Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, who died in A.D. 1621, in his Ll. IV. de verbo Dei controverted the Protestant principle, Scriptura scripturæ interpres. Jerome Emser bitterly inveighed against Luther’s translation of the Bible, and, in A.D. 1527, set over against it an attempted translation of his own, which, however, is nothing more than a reprint of Luther’s, with the changes necessary in consequence of following the Vulgate and unimportant transpositions and alterations of words. The same barefaced impudence was practised by John Dietenberger of Mainz, in whose pretended rendering of the Old Testament of A.D. 1534, the translation of Luther and Leo Judä is followed almost word for word. John Eck of Ingolstadt produced, in A.D. 1537, a translation of the Bible from the Vulgate in the most wretched German, without the least consultation of the original text. On the other hand, the Augustinian monk Luis de Leon, who died in A.D. 1591, was not only celebrated as a learned and brilliant exegete, but also distinguished as a poet and prose writer of the first rank in the national literature of Spain. He was thrown into the prison of the Spanish Inquisition because of a translation and exposition of the Song of Songs in the mystico-ecclesiastical sense, circulated only in manuscript, and because of his depreciation of the Vulgate; and only after a five years’ confinement, during which he narrowly escaped the hands of the hangman, was he set free. The learned Spaniard Arias Montanus, under the patronage of King Philip II., edited the Antwerp polyglott in eight vols. folio, with learned notes and excursuses, in A.D. 1569 ff. The number of exegetes who now gave decided prominence to the literal sense became very considerable toward the end of the century. The most notable of these are Arias Montanus, who died in A.D. 1598, having commented on almost the whole Bible; the Jesuit John Maldonatus, who died in A.D. 1583, on the four gospels; John Mariana, who died in A.D. 1624, Scholia in V. et N.T.; Nich. Serrarius, who died in A.D. 1609, on the Old and New Testaments; and also William Estius of Douay, who died in A.D. 1613, on the New Testament epistles.—In the department of dogmatics the old traditional method was still followed by commenting on the Lombard. The most important schoolman of the age was the Spanish Jesuit Francis Suarez. In A.D. 1528 Berth. Pirstinger, Bishop of Chiemsee, under the title “Tewtsche Theologey,” wrote a complete handbook of theology in the High German dialect, which had completely emancipated itself from the scholastic forms (§ 125, 5). John Eck also produced a rival work to Melanchthon’s Loci, the Enchiridion locorum communium, which within fifty years passed through forty-six editions. But of much greater importance are the Loci theologici of the Spanish Dominican Melch. Canus, who died in A.D. 1550, which were published at Salamanca in A.D. 1563. They consist not so much of a system of doctrines properly so called, as rather of comprehensive and learned preliminary investigations about the sources, principles, method, and fundamental ideas of dogmatics. He rejects the charge of absolute perversity brought against scholasticism, but grants that the method should be simplified, and what is good in it preserved. For instructions in higher and lower schools the two catechisms of the first German Jesuit provincial, Petrus [Peter] Canisius (§ 161, 1), Cat. major of A.D. 1554, and Cat. parvus of A.D. 1566, were epoch-making. They were circulated in numberless editions and translations,—the Little Catechism being printed more than 500 times,—and used for two centuries in all the Catholic schools in Germany; and even yet they are held in high esteem. Among the Catholic polemical writers, Cardinal Bellarmine occupies beyond dispute the foremost rank. His Disputationes de controversiis chr. fidei adv. hujus temp. hæreticos, A.D. 1588-1593, are in many respects unsurpassed even to this day. Before him William Lindanus, Bishop of Ghent, author of Panoplia evangelica (Colon., A.D. 1563), and the Jesuit Francis Coster of Mechlin, author of Enchiridion controversiarum (Colon., A.D. 1585), had won a great reputation among their own party as disputants against Protestantism. The services rendered to church history by Cardinal Baronius have already been referred to under § 5, 2.

§ 149.15. Art and Poetry.—In the second Dutch school (§ 115, 8) musical taste was thoroughly depraved, and Church music especially became so artificial, florid, and secularized, that some of the Tridentine fathers in all seriousness proposed that figured music should be completely banished from the church services, at least in the performance of mass. It was when matters had reached this low ebb that Palestrina, Giovanni Pietro Aloisio Sante of Palestrina, appeared as the saviour and regenerator of sacred musical art. He was a scholar of Goudimel, who, before he passed over to the Reformed church (§ 143, 2), had founded a school of music in Rome. As early as A.D. 1560, in his sacred compositions on Micah vi. 3 ff., which to this day are performed always on Good Friday in the Sistine Chapel, Palestrina secured a firm position as an unsurpassed master of genuine ecclesiastical music. The commission appointed by Pius IV. for the reformation of church music called upon him therefore to submit specimens of his compositions. He produced three masses in A.D. 1565, among which was the celebrated Missa Marcelli, dedicated to his former patron, the deceased pope Marcellus II. With this masterpiece, which represents the highest perfection of Catholic church music, and entitled its author to rank as a prince of musical art, Musicæ princeps, the retention of the figured music in the mass, so keenly contested in the council, was decided upon.—The immense success of the sacred song of the Protestant church as a means for spreading the Reformation constrained the Catholic church, very unwillingly, to seek to counteract this danger by the translation of Latin hymns and the composition of songs of praise in German (§ 115, 7), as well as by the liberal introduction of them into the public services. Between A.D. 1470 and A.D. 1631 there have been enumerated no fewer than sixty-two collections of German Catholic church hymns. The most important are those of Michael Vehe, Provost of Halle, A.D. 1537; of George Witzel, a renegade Lutheran, A.D. 1550; of John Leisetritt, dean of the cathedral at Budissin, A.D. 1567; and Gregory Corner, Abbot of Gottweih, in his “Great Catholic Hymnbook,” A.D. 1625. Caspar Ulenberg, previously a Lutheran, in A.D. 1582 rendered the psalms of David into German rhyme; and Rutzer Eding published in A.D. 1583 a German mass, with translation of the Latin church hymns. The names of the poets and translators are for the most part unknown. Many a beautiful sacred song, too, is met with among these rich materials, an evidence of what might have been the result if the Catholic church of Germany, instead of having been opposed or only half-hearted, had fostered and encouraged this important part of the Divine service with whole-hearted enthusiasm.—The arts of architecture and painting continued to be still cultivated successfully in the Roman Catholic church (§ 115, 13). Besides Correggio and Titian, and after them, named with the noble masters of painting, are the two Caracci, uncle and nephew, Domenichino and Guido Reni. Michael Angelo Buonarotti, who died in A.D. 1564 an old man of ninety years, gave expression to the most profound Christian ideas in his works of painting and sculpture. The Renaissance style during the 16th century gave scope for the further application and development of ecclesiastical architecture. The most magnificent church building of the century was the rebuilding of St. Peter’s church at Rome, undertaken by Pope Julius II. in A.D. 1506, which Bramante began and Michael Angelo after his plan carried out. As painter and statuary, Angelo had refused slavishly to follow the traditions of the church in respect of the worship of Mary and the saints, and so, too, as a poet in glowing sonnets he only gave expression to deep sorrow for sin, and his true spiritual faith in the crucified Sin-bearer. His countryman Torquato Tasso, who died in A.D. 1595, in his “Jerusalem Delivered,” celebrated the Christian heroic of mediæval Catholicism. In the history of Spanish poetry, the Christian lyrics of St. Theresa and Luis de Leon are regarded even to this day as unsurpassed in excellence.

§ 149.16. The Spanish Mystics.—In consequence of the Reformation, the Roman Catholic church was compelled to have recourse to the revivification of the mediæval mysticism from which it had become alienated in life and doctrine, in order by means of it to give that intensity and inward power to the religious life which was now felt to be indispensably necessary without falling away from the church in which alone salvation can be found, and without making surrender to the inanis fiducia hæreticorum. Thus there arose from about the middle of the century, first of all in Spanish cloisters, a new development of mysticism, which, without expressly attacking the “outer way” of the ecclesiastical practice of piety, introduced and recommended a second higher and nobler method, called the “inner way,” because leading to Christian perfection. This consisted in a regular and deeply spiritual exercise in prayer and contemplation, with a decided preference for inward unuttered prayer, with complete mortification of one’s own self-will and absolute self-surrender to the Divine guidance, having for its aim and climax the most blessed rest in fellowship with God. A pious Minorite, St. Peter of Alcantara, gave to this tendency a doctrinal basis by his treatise, De oratione et meditatione, published in A.D. 1545, in which he manifests a most bitter opposition to Protestantism, and a zealous readiness to co-operate in all the horrid cruelties of the Spanish counter-reformation. Its highest point is reached in the famous Carmelite nun of Avila in Old Castile, St. Theresa de Jesus, who died in A.D. 1582, the most celebrated saint of the Spanish church. Introduced by Peter of Alcantara in A.D. 1560 to the profound mysteries of contemplation, and favoured amid the convulsions of her life of prayer with frequent visions of Christ, she undertook, in A.D. 1562, by the founding of a new cloister, to lead her order back to the strict observance of this old rule. The fame of her sanctity soon had spread over all Spain, but all the more did the hatred of the brothers and sisters of her order who favoured the lax observance increase. They even carried the bitterness so far as to get the Inquisition to originate a heretic prosecution against her in A.D. 1579, on the ground of her pretension to have visions, but this was abandoned by command of the king. Among her numerous writings, of which Luis de Leon, in A.D. 1583, issued a complete edition, which have been translated into all the languages of Europe, the “Castillo interior,” i.e. the City of Mansoul, or the seven Residences of the Soul, is the one in which her mysticism is most completely developed. It describes the stages through which the soul must pass in order to become wholly one with God. Her faithful fellow labourer in the reforming of the order, St. John of the Cross, who died in A.D. 1591, in regard to mysticism occupied the same ground with her. His writings, among which the Subida del Monte Carmel, “The Climbing of Mount Carmel,” is the most comprehensive, are not to be compared with those of St. Theresa in the rare witchery of an enchanting style, but are distinguished by solidity and maturity of thought. The brethren of the order opposed to reform showed toward John a far more severe and continuous bitterness than they did toward Theresa. Even in A.D. 1575 he was imprisoned in one of their cloisters, and cruelly ill used. He made his escape indeed in the following year by flight, but only in A.D. 1588 did a papal brief, by a formal establishment of the Congregation of the Barefooted Carmelites, put an end to all oppressions and persecutions. The mysticism recommended by him and St. Theresa found entrance now more and more into the cloisters, not only of the Carmelites, but also of the other orders, and numbered many adherents among the higher and lower clergy, as well as among cultured laymen.—But while on this side the traditional forms and doctrines usual in the practice of piety in the church sank indeed into the background, but were never expressly repudiated or contradicted, there arose upon this same mystical basis numerous sects designated enlightened “Alumbrados,” who went all the length of pouring abuse and contempt upon every kind of church form and doctrine, and thus calling forth down to the 17th century constant persecution from the Inquisition. Theresa was canonized in A.D. 1622, Peter of Alcantara in A.D. 1669, and John of the Cross in A.D. 1726.—Continuation, § 156.

§ 149.17. There were also many noble products of the practical Christian life brought forth in that new departure which Catholicism after the Reformation in the interests of self-preservation had been obliged to undertake. Evidence of this practical endeavour was given in the zealous manner in which home missions were prosecuted. From out of the general body of Catholicism there sprang up a new series of saints, who were quite worthy to rank alongside those of the Middle Ages. Most highly distinguished among these was Charles Borromeo, born A.D. 1538, died A.D. 1584, who, from his position as nephew of Pope Pius IV., and from his high rank in the church as cardinal and Archbishop of Milan, exerted a powerful influence upon the Tridentine Council and the curia, which he used for the removal of many abuses. His life is the realization of the perfect ideal of that of a Catholic pastor and prelate. He also proved himself worthy of being so regarded during the dreadful pestilence that raged in Milan in A.D. 1576. Paul V. canonized him in A.D. 1610, and to this day his tall figure in a colossal statue looks out upon the province of Milan as the patron of the state.[440]—Along with the intensification of the specifically Catholic sentiment awakened in the cloisters by means of the endeavours put forth in the counter-reformation and spreading out from these into the general Catholic community, we meet with a revival of the old zeal for monkish asceticism. The Jesuits especially laboured earnestly for the restoration of the discipline of the lash, brought at an early period into discredit by the extravagances of the Flagellants (§ 116, 3). And besides these many also of the new and reformed orders gave themselves to further and advance the counter-reformation. Cardinal Borromeo, above referred to, took a lively interest in this mode of spiritual disciplinary exercise. After he had at a council at Milan, in A.D. 1569, given a new organization to the flagellant societies of his diocese, and Pope Gregory XIII., in A.D. 1572, had endowed with a rich indulgence all the associations of that sort, they in a very short time spread again over all Italy. In Rome alone they numbered over a hundred, which, according to their colours, were designated as white, gray, black, red, green, blue, etc. Especially on Good Friday they vied with one another in getting up their flagellant processions on the most magnificent scale. In France they were patronized by Cardinal Charles of Lorraine, and King Henry III. was himself a devoted and enthusiastic member of the order. In Germany, too, the Jesuits brought the flagellants into favour, wherever they could get a footing, especially in the north German cities. The learned Jesuit, Jac. Gretson, in Ingolstadt, in the very beginning of the 17th century, wrote seven elaborate rhetorical controversial tracts, De spontanea disciplinarum s. flagellorum cruce, etc., against the Protestant opponents of the flagellant craze. Afterwards, however, the ardour and zeal for the practice of this discipline cooled down more and more in most of the monkish orders as well as in general society, and local flagellant processions, in which there was generally more of a vain, empty show than of real penitential earnestness, are to be met with now only as occasional displays in Spain and Italy, and in the Romish states of America.

§ 150. FOREIGN MISSIONS.

The grand discoveries of new continents which had preceded the Reformation age, and the serious losses sustained in European countries, revived the interest in missions throughout the Roman Catholic church. Commercial enterprise and campaigns for the conquest of the world, which were still almost exclusively in the hands of the Catholic states, afforded opportunities for the prosecution of mission work in the New World; and abundant means for carrying it on were furnished by the numerous monkish orders.

§ 150.1. Missions to the Heathen: East Indies and China.—The Portuguese founded the first bishopric in the East Indies, at Goa on the Malabar Coast, in A.D. 1534. Soon thereafter a tribunal of the Inquisition was established alongside of it. The bishop confined his attention to the European immigrants, and the inquisitors applied themselves mainly to secure the destruction of the Thomas-Christians settled there. Neither of them had the remotest idea of doing any properly speaking mission work among the native races. But it was quite different when, in A.D. 1542, Loyola’s companion Francis Xavier, the Apostle of the Indians, made his appearance as papal nuncio in this wide field along with two other Jesuits. Working with glowing zeal and unparalleled self-denial, he baptized in a short time a hundred thousand, mostly of the low, despised caste of pariahs, going forward certainly with a haste which never allowed him time to make sure that the spiritual fruits should bear any proportion to the outward successes. His unmeasured missionary fervour, to which characteristic expression was given in his saying, Amplius! amplius! impelled him constantly to go on seeking for new fields of labour. From the East Indies he moved on to Japan, and only his death, which occurred in A.D. 1552, hindered him from pushing his way into China. Numerous successors from Loyola’s order undertook the carrying on of his work, and so soon as A.D. 1565 the converts of the East Indies numbered 300,000.[441]—Commerce opened the way for missions into China, where all traces of earlier Christianity (§§ 72, 1; 93, 15) had already completely vanished, and proud contempt of everything stood in the way of the introduction of any western customs or forms of worship. But the Jesuits, with Matthew Ricci of Ancona at their head, by making use of their knowledge of mathematical, mechanical, and physical science, secured for themselves access even to the court. Ricci at first completely nationalized himself, and then began his missionary enterprise by introducing Christian instructions into his mathematical and astronomical lectures. In order to render the Chinese favourable to the adoption of Christianity, he represented it to be a renewal and restoration of the old doctrine of Confucius. The confession of faith which the new converts before baptism were required to make was confined to an acknowledgment of one God and recognition of the obligation of the ten commandments. And even in worship he tolerated many heathen practices and customs. The mathematical and astronomical writings composed by him in the Chinese language are said to have extended to 150 volumes. The Chinese artillery also stood under his immediate supervision. When he died, in A.D. 1610, the Jesuits had even then formed a network of hundreds of churches spread over a great part of the land.[442]—Continuation, § 156, 11, 12.

§ 150.2. Japan.—Xavier had here, chiefly on account of his defective acquaintance with the language, relatively speaking only a very small measure of success. But other Jesuits followed in his footsteps, and enjoyed the most brilliant success; so that in A.D. 1581 there were already more than two hundred churches and about 150,000 Christians in the land, of whom many belonged to the old feudal nobility, the daimios, while some were even imperial princes. This distinguished success was greatly owing, on the one hand, to the favour of the then military commander-in-chief Nobunaga, who greeted the advance of Christianity as a welcome means for undermining the influence of the Buddhist bonzes, which had become supreme, and, on the other hand, to the abundance of money put by Portugal and Spain at the disposal of the Jesuits, which they used as well in the adorning of the Catholic services as in the bestowing of liberal gifts upon the converts. It was, however, chiefly owing to the close and essential relationship between the Romish ritual and constitution and those of Buddhism, which rendered the transition from the one to the other by no means very difficult. Then everything that had gone to secure for Buddhism in Japan a superiority over the simple old national Sintuism or ancestor-worship, as well as everything that the Japanese Buddhists had been wont to regard as indispensable requisites of worship, the elegance of the temples, altars glittering with bright colours blending together, theatrical display in the vestments for their priests, grand solemn processions and masses, incense, images, statues and rosaries, a hierarchical system, the tonsure, celibacy, cloisters for monks and nuns, worship of saints and images, pilgrimages, etc., was given them in even an exaggerated degree in Jesuit Christianity. The zealous neophytes from among the daimios effectually backed up the preaching of the Jesuit fathers by fire and sword. They compelled the subjects of their provinces to go over to the Christian religion, banished or put to death those who proved refractory, and overthrew the Buddhist temples and cloisters. In A.D. 1582 they sent an embassy of four young noblemen to Europe to pay homage to the pope. After they had received the most flattering reception in Madrid from Philip II., and in Rome from Gregory XIII. and Sixtus V., they returned to their own home in A.D. 1590, accompanied by seventeen Jesuit priests, who were soon followed by whole crowds of mendicant friars. By the close of the century the number of native Christians had increased to 600,000. But meanwhile the axe was already being laid at the root of the tree that had thriven so wondrously. Nobunaga’s successor Hidejoshi found occasion, in A.D. 1587, to issue a decree banishing from the country all foreign missionaries. The Jesuits were wise enough to cease at once all public preaching, but the begging monks treated the decree with contempt and open defiance. In consequence of this six Franciscans and seventeen Japanese converts of theirs, and along with them also three Jesuits, were arrested at Nagasaki and there crucified (§ 156, 11). Soon afterwards Hidejoshi died. One of his generals, Ijejasu, to whom he had assigned the regency during the minority of his six year old son, assumed the sovereign power to himself. A civil war was the result, and in A.D. 1600 his opponents, among whom were certain Christian daimios, were conquered in a bloody battle. Ijejasu persuaded the mikado to give him the hereditary rank of shiogun, i.e. field-marshal of the empire; and his successors down to the revolution of A.D. 1867 (§ 182, 5), as military vice-emperors alongside of the really powerless mikado, had all the power of government in their own hands. Thus were corrupting elements introduced which led to the complete overthrow of the Japanese church.[443]

§ 150.3. America.—The desire to spread Christ’s kingdom was not by any means the smallest among the impulses that contributed to Christopher Columbus’ enthusiasm for the discovery of new countries; but the greediness, cruelty, and animosity of the Spanish conquerors, who had less interest in converting the natives into Christians than in reducing them to slavery, was a terrible hindrance to the Christianizing of the New World. The Christian missionaries indeed most emphatically, but with only a small measure of success, defended the human rights of the ill-used Indians. The noble Mexican bishop, Bartholomew de las Casas, in particular wrought unweariedly, devoting his whole life, A.D. 1474 to A.D. 1566, to the sacred task, not only of instructing the Indians, but also of saving them from the hands of his greedy and bloodthirsty fellow countrymen. Six times he journeyed to Spain in order to use personal influence in high quarters for ameliorating the lot of his protégés, and he was obliged to undertake a seventh journey in order to justify himself and repel the violent accusations of his enemies. Even in A.D. 1517 Charles V. had, at the bishop’s entreaty, granted personal liberty to the Indians, but at the same time gave permission to the Spanish colonists to introduce African negro slaves for the laborious work in the mines and on the plantations. The enslaving of the natives, however, was still continued, and only in A.D. 1547 were vigorous measures taken to secure the suppression of the practice, after many millions of Indians had been already sacrificed. So far as the Spanish dominion extended Christianity also spread, and was established by means of the Inquisition.—In South America the Portuguese held sway in the rich and as yet little known empire of Brazil. In A.D. 1549 King John III. sent thither a Jesuit mission, with Emanuel Nobreya at its head. Amid unspeakable hardships they won over the native cannibals to Christianity and civilization.[444]

§ 150.4. The newly awakened missionary zeal of the church made an attempt also upon the schismatical Churches of the East. The enterprise, however, was even moderately successful only in reference to a portion of the Persian and East Indian Nestorians (§ 72, 1), who in Persia were called Syrian or Chaldæan Christians, because of the language which they used in their liturgy, and in India Thomas-Christians, because they professed to have had the Apostle Thomas as their founder. They had their origin really, in A.D. 1551, in Mesopotamia, in consequence of a double episcopal election there. The one party chose a priest Sulakas, whom Pope Julius III. had consecrated priest under the name of John, but the other party refused to acknowledge him. The Archbishop Alexius Menezius also became involved in these controversies, and succeeded in getting the former party to recognise the Roman primacy and accept the Catholic doctrine; while, on the other hand, Rome permitted the retention of its ancient ritual and form of constitution. These united Nestorians were now called by way of eminence Chaldæan Christians. Their chief, chosen by themselves and approved by the pope, was called Bishop of Babylon, but had his residence at Mosul in Mesopotamia. The Thomas-Christians of India, however, proved much more troublesome. But even they were obliged, after a long, protracted struggle, at a synod at Diampur in A.D. 1599, to abjure the Nestorian heresy. All Syrian books were burnt, and a new Malabar liturgy in accordance with the Romish type was introduced.—The existence of an independent Jacobite Christian church in Abyssinia (§ 64, 1) first became known in Europe in the beginning of the sixteenth century through Portuguese commercial and diplomatic missions. The Abyssinian sultan, David, in A.D. 1514, upon promise of Portuguese help, of which he stood in need because of the aggressions of the neighbouring Mohammadan [Mohammedan] states, agreed to receive the physician Bermudez as Catholic patriarch. But the next sultan, Claudius, expelled him from his land. In A.D. 1562 Jesuit missionaries began to settle in the country; but Claudius denounced them as Arians, and wished the people to have nothing to do with them. As the result of a friendly communication from the Coptic patriarch, Paul V., in the beginning of the 17th century, sent the Jesuit Rodriguez into Egypt. The patriarch accepted the rich presents which the Jesuit brought with him, and then made him return home without having gained the object of his mission.

§ 151. ATTEMPTED REGENERATION OF ROMAN CATHOLICISM.

Paul III. had in A.D. 1542 erected a new tribunal of the Inquisition for the suppression of Protestantism, which Paul IV. (§ 149, 2) brought up to the highest point of its development. And scarcely had the Catholic church secured for itself a stable position throughout its own domains by the happy conclusion of the Tridentine Council, than it directed all its powers with the utmost energy to reconquer as far as then possible the ground that had been lost. The means used for this end were mainly of two sorts: the territorial system, legitimated by a law of the empire (§ 137, 5), which, devised originally in order to save Protestantism (§ 126, 6), was now employed for its overthrow; and the Jesuits, who, sometimes openly and sometimes with carefully concealed plans, sometimes in conjunction with the civil power, sometimes intriguing against it, spread like swarms over all the countries of Europe where Protestantism had already struck its roots. The craftiness of the members of this order, their diplomatic acts, their machinations, their practice in controversy, succeeded in some cases in fanning the scarcely glimmering embers of Catholicism into a bright flame, in other cases in blighting Protestant churches that had been in a flourishing condition. They hoped thus to be able to destroy these churches root and branch, or to reduce Protestantism within the narrow limits of a barely tolerated sect. But above all they were careful to get into their hands the control of the higher and lower schools, in order to be able to implant in the hearts of the young and rising generation a bitter hatred of Protestantism.

§ 151.1. Attempts at Regeneration in Germany.—From the time of the Passau Compact the political convulsions and the weariness of controversy shown by the princes proved strongly in favour of Protestantism. In Catholic states, too, the Protestant religion had made rapid advances. The deputies of provinces, and especially the nobles, gave unmistakable expression to their sympathies, and for every grant of territory demanded a religious concession from the prince. Many prelates or spiritual princes had more Protestant than Catholic councillors. The Protestant nobles frequented their courts without constraint. Their residences were often Protestant cities, and their revenues not unfrequently in the hands of evangelical superiors. But for the Jesuits, in spite of territorial influence and prelatical restrictions (§ 137, 5), in a few decades all Germany would have fallen into the hands of the evangelical church. In A.D. 1558 a Venetian observer of the country and the people could bring back the report that in Germany only a tenth of the population remained true to the old church; that of the other nine parts seven had gone over to the Lutherans, and two were distributed among the various anti-Catholic denominations. Of all the German cities Ingolstadt was the first, in A.D. 1549, to be favoured with a visit of the Jesuits, who were brought there by William IV. of Bavaria as teachers of theology. Next in order comes Vienna, where, in A.D. 1551, thirteen Jesuits, under the name of Spanish priests, were introduced by Ferdinand. Some years later they settled in Prague, as also in Cologne. From those four capitals they spread out within a few years over the whole territorially Catholic Germany, and throughout the Austrian states. In A.D. 1552 Loyola founded at Rome the Collegium Germanicum, which was subsequently extended under the name of the Collegium Germ.-Ungaricum, for the training of German youths for the conversion of Protestants in their native land. The first Jesuit provincial for Germany was the Dutchman Peter Canisius, who, first of all from Vienna, and afterwards, when Maximilian II. (§ 137, 8) put the Jesuits in Austria under intolerable restrictions, from Friesburg, had so successfully carried the regeneration into Switzerland, until his death in A.D. 1598, that while the Protestants designated him Canis Austriacus because of his ruthless persecution, the members of his order honoured him as the second Apostle of the Germans, and Pius IX., in recognition of his services, beatified him in A.D. 1864.—The Catholic regeneration began in Bavaria in A.D. 1564. Duke Albert V., converted into a zealous Catholic by the opposition of his Protestant members of parliament, excluded the Protestant nobles from the Bavarian diet, banished the evangelical pastors, compelled his Protestant subjects who refused to abandon their faith to emigrate, and obliged all professors and officials to subscribe the Tridentine Professio fidei. The Jesuits praised him as a second Josiah and Theodosius, called Munich a second Rome, and the pope invested him with the ecclesiastico-political privileges of a summus episcopus throughout his own dominions. When by inheritance he became Count of the Hague, and also Baden-Baden came under his rule as regent, Protestantism was there thoroughly rooted out. Bavaria’s example was followed, though in a more temperate manner, by the electors of Treves (Jac. von Eltz) and Mainz (Daniel Brendel). The latter restored Catholicism in A.D. 1574 into the hitherto thoroughly Protestant city Eichsfelde. In A.D. 1575 the Abbot of Fulda also, Balth. von Dernbach, who in all his territory was almost the only Catholic, acted in a similar manner. In making this attempt Balthasar [Balthazar] came into collision with his chapter, and was by it and his knights expelled. The Bishop of Würzburg, Jul. Echter of Mispelbrunn, who had been aiding them in the revolution, in A.D. 1576 undertook the administration of the diocese. But in the beginning of the following year the abbot was restored by an imperial order, and thus the last vestige of Protestantism was rooted out. Julius of Würzburg, seriously compromised, would probably have followed the example of Gebhard of Cologne (§ 137, 7), though that prelate’s proceedings were dictated by altogether different considerations; but by A.D. 1584 he worked himself into power again by completely rooting out Protestantism from his own territory, which had been almost completely Protestant. The bishops of Bamberg, Salzburg, Hildesheim, Münster, Paderborn, etc., pursued a similar policy. At all points Jesuits were at the front and Jesuits were in the rear. In the newly constituted nuncio court, at Vienna, in A.D. 1581, at Cologne, in A.D. 1582, they had the grand centres of their conspiracies and machinations. Ferdinand II. of Styria, emperor from A.D. 1619, and Maximilian I. of Bavaria, were both educated by the Jesuits at Ingolstadt. When in A.D. 1596 Ferdinand celebrated Easter at Grätz, he was the only one there who communicated according to the Roman Catholic rite. Two years later he successfully carried out the counter-reformation, and his cousin, the Emperor Rudolph II., followed his example.—Continuation, § 153, 2.

§ 151.2. But the regeneration was not confined to Germany. It spread out over all Europe. The Jesuits pressed into every country, and were successful in compassing their ends even in places where there had been very little prospect of success. The Cardinal Charles Borromeo (§ 149, 17) laboured with peculiar energy to establish Catholicism, and spread it yet more widely in the Catholic and mixed cantons of Switzerland. He himself undertook a journey thither in A.D. 1570; contrived in A.D. 1574 to get the Jesuits introduced into Lucerne, in A.D. 1586 into Freiburg; founded at Milan a Collegium Helveticum for the training of Catholic priests for Switzerland, and secured the appointment of a permanent nuncio, who had his residence at Lucerne. In the province of Chablais on Lake Geneva, under Piedmontese rule, St. Francis de Sales, by the forcible conversion of 80,000 heretics in A.D. 1596, completely rooted out Protestantism (§ 156, 1).—In France the bloody civil wars began in A.D. 1562. The Duke of Alva appeared in the Netherlands in A.D. 1567. In Poland the Jesuits secured an entrance first in A.D. 1569, and from thence made their way over into Livonia. In A.D. 1578 the crafty Jesuit Ant. Possevin gained access to Sweden, and there converted the king (§ 139, 1). Even in England, where Elizabeth in A.D. 1582 had threatened every Jesuit with capital punishment, crowds of them wrought away in secret, and in hope of better times tended the flickering spark of Catholicism smouldering under the ashes (§ 153, 6).

§ 151.3. Russia and the United Greeks.—The attempts, renewed from time to time since the meeting of the Florentine Council (§ 73, 6), to win over the Russian church, had always failed of the end in view. In A.D. 1581, when the war so disastrous for Russia between Ivan IV. Wassiljewitch and Stephen Bathori of Poland afforded to the pope the desired excuse for putting in an appearance as a peacemaker, Gregory XIII. sent the clever Jesuit Possevin for this purpose to Poland and Russia. The tsar gave him a most flattering reception, allowed him to hold a religious conference, but was not prepared either to attach himself to Rome or to banish the Lutherans. On the other hand, Rome scored a victory, inasmuch as in the West Russian province detached and given to Poland the union was consummated, partly by force, partly by manœuvre, and obtained ecclesiastical sanction at the Council of Brest, in A.D. 1596. These “United Greeks” were obliged to acknowledge the Roman supremacy and the Romish doctrines, but were allowed to retain their own ancient ritual.—Continuation, § 203, 2.

SECOND SECTION.

CHURCH HISTORY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

I. Relations between the Different Churches.

§ 152. EAST AND WEST.

The papacy formed new plans for conquest in the domain of the Eastern church, but with at most only transient success. Still more illusory were the hopes entertained for a while in Geneva and London in regard to the Calvinizing of the Greek church.

§ 152.1. Roman Catholic Hopes.—The Jesuit missions among the Turks and schismatic Greeks failed, but among the Abyssinians some progress was made. By promising Spanish aid, the Jesuit Paez succeeded, in A.D. 1621, in inducing the Sultan Segued to abjure the Jacobite heresy. Mendez was made Abyssinian patriarch by Urban VIII. in A.D. 1626, but the clergy and people repeatedly rebelled against sultan and patriarch. In A.D. 1642 the next sultan drove the Jesuits out of his kingdom, and in it henceforth no traces of Catholicism were to be found.—In Russia the false Demetrius, in A.D. 1605, working in Polish Catholic interests, sought to catholicize the empire; but this only convinced the Russians that he was no true czar’s son. When his Catholic Polish bride entered Moscow with 200 Poles, a riot ensued, in which Demetrius lost his life.[445]

§ 152.2. Calvinistic Hopes.—Cyril Lucar, a native of Crete, then under Venetian rule, by long residence in Geneva had come to entertain a strong liking to the Reformed church. Expelled from his situation as rector of a Greek seminary at Ostrog by Jesuit machinations, he was made Patriarch of Alexandria in A.D. 1602 and of Constantinople in A.D. 1621. He maintained a regular correspondence with Reformed divines in Holland, Switzerland, and England. In A.D. 1628 he sent the famous Codex Alexandrinus as a present to James I. He wrought expressly for a union of the Greek and Reformed churches, and for this end sent, in A.D. 1629, to Geneva an almost purely Calvinistic confession. But the other Greek bishops opposed his union schemes, and influential Jesuits in Constantinople accused him of political faults. Four times the sultan deposed and banished him, and at last, in A.D. 1638, he was strangled as a traitor and cast into the sea.—One of his Alexandrian clergy, Metrophanes Critopulus, whom in A.D. 1616 he had sent for his education to England, studied several years at Oxford, then at German Protestant universities, ending with Helmstadt, where, in A.D. 1625, he composed in Greek a confession of the faith of the Greek Orthodox Church. It was pointedly antagonistic to the Romish doctrine, conciliatory toward Protestantism, while abandoning nothing essential in the Greek Orthodox creed, and showing signs of the possession of independent speculative power. Afterwards Metrophanes became Patriarch of Alexandria, and in the synod, presided over by Lucar’s successor, Cyril of Berrhoë, at Constantinople in A.D. 1638, gave his vote for the formal condemnation of the man who had been already executed.[446]

§ 152.3. Orthodox Constancy.—The Russian Orthodox church, after its emancipation from Constantinople and the erection of an independent patriarchate at Moscow in A.D. 1589 (§ 73, 4), had decidedly the pre-eminence over the Greek Orthodox church, and the Russian czar took the place formerly occupied by the East Roman emperor as protector of the whole Orthodox church. The dangers to the Orthodox faith threatened by schemes of union with Catholics and Protestants induced the learned metropolitan, Peter Mogilas of Kiev, to compose a new confession in catechetical form, which, in A.D. 1643, was formally authorized by the Orthodox patriarchs as Ὀρθόδοξος ὁμολογία τῆς καθολικῆς καὶ ἀποστολικῆς ἐκκλησίας τῆς ἀνατολικῆς.—Thirty years later a controversy on the eucharist broke out between the Jansenists Nicole and Arnauld, on the one side, and the Calvinists Claude and Jurieu, on the other (§ 157, 1), in which both claimed to be in agreement with the Greek church. A synod was convened under Dositheus of Jerusalem in A.D. 1672, at the instigation of French diplomatists, where the questions raised by Cyril were again taken into consideration. Maintaining a friendly attitude toward the Romish church, it directed a violent polemic against Calvinism. In order to save the character of the Constantinopolitan chair for constant Orthodoxy, Cyril’s confession of A.D. 1629 was pronounced a spurious, heretical invention, and a confession composed by Dositheus, in which Cyril’s Calvinistic heresies were repudiated, was incorporated with the synod’s acts.

§ 153. CATHOLICISM AND PROTESTANTISM.

The Jesuit counter-reformation (§ 151) was eminently successful during the first decades of the century in Bohemia. The Westphalian Peace restrained its violence, but did not prevent secret machinations and the open exercise of all conceivable arts of seduction. Next to the conversion of Bohemia, the greatest triumph of the restoration was won in France in the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Besides such victories the Catholics were able to glory in the conversion of several Protestant princes. New endeavours at union were repeatedly made, but these in every case proved as fruitless as former attempts had done.

§ 153.1. Conversions of Protestant Princes.—The first reigning prince who became a convert to Romanism was the Margrave James III. of Baden. He went over in A.D. 1590 (§ 144, 4), but as his death occurred soon after, his conduct had little influence upon his people. Of greater consequence was the conversion, in A.D. 1614, of the Count-palatine Wolfgang William of Neuburg, as it prepared the way for the catholicizing of the whole Palatinate, which followed in A.D. 1685. Much was made of the passing over to the Catholic church of Christina of Sweden, the highly gifted but eccentric daughter of Gustavus Adolphus. As she had resigned the crown, the pope gained no political advantage from his new member, and Alexander VII. had even to contribute to her support. The Elector of Saxony, Frederick Augustus II., passed over to the Roman Catholic church in A.D. 1697, in order to qualify himself for the Polish crown; but the rights of his Protestant subjects were carefully guarded. An awkwardness arose from the fact that the prince was pledged by the directory of the Regensburg Diet of A.D. 1653 to care for the interests of the evangelical church. Now that he had become a Catholic, he still formally promised to do so, but had his duties discharged by a commissioner. Subsequently this officer was ordered to take his directions from the evangelical council of Dresden.

§ 153.2. The Restoration in Germany and the Neighbouring States (§ 151, 1).—Matthias having, in violation of the royal letter of his predecessor Rudolph II. (§ 139, 19), refused to allow the Protestants of Bohemia to build churches, was driven out; the Jesuits also were expelled, and the Calvinistic Elector-palatine Frederick V. was chosen as prince in A.D. 1619. Ferdinand II. (A.D. 1619-1637) defeated him, tore up the royal letter, restored the Jesuits, and expelled the Protestant pastors. Efforts were made by Christian IV. of Denmark and other Protestant princes to save Protestantism, but without success. Ferdinand now issued his Restitution Edict of A.D. 1629, which deprived Protestants of their privileges, and gave to Catholic nobles unrestricted liberty to suppress the evangelical faith in their dominions. It was then that Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, in religious not less than political interests, made his appearance as the saviour of Protestantism.[447] The unhappy war was brought to an end in A.D. 1648 by the publication at Münster and Osnabrück of the Peace of Westphalia, which Innocent X. in his bull “Zelo Domus Dei” of A.D. 1651 pronounced “null and void, without influence on past, present, and future.” Germany lost several noble provinces, but its intellectual and religious freedom was saved. Under Swedish and French guarantee the Augsburg Religious Peace was confirmed and even extended to the Reformed, as related to the Augsburg Confession. The church property was to be restored on January 1st, A.D. 1624. The political equality of Protestants and Catholics throughout Germany was distinctly secured. In Bohemia, however, Protestantism was thoroughly extirpated, and in the other Austrian states the oppression continued down to the time of Joseph II. In Silesia, from the passing of the Restitution Edict, over a thousand churches had been violently taken from the evangelicals. No compensation was now thought of, but rather the persecution continued throughout the whole century (§ 165, 4), and many thousands were compelled to migrate, for the most part to Upper Lusatia.

§ 153.3. Also in Livonia, from A.D. 1561 under Polish rule, the Jesuits gained a footing and began the restoration, but under Gustavus Adolphus from A.D. 1621 their machinations were brought to an end.—The ruthless Valteline Massacre of A.D. 1620 may be described as a Swiss St. Bartholomew on a small scale. All Protestants were murdered in one day. The conspirators at a signal from the clock tower in the early morning broke into the houses of heretics, and put all to death, down to the very babe in the cradle. Between four and five hundred were slaughtered.—In Hungary, at the close of the preceding century only three noble families remained Catholic, and the Protestant churches numbered 2,000; but the Jesuits, who had settled there under the protection of Rudolph II. in 1579, resumed their intrigues, and the Archbishop of Gran, Pazmany, wrought hard for the restoration of Catholicism. Rakoczy of Transylvania, in the Treaty of Linz of A.D. 1645, concluded a league offensive and defensive with Sweden and France, which secured political and religious liberty for Hungary; but of the 400 churches of which the Protestants had been robbed only ninety were given back. The bigoted Leopold I., from A.D. 1655 king of Hungary, inaugurated a yet more severe persecution, which continued until the publication of the Toleration Edict of Joseph II. in A.D. 1781. The 2,000 Protestant congregations were by this time reduced to 105.

§ 153.4. The Huguenots in France (§ 139, 17).—Henry IV. faithfully fulfilled the promises which he made in the Edict of Nantes; but under Louis XIII., A.D. 1610-1643, the oppressions of the Huguenots were renewed, and led to fresh outbreaks. Richelieu withdrew their political privileges, but granted them religious toleration in the Edict of Nismes, A.D. 1629. Louis XIV., A.D. 1643-1715, at the instigation of his confessors, sought to atone for his sins by purging his land of heretics. When bribery and court favour had done all that they could do in the way of conversions, the fearful dragonnades began, A.D. 1681. The formal Revocation of the Edict of Nantes followed in A.D. 1685, and persecution raged with the utmost violence. Thousands of churches were torn down, vast numbers of confessors were tortured, burnt, or sent to the galleys. In spite of the terrible penal laws against emigrating, in spite of the watch kept over the frontiers, hundreds of thousands escaped, and were received with open arms as refugees in Brandenburg, Holland, England, Denmark, and Switzerland. Many fled into the wilds of the Cevennes, where under the name of Camisards they maintained a heroic conflict for years, until at last exterminated by an army at least ten times their strength. The struggle reached the utmost intensity of bitterness on both sides in A.D. 1702, when the fanatical and inhumanly cruel inquisitor, the Abbé du Chaila, was slain. At the head of the Camisard army was a young peasant, Jean Cavalier, who by his energetic and skilful conduct of the campaign astonished the world. At last the famous Marshal Villars, by promising a general amnesty, release of all prisoners, permission to emigrate with possessions, and religious toleration to those who remained, succeeded in persuading Cavalier to lay down his arms. The king ratified this bargain, only refusing the right of religious freedom. Many, however, submitted; while others emigrated, mostly to England. Cavalier entered the king’s service as colonel; but distrusting the arrangements fled to Holland, and afterwards to England, where in A.D. 1740 he died as governor of Jersey. In A.D. 1707 a new outbreak took place, accompanied by prophetic fanaticism, in consequence of repeated dragonnades, but it was put down by the stake, the gallows, the axe, and the wheel. France had lost half a million of her most pious, industrious, and capable inhabitants, and yet two millions of Huguenots deprived of all their rights remained in the land.[448]

§ 153.5. The Waldensians in Piedmont (§ 139, 25).—Although in A.D. 1654 the Duke of Savoy confirmed to the Waldensians their privileges, by Easter of the following year a bloody persecution broke out, in which a Piedmontese army, together with a horde of released prisoners and Irish refugees, driven from their native land by Cromwell’s severities, to whom the duke had given shelter in the valleys, perpetrated the most horrible cruelties. Yet in the desperate conflict the Waldensians held their ground. The intervention of the Protestant Swiss cantons won for them again a measure of toleration, and liberal gifts from abroad compensated them for their loss of property. Cromwell too sent to the relief of the sufferers the celebrated Lord Morland in A.D. 1658. While in the valleys he got possession of a number of MSS. (§ 108, 11), which he took home with him and deposited in the Cambridge Library. In A.D. 1685 the persecution and civil war were again renewed at the instigation of Louis XIV. The soldiers besieged the valleys, and more than 14,000 captives were consigned to fortresses and prisons. But the rest of the Waldensians plucked up courage, inflicted many defeats upon their enemy, and so moved the government in A.D. 1686 to release the prisoners and send them out of the country. Some found their way to Germany, others fled to Switzerland. These last, aided by Swiss troops, and led by their own pastor, Henry Arnaud, made an attack upon Piedmont in A.D. 1689, and conquered again their own country. They continued in possession, notwithstanding all attempts to dislodge them.

§ 153.6. The Catholics in England and Ireland.—When James I., A.D. 1603-1625, the son of Mary Stuart, ascended the English throne (§ 139, 11), the Catholics expected from him nothing short of the complete restoration of the old religion. But great as James’ inclination towards Catholicism may have been, his love of despotic authority was still greater. He therefore rigorously suppressed the Jesuits, who disputed the royal supremacy over the church; and the bitterness of the Catholics now reached its height. They organized the so-called Gunpowder Plot, with the intention of blowing up the royal family and the whole Parliament at the first meeting of the house. At the head of the conspiracy stood Rob. Catesby, Thomas Percy of Northumberland, and Guy Fawkes, an English officer in the Spanish service. The plan was discovered shortly before the day appointed for its execution. On November 5th, A.D. 1605, Fawkes, with lantern and matches, was seized in the cellar. The rest of the conspirators fled, but, after a desperate struggle, in which Catesby and Percy fell, were arrested, and, together with two Jesuit accomplices, executed as traitors. Great severities were then exercised toward the Catholics, not only in England, but also in Ireland, where the bulk of the population was attached to the Romish faith. James I. completed the transference of ecclesiastical property to the Anglican church, and robbed the Irish nobles of almost all their estates, and gifted them over to Scottish and English favourites. All Catholics, because they refused to take the oath of supremacy, i.e. to recognise the king as head of the church, were declared ineligible for any civil office. These oppressions at last led to the fearful Irish massacre. In October, A.D. 1641, a desperate outbreak of the Catholics took place throughout the country. It aimed at the destruction of all Protestants in Ireland. The conspirators rushed from all sides into the houses of the Protestants, murdered the inhabitants, and drove them naked and helpless from their homes. Many thousands died on the roadside of hunger and cold. In other places they were driven in crowds into the rivers and drowned, or into empty houses, which were burnt over them. The number of those who suffered is variously estimated from 40,000 to 400,000. Charles I., A.D. 1625-1649, was suspected as instigator of this terrible deed, and it may be regarded as his first step toward the scaffold (§ 155, 1). After the execution of Charles, Oliver Cromwell, in A.D. 1649, at the call of Parliament, took fearful revenge for the Irish crime. In the two cities which he took by storm he had all the citizens cut down without distinction. Panic-stricken, the inhabitants of the other cities fled to the bogs. Within nine months the whole island was reconquered. Hundreds of thousands, driven from their native soil, wandered as homeless fugitives, and their lands were divided among English soldiers and settlers. During the time of the English Commonwealth, A.D. 1649-1660, all moderate men, even those who had formerly demanded religious toleration, not only for all Christian sects, but also for Jews and Mohammedans, and even atheists, were now at one in excluding Catholics from its benefit, because they all saw in the Catholics a party ready at any moment to prove traitors to their country at the bidding of a foreign sovereign.—The Restoration under Charles II. could not greatly ameliorate the calamities of the Irish. Religious persecution indeed ceased, but the property taken from the Catholic church and native owners still remained in the hands of the Anglican church and the Protestant occupiers. To counterbalance the Catholic proclivities of Charles II. (§ 155, 3), the English Parliament of A.D. 1673 passed the Test Act, which required every civil and military officer to take the test oaths, condemning transubstantiation and the worship of the saints, and to receive the communion according to the Anglican rite as members of the State church. The statements of a certain Titus Oates, that the Jesuits had organized a plot for murdering the king and restoring the papacy, led to fearful riots in A.D. 1678 and many executions. But the reports were seemingly unfounded, and were probably the fruit of an intrigue to deprive the king’s Catholic brother, James II., of the right of succession. When James ascended the throne, in A.D. 1685, he immediately entered into negotiations with Rome, and filled almost all offices with Catholics. At the invitation of the Protestants, the king’s son-in-law, William III. of Orange, landed in England in A.D. 1688, and on James’ flight was declared king by the Parliament. The Act of Toleration, issued by him in A.D. 1689, still withheld from Papists the privileges now extended to Protestant dissenters (§ 155, 3).[449]

§ 153.7. Union Efforts.

1. Although Hugo Grotius distinctly took the side of the Remonstrants (§ 160, 2), his whole disposition was essentially irenical. He attempted, but in vain, not only the reconciliation of the Arminians and Calvinists, but also the union of all Protestant sects on a common basis. Toward Catholicism he long maintained a decidedly hostile attitude. But through intimate intercourse with distinguished Catholics, especially during his exile in France, his feelings were completely changed. He now invariably expressed himself more favourably in regard to the faith and the institutions of the Catholic church. Its semi-Pelagianism was acceptable to him as a decided Arminian. In his “Votum pro Pace” he recommended as the only possible way to restore ecclesiastical union, a return to Catholicism, on the understanding that a thorough reform should be made. But that he was himself ready to pass over, and was hindered only by his sudden death in A.D. 1645, is merely an illusion of Romish imagination.[450]

2. King Wladislaus [Wladislaw] IV. of Poland thought a union of Protestants and Catholics in his dominions not impossible, and with this end in view arranged the Religious Conference of Thorn in A.D. 1645. Prussia and Brandenburg were also invited to take part in it. The elector sent his court preacher, John Berg, and asked from the Duke of Brunswick the assistance of the Helmstadt theologian, George Calixt. The chief representatives of the Lutheran side were Abraham Calov, of Danzig, and John Hülsemann, of Wittenberg. That Calixt, a Lutheran, took the part of the Reformed, intensified the bitterness of the Lutherans at the outset. The result was to increase the split on all sides. The Reformed set forth their opinions in the “Declaratio Thorunensis,” which in Brandenburg obtained symbolical rank.

3. J. B. Bossuet, who died in A.D. 1704, Bishop of Meaux, used all his eloquence to prepare a way for the return of Protestants to the church in which alone is salvation. In several treatises he gave an idealized exposition of the Catholic doctrine, glossed over what was most offensive to Protestants, and sought by subtlety and sophistry to represent the Protestant system as contradictory and untenable.[451] During the same period the Spaniard Spinola, Bishop of Neustadt, who had come into the country as father confessor of the empress, proposed a scheme of union at the imperial court. The controverted points were to be decided at a free council, but the primacy of the pope and the hierarchical system, as founded jure humano, were to be retained. In prosecuting his scheme, with the secret support of Leopold I., Spinola, between A.D. 1676 and 1691, travelled through all Protestant Germany. He found most success, out of respect for the emperor, in Hanover, where the Abbot of Loccum, Molanus, zealously advocated the proposed union, in which on the Catholic side Bossuet, on the Protestant side the great philosopher Leibnitz, took part. But the negotiations ended in no practical result. That Leibnitz had himself been already secretly inclined to Catholicism, some think to have proved by a manuscript, found after his death, entitled in another’s hand, “Systema Theologicum Leibnitii.” Favourably disposed as Leibnitz was to investigate and recognise what was profound and true even in Catholicism, so that he reached the conviction that neither of the two churches had given perfect and adequate expression to Christian truth, he has apparently sought in this work to make clear to himself what and how much of specifically Catholic doctrines were justifiable, and to sketch out a system of doctrine occupying a place superior to both confessions. In this treatise many doctrines are expressed in a manner quite divergent from that of the Tridentine creed, while several expressions show how clearly he perceived the contradiction between his own Protestant faith and the Romish system, amid all his attempts to effect a reconciliation.

§ 153.8. The Lehnin Prophecy.—The hope entertained, about the end of the seventeenth century, by Catholics throughout Germany of the speedy restoration of the mother church was expressed in the so called Vaticinium Lehninense. Professedly composed in the thirteenth century by a monk called Hermann, of the cloister of Lehnin in Brandenburg, it characterized with historical accuracy in 100 Leonine verses the Brandenburg princes down to Frederick III., of whose coronation in A.D. 1701 it is ignorant, and after this proceeds in a purely fanciful and arbitrary manner. From Joachim II., who openly joined the Reformation, it enumerates eleven members, so that the history is just brought down to Frederick William III. With the eleventh the Hohenzollern dynasty ends, Germany is united, the Catholic church restored, and Lehnin raised again to its ancient glory. Under Frederick William IV., the Catholics diligently sought to prove the genuineness of the prophecy, and by arbitrary methods to extend it so as to include this prince. Lately “the deadly sin of Israel” spoken of in it has been pointed to as a prophecy of the Kultur-kampf of our own day (§ 197). The first certain trace of the poem is in A.D. 1693. Hilgenfeld thinks that its author was a fanatical pervert, Andr. Fromm, who was previously a Protestant pastor in Berlin, and died in A.D. 1685 as canon of Leitmeritz, in Bohemia.

§ 154. LUTHERANISM AND CALVINISM.

The Reformed church made its way into the heart of Lutheran Germany (§ 144) by the Calvinizing of Hesse-Cassel and Lippe, and by the adherence of the electoral house of Brandenburg. Renewed attempts to unite the two churches were equally fruitless with the endeavours after a Catholic-Protestant union.

§ 154.1. Calvinizing of Hesse-Cassel, A.D. 1605-1646.—Philip the Magnanimous, died 1567, left to his eldest son, William IV., one half of his territories, comprising Lower Hesse and Schmalcald, with residence at Cassel; to Louis IV. a fourth part, viz. Upper Hesse, with residence at Marburg; while his two youngest sons, Philip and George, were made counts, with their residence at Darmstadt. Philip died in 1583 and Louis in 1604, both childless; in consequence of which the greater part of Philip’s territory and the northern half of Upper Hesse with Marburg fell to Hesse-Cassel, and the southern half with Giessen to Hesse-Darmstadt.—Landgrave William IV. of Hesse-Cassel sympathised with his father’s union and levelling tendencies, and by means of general synods wrought eagerly to secure acceptance for them throughout Hesse by setting aside the ubiquitous Christology (§ 141, 9) and the Formula of Concord, while firmly maintaining the Corpus Doctrinæ Philippicum (§ 141, 10). The fourth and last of those general synods was held in 1582. Further procedure was meanwhile rendered impossible by the increase of opposition. For, on the one hand, Louis IV., under the influence of the acute and learned but contentious Ægidius Hunnius, professor of theology at Marburg, 1576-1592, became more and more decidedly a representative of exclusive Lutheranism; and, on the other hand, William’s Calvinizing schemes became from day to day more reckless. His son and successor Maurice went forward more energetically along the same lines as his father, especially after the death of his uncle Louis in 1604, who bequeathed to him the Marburg part of his territories. These had been given him on condition that he should hold by the confession and its apology as guaranteed by Charles V. in 1530. But in 1605 he forbad the Marburg theologians to set forth the ubiquity theology; and when they protested, issued a formal prohibition of the dogma with its presuppositions and consequences, and insisted on the introduction of the Reformed numbering of the commandments of the decalogue, and the breaking of bread at the communion, and the removal of the remaining images from the churches (§ 144, 2). The theologians again protested, and were deprived of their offices. The result was the outbreak of a popular tumult at Marburg, which Maurice suppressed by calling in the military. When in several places in Upper and even in Lower Hesse opposition was persisted in, and the resisting clergy could not be won over either by persuasion and threatening or by persecution, Maurice in 1607 convened consultative diocesan synods at Cassel, Eschwege, Marburg, St. Goar, and soon after a general synod at Cassel, which, giving expression on all points to the will of the landgrave, drew up, besides a new hymnbook and catechism, a new “Christian and correct confession of faith,” by which they openly and decidedly declared their attachment to the Reformed church. Soon Hesse accepted these conclusions, but not the rest of the state, where the opposition of the nobles, clergy, and people, in spite of all attempts to enforce this acceptance by military power, imprisonment, and deposition, could not be altogether overcome.—Meanwhile George’s son and successor, Louis V., 1596-1626, had been eagerly seeking to make capital of those troubles in his cousin’s domains in favour of the Darmstadt dynasty. He gave his protection to the professors expelled from Marburg in 1605, founded in 1607 a Lutheran university at Giessen, and made accusations against his cousin before the imperial supreme court, which in 1623, on the basis of the will of Louis IV. and the Religious Peace of Augsburg (§ 137, 5), declared the inheritance forfeited, and entrusted the electors of Cologne and Saxony with the execution of the sentence. These in conjunction with the troops of the league under Tilly attacked Upper and Lower Hesse; the Lutheran University of Giessen was transferred to Marburg, and Upper Hesse, after the banishment of the Reformed pastors, went over wholly to the Lutheran confession. Maurice, completely broken down, resigned in favour of his son William V., who was obliged to make an agreement, according to which he made over Upper Hesse, Schmalcald, and Katzenelnbogen to George II. of Hesse-Darmstadt, the successor of Louis V. In consequence of his attachment to Gustavus Adolphus in the Thirty Years’ War the ban of the empire was pronounced upon William. He died in 1637. His widow, Amalie Elizabeth, undertook the government on behalf of her young son William VI., and in 1646, after repeated victories over George’s troops, made a new agreement with him, by which the territories taken away in 1627 were restored to Hesse-Cassel, under a guarantee, however, that the status quo in matters of religion should be preserved, and that they should continue predominantly Lutheran. The university property was divided; Giessen obtained a Lutheran, Marburg a Reformed institution, and Lower Hesse received a moderately but yet essentially Reformed ecclesiastical constitution.

§ 154.2. Calvinizing of Lippe, A.D. 1602.—Count Simon VI. of Lippe, in his eventful life, was brought into close relations with the Reformed Netherlands and with Maurice of Hesse. His dominions were thoroughly Lutheran, but from A.D. 1602 Calvinism was gradually introduced under the patronage of the prince. The chief promoter of this innovation was Dreckmeyer, chosen general superintendent in A.D. 1599. At a visitation of churches in A.D. 1602, the festivals of Mary and the apostles, exorcism, the sign of the cross, the host, burning candles, and Luther’s catechism were rejected. Opposing pastors were deposed, and Calvinists put in their place. The city Lemgo stood out longest, and persevered in its adherence to the Lutheran confession during an eleven years’ struggle with its prince, from A.D. 1606 to 1617. After the death of Simon VI., his successor, Simon VII., allowed the city the free exercise of its Lutheran religion.

§ 154.3. The Elector of Brandenburg becomes Calvinist, A.D. 1613.—John Sigismund, A.D. 1608-1619, had promised his grandfather, John George, to maintain his connexion with the Lutheran church. But his own inclination, which was strengthened by his son’s marriage with a princess of the Palatinate, and his connexion with the Netherlands, made him forget his promise. Also his court preacher, the crypto-Calvinist Solomon Fink, contributed to the same result. On Christmas Day, A.D. 1613, he went over to the Reformed church. In order to share in the Augsburg Peace, he still retained the Augsburg Confession, naturally in the form known as the Variata. In A.D. 1624, he issued a Calvinist confession of his own, the Confessio Sigismundi or Marchica, which sought to reconcile the universality of grace with the particularity of election (§ 168, 1). His people, however, did not follow the prince, not even his consort, Anne of Prussia. The court preacher, Gedicke, who would not retract his invectives against the prince and the Reformed confession, was obliged to flee from Berlin, as also another preacher, Mart. Willich. But when altars, images, and baptismal fonts were thrown out of the Berlin churches, a tumult arose, in A.D. 1615, which was not suppressed without bloodshed. In the following year the elector forbade the teaching of the communicatio idiomatum and the ubiquitas corporis (§ 141, 9) at the University of Frankfort-on-the-Oder. In A.D. 1614, owing to the publication of a keen controversial treatise of Hutter (§ 159, 5) he forbade any of his subjects going to the University of Wittenberg, and soon afterwards struck out the Formula of Concord from the collection of the symbolical books of the Lutheran church of his realm.—Continuation, § 169, 1.

§ 154.4. Union Attempts.—Hoë von Hoënegg, of an old Austrian family, was from A.D. 1612 chief court preacher at Dresden, and as spiritual adviser of the elector, John George, on the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War, got Lutheran Saxony to take the side of the Catholic emperor against the Calvinist Frederick V. of the Palatinate, elected king of Bohemia. In A.D. 1621, he had proved that “on ninety-nine points the Calvinists were in accord with the Arians and the Turks.” At the Religious Conference of Leipzig of A.D. 1631 a compromise was accepted on both sides; but no practical result was secured. The Religious Conference of Cassel, in A.D. 1661, was a well meant endeavour by some Marburg Reformed theologians and Lutherans of the school of Calixt (§ 158, 2); but owing to the agitation caused by the Synergist controversy, no important advance toward union could be accomplished. The union efforts of Duke William of Brandenburg, A.D. 1640-1688, were opposed by Paul Gerhardt, preacher in the church of St. Nicholas in Berlin. On refusing to abstain from attacks on the Reformed doctrine he was deposed from his office. He was soon appointed pastor at Lübben in Lusatia, where he died in A.D. 1676.—The most zealous apostle of universal Protestant union, embracing even the Anglican church, was the Scottish Presbyterian John Durie. From A.D. 1628 when he officiated as pastor of an English colony at Elbing, till his death at Cassel in A.D. 1640, he devoted his energies unweariedly to this one task. He repeatedly travelled through Germany, Sweden, Denmark, England, and the Netherlands, formed acquaintance with clerical and civil authorities, had intercourse with them by word and letter, published a multitude of tracts on this subject; but at last could only look back with bitter complaints over the lost labours of a lifetime.[452]—Continuation, § 169, 1.

§ 155. ANGLICANISM AND PURITANISM.[453]

On the outbreak of the English Revolution, occasioned by the despotism of the first two Stuarts, crowds of Puritan exiles returned from Holland and North America to their old home. They powerfully strengthened their secret sympathisers in their successful struggle against the episcopacy of the State church (§ 139, 6); but, breaking up into rival parties, as Presbyterians and Independents (§ 143, 3, 4), gave way to fanatical extravagances. The victorious party of Independents also split into two divisions: the one, after the old Dutch style, simple and strict believers in Scripture; the other, first in Cromwell’s army, fanatical enthusiasts and visionary saints (§ 161, 1). The Restoration, under the last two Stuarts, sought to re-introduce Catholicism. It was William of Orange, by his Act of Toleration of A.D. 1689, who first brought to a close the Reformation struggles within the Anglican church. It guaranteed, indeed, all the pre-eminent privileges of an establishment to the Anglican and Episcopal church, but also granted toleration to dissenters, while refusing it to Catholics.

§ 155.1. The First Two Stuarts.—James I., dominated by the idea of the royal supremacy, and so estranged from the Presbyterianism in which he was brought up (§ 139, 11), as king of England, A.D. 1603-1625, attached himself to the national Episcopal church, persecuted the English Puritans, so that many of them again fled to Holland (§ 143, 4), and forced Episcopacy upon the Scotch. Charles I., A.D. 1625-1649, went beyond his father in theory and practice, and thus incurred the hatred of his Protestant subjects. William Laud, from A.D. 1633 Archbishop of Canterbury, was the recklessly zealous promoter of his despotic ideas, representing the Episcopacy, by reason of its Divine institution and apostolic succession, as the foundation of the church and the pillar of an absolute monarchy. Laud used his position as primate to secure the introduction of his own theory into the public church services, among other things making the communion office an imitation as near as possible of the Romish mass. But when he attempted to force upon the Scotch such “Baal-worship” by the command of the king, they formed a league in A.D. 1638 for the defence of Presbyterianism, the so called Great Covenant, and emphasised their demand by sending an army into England. The king, who had ruled for eleven years without a Parliament, was obliged now to call together the representatives of the people. Scarcely had the Long Parliament, A.D. 1640-1653, in which the Puritan element was supreme, pacified the Scotch, than oil was anew poured on the flames by the Irish massacre of A.D. 1641 (§ 153, 6). The Lower House, in spite of the persistent opposition of the court, resolved on excluding the bishops from the Upper House and formally abolishing Episcopacy; and in A.D. 1643, summoned the Westminster Assembly to remodel the organization of the English church, at which Scotch representatives were to have a seat. After long and violent debates with an Independent minority, till A.D. 1648, the Assembly drew up a Presbyterian constitution with a Puritan service, and in the Westminster Confession a strictly Calvinistic creed. But only in Scotland were these decisions heartily accepted. In England, notwithstanding their confirmation by the Parliament, they received only partial and occasional acceptance, owing to the prevalence of Independent opinions among the people.—Since A.D. 1642, the tension between court and Parliament had brought about the Civil War between Cavaliers and Roundheads. In A.D. 1645, the royal troops were cut to pieces at Naseby by the parliamentary army under Fairfax and Cromwell. The king fled to the Scotch, by whom he was surrendered to the English Parliament in A.D. 1647. But when now the fanatical Independents, who formed a majority in the army, began to terrorise the Parliament, it opened negotiations for peace with the king. He was now ready to make almost any sacrifice, only on religious and conscientious grounds he could not agree to the unconditional abandonment of Episcopacy. Even the Scotch, whose Presbyterianism was now threatened by the Independents, as before it had been by the Episcopalians, longed for the restoration of royalty, and to aid in this sent an army into England in A.D. 1648. But they were defeated by Cromwell, who then dismissed the Parliament and had all its Presbyterian members either imprisoned or driven into retirement. The Independent remnant, known as the Rump Parliament, A.D. 1648-1653, tried the king for high treason and sentenced him to death. On January 30th, A.D. 1649, he mounted the scaffold, on which Archbishop Laud had preceded him in A.D. 1645, and fell under the executioner’s axe.[454]

§ 155.2. The Commonwealth and the Protector.—Ireland had never yet atoned for its crime of A.D. 1641 (§ 153, 6), and as it refused to acknowledge the Commonwealth, Cromwell took terrible revenge in A.D. 1649. In A.D. 1650 at Dunbar, and in A.D. 1651 at Worcester, he completely destroyed the army of the Scots, who had crowned Charles II., son of the executed king, drove out, in April A.D. 1653, the Rump of the Long Parliament, which had come to regard itself as a permanent institution, and in July opened, with a powerful speech, two hours in length, on God’s ways and judgments, the Short or Barebones’ Parliament, composed of “pious and God-fearing men” selected by himself. In this new Parliament which, with prayer and psalm-singing, wrought hard at the re-organization of the executive, the bench, and the church, the two parties of Independents were represented, the fanatical enthusiasts indeed predominating, and so victorious in all matters of debate. To this party Cromwell himself belonged. His attachment to it, however, was considerably cooled in consequence of the excesses of the Levellers (§ 161, 2), and the fantastic policy of the parliamentarian Saints disgusted him more and more. When therefore, on December 12th, A.D. 1653, after five months’ fruitless opposition to the radical demands of the extravagant majority, all the most moderate members of the Parliament had resigned their seats and returned their mandates into Cromwell’s hands, he burst in upon the psalm-singing remnant with his soldiers, and entered upon his life-long office of the Protector of the Commonwealth with a new constitution. He proclaimed toleration of all religious sects, Catholics only being excepted on political grounds (§ 153, 6), giving equal rights to Presbyterians, and offering no hindrance to the revival of Episcopacy. He yet remained firmly attached to his early convictions. He believed in a kingdom of the saints embracing the whole earth, and looked on England as destined for the protection and spread of Protestantism. Zürich greeted him as the great Protestant champion, and he showed himself in this rôle in the valleys of Piedmont (§ 153, 5), in France, in Poland, and in Silesia. He joined with all Protestant governments into a league, offensive and defensive, against fanatical attempts of Papists to recover their lost ground. When Spain and France sued for his alliance, he made it a condition with the former that, besides allowing free trade with the West Indies, it should abolish the Inquisition; and of France he required an assurance that the rights of Huguenots should be respected. And when in Germany a new election of emperor was to take place, he urged the great electors that they should by no means allow the imperial throne to continue with the Catholic house of Austria. Meanwhile his path at home was a thorny one. He was obliged to suppress fifteen open rebellions during five years of his reign, countless secret plots threatened his life every day, and his bitterest foes were his former comrades in the camp of the the saints. After refusing the crown offered him in A.D. 1657, without being able thereby to quell the discontents of parties, he died on September 3rd, A.D. 1658, the anniversary of his glorious victories of Dunbar and Worcester.[455]

§ 155.3. The Restoration and the Act of Toleration.—The Restoration of royalty under Charles II., A.D. 1660-1685, began with the reinstating of the Episcopal church in all the privileges granted to it under Elizabeth. The Corporation Act of December, A.D. 1661, was the first of a series of enactments for this purpose. It required of all magistrates and civil officers that they should take an oath acknowledging the royal supremacy and communicate in the Episcopal church. The Act of Uniformity of May, A.D. 1662, was still more oppressive. It prohibited any clergyman entering the English pulpit or discharging any ministerial function, unless he had been ordained by a bishop, had signed the Thirty-nine Articles, and undertook to conduct worship exactly in accordance with the newly revised Book of Common Prayer. More than 2,000 Puritan ministers, who could not conscientiously submit to those terms, were driven out of their churches. Then in June, A.D. 1664, the Conventicle Act was renewed, enforcing attendance at the Episcopal church, and threatening with imprisonment or exile all found in any private religious meeting of more than five persons. In the following year the Five Mile Act inflicted heavy fines on all nonconformist ministers who should approach within five miles of their former congregation or indeed of any city. All these laws, although primarily directed against all Protestant dissenters, told equally against the Catholics, whom the king’s Catholic sympathies would willingly have spared. When now his league with Catholic France against the Protestant Netherlands made it necessary for him to appease his Protestant subjects, he hoped to accomplish this and save the Catholics by his “Declaration of Indulgence” of A.D. 1672, issued with the consent of Parliament, which suspended all penal laws hitherto in force against dissenters. But the Protestant nonconformists saw through this scheme, and the Parliament of A.D. 1673 passed the anti-Catholic Test Act (§ 153, 6). Equally vain were all later attempts to secure greater liberties and privileges to the Catholics. They only served to develop the powers of Parliament and to bring the Episcopalians and nonconformists more closely together. After spending his whole life oscillating between frivolous unbelief and Catholic superstition, Charles II., on his death-bed, formally went over to the Romish church, and had the communion and extreme unction administered by a Catholic priest. His brother and successor James II., A.D. 1685-1688, who was from A.D. 1672 an avowed Catholic, sent a declaration of obedience to Rome, received a papal nuncio in London, and in the exercise of despotic power issued, in A.D. 1687, a “Declaration of Freedom of Conscience,” which, under the fair colour of universal toleration and by the setting aside of the test oath, enabled him to fill all civil and military offices with Catholics. This act proved equally oppressive to the Episcopalians and to Protestant dissenters. This intrigue cost him his throne. He had, as he himself said, staked three kingdoms on a mass, and lost all the three. William III. of Orange, A.D. 1689-1702, grandson of Charles I. and son-in-law of James II., gave a final decision to the rights of the national Episcopal church and the position of dissenters in the Act of Toleration of A.D. 1689, which he passed with consent of the Parliament. All penal laws against the latter were abrogated, and religious liberty was extended to all with the exception of Catholics and Socinians. The retention of the Corporation and Test Acts, however, still excluded them from the exercise of all political rights. They were also still obliged to pay tithes and other church dues to the Episcopal clergy of their dioceses, and their marriages and baptisms had to be administered in the parish churches. Their ministers were also obliged to subscribe the Thirty-nine Articles, with reservation of those points opposed to their principles. The Act of Union of A.D. 1707, passed under Queen Anne, a daughter of James II., which united England and Scotland into the one kingdom of Great Britain, gave legitimate sanction to a separate ecclesiastical establishment for each country. In Scotland the Presbyterian churches continued the established church, while the Episcopal was tolerated as a dissenting body. Congregationalism, however, has been practically limited to England and North America.[456]—Continuation, § 202, 5.

II. The Roman Catholic Church.

§ 156. THE PAPACY, MONKERY, AND FOREIGN MISSIONS.

Notwithstanding the regeneration of papal Catholicism since the middle of the sixteenth century, Hildebrand’s politico-theocratic ideal was not realized. Even Catholic princes would not be dictated to on political matters by the vicar of Christ. The most powerful of them, France, Austria, and Spain, during the sixteenth century, and subsequently also Portugal, had succeeded in the claim to the right of excluding objectionable candidates in papal elections. Ban and interdict had lost their power. The popes, however, still clung to the idea after they had been obliged to surrender the reality, and issued from time to time powerless protestations against disagreeable facts of history. Several new monkish orders were instituted during this century, mostly for teaching the young and tending the sick, but some also expressly for the promoting of theological science. Of all the orders, new and old, the Jesuits were by far the most powerful. They were regarded with jealousy and suspicion by the other orders. In respect of doctrine the Dominicans were as far removed from them as possible within the limits of the Tridentine Creed. But notwithstanding any such mutual jealousies, they were all animated by one yearning desire to oppose, restrict, and, where that was possible, to uproot Protestantism. With similar zeal they devoted themselves with wonderful success to the work of foreign missions.

§ 156.1. The Papacy.—Paul V., A.D. 1605-1621, equally energetic in his civil and in his ecclesiastical policy, in a struggle with Venice, was obliged to behold the powerlessness of the papal interdict. His successor, Gregory XV., A.D. 1621-1623, founded the Propaganda, prescribed a secret scrutiny in papal elections, and canonized Loyola, Xavier, and Neri. He enriched the Vatican Library by the addition of the valuable treasures of the Heidelberg Library, which Maximilian I. of Bavaria sent him on his conquest of the Palatinate. Urban VIII., A.D. 1623-1644, increased the Propaganda, improved the Roman “Breviary” (§ 56, 2), condemned Jansen’s Augustinus (§ 156, 5), and compelled Galileo to recant. But on the other hand, through his onesided ecclesiastical policy he was led into sacrificing the interests of the imperial house of Austria. Not only did he fail to give support to the emperor, but quite openly hailed Gustavus Adolphus, the saviour of German Protestantism, as the God-sent saviour from the Spanish-Austrian tyranny. For this he was pronounced a heretic at the imperial court, and threatened with a second edition of the sack of Rome (§ 132, 2). At the same time his soul was so filled with fanatical hatred against Protestantism, that in a letter of 1631 he congratulated the Emperor Ferdinand II. on the destruction of Magdeburg as an act most pleasing to heaven and reflecting the highest credit upon Germany, and expressed the hope that the glory of so great a victory should not be restricted to the ruins of a single city. On receiving the news of the death of Gustavus Adolphus in 1632 he broke out into loud jubilation, saying that now “the serpent was slain which with its poison had sought to destroy the whole world.” His successor, Innocent X., A.D. 1644-1655, though vigorously protesting against the Peace of Westphalia (§ 153, 2), was, owing to his abject subserviency to a woman, his own sister-in-law, reproached with the title of a new Johanna Papissa. Alexander VII., A.D. 1655-1667, had the expensive guardianship of his godchild Christina of Sweden (§ 153, 1), and fanned into a flame the spark kindled by his predecessor in the Jansenist controversy (§ 156, 5), so that his successor, Clement IX., A.D. 1667-1670, could only gradually extinguish it. Clement X., A.D. 1670-1676, by his preference for Spain roused the French king Louis XIV., who avenged himself by various encroachments on the ecclesiastical administration in his dominions. Innocent XI., A.D. 1676-1689, was a powerful pope, zealously promoting the weal of the church and the Papal States by introducing discipline among the clergy and attacking the immorality that prevailed among all classes of society. He unhesitatingly condemned sixty-five propositions from the lax Jesuit code of morals. Against the arrogant ambassador of Louis XIV. he energetically maintained his sovereign rights in his own domains, while he unreservedly refused the claims of the French clergy, urged by the king on the ground of the exceptional constitution of the Gallican church. Alexander VIII., A.D. 1689-1691, continued the fight against Gallicanism, and condemned the Jesuit distinction between theological and philosophical sin (§ 149, 10). Innocent XII., A.D. 1691-1700, could boast of having secured the complete subjugation of the Gallican clergy after a hard struggle. He too wrought earnestly for the reform of abuses in the curia. Specially creditable to him is the stringent bull “Romanum decet pontificem” against nepotism, which extirpated the evil disease, so that it was never again openly practised as an acknowledged right.—Continuation, § 165, 1.

§ 156.2. The Jesuits and the Republic of Venice.—Venice was one of the first of the Italian cities to receive the Jesuits with open arms, A.D. 1530. But the influence obtained by them over public affairs through school and confessional, and their vast wealth accumulated from bequests and donations, led the government, in A.D. 1605, to forbid their receiving legacies or erecting new cloisters. In vain did Paul V. remonstrate. He then put Venice under an interdict. The Jesuits sought to excite the people against the government, and for this were banished in A.D. 1606. The pious and learned historian of the Council of Trent and adviser of the State, Paul Sarpi, proved a vigorous supporter of civil rights against the assumptions of the curia and the Jesuits. When in A.D. 1607 he refused a citation of Inquisition, he was dangerously wounded by three dagger stabs, inflicted by hired bandits, in whose stilettos he recognised the stilum curiæ. He died in A.D. 1623. After a ten months’ vain endeavour to enforce the interdict, the pope at last, through French mediation, concluded a peace with the republic, without, however, being able to obtain either the abolition of the objectionable ecclesiastico-political laws or permission for the return of the Jesuits. Only after the republic had been weakened through the unfortunate Turkish war of A.D. 1645 was it found willing to submit. Even in A.D. 1653 it refused the offer of 150,000 ducats from the Jesuit general for the Turkish campaign; but when Alexander VII. suppressed several rich cloisters, their revenues were thankfully accepted for this purpose. In A.D. 1657, on the pope’s promise of further pecuniary aid, the decree of banishment was withdrawn. The Jesuit fathers now returned in crowds, and soon regained much of their former influence and wealth. No pope has ever since issued an interdict against any country.[457]

§ 156.3. The Gallican Liberties.—Although Louis XIV. of France, A.D. 1643-1715, as a good Catholic king, powerfully supported the claims of papal dogmatics against the Jansenists (§§ 156, 5; 165, 7), he was by no means unfaithful to the traditional ecclesiastical polity of his house (§§ 96, 21; 110, 1, 9, 13, 14), and was often irritated to the utmost pitch by the pope’s opposition to his political interests. He rigorously insisted upon the old customary right of the Crown to the income of certain vacant ecclesiastical offices, the jus regaliæ, and extended it to all bishoprics, burdened church revenues with military pensions, confiscated ecclesiastical property, etc. Innocent XI. energetically protested against such exactions. The king then had an assembly of the French called together in Paris on March 19th, A.D. 1682, which issued the famous Four Propositions of the Gallican Clergy, drawn up by Bishop Bossuet of Meaux. These set forth the fundamental rights of the French church:

1. In secular affairs the pope has no jurisdiction over princes and kings, and cannot release their subjects from their allegiance;

2. The spiritual power of the pope is subject to the higher authority of the general councils;

3. For France it is further limited by the old French ecclesiastical laws; and,

4. Even in matters of faith the judgment of the pope without the approval of a general assembly of the church is not unalterable.

Innocent consequently refused to institute any of the newly appointed bishops. He was not even appeased by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in A.D. 1685. He was pleased indeed, and praised the deed, and celebrated it by a Te Deum, but objected to the violent measures for the conversion of Protestants as contrary to the teaching of Christ. Then also there arose a keen struggle against the mischievous extension of the right of asylum on the part of foreign embassies at Rome. On the pope’s representation all the powers but France agreed to a restriction of the custom. The pope tolerated the nuisance till the death of the French ambassador in A.D. 1687, but then insisted on its abolition under pain of the ban. In consequence of this Louis sent his new ambassador into Rome with two companies of cavaliers, threw the papal nuntio in France into prison, and laid siege to the papal state of Avignon (§ 110, 4). But Innocent was not thus to be terrorized, and the French ambassador was obliged, after eighteen months’ vain demonstrations, to quit Rome. Alexander VIII. repeated the condemnation of the Four Propositions, and Innocent XIII. also stood firm. The French episcopate, on the pope’s persistent refusal to install bishops nominated by the king, was at last constrained to submit. “Lying at the feet of his holiness,” the bishops declared that everything concluded in that assembly was null and void; and even Louis XIV., under the influence of Madame de Maintenon (§ 157, 3), wrote to the pope in A.D. 1693, saying that he recalled the order that the Four Propositions should be taught in all the schools. There still, however, survived among the French clergy a firm conviction of the Gallican Liberties, and the droit de régale continued to have the force of law.[458]—Continuation, § 197, 1.

§ 156.4. Galileo and the Inquisition.—Galileo Galilei, professor of mathematics at Pisa and Padua, who died in A.D. 1642, among his many distinguished services to the physical, mathematical, and astronomical sciences, has the honour of being the pioneer champion of the Copernican system. On this account he was charged by the monks with contradicting Scripture. In A.D. 1616 Paul V., through Cardinal Bellarmine, threatened him with the Inquisition and prison unless he agreed to cease from vindicating and lecturing upon his heretical doctrine. He gave the required promise. But in A.D. 1632 he published a dialogue, in which three friends discussed the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems, without any formal conclusion, but giving overwhelming reasons in favour of the latter. Urban VIII., in A.D. 1636, called upon the Inquisition to institute a process against him. He was forced to recant, was condemned to prison for an indefinite period, but was soon liberated through powerful influence. How far the old man of seventy-two years of age was compelled by torture to retract is still a matter of controversy. It is, however, quite evident that it was forced from him by threats. But that Galileo went out after his recantation, gnashing his teeth and stamping his feet, muttering, “Nevertheless it moves!” is a legend of a romancing age. This, however, is the fact, that the Congregation of the Index declared the Copernican theory to be false, irrational, and directly contrary to Scripture; and that even in A.D. 1660 Alexander VII., with apostolic authority, formally confirmed this decree and pronounced it ex cathedrâ (§ 149, 4) irrevocable. It was only in A.D. 1822 that the curia set it aside, and in a new edition of the Index (§ 149, 14) in A.D. 1835 omitted the works of Galileo as well as those of Copernicus.[459]

§ 156.5. The Controversy on the Immaculate Conception (§ 112, 4) received a new impulse from the nun Mary of Jesus, died 1665, of Agreda, in Old Castile, superior of the cloister there of the Immaculate Conception, writer of the “Mystical City of God.” This book professed to give an inspired account of the life of the Virgin, full of the strangest absurdities about the immaculate conception. The Sorbonne pronounced it offensive and silly; the Inquisition in Spain, Portugal, and Rome forbad the reading of it; but the Franciscans defended it as a divine revelation. A violent controversy ensued, which Alexander VII. silenced in A.D. 1661 by expressing approval of the doctrine of the immaculate conception set forth in the book.—Continuation, § 185, 2.

§ 156.6. The Devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.—The nun Margaret Alacoque, in the Burgundian cloister of Paray le Monial, born A.D. 1647, recovering from a painful illness when but three years old, vowed to the mother of God, who frequently appeared to her, perpetual chastity, and in gratitude for her recovery adopted the name of Mary, and when grown up resisted temptations by inflicting on herself the severest discipline, such as long fasts, sharp flagellations, lying on thorns, etc. Visions of the Virgin no longer satisfied her. She longed to lavish her affections on the Redeemer himself, which she expressed in the most extravagant terms. She took the Jesuit La Colombière as her spiritual adviser in A.D. 1675. In a new vision she beheld the side of her Beloved opened, and saw his heart glowing like a sun, into which her own was absorbed. Down to her death in A.D. 1690 she felt the most violent burning pains in her side. In a second vision she saw her Beloved’s heart burning like a furnace, into which were taken her own heart and that of her spiritual adviser. In a third vision he enjoined the observance of a special “Devotion of the Sacred Heart” by all Christendom on the Friday after the octave of the Corpus Christi festival and on the first Friday of every month. La Colombière, being made director, put forth every effort to get this celebration introduced throughout the church, and on his death the idea was taken up by the whole Jesuit order. Their efforts, however, for fully a century proved unavailing. At this point, too, their most bitter opponents were the Dominicans. But even without papal authority the Jesuits so far succeeded in introducing the absurdities of this cult, and giving expression to it in word and by images, that by the beginning of the eighteenth century there were more than 300 male and female societies engaged in this devotion, and at last, in A.D. 1765, Clement XIII., the great friend of the Jesuits, gave formal sanction to this special celebration.—Continuation, § 188, 12.

§ 156.7. New Congregations and Orders.

1. At the head of the new orders of this century stands the Benedictine Congregation of St. Banne at Verdun, founded by Didier de la Cour. Elected Abbot of St. Banne in A.D. 1596, he gave his whole strength to the reforming of this cloister, which had fallen into luxurious and immoral habits. By a papal bull of A.D. 1604 all cloisters combining with St. Banne into a congregation were endowed with rich privileges. Gradually all the Benedictine monasteries of Lorraine and Alsace joined the union. Didier’s reforms were mostly in the direction of moral discipline and asceticism; but in the new congregation scholarship was represented by Calmet, Ceillier, etc., and many gave themselves to work as teachers in the schools.

2. Much more important for the promotion of theological science, especially for patristics and church history, was another Benedictine congregation founded in France in A.D. 1618 by Laurence Bernard, that of St. Maur, named after a disciple of St. Benedict. The members of this order devoted themselves exclusively to science and literary pursuits. To them belonged the distinguished names, Mabillon, Montfaucon, Reinart, Martène, D’Achery, Le Nourry, Durand, Surius, etc. They showed unwearied diligence in research and a noble liberality of judgment. The editions of the most celebrated Fathers issued by them are the best of the kind, and this may also be said of the great historical collections which we owe to their diligence.

3. The Fathers of the Oratory of Jesus are an imitation of the Priests of the Oratory founded by Philip Neri (§ 149, 7). Peter of Barylla, son of a member of parliament, founded it in A.D. 1611 by building an oratory at Paris. He was more of a mystic than of a scholar, but his order sent out many distinguished and brilliant theologians; e.g. Malebranche, Morinus, Thomassinus, Rich, Simon, Houbigant.

4. The Piarists, Patres scholarum piarum, were founded in Rome in A.D. 1607 by the Spaniard Joseph Calasanza. The order adopted as a fourth vow the obligation of gratuitous tuition. They were hated by the Obscurantist Jesuits for their successful labours for the improvement of Catholic education, especially in Poland and Austria, and also because they objected to all participation in political schemes.

5. The Order of the Visitation of Mary, or Salesian Nuns, instituted in A.D. 1610 by the mystic Francis de Sales and Francisca Chantal (§ 157, 1). They visited the poor and sick in imitation of Elizabeth’s visit to the Virgin (Luke i. 39); but the papal rescript of A.D. 1618 gave prominence to the education of children.

§ 156.8.

1. The Priests of the Missions and Sisters of Charity were both founded by Vincent de Paul. Born of poor parents, he was, after completing his education, captured by pirates, and as a slave converted his renegade master to Christianity. As domestic chaplain to the noble family of Gondy he was characterized in a remarkable degree for unassuming humility, and he wrought earnestly and successfully as a home missionary. In A.D. 1618 he founded the order of Sisters of Mercy, who became devoted nurses of the sick throughout all France, and in A.D. 1627 that of the Priests of the Missions, or Lazarists, who travelled the country attending to the spiritual and bodily wants of men. After the death of the Countess Gondy in A.D. 1625, he placed at the head of the Sisters of Mercy the widow Louise le Gras, distinguished equally for qualities of head and heart. Vincent died in A.D. 1660, and was subsequently canonized.[460]

2. The Trappists, founded by De Rancé, a distinguished canon, who in A.D. 1664 passed from the extreme of worldliness to the extreme of fanatical asceticism. The order got its name from the Cistercian abbey La Trappe in Normandy, of which Rancé was commendatory abbot. Amid many difficulties he succeeded, in A.D. 1665, in thoroughly reforming the wild monks, who were called “the bandits of La Trappe.” His rule enjoined on the monks perpetual silence, only broken in public prayer and singing and in uttering the greeting as they met, Memento mori. Their bed was a hard board with some straw; their only food was bread and water, roots, herbs, some fruit and vegetables, without butter, fat, or oil. Study was forbidden, and they occupied themselves with hard field labour. Their clothing was a dark-brown cloak worn on the naked body, with wooden shoes. Very few cloisters besides La Trappe submitted to such severities (§ 185, 2).

3. The English Nuns, founded at St. Omer, in France, by Mary Ward, the daughter of an English Catholic nobleman, for the education of girls. Originally composed of English maidens, it was afterwards enlarged by receiving those of other nationalities, with establishments in Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. It did not obtain papal confirmation, and in A.D. 1630 Urban VIII., giving heed to the calumnies of enemies, formally dissolved it on account of arrogance, insubordination, and heresy. All its institutions and schools were then closed, while Mary herself was imprisoned and given over to the Inquisition in Rome. Urban was soon convinced of her innocence and set her free. Her scattered nuns were now collected again, but succeeded only in A.D. 1703 in obtaining confirmation from Clement XI. Their chief tasks were the education of youth and care of the sick. They were arranged in three classes, according to their rank in life, and were bound by their vows for a year or at the most three years, after which they might return to the world and marry. Their chief centre was Bavaria with the mother cloister in Munich.—Continuation, § 165, 2.

§ 156.9. The Propaganda.—Gregory XV. gave unity and strength to the efforts for conversion of heretics and heathens by instituting, in A.D. 1662, the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide. Urban VIII. in A.D. 1627 attached to it a missionary training school, recruited as far as possible from natives of the respective countries, like Loyola’s Collegium Germanicum founded in A.D. 1552 (§ 151, 1). He was thus able every Epiphany to astonish Romans and foreigners by what seemed a repetition of the pentecostal miracle of tongues. At this institute training in all languages was given, and breviaries, mass and devotional books, and handbooks were printed for the use of the missions. It was also the centre from which all missionary enterprises originated.—Continuation, § 204, 2.

§ 156.10. Foreign Missions.—Even during this century the Jesuits excelled all others in missionary zeal. In A.D. 1608 they sent out from Madrid mission colonies among the wandering Indians of South America, and no Spaniard could settle there without their permission. The most thoroughly organized of these was that of Paraguay, in which, according to their own reports, over 100,000 converted savages lived happily and contented under the mild, patriarchal rule of the Jesuits for 140 years, A.D. 1610-1750; but according to another well informed, though perhaps not altogether impartial, account, that of Ibagnez, a member of the mission, expelled for advising submission to the decree depriving it of political independence, the paternal government was flavoured by a liberal dose of slave-driver despotism. It was at least an undoubted fact, notwithstanding the boasted patriarchal idyllic character of the Jesuit state, that the order amassed great wealth from the proceeds of the industry of their protégés.—Continuation, § 165, 3.

§ 156.11. In the East Indies (§ 150, 1) the Jesuits had uninterrupted success. In A.D. 1606, in order to make way among the Brahmans, the Jesuit Rob. Nobili assumed their dress, avoided all contact with even the converts of low caste, giving them the communion elements not directly, but by an instrument, or laying them down for them outside the door, and as a Christian Brahman made a considerable impression upon the most exclusive classes.—In Japan the mission prospects were dark (§ 150, 2). Mendicants and Jesuits opposed and mutually excommunicated one another. The Catholic Spaniards and Portuguese were at feud among themselves, and only agreed in intriguing against Dutch and English Protestants. When the land was opened to foreign trade, it became the gathering point of the moral scum of all European countries, and the traffic in Japanese slaves, especially by the Portuguese, brought discredit on the Christian cause. The idea gained ground that the efforts at Christianization were but a prelude to conquest by the Spaniards and Portuguese. In the new organization of the country by the shiogun Ijejasu all governors were to vow hostility to Christians and foreigners. In A.D. 1606 he forbad the observance of the Christian religion anywhere in the land. When the conspiracy of a Christian daimio was discovered, he caused, in A.D. 1614, whole shiploads of Jesuits, mendicants, and native priests to be sent out of the country. But as many of the banished returned, death was threatened against all who might be found, and in A.D. 1624 all foreigners, with the exception of Chinese and Dutch, were rigorously driven out. And now a bloody persecution of native Christians began. Many thousands fled to China and the neighbouring islands; crowds of those remaining were buried alive or burnt on piles made up of the wood of Christian crosses. The victims displayed a martyr spirit like those of the early days. Those who escaped organized in A.D. 1637 an armed resistance, and held the fortress of Arima in face of the shiogun’s army sent against them. After a three months’ siege the fortress was conquered by the help of Dutch cannon; 37,000 were massacred in the fort, and the rest were hurled down from high rocks. The most severe enactments were passed against Christians, and the edicts filled with fearful curses against “the wicked sect” and “the vile God” of the Christians were posted on all the bridges, street corners, and squares. Christianity now seemed to be completely stamped out. The recollection of this work, however, was still retained down to the nineteenth century. For when French missionaries went in A.D. 1860 to Nagasaki, they found to their surprise in the villages around thousands (?) who greeted them joyfully as the successors of the first Christian missionaries.

§ 156.12. In China, after Ricci’s death (§ 150, 1), the success of the mission continued uninterrupted. In A.D. 1628 a German Jesuit, Adam Schell, went out from Cologne, who gained great fame at court for his mathematical skill. Louis XIV. founded at Paris a missionary college, which sent out Jesuits thoroughly trained in mathematics. But Dominicans and Franciscans over and over again complained to Rome of the Jesuits. They never allowed missionaries of other orders to come near their own establishments, and actually drove them away from places where they had begun to work. They even opposed priests, bishops, and vicars-apostolic sent by the Propaganda, declared their papal briefs forgeries, forbad their congregations to have any intercourse with those “heretics,” and under suspicion of Jansenism brought them before the Inquisition of Goa. Clement X. issued a firm-toned bull against such proceedings; but the Jesuits gave no heed to it, and attended only to their own general. The papal condemnation a century later of the Jesuits’ accommodation scheme, and their permission of heathen rites and beliefs to the new converts, complained against by the Dominicans, was equally fruitless. In A.D. 1645 Innocent X. forbad this practice on pain of excommunication; but still they continued it till the decree was modified by Alexander VII. in A.D. 1656. After persistent complaints by the Dominicans, Innocent XII. appointed a new congregation in Rome to investigate the question, but their deliberations yielded no result for ten years. At last Clement XI. confirmed the first decree of Innocent X., condemned anew the so called Chinese rites, and sent the legate Thomas of Tournon in A.D. 1703 to enforce his decision. Tournon, received at first by the emperor at Pekin with great consideration, fell into disfavour through Jesuit intrigues, was banished from the capital, and returned to Nankin. But as he continued his efforts from this point, and an attempt to poison him failed in A.D. 1707, he went to Macao, where he was put in prison by the Portuguese, in which he died in A.D. 1710. Clement XI., in A.D. 1715, issued his decree against the Chinese rites in a yet severer form; but the Franciscan who proclaimed the papal bull was put in prison as an offender against the laws of the country, and, after being maltreated for seventeen months, was banished. So proudly confident had the Jesuits become, that in A.D. 1720 they treated with scorn and contempt the papal legate Mezzabarba, Patriarch of Alexandria, who tried by certain concessions to move them to submit. A more severe decree of Clement XII. of A.D. 1735 was scoffed at by being proclaimed only in the Latin original. Benedict XIV. succeeded for the first time, in A.D. 1742, in breaking down their opposition, after the charges had been renewed by the Capuchin Norbert. All the Jesuit missionaries were now obliged by oath to exclude all pagan customs and rites; but with this all the glory and wonderful success of their Asiatic missions came to an end.—Continuation, § 165, 3.

§ 156.13. Trade and Industry of the Jesuits.—As Christian missions generally deserve credit, not only for introducing civilization and culture along with the preaching of the gospel into far distant heathen lands, but also for having greatly promoted the knowledge of countries, peoples, and languages among their fellow countrymen at home, opening up new fields for colonization and trade, these ends were also served by the world-wide missionary enterprises of the Jesuits, and were in perfect accordance with the character and intention of this order, which aimed at universal dominion. In carrying out these schemes the Jesuits abandoned the ascetical principles of their founder and their vow of poverty, amassing enormous wealth by securing in many parts a practical monopoly of trade. Their fifth general, Aquaviva (§ 149, 8), secured from Gregory XIII., avowedly in favour of the mission, exclusive right to trade with both Indies. They soon erected great factories in all parts of the world, and had ships laden with valuable merchandise on all seas. They had mines, farms, sugar plantations, apothecary shops, bakeries, etc., founded banks, sold relics, miracle-working amulets, rosaries, healing Ignatius- and Xavier-water (§ 149, 11), etc., and in successful legacy-hunting excelled all other orders. Urban VIII. and Clement XI. issued severe bulls against such abuses, but only succeeded in restricting them to some extent.—Continuation, § 165, 9.

§ 156.14. An Apostate to Judaism.—Gabriel, or as he was called after circumcision, Uriel Acosta, was sprung from a noble Portuguese family, originally Jewish. Doubting Christianity in consequence of the traffic in indulgences, he at last repudiated the New Testament in favour of the Old. He refused rich ecclesiastical appointments, fled to Amsterdam, and there formally went over to Judaism. Instead of the biblical Mosaism, however, he was disappointed to find only Pharisaic pride and Talmudic traditionalism, against which he wrote a treatise in A.D. 1623. The Jews now denounced him to the civil authorities as a denier of God and immortality. The whole issue of his book was burnt. Twice the synagogue thundered its ban against him. The first was withdrawn on his recantation, and the second, seven years after, upon his submitting to a severe flagellation. In spite of all he held to his Sadducean standpoint to his end in A.D. 1647, when he died by his own hand from a pistol shot, driven to despair by the unceasing persecution of the Jews.

§ 157. QUIETISM AND JANSENISM.

Down to the last quarter of the seventeenth century the Spanish Mystics (§ 149, 16), and especially those attached to Francis de Sales, were recognised as thoroughly orthodox. But now the Jesuits appeared as the determined opponents of all mysticism that savoured of enthusiasm. By means of vile intrigues they succeeded in getting Molinos, Guyon, and Fénelon condemned, as “Quietist” heretics, although the founder of their party had been canonized and his doctrine solemnly sanctioned by the pope. Yet more objectionable to the Jesuits was that reaction toward Augustinianism which, hitherto limited to the Dominicans (§ 149, 13), and treated by them as a theological theory, was now spreading among other orders in the form of French Jansenism, accompanied by deep moral earnestness and a revival of the whole Christian life.

§ 157.1. Francis de Sales and Madame Chantal.—Francis Count de Sales, from A.D. 1602 Bishop of Geneva, i.e. in partibus, with Annecy as his residence, had shown himself a good Catholic by his zeal in rooting out Protestantism in Chablais, on the south of the Genevan lake. In A.D. 1604 meeting the young widowed Baroness de Chantal, along with whom at a later period he founded the Order of the Visitation of Mary (§ 156, 7), he proved a good physician to her amid her sorrow, doubts, and temptations. He sought to qualify himself for this task by reading the writings of St. Theresa. Teacher and scholar so profited by their mystical studies, that in A.D. 1665 Alexander VII. deemed the one worthy of canonization and the other of beatification. In A.D. 1877 Pius IX. raised Francis to the dignity of doctor ecclesiæ. His “Introduction to the Devout Life” affords a guide to laymen to the life of the soul, amid all the disturbances of the world resting in calm contemplation and unselfish love of God. In the Catholic Church, next to À Kempis’ “Imitation of Christ,” it is the most appreciated and most widely used book of devotion. In his “Theotime” he leads the reader deeper into the yearnings of the soul after fellowship with God, and describes the perfect peace which the soul reaches in God.[461]

§ 157.2. Michael Molinos.—After Francis de Sales a great multitude of male and female apostles of the new mystical gospel sprang up, and were favourably received by all the more moderate church leaders. The reactionaries, headed by the Jesuits, sought therefore all the more eagerly to deal severely with the Spaniard Michael Molinos. Having settled in Rome in A.D. 1669, he soon became the most popular of father confessors. His “Spiritual Guide” in A.D. 1675 received the approval of the Holy Office, and was introduced into Protestant Germany through a Latin translation by Francke in A.D. 1687, and a German translation in A.D. 1699 by Arnold. In it he taught those who came to the confessional that the way to the perfection of the Christian life, which consists in peaceful rest in the most intimate communion with God, is to be found in spiritual conference, secret prayer, active and passive contemplation, in rigorous destruction of all self-will, and in disinterested love of God, fortified, wherever that is possible, by daily communion. The success of the book was astonishing. It promptly influenced all ranks and classes, both men and women, lay and clerical, not only in Italy, but also by means of translations in France and Spain. But soon a reaction set in. As early as A.D. 1681 the famous Jesuit Segneri issued a treatise, in which he charged Molinos’ contemplative mysticism with onesidedness and exaggeration. He was answered by the pious and learned Oratorian Petrucci. A commission, appointed by the Inquisition to examine the writings of both parties, pronounced the views of Molinos and Petrucci to be in accordance with church doctrine and Segneri’s objections to be unfounded. All that Jesuitism reckoned as foundation, means, and end of piety was characterized as purely elementary. No hope could be entertained of winning over Innocent XI., the bitter enemy of the Jesuits. But Louis XIV. of France, at the instigation of his Jesuit father confessor, Lachaise, expressed through his ambassador his surprise that his holiness should, not only tolerate, but even encourage and support so dangerous a heretic, who taught all Christendom to undervalue the public services of the Church. In A.D. 1685 Innocent referred the matter to the tribunal of the Inquisition. Throughout the two years during which the investigation proceeded all arts were used to secure condemnation. Extreme statements of fanatical adherents of Molinos were not rarely met with, depreciating the public ordinances and ceremonies, confession, hearing of mass, church prayers, rosaries, etc. The pope, facile with age, amid groans and lamentations, allowed things to take their course, and at last confirmed the decree of the Inquisition of August 28th, A.D. 1687, by which Molinos was found guilty of spreading godless doctrine, and sixty-eight propositions, partly from his own writings, partly from the utterances of his adherents, were condemned as heretical and blasphemous. The heretic was to abjure his heresies publicly, clad in penitential garments, and was then consigned to lifelong solitary confinement in a Dominican cloister, where he died in A.D. 1697.[462]

§ 157.3. Madame Guyon and Fénelon.—After her husband’s death, Madame Guyon, in company with her father confessor, the Barnabite Lacombe, who had been initiated during a long residence at Rome into the mysteries of Molinist mysticism, spent five years travelling through France, Switzerland, Savoy, and Piedmont. Though already much suspected, she won the hearts of many men and women among the clergy and laity, and enkindled in them by personal conference, correspondence, and her literary work, the ardour of mystical love. Her brilliant writings are indeed disfigured by traces of foolish exaggeration, fanaticism and spiritual pride. She calls herself the woman of Revelation xii. 1, and the mère de la grace of her adherents. The following are the main distinguishing characteristics of her mysticism: The necessity of turning away from everything creaturely, rejecting all earthly pleasure and destroying every selfish interest, as well as of turning to God in passive contemplation, silent devotion, naked faith, which dispensed with all intellectual evidence, and pure disinterested love, which loves God for Himself alone, not for the eternal salvation obtained through Him. On her return to Paris with Lacombe in A.D. 1686 the proper martyrdom of her life began. Her chief persecutor was her step-brother, the Parisian superior of the Barnabites, La Mothe, who spread the most scandalous reports about his half-sister and Lacombe, and had them both imprisoned by a royal decree in A.D. 1688. Lacombe never regained his liberty. Taken from one prison to another, he lost his reason, and died in an asylum in A.D. 1699. Madame Guyon, however, by the influence of Madame de Maintenon, was released after ten months’ confinement. The favour of this royal dame was not of long continuance. Warned on all sides of the dangerous heretic, she broke off all intercourse with her in A.D. 1693, and persuaded the king to appoint a new commission, in A.D. 1694, with Bishop Bossuet of Meaux at its head, to examine her suspected writings. This commission meeting at Issy, had already, in February, A.D. 1695, drawn up thirty test articles, when Fénelon, tutor of the king’s grandson, and now nominated to the archbishopric of Cambray, was ordered by the king to take part in the proceedings. He signed the articles, though he objected to much in them, and had four articles of his own added. Madame Guyon also did so, and Bossuet at last testified for her that he had found her moral character stainless and her doctrine free from Molinist heresy. But the bigot Maintenon was not satisfied with this. Bossuet demanded the surrender of this certificate that he might draw up another; and when Madame Guyon refused, on the basis of a statement by the crazed Lacombe, she was sent to the Bastile [Bastille] in A.D. 1696. In A.D. 1697 Fénelon had written in her defence his “Explication des Maximes des Saintes sur la Vie Intérieur,” showing that the condemned doctrines of passive contemplation, secret prayer, naked faith, and disinterested love, had all been previously taught by St. Theresa, John of the Cross, Francis de Sales, and other saints. He sent this treatise for an opinion to Rome. A violent controversy then arose between Bossuet and Fénelon. The pious, well-meaning pope, Innocent XII., endeavoured vainly to bring about a good understanding. Bossuet and the all-powerful Maintenon wished no reconciliation, but condemnation, and gave the king and pope no rest till very reluctantly he prohibited the objectionable book by a brief in A.D. 1699, and condemned twenty-three propositions from it as heretical. Fénelon, strongly attached to the church, and a bitter persecutor of Protestants, made an unconditional surrender, as guilty of a defective exposition of the truth. But Madame Guyon continued in the Bastile [Bastille] till A.D. 1701, when she retired to Blois, where she died in A.D. 1717. Bossuet had died in A.D. 1704, and Fénelon in A.D. 1715. She published only two of her writings: “An Exposition of the Song,” and the “Moyen Court et très Facile de faire Oraison.” Many others, including her translation and expositions of the Bible, were during her lifetime edited in twenty volumes by her friend, the Reformed preacher of the Palatinate, Peter Poiret.[463]

§ 157.4. Mysticism Tinged with Theosophy and Pantheism.—Antoinette Bourignon, the daughter of a rich merchant of Lille, in France, while matron of a hospital in her native city, had in A.D. 1662 gathered around her a party of believers in her theosophic and fantastic revelations. She was obliged to flee to the Netherlands, and there, by the force of her eloquence in speech and writing, spread her views among the Protestants. Among them she attracted the great scientist Swammerdam. But when she introduced politics, she escaped imprisonment only by flight. Down to her death in A.D. 1680 she earnestly and successfully prosecuted her mission in north-west Germany. Peter Poiret collected her writings and published them in twenty-one volumes at Amsterdam, in A.D. 1679.—Quite of another sort was the pantheistic mysticism of Angelus Silesius. Originally a Protestant physician at Breslau, he went over to the Romish church in A.D. 1653, and in consequence received from Vienna the honorary title of physician to the emperor. He was made priest in A.D. 1661, and till his death in A.D. 1677 maintained a keen polemic against the Protestant church with all a pervert’s zeal. Most of his hymns belong to his Protestant period. As a Catholic he wrote his “Cherubinischer Wandersmann,” a collection of rhymes in which, with childish naïveté and hearty, gushing ardour, he merges self into the abyss of the universal Deity, and develops a system of the most pronounced pantheism.

§ 157.5. Jansenism in its first Stage.—Bishop Cornelius Jansen, of Ypres, who died in A.D. 1638, gave the fruits of his lifelong studies of Augustine in his learned work, “Augustinus s. doctr. Aug. de humanæ Naturæ Sanitate, Ægritudine, et Medicina adv. Pelagianos et Massilienses,” which was published after his death in three volumes, Louvain, 1640. The Jesuits induced Urban VIII., in A.D. 1642, to prohibit it in his bull In eminenti. Augustine’s numerous followers in France felt themselves hit by this decree. Jansen’s pupil at Port Royal from A.D. 1635, Duvergier de Hauranne, usually called St. Cyran, from the Benedictine monastery of which he was abbot, was the bitter foe of the Jesuits and Richelieu, who had him cast into prison in A.D. 1638, from which he was liberated after the death of the cardinal in A.D. 1643, and shortly before his own. Another distinguished member of the party was Antoine Arnauld, doctor of the Sorbonne, who died in A.D. 1694, the youngest of twenty children of a parliamentary advocate, whose powerful defence of the University of Paris against the Jesuits called forth their hatred and lifelong persecution. His mantle, as a vigorous polemist, had fallen upon his youngest son. Very important too was the influence of his much older sister, Angelica Arnauld, Abbess of the Cistercian cloister of Port Royal des Champs, six miles from Paris, which under her became the centre of religious life and effort for all France. Around her gathered some of the noblest, most pious, and talented men of the time: the poet Racine, the mathematician and apologist Pascal, the Bible translator De Sacy, the church historian Tillemont, all ardent admirers of Augustine and determined opponents of the lax morality of the Jesuits. Arnauld’s book, “De la fréquente Communion,” was approved by the Sorbonne, the Parliament, and the most distinguished of the French clergy; but in A.D. 1653 Innocent X. condemned five Jansenist propositions in it as heretical. The Augustinians now maintained that these doctrines were not taught in the sense attributed to them by the pope. Arnauld distinguished the question du fait from the question du droit, maintaining that the latter only were subject to the judgment of the Holy See. The Sorbonne, now greatly changed in composition and character, expelled him on account of this position from its corporation in A.D. 1656. About this time, at Arnauld’s instigation, Pascal, the profound and brilliant author of “Pensées sur la Religion,” began, under the name of Louis de Montalte to publish his famous “Provincial Letters,” which in an admirable style exposed and lashed with deep earnestness and biting wit the base moral principles of Jesuit casuistry. The truly annihilating effect of these letters upon the reputation of the powerful order could not be checked by their being burnt by order of Parliament by the hangman at Aix in A.D. 1657, and at Paris in A.D. 1660. But meanwhile the specifically Jansenist movement entered upon a new phase of its development. Alexander VII. had issued in A.D. 1656 a bull which denounced the application of the distinction du fait and du droit to the papal decrees as derogatory to the holy see, and affirmed that Jansen taught the five propositions in the sense they had been condemned. In order to enforce the sentence, Annal, the Jesuit father confessor of Louis XIV., obtained in 1661 a royal decree requiring all French clergy, monks, nuns, and teachers to sign a formula unconditionally accepting this bull. Those who refused were banished, and fled mostly to the Netherlands. The sorely oppressed nuns of Port Royal at last reluctantly agreed to sign it; but they were still persecuted, and in A.D. 1664 the new archbishop, Perefixe, inaugurated a more severe persecution, placed this cloister under the interdict, and removed some of the nuns to other convents. In A.D. 1669, Alexander’s successor, Clement IX., secured the submission of Arnauld, De Sacy, Nicole, and many of the nuns by a policy of mild connivance. But the hatred of the Jesuits was still directed against their cloister. In A.D. 1705 Clement XI. again demanded full and unconditioned acceptance of the decree of Alexander VII., and when the nuns refused, the pope, in A.D. 1708, declared this convent an irredeemable nest of heresy, and ordered its suppression, which was carried out in A.D. 1709. In A.D. 1710 cloister and church were levelled to the ground, and the very corpses taken out of their graves.[464]—Continuation, § 165, 7.

§ 158. SCIENCE AND ART IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

Catholic theology flourished during the seventeenth century as it had never done since the twelfth and thirteenth. Especially in the liberal Gallican church there was a vigorous scientific life. The Parisian Sorbonne and the orders of the Jesuits, St. Maur, and the Oratorians, excelled in theological, particularly in patristic and historical, learning, and the contemporary brilliancy of Reformed theology in France afforded a powerful stimulus. But the best days of art, especially Italian painting, were now past. Sacred music was diligently cultivated, though in a secularized style, and many gifted hymn-writers made their appearance in Spain and Germany.

§ 158.1. Theological Science (§ 149, 14).—The parliamentary advocate, Mich. le Jay, published at his own expense the Parisian Polyglott in ten folio vols., A.D. 1629-1645, which, besides complete Syriac and Arabic translations, included also the Samaritan. The chief contributor was the Oratorian Morinus, who edited the LXX. and the Samaritan texts, which he regarded as incomparably superior to the Masoretic text corrupted by the Jews. The Jansenists produced a French translation of the Bible with practical notes, condemned by the pope, but much read by the people. It was mainly the work of the brothers De Sacy. The New Testament was issued in A.D. 1667 and the Old Testament somewhat later, called the Bible of Mons from the fictitious name of the place of publication. Richard Simon, the Oratorian, who died in A.D. 1712, treated Scripture with a boldness of criticism never before heard of within the church. While opposed by many on the Catholic side, the curia favoured his work as undermining the Protestant doctrine of Scripture. Cornelius à Lapide, who died A.D. 1637, expounded Scripture according to the fourfold sense.—In systematic theology the old scholastic method still held sway. Moral theology was wrought out in the form of casuistry with unexampled lasciviousness, especially by the Jesuits (§ 149, 10). The work of the Spaniard Escobar, who died in A.D. 1669, ran through fifty editions, and that of Busembaum, professor in Cologne and afterwards rector of Münster, who died A.D. 1668, went through seventy editions. On account of the attempted assassination of Louis XV. by Damiens in A.D. 1757, with which the Jesuits and their doctrine of tyrannicide were charged, the Parliament of Toulouse in A.D. 1757, and of Paris in A.D. 1761, had Busembaum’s book publicly burnt, and several popes, Alexander VII., VIII., and Innocent XI., condemned a number of propositions from the moral writings of these and other Jesuits. Among polemical writers the most distinguished were Becanus, who died in A.D. 1624, and Bossuet (§ 153, 7). Among the Jansenists the most prominent controversialists were Nicole and Arnauld, who, in order to escape the reproach of Calvinism, sought to prove the Catholic doctrine of the supper to be the same as that of the apostles, and were answered by the Reformed theologians Claude and Jurieu. In apologetics the leading place is occupied by Pascal, with his brilliant “Pensées.” Huetius, a French bishop and editor of Origen, who died in A.D. 1721, replied to Spinoza’s attacks on the Pentateuch, and applying to reason itself the Cartesian principle, that philosophy must begin with doubt, pointed the doubter to the supernatural revealed truths in the Catholic church as the only anchor of salvation. The learned Jesuit Dionysius Petavius, who died in A.D. 1652, edited Epiphanius and wrote gigantic chronological works and numerous violent polemics against Calvinists and Jansenists. His chief work is the unfinished patristic-dogmatic treatise in five vols. folio, A.D. 1680, “De theologicis Dogmatibus.” The Oratorian Thomassinus wrote an able archæological work: “Vetus et Nova Eccl. Disciplina circa Beneficia et Beneficiarios.”

§ 158.2. In church history, besides those named in § 5, 2, we may mention Pagi, the keen critic and corrector of Baronius. The study of sources was vigorously pursued. We have collections of mediæval writings and documents by Sirmond, D’Achery, Mabillon, Martène, Baluzius; of acts of councils by Labbé and Cossart, those of France by Jac. Sirmond, and of Spain by Aguirre; acts of the martyrs by Ruinart; monastic rules by Holstenius, a pervert, who became Vatican librarian, and died at Rome A.D. 1661. Dufresne Ducange, an advocate, who died in A.D. 1688, wrote glossaries of the mediæval and barbarous Latin and Greek, indispensable for the study of documents belonging to those times. The greatest prodigy of learning was Mabillon, who died in A.D. 1707, a Benedictine of St. Maur, and historian of his order. Pet. de Marca, who died Archbishop of Paris A.D. 1662, wrote the famous work on the Gallican liberties “De Concordia Sacerdotii et Imperii.” The Jansenist doctor of the Sorbonne, Elias du Pin, who died A.D. 1719, wrote “Nouvelle Bibliothèque des Auteurs Eccles.” in forty-seven vols. The Jesuit Maimbourg, died A.D. 1686, compiled several party histories of Wiclifism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism; but as a Gallican was deprived of office by the pope, and afterwards supported by a royal pension. The Antwerp Jesuits Bolland, Henschen, Papebroch started, in A.D. 1643, the gigantic work “Acta Sanctorum,” carried on by the learned members of their order in Belgium, known as Bollandists. It was stopped by the French invasion of A.D. 1794, when it had reached October 15th with the fifty-third folio vol. The Belgian Jesuits continued the work from A.D. 1845-1867, reaching in six vols. the end of October, but not displaying the ability and liberality of their predecessors. In Venice Paul Sarpi (§ 155, 2) wrote a history of the Tridentine Council, one of the most brilliant historical works of any period. Leo Allatius, a Greek convert at Rome, who died in A.D. 1669, wrote a work to show the agreement of the Eastern and Western churches. Cardinal Bona distinguished himself as a liturgical writer.—In France pulpit eloquence reached the highest pitch in such men as Flechier, Bossuet, Bourdaloue, Fénelon, Massillon, and Bridaine. In Vienna Abraham à St. Clara inveighed in a humorous, grotesque way against the corruption of manners, with an undercurrent of deep moral earnestness. Similar in style and spirit, but much more deeply sunk in Catholic superstition, was his contemporary the Capuchin Martin of Cochem, who missionarized the Rhine Provinces and western Germany for forty years, and issued a large number of popular religious tracts.—Continuation, § 165, 14.

§ 158.3. Art and Poetry (§ 149, 15).—The greatest master of the musical school founded by Palestrina was Allêgri, whose Miserere is performed yearly on the Wednesday afternoon of Passion Week in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. The oratorio originated from the application of the lofty music of this school to dramatic scenes drawn from the Bible, for purely musical and not theatrical performance. Philip Neri patronized this music freely in his oratory, from which it took the name. This new church music became gradually more and more secularized and approximated to the ordinary opera style.—In ecclesiastical architecture the Renaissance style still prevailed, but debased with senseless, tasteless ornamentation.—In the Italian school of painting the decline, both in creative power and imitative skill, was very marked from the end of the sixteenth century. In Spain during the seventeenth century religious painting reached a high point of excellence in Murillo of Seville, who died in A.D. 1682, a master in representing calm meditation and entranced felicity.—The two greatest poets of Spain, the creators of the Spanish drama, Lope de Vega (died A.D. 1635) and Pedro Calderon (died A.D. 1681), both at first soldiers and afterwards priests, flourished during this century. The elder excelled the younger, not only in fruitfulness and versatility (1,500 comedies, 320 autos, § 115, 12, etc.), but also in poetic genius and patriotism. Calderon, with his 122 dramas, 73 festival plays, 200 preludes, etc., excelled De Vega in artistic expression and beauty of imagery. Both alike glorify the Inquisition, but occasionally subordinate Mary and the saints to the great redemption of the cross.—Specially deserving of notice is the noble German Jesuit Friedr. von Spee, died A.D. 1635. His spiritual songs show deep love to the Saviour and a profound feeling for nature, approaching in some respects the style of the evangelical hymn-writers. Spee was a keen but unsuccessful opponent of witch prosecution. Another eminent poetic genius of the age was the Jesuit Jac. Balde of Munich, who died in A.D. 1688. He is at his best in lyrical poetry. A deep religious vein runs through all his Latin odes, in which he enthusiastically appeals to the Virgin to raise him above all earthly passions. To Herder belongs the merit of rescuing him from oblivion.

III. The Lutheran Church.

§ 159. ORTHODOXY AND ITS BATTLES.[465]

The Formula of Concord commended itself to the hearts and intelligences of Lutherans, and secured a hundred years’ supremacy of orthodoxy, notwithstanding two Christological controversies. Gradually, however, a new dogmatic scholasticism arose, which had the defects as well as the excellences of the mediæval system. The orthodoxy of this school deteriorated, on the one hand, into violent polemic on confessional differences, and, on the other, into undue depreciation of outward forms in favour of a spiritual life and personal piety. These tendencies are represented by the Syncretist and Pietist controversies.

§ 159.1. Christological Controversies.

1. The Cryptist and Kenotist Controversy between the Giessen and Tübingen theologians, in A.D. 1619, about Christ’s state of humiliation, led to the publication of many violent treatises down to A.D. 1626. The Kenotists of Giessen, with Mentzer and Feuerborn at their head, assigned the humiliation only to the human nature, and explained it as an actual κένωσις, i.e. a complete but voluntary resigning of the omnipresence and omnipotence immanent in His divinity (κτῆσις, but not χρῆσις), yet so that He could have them at His command at any moment, e.g. in His miracles. The Cryptists of Tübingen, with Luc. Osiander and Thumm at their head, ascribed humiliation to both natures, and taught that all the while Christ, even secundum carnem, was omnipresent and ruled both in heaven and earth, but in a hidden way; the humiliation is no κένωσις, but only a κρύψις. After repeated unsuccessful attempts to bring about a reconciliation, John George, Elector of Saxony, in A.D. 1623, accepted the Kenotic doctrine. But the two parties still continued their strife.[466]

2. The Lütkemann Controversy on the humanity of Christ in death was of far less importance. Lütkemann, a professor of philosophy at Rostock, affirmed that in death, because the unity of soul and body was broken, Christ was not true man, and that to deny this was to destroy the reality and the saving power of his death. He held that the incarnation of Christ lasted through death, because the divine nature was connected, not only with the soul, but also with the body. Lütkemann was obliged to quit Rostock, but got an honourable call to Brunswick as superintendent and court preacher, and there died in A.D. 1655. Later Lutherans treated the controversy as a useless logomachy.

§ 159.2. The Syncretist Controversy.—Since the Hofmann controversy (§ 141, 15) the University of Helmstadt had shown a decided humanistic tendency, and gave even greater freedom in the treatment of doctrines than the Formula of Concord, which it declined to adopt. To this school belonged George Calixt, and from A.D. 1614 for forty years he laboured in promoting its interests. He was a man of wide culture and experience, who had obtained a thorough knowledge of church history, and acquaintance with the most distinguished theologians of all churches, during his extensive foreign travels, and therewith a geniality and breadth of view not by any means common in those days. He did not indeed desire any formal union between the different churches, but rather a mutual recognition, love, and tolerance. For this purpose he set, as a secondary principle of Christian theology, besides Scripture, as the primary principle, the consensus of the first five centuries as the common basis of all churches, and sought to represent later ecclesiastical differences as unessential or of less consequence. This was denounced by strict Lutherans as Syncretism and Cryptocatholicism. In A.D. 1639 the Hanoverian preacher Buscher charged him with being a secret Papist. After the Thorn Conference of A.D. 1645, a violent controversy arose, which divided Lutherans into two camps. On the one side were the universities of Helmstadt and Königsberg; on the other hand, the theologians of the electorate of Saxony, Hülsemann of Leipzig, Waller of Dresden, and Abr. Calov, who died professor in Wittenberg in A.D. 1686. Calov wrote twenty-six controversial treatises on this subject. Jena vainly sought to mediate between the parties. In the Theologorum Sax. Consensus repetitus Fidei vera Lutheranæ of A.D. 1655, for which the Wittenberg divines failed to secure symbolical authority, the following sentiments were branded as Syncretist errors: That in the Apostles’ Creed everything is taught that is necessary to salvation; that the Catholic and Reformed systems retain hold of fundamental truths; that original sin is of a merely privative nature; that God indirecte, improprie, et per accidens is the cause of sin; that the doctrine of the Trinity was first clearly revealed in the New Testament, etc. Calixt died A.D. 1656 in the midst of most violent controversies. His son Ulrich continued these, but had neither the ability nor moderation of his father. Even the peaceably disposed Conference of Cassel of A.D. 1661 (§ 154, 4) only poured oil on the flames. The strife lost itself at last in actions for damages between the younger Calixt and his bitter opponent Strauch of Wittenberg. Wearied of these fruitless discussions, theologians now turned their attention to the rising movement of Pietism.[467]

§ 159.3. The Pietist Controversy in its First Stage.—Philip Jacob Spener born in Alsace in A.D. 1635, was in his thirty-first year, on account of his spirituality, distinguished gifts, and singularly wide scholarship, made president of a clerical seminary at Frankfort-on-Main. In A.D. 1686 he became chief court preacher at Dresden, and provost of Berlin in A.D. 1691, when, on account of his intense earnestness in pastoral work, he had been expelled from Dresden. He died in Berlin in A.D. 1705. His year’s attendance at Geneva after the completion of his curriculum at Strassburg had an important influence on his whole future career. He there learned to value discipline for securing purity of life as well as of doctrine, and was also powerfully impressed by the practical lectures of Labadie (§ 163, 7) and the reading of the “Practice of Piety” and other ascetical writings of the English Puritans (§ 162, 3). Though strongly attached to the Lutheran church, he believed that in the restoration of evangelical doctrine by the Wittenberg Reformation, “not by any means had all been accomplished that needed to be done,” and that Lutheranism in the form of the orthodoxy of the age had lost the living power of the reformers, and was in danger of burying its talent in dead and barren service of the letter. There was therefore a pressing need of a new and wider reformation. In the Lutheran church, as the depository of sound doctrine, he recognised the fittest field for the development of a genuinely Christian life; but he heartily appreciated any true spiritual movement in whatsoever church it arose. He went back from scholastic dogmatics to Holy Scripture as the living source of saving knowledge, substituted for the external orthodox theology the theology of the heart, demanded evidence of this in a pious Christian walk: these were the means by which he sought to promote his reformation. A whole series of Lutheran theologians of the seventeenth century (§ 159) had indeed contributed to this same end by their devotional works, hymns, and sermons. What was new in Spener was the conviction of the insufficiency of the hitherto used means and the undue prominence given to doctrine, and his consequent effort vigorously made to raise the tone of the Christian life. In his childlike, pious humility he regarded himself as by no means called to carry out this work, but felt it his duty to insist upon the necessity of it, and indicate the means that should be used to realize it. This he did in his work of A.D. 1675, “Pia Desideria.” As it was his aim to recommend biblical practical Christianity to the heart of the individual Christian, he revived the almost forgotten doctrine “Of Spiritual Priesthood” in a separate treatise. In A.D. 1670 he began to have meetings in his own house for encouraging Christian piety in the community, which soon were imitated in other places. Spener’s influence on the Lutheran church became greater and wider through his position at Dresden. Stirred up by his spirit, three young graduates of Leipzig. A. H. Francke, Paul Anton, and J. K. Schade, formed in A.D. 1686 a private Collegia Philobiblica for practical exposition of Scripture and the delivery of public exegetical lectures at the university in the German language. But the Leipzig theological faculty, with J. B. Carpzov II. at its head, charged them with despising the public ordinances as well as theological science, and with favouring the views of separatists. The Collegia Philobiblica was suppressed, and the three friends obliged to leave Leipzig in A.D. 1690. This marked the beginning of the Pietist controversies. Soon afterwards Spener was expelled from Dresden; but in his new position at Berlin he secured great influence in the appointments to the theological faculty of the new university founded at Halle by the peace-loving elector Frederick III. of Brandenburg, in opposition to the contentious universities of Wittenberg and Leipzig. Francke, Anton, and Breithaupt were made professors of theology. Halle now won the position which Wittenberg and Geneva had held during the Reformation period, and the Pietist controversy thus entered upon a second, more general, and more critical epoch of its history.[468]—Continuation, § 166, 1.

§ 159.4. Theological Literature (§ 142, 6).—The “Philologia Sacra” of Sol. Glassius of Jena, published in A.D. 1623, has ranked as a classical work for almost two centuries. From A.D. 1620 till the end of the century, a lively controversy was carried on about the Greek style of the New Testament, in which Lutherans, and especially the Reformed, took part. The purists maintained that the New Testament idiom was pure and classical, thinking that its inspiration would otherwise be endangered. The first historico-critical introduction to the Scriptures was the “Officina Biblica” of Walther in A.D. 1636. Pfeiffer of Leipzig gained distinction in biblical criticism and hermeneutics by his “Critica Sacra” of A.D. 1680 and “Hermeneutica” of A.D. 1684. Exegesis now made progress, notwithstanding its dependence on traditional interpretations of doctrinal proof passages and its mechanical theory of inspiration. The most distinguished exegetes were Erasmus Schmidt of Wittenberg, who died in A.D. 1637: he wrote a Latin translation of New Testament with admirable notes, and a very useful concordance of the Greek New Testament, under the title Ταμεῖον, which has been revised and improved by Bruder; Seb. Schmidt of Strassburg, who wrote commentaries on several Old Testament books and on the Pauline epistles; and Abr. Calov of Wittenberg, who died in A.D. 1686, in his 74th year, whose “Biblia Illustrata,” in four vols., is a work of amazing research and learning, but composed wholly in the interests of dogmatics.—Little was done in the department of church history. Calixt awakened a new enthusiasm for historical studies, and Gottfried Arnold (§ 159, 2), pietist, chiliast, and theosophist, bitterly opposed to every form of orthodoxy, and finding true Christianity only in sects, separatists, and heretics, set the whole theological world astir by his “Unparteiische Kirchen- und Ketzer-historie,” in A.D. 1699 (§ 5, 3).

§ 159.5. The orthodox school applied itself most diligently to dogmatics in a strictly scholastic form. Hutter of Wittenberg, who died in A.D. 1616, wrote “Loci communes theologici” and “Compendium Loc. Theol.” John Gerhard of Jena, who died in A.D. 1637, published in A.D. 1610 his “Loc. Theologici” in nine folio vols., the standard of Lutheran orthodoxy. J. Andr. Quenstedt of Wittenberg, who died A.D. 1688, exhibited the best and worst of Lutheran scholasticism in his “Theol. didactico-polemica.” The most important dogmatist of the Calixtine school was Conrad Horneius. Calixt himself is known as a dogmatist only by his lectures; but to him we owe the generally adopted distinction between morals and dogmatics as set forth in his “Epitome theol. Moralis.”—Polemics were carried on vigorously. Hoë von Hoënegg of Dresden (§ 154, 3, 4) and Hutter of Wittenberg were bitter opponents of Calvinism and Romanism. Hutter was styled by his friends Malleus Calvinistorum and Redonatus Lutherus. The ablest and most dignified polemic against Romanism was that of John Gerhard in his “Confessio Catholica.” Nich. Hunnius, son of Ægid. Hunnius, and Hutter’s successor at Wittenberg, from A.D. 1623 superintendent at Lübeck, distinguished himself as an able controversialist against the papacy by his “Demonstratio Ministerii Lutherani Divini atque Legitimi.” Against the Socinians he wrote his “Examen Errorum Photinianorum,” and against the fanatics a “Chr. Examination of the new Paracelsist and Weigelian Theology.” His principal work is his “Διάσκεψις de Fundamentali Dissensu Doctrinæ Luth. et Calvin.” His “Epitome Credendorum” went through nineteen editions. The most incessant controversialist was Abr. Calov, who wrote against Syncretists, Papists, Socinians, Arminians, etc.—Continuation, § 167, 4.

§ 160. THE RELIGIOUS LIFE.

The attachment of the Lutheran church of this age to pure doctrine led to a one-sided over-estimation of it, often ending in dead orthodoxy. But a succession of able and learned theologians, who recognised the importance of heart theology as well as sound doctrine, corrected this evil tendency by Scripture study, preaching, and faithful pastoral work. A noble and moderate mysticism, which was thoroughly orthodox in its beliefs, and opposing orthodoxy only where that had become external and mechanical, had many influential representatives throughout the whole country, especially during the first half of it. But also separatists, mystics, and theosophists made their appearance, who were decidedly hostile to the church. Sacred song flourished afresh amid the troubles of the Thirty Years’ War; but gradually lost its sublime objective church character, which was poorly compensated by a more flowing versification, polished language, and elegant form. A corresponding advance was also made in church music.

§ 160.1. Mysticism and Asceticism.—At the head of the orthodox mystics stands John Arndt. His “True Christianity” and his “Paradiesgärtlein” are the most widely read Lutheran devotional books, but called forth the bitter hostility of those devoted to the maintenance of a barren orthodoxy. He died in A.D. 1621, as general superintendent at Celle. He had been expelled from Anhalt because he would not condemn exorcism as godless superstition, and was afterwards in Brunswick publicly charged by his colleague Denecke and other Lutheran zealots with Papacy, Calvinism, Osiandrianism, Flacianism, Schwenckfeldism, Paracelsism, Alchemism, etc. As men of a similar spirit, anticipators of the school of Spener, may be named John Gerhard of Jena, with his “Meditationes Sacræ” and “Schola pietatis,” and Christian Scriver, whose “Gotthold’s Emblems” is well known to English readers. Rahtmann of Danzig maintained that the word of God in Scripture has not in itself the power to enlighten and convert men except through the gracious influence of God’s Spirit. He was supported, after a long delay, in A.D. 1626 by the University of Rostock, but opposed by Königsberg, Jena, and Wittenberg. In A.D. 1628, the Elector of Saxony obtained the opinion of the most famous theologians of his realm against Rahtmann; but his death, which soon followed, brought the controversy to a close.—The Württemberg theologian, John Valentine Andreä, grandson of one of the authors of the Formula of Concord, was a man of striking originality, famous for his satires on the corruptions of the age. His “Order of Rosicrucians,” published at Cassel in A.D. 1614, ridiculed the absurdities of astrology and alchemy in the form of a satirical romance. His influence on the church of his times was great and wholesome, so that even Spener exclaimed: “Had I the power to call any one from the dead for the good of the church, it would be J. V. Andreä.” His later devotional work was almost completely forgotten until attention was called to it by Herder.[469]

§ 160.2. Mysticism and Theosophy.—A mystico-theosophical tendency, partly in outward connexion with the church, partly without and in open opposition to it, was fostered by the alchemist writings of Agrippa and Paracelsus, the theosophical works of Weigel (§ 146, 2) and by the profound revelations of the inspired shoemaker of Görlitz, Jacob Boehme, philosophus teutonicus, the most talented of all the theosophists. In a remarkable degree he combined a genius for speculation with the most unfeigned piety that held firmly by the old Lutheran faith. Even when an itinerant tradesman, he felt himself for a period of seven days in calm repose, surrounded by the divine light. But he dates his profound theosophical enlightenment from a moment in A.D. 1594, when as a young journeyman and married, thrown into an ecstasy, he obtained a knowledge of the divine mysteries down to the ultimate principles of all things and their inmost quality. His theosophy, too, like that of the ancient gnostics, springs out of the question about the origin of evil. He solves it by assuming an emanation of all things from God, in whom fire and light, bitter and sweet qualities, are thoroughly tempered and perfectly combined, while in the creature derived by emanation from him they are in disharmony, but are reconciled and reduced to godlike harmony through regeneration in Christ. Though opposed by Calov, he was befriended by the Dresden consistory. Boehme died in A.D. 1624, in retirement at Görlitz, in the arms of his family.[470]—In close connexion with Boehmists, separatists, and Pietists, yet differing from them all, Gottfried Arnold abused orthodoxy and canonized the heretics of all ages. In A.D. 1700 he wrote “The Mystery of the Divine Sophia.” When Adam, originally man and woman, fell, his female nature, the heavenly Sophia, was taken from him, and in his place a woman of flesh was made for him out of a rib; in order again to restore the paradisiacal perfection Christ brought again the male part into a virgin’s womb, so that the new creature, the regenerate, stands before God as a “male-virgin;” but carnal love destroys again the connexion thus secured with the heavenly Sophia. But the very next year he reached a turning-point in his life. He not only married, but in consequence accepted several appointments in the Lutheran church, without, however, signing the Formula of Concord, and applied his literary skill to the production of devotional tracts.

§ 160.3. Sacred Song (§ 142, 3).—The first epoch of the development of sacred song in this century corresponds to the period of the Thirty Years’ War, A.D. 1618-1648. The Psalms of David were the model and pattern of the sacred poets, and the profoundest songs of the cross and consolation bear the evident impress of the times, and so individual feeling comes more into prominence. The influence of Opitz was also felt in the church song, in the greater attention given to correctness and purity of language and to the careful construction of verse and rhyme. Instead of the rugged terseness and vigour of earlier days, we now find often diffuse and overflowing utterances of the heart. John Hermann of Glogau, who died in A.D. 1647, composed 400 songs, embracing these: “Alas! dear Lord, what evil hast Thou done?” “O Christ, our true and only Light;” “Ere yet the dawn hath filled the skies;” “O God, thou faithful God.” Paul Flemming, a physician in Holstein, who died in A.D. 1640, wrote on his journey to Persia, “Where’er I go, whate’er my task.” Matthew Meyffart, professor and pastor at Erfurt, who died in A.D. 1642, wrote “Jerusalem, thou city fair and high.” Martin Rinkart, pastor at Eilenburg in Saxony, who died A.D. 1648, wrote, “Now thank we all our God.” Appelles von Löwenstern, who died A.D. 1648, composed, “When anguished and perplexed, with many a sigh and tear.” Joshua Stegmann, superintendent in Rinteln, who died A.D. 1632, wrote, “Abide among us with thy grace.” Joshua Wegelin, pastor in Augsburg and Pressburg, wrote, “Since Christ is gone to heaven, his home.” Justus Gesenius, superintendent in Hanover, who died in A.D. 1673, wrote, “When sorrow and remorse.” Tob. Clausnitzer, pastor in the Palatinate, who died A.D. 1648, wrote, “Blessed Jesus, at thy word.” The poets named mostly belong to the first Silesian school gathered round Opitz. A more independent position, though not uninfluenced by Opitz, is taken up by John Rist, who died in A.D. 1667. He composed 658 sacred songs, of which many are remarkable for their vigour, solemnity, and elevation; e.g. “Arise, the kingdom is at hand;” “Sink not yet, my soul, to slumber;” “O living Bread from heaven;” “Praise and thanks to Thee be sung.” At the head of the Königsberg school of the same age stood Simon Dach, professor of poetry at Königsberg, who died in A.D. 1659. He composed 150 spiritual songs, among which the best known are, “O how blessed, faithful souls, are ye!” “Wouldest thou inherit life with Christ on high?” The most distinguished members of this school are: Henry Alberti, organist at Königsberg, author of “God who madest earth and heaven;” and George Weissel, pastor in Königsberg, who died in A.D. 1655, author of “Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates.”

§ 160.4. From the middle of the seventeenth century sacred song became more subjective, and so tended to fall into a diversity of groups. No longer does the church sing through its poets, but the poets give direct expression to their individual feelings. Confessional songs are less frequent, and their place is taken by hymns of edification with reference to various conditions of life; songs of death, the cross and consolation, and hymns for the family become more numerous. With objectivity special features of the church song disappear in the hymns of the period; but some of its essential characteristics remain, especially the popular form and contents, the freshness, liveliness, and simplicity of diction, the truths of personal experience, the fulness of faith, etc. We distinguish three groups:

1. The Transition Group, passing from objectivity to subjectivity. Its greatest masters, indeed after Luther the greatest sacred poet of the evangelical church, is undoubtedly Paul Gerhardt, who died A.D. 1676, the faith witness of the Lutheran faith under the wars and in persecution (§ 154, 4). In him we find the new subjective tendency in its noblest form; but there is also present the old objective style, giving immediate expression to the consciousness of the church, adhering tenaciously to the confession, and a grand popular ring that reminds us of the fulness and power of Luther. His 131 songs, if not all church songs in the narrower sense, are almost all genuine poems: e.g. “All my heart this night rejoices;” “Cometh sunshine after rain;” “Go forth, my heart, and seek delight;” “Be thou content: be still before;” “O world, behold upon the tree;” “Now all the woods are sleeping;” and “Ah, wounded head, must thou?” based on Bernard’s Salve, caput cruentatum. To this school also belongs George Neumark, librarian at Weimar, who died in A.D. 1681, author of “Leave God to order all thy ways.” Also John Franck, burgomaster at Guben in Lusatia, who died A.D. 1677, next to Gerhardt the greatest poet of his age. His 110 songs are less popular and hearty, but more melodious than Gerhardt’s; e.g. “Redeemer of the nations, come;” “Ye heavens, oh haste your dews to shed;” “Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness.” George Albinus, pastor at Naumburg, died A.D. 1679, wrote: “Not in anger smite us, Lord;” “World, farewell! Of thee I’m tired.”

2. The next stage of the sacred song took the Canticles instead of the Psalter as its model. The spiritual marriage of the soul is its main theme. Feeling and fancy are predominant, and often degenerate into sentimentality and trifling. It obtained a new impulse from the addition of a mystical element. Angelus Silesius (§ 156, 4) was the most distinguished representative of this school, and while Protestant he composed several beautiful songs; e.g. “O Love, who formedst me to wear;” “Thou holiest Love, whom most I love;” “Loving Shepherd, kind and true.” Christian Knorr v. Rosenroth, who died at Sulzbach A.D. 1689, wrote “Dayspring of eternity.” Ludämilie Elizabeth, Countess of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, who died in A.D. 1672, wrote 215 “Songs of Jesus.” Caspar Neumann, professor and pastor at Breslau, died A.D. 1715, wrote, “Lord, on earth I dwell in pain.”

3. Those of Spener’s Time and Spirit, men who longed for the regeneration of the church by practical Christianity. Their hymns are for the most part characterized by healthy piety and deep godliness. Spener’s own poems are of slight importance. J. Jac. Schütz, Spener’s friend, a lawyer in Frankfort, who died A.D. 1690, composed only one, but that a very beautiful hymn: “All praise and thanks to God most high.” Samuel Rodigast, rector in Berlin, died A.D. 1708, wrote, “Whate’er my God ordains is right.” Laurentius Laurentii, musical director at Bremen, died A.D. 1722, wrote, “Is my heart athirst to know?” “O thou essential Word.”—Gottfried Arnold, died A.D. 1714, wrote, “Thou who breakest every chain;” “How blest to all thy followers, Lord, the road!”—In Denmark, where previously translations of German hymns were used, Thomas Kingo, from A.D. 1677 Bishop of Fünen, died A.D. 1703, was the much-honoured founder of Danish national hymnology.[471]—Continuation, § 167, 6.

§ 160.5. Sacred Music (§ 142, 5).—The church music in the beginning of the seventeenth century was affected by the Italian school, just as church song was by the influence of Opitz. The greatest master during the transition stage was John Crüger, precentor in the church of St. Nicholas in Berlin, died A.D. 1662. He was to the chorale what Gerhardt was to the church song. We have seventy-one new melodies of his, admirably adapted to Gerhardt’s, Hunnius’s, Franck’s, Dach’s, and Rinkart’s songs, and used in the church till the present time. With the second half of the century we enter on a new period, in which expression and musical declamation perish. Choir singing now, to a great extent, supersedes congregational singing. Henry Schütz, organist to the Elector of Saxony, died A.D. 1672, is the great master of this Italian sacred concert style. He introduced musical compositions on passages selected from the Psalms, Canticles, and prophets, in his “Symphoniæ Sacræ” of A.D. 1629. After a short time a radical reform was made by John Rosenmüller, organist of Wolfenbüttel, died A.D. 1686. A reaction against the exclusive adoption of the Italian style was made by Andr. Hammerschmidt, organist at Zittau, died A.D. 1675, one of the noblest and most pious of German musicians. By working up the old church melodies in the modern style, he brought the old hymns again into favour, and set hymns of contemporary poets to bright airs suited to modern standards of taste. The accomplished musician Rud. Ahle, organist and burgomaster at Mühlhausen, died A.D. 1673, introduced his own beautiful airs into the church music for Sundays and festivals. His sacred airs are distinguished for youthful freshness and power, penetrated by a holy earnestness, and quite free from that secularity and frivolousness which soon became unpleasantly conspicuous in such music.—Continuation, § 167, 7.

§ 160.6. The Christian Life of the People.—The rich development of sacred poetry proves the wonderful fulness and spirituality of the religious life of this age, notwithstanding the many chilling separatistic controversies that prevailed during the terrible upheaval of the Thirty Years’ War. The abundance of devotional literature of permanent worth witnesses to the diligence and piety of the Lutheran pastors. Ernest the Pious of Saxe-Gotha, who died A.D. 1675, stands forth as the ideal of a Christian prince. For the Christian instruction of his people he issued, in the midst of the confusion and horrors of the war, the famous Weimar or Ernestine exposition of the Bible, upon which John Gerhard wrought diligently, along with other distinguished Jena theologians. It appeared first in A.D. 1641, and by A.D. 1768 had gone through fourteen large editions. A like service was done for South Germany by the “Württemberg Summaries,” composed by three Württemberg theologians at the request of Duke Eberhard III., a concise, practical exposition of all the books of Scripture, which for a century and a half formed the basis of the weekly services (Bibelstunden) at Württemberg.—Continuation, § 167, 8.

§ 160.7. Missions.—In the Lutheran church, missionary enterprise had rather fallen behind (§ 142, 8). Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden carried on the Lapp mission with new zeal, and Denmark, too, gave ready assistance. A Norwegian pastor, Thomas Westen, deserves special mention as the apostle of the mission. A German, Peter Heyling of Lübeck, went on his own account as a missionary to Abyssinia in A.D. 1635, while several of his friends at the same time went to other eastern lands. Of these others no trace whatever has been found. An Abyssinian abbot who came to Europe brought news of Heyling. At first he was hindered by the machinations of the Jesuits; but when these were expelled, he found favour at court, became minister to the king, and married one of the royal family. What finally came of him and his work is unknown. Toward the end of the century two great men, the philosopher Leibnitz and the founder of the Halle Orphanage, A. H. Francke, warmly espoused the cause of foreign missions. The ambitious and pretentious schemes of the philosopher ended in nothing, but Francke made his orphanages, training colleges and centres from which the German Lutheran missions to the heathens were vigorously organized and successfully wrought.—Continuation, § 167, 9.

IV. The Reformed Church.

§ 161. THEOLOGY AND ITS BATTLES.

The Reformed scholars of France vied with those of St. Maur and the Oratory, and the Reformed theologians of the Netherlands, England, and Switzerland were not a whit behind. But an attempt made at a general synod at Dort to unite all the Reformed national churches under one confession failed. Opposition to Calvin’s extreme theory of predestination introduced a Pelagianizing current into the Reformed church, which was by no means confined to professed Arminians. In the Anglican church this tendency appeared in the forms of latitudinarianism and deism (§ 164, 3); while in France it took a more moderate course, and approximated rather to the Lutheran doctrine. It was a reaction of latent Zwinglianism against the dominant Calvinism. The Voetian school successfully opposed the introduction of the Cartesian philosophy, and secured supremacy to a scholasticism which held its own alongside of that of the Lutherans. In opposition to it, the Cocceian federal school undertook to produce a purely biblical system of theology in all its departments.

§ 161.1. Preliminaries of the Arminian Controversy.—In the Confessio Belgica of A.D. 1562 the Protestant Netherlands had already a strictly Calvinistic symbol, but Calvinism had not thoroughly permeated the church doctrine and constitution. There were more opponents than supporters of the doctrine of predestination, and a Melanchthonian-synergistic (§ 141, 7), or even an Erasmian-semipelagian, (§ 125, 3) doctrine, of the freedom of the will and the efficacy of grace, was more frequently taught and preached than the Augustinian-Calvinistic doctrine. So also Zwingli’s view of the relation of church and state was in much greater favour than the Calvinistic Presbyterial church government with its terrorist discipline. But the return of the exiles in A.D. 1572, who had adopted strict Calvinistic views in East Friesland and on the Lower German Rhine, led to the adoption of a purely Calvinistic creed and constitution. The keenest opponent of this movement was Coornhert, notary and secretary for the city of Haarlem, who combated Calvinism in numerous writings, and depreciated doctrine generally in the interests of practical living Christianity. Political as well as religious sympathies were enlisted in favour of this freer ecclesiastical tendency. The Dutch War of Independence was a struggle for religious freedom against Spanish Catholic fanaticism. The young republic therefore became the first home of religious toleration, which was scarcely reconcilable with a strict and exclusive Calvinism.—Meanwhile within the Calvinistic church a controversy arose, which divided its adherents in the Netherlands into two parties. In opposition to the strict Calvinists, who as supralapsarians held that the fall itself was included in the eternal counsels of God, there arose the milder infralapsarians, who made predestination come in after the fall, which was not predestinated but only foreseen by God.

§ 161.2. The Arminian Controversy.—In A.D. 1588, James Arminius (born A.D. 1560), a pupil of Beza, but a declared adherent of the Ramist philosophy (§ 143, 6), was appointed pastor in Amsterdam, and ordered by the magistrates to controvert Coornhert’s universalism and the infralapsarianism of the ministers of Delft. He therefore studied Coornhert’s writings, and by them was shaken in his earlier beliefs. This was shown first in certain sermons on passages from Romans, which made him suspected of Pelagianism. In A.D. 1603 he was made theological professor of Leyden, where he found a bitter opponent in his supralapsarian colleague, Francis Gomarus. From the class-rooms the controversy spread to the pulpits, and even into domestic circles. A public disputation in A.D. 1608, led to no pacific result, and Arminius continued involved in controversies till his death in A.D. 1609. Although decidedly inclined toward universalism, he had directed his polemic mainly against supralapsarianism, as making God himself the author of sin. But his followers went beyond these limits. When denounced by the Gomarists as Pelagians, they addressed to the provincial parliament of Holland and West Friesland, in A.D. 1610, a remonstrance, which in five articles repudiates supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism, and the doctrines of the irresistibility of grace, and of the impossibility of the elect finally falling away from it, and boldly asserts the universality of grace. They were hence called Remonstrants and their opponents Contraremonstrants. Parliament, favourably inclined toward the Arminians, pronounced the difference non-fundamental, and enjoined peace. When Vorstius, who was practically a Socinian, was appointed successor to Arminius, Gomarus charged the Remonstrants with Socinianism. Their ablest theological representative was Simon Episcopius, who succeeded Gomarus at Leyden in A.D. 1612, supported by the distinguished statesman, Oldenbarneveldt, and the great jurist, humanist, and theologian, Hugo Grotius of Rotterdam. Maurice of Orange, too, for a long time sided with them, but in A.D. 1617 formally went over to the other party, whose well-knit unity, strict discipline, and rigorous energy commended them to him as the fittest associates in his struggle for absolute monarchy. The republican-Arminian party was conquered, Oldenbarneveldt being executed in 1619, Grotius escaping by his wife’s strategem. The Synod of Dort was convened for the purpose of settling doctrinal disputes. It held 154 sessions, from Nov. 13th, 1618, to May 9th, 1619. Invitations were accepted by twenty-eight theologians from England, Scotland, Germany, and Switzerland. Brandenburg took no part in it (§ 154, 3), and French theologians were refused permission to go. Episcopius presented a clear and comprehensive apology for the Remonstrants, and bravely defended their cause before the synod. Refusing to submit to the decisions of the synod, they were at the fifty-seventh session expelled, and then excommunicated and deprived of all ecclesiastical offices. The Heidelberg Catechism and the Belgic Confession were unanimously adopted as the creed and manual of orthodox teaching. In the discussion of the five controverted points, the opposition of the Anglican and German delegates prevented any open and manifest insertion of supralapsarian theses, so that the synodal canons set forth only an essentially infralapsarian theory of predestination.—Remonstrant teachers were now expelled from most of the states of the union. Only after Maurice’s death in A.D. 1625 did they venture to return, and in A.D. 1630 they were allowed by statute to erect churches and schools in all the states. A theological seminary at Amsterdam, presided over by Episcopius till his death, in A.D. 1643, rose to be a famous seat of learning and nursery of liberal studies. The number of congregations, however, remained small, and their importance in church history consists rather in the development of an independent church life than in the revival of a semipelagian and rationalistic type of doctrine.[472]

§ 161.3. Consequences of the Arminian Controversy.—The Dort decrees were not accepted in Brandenburg, Hesse, and Bremen, where a moderate Calvinism continued to prevail. In England and Scotland the Presbyterians enthusiastically approved of the decrees, whereas the Episcopalians repudiated them, and, rushing to the other extreme of latitudinarianism, often showed lukewarm indifferentism in the way in which they distinguished articles of faith as essential and non-essential. The worthiest of the latitudinarians of this age was Chillingworth, who sought an escape from the contentions of theologians in the Catholic church, but soon returned to Protestantism, seeking and finding peace in God’s word alone. Archbishop Tillotson was a famous pulpit orator, and Gilbert Burnet, who died A.D. 1715, was author of a “History of the English Reformation.” In the French Reformed church, where generally strict Calvinism prevailed, Amyrault of Saumur, who died A.D. 1664, taught a universalismus hypotheticus, according to which God by a decretum universale et hypotheticum destined all men to salvation through Jesus Christ, even the heathen, on the ground of a fides implicita. The only condition is that they believe, and for this all the means are afforded in gratia resistibilis, while by a decretum absolutum et speciale only to elect persons is granted the gratia irresistibilis. The synods of Alençon, A.D. 1637, and Charenton, A.D. 1644, supported by Blondel, Daillé, and Claude, declared these doctrines allowable; but Du Moulin of Sedan, Rivetus and Spanheim of Leyden, Maresius of Groningen [Gröningen], and others, offered violent opposition. Amyrault’s colleague, De la Place, or Placæus, who died A.D. 1655, went still further, repudiating the unconditional imputation of Adam’s sin, and representing original sin simply as an evil which becomes guilt only as our own actual transgression. The synods just named condemned this doctrine. Somewhat later Claude Pajon of Saumur, who died A.D. 1685, roused a bitter discussion about the universality of grace, by maintaining that in conversion divine providence wrought only through the circumstances of the life, and the Holy Spirit through the word of God. Several French synods condemned this doctrine, and affirmed an immediate as well as a mediate operation of the Spirit and providence.—Genuine Calvinism was best represented in Switzerland, as finally expressed in the Formula Consensus Helvetica of Heidegger of Zürich, adopted in A.D. 1675 by most of the cantons. It was, like the Formula Concordiæ, a manual of doctrine rather than a confession. In opposition to Amyrault and De la Place, it set forth a strict theory of predestination and original sin, and maintained with the Buxtorfs, against Cappellus of Saumur, the inspiration of the Hebrew vowel points.

§ 161.4. The Cocceian and Cartesian Controversies.—If not the founder, certainly the most distinguished representative in the Netherlands of that scholasticism which sought to expound and defend orthodoxy, was Voetius, who died A.D. 1676, from A.D. 1607 pastor in various places, and from A.D. 1634 professor at Utrecht. A completely different course was pursued by Cocceius of Bremen, who died A.D. 1669, professor at Franeker in A.D. 1636, and at Leyden in A.D. 1650. The famous Zürich theologian, Bullinger (§ 138, 7), had in his “Compend. Rel. Chr.” of A.D. 1556, viewed the whole doctrine of saving truth from the point of view of a covenant of grace between God and man; and this idea was afterwards carried out by Olevianus of Heidelberg (§ 144, 1) in his “De Substantia Fœderis,” of A.D. 1585. This became the favourite method of distribution of doctrine in the whole German Reformed church. In the Dutch church it was regarded as quite unobjectionable. In England it was adopted in the Westminster Confession of A.D. 1648 (§ 155, 1), and in Switzerland in A.D. 1675, in the Formula Consensus. Cocceius is therefore not the founder of the federal theology. He simply gave it a new and independent development, and freed it from the trammels of scholastic dogmatics. He distinguished a twofold covenant of God with man: the fœdus operum s. naturæ before, and the fœdus gratiæ after the fall. He then subdivided the covenant of grace into three economies: before the law until Moses; under the law until Christ; and after the law in the Christian church. The history of the kingdom of God in the Christian era was arranged in seven periods, corresponding to the seven apocalyptic epistles, trumpets, and seals. In his treatment of his theme, he repudiated philosophy, scholasticism, and tradition, and held simply by Scripture. He is thus the founder of a purely biblical theology. He attached himself as closely as possible to the prevailing predestinationist orthodoxy, but only externally. In his view the sacred history in its various epochs adjusted itself to the needs of human personality, and to the growing capacity for appropriating it. Hence it was not the idea of election, but that of grace, that prevailed in his system. Christ is the centre of all history, spiritual, ecclesiastical, and civil; and so everything in Scripture, history, doctrine, and prophecy, necessarily and immediately stands related to him. The O.T. prophecies and types point to the Christ that was to come in the flesh, and all history after Christ points to his second coming; and O. and N.T. give an outline of ecclesiastical and civil history down to the end of time. Thus typology formed the basis of the Cocceian theology. In exegesis, however, Cocceius avoided all arbitrary allegorizing. It was with him an axiom in hermeneutics, Id significan verba, quod significare possunt in integra oratione, sic ut omnino inter se conveniant. Yet his typology led him, and still more many of his adherents, into fantastic exegetical errors in the prophetic treatment of the seven apocalyptic periods.

§ 161.5. A controversy, occasioned by Cocceius’ statement, in his commentary on Hebrews in A.D. 1658, that the Sabbath, as enjoined by the O.T. ceremonial law, was no longer binding, was stopped in A.D. 1659 by a State prohibition. Voetius had not taken part in it. But when Cocceius, in A.D. 1665, taught from Romans iii. 25, that believers under the law had not full “ἄφεσις,” only a “πάρεσις,” he felt obliged to enter the lists against this “Socinian” heresy. The controversy soon spread to other doctrines of Cocceius and his followers, and soon the whole populace seemed divided into Voetians and Cocceians (§ 162, 5). The one hurled offensive epithets at the other. The Orange political party sought and obtained the favour of the Voetians, as before they had that of the Gomarists; while the liberal republican party coalesced with the Cocceians. Philosophical questions next came to be mixed up in the discussion. The philosophy of the French Catholic Descartes (§ 164, 1), settled in A.D. 1629 in Amsterdam, had gained ground in the Netherlands. It had indeed no connexion with Christianity or church, and its theological friends wished only to have it recognised as a formal branch of study. But its fundamental principle, that all true knowledge starts from doubt, appeared to the representatives of orthodoxy as threatening the church with serious danger. Even in A.D. 1643 Voetius opposed it, and mainly in consequence of his polemic, the States General, in A.D. 1656, forbad it being taught in the universities. Their common opposition to scholasticism, however, brought Cocceians and Cartesians more closely to one another. Theology now became influenced by Cartesianism. Roëll, professor at Franeker and Utrecht, who died A.D. 1718, taught that the divinity of the Scriptures must be proved to the reason, since the testimonium Spir. s. internum is limited to those who already believe, rejected the doctrine of the imputation of original sin, the doctrine that death is for believers the punishment of sin, and the application of the idea of eternal “generation” to the Logos, to whom the predicate of sonship belongs only in regard to the decree of redemption and incarnation. Another zealous Cartesian, Balth. Bekker, not only repudiated the superstitions of the age about witchcraft (§ 117, 4), but also denied the existence of the devil and demons. The Cocceians were in no way responsible for such extravagances, but their opponents sought to make them chargeable for these. The stadtholder, William III., at last issued an order, in A.D. 1694, which checked for a time the violence of the strife.

§ 161.6. Theological Literature.—Biblical oriental philology flourished in the Reformed church of this age. Drusius of Franeker, who died A.D. 1616, was the greatest Old Testament exegete of his day. The two Buxtorfs of Basel, the father died A.D. 1629, the son A.D. 1664, the greatest Christian rabbinical scholars, wrote Hebrew and Chaldee grammars, lexicons, and concordances, and maintained the antiquity and even inspiration of the Hebrew vowel points against Cappellus of Saumur. Hottinger of Zürich, who died A.D. 1667, vied with both in his knowledge of oriental literature and languages, and wrote extensively on biblical philology, and besides found time to write a comprehensive and learned church history. Cocceius, too, occupies a respectable place among Hebrew lexicographers. In England, both before and after the Restoration, scholarship was found, not among the controversial Puritans, but among the Episcopal clergy. Brian Walton, who died A.D. 1661, aided by the English scholars, issued an edition of the “London Polyglott” in six vols., in A.D. 1657, which, in completeness of material and apparatus, as well as in careful textual criticism, leaves earlier editions far behind. Edm. Castellus of Cambridge in A.D. 1669 published his celebrated “Lexicon Heptaglottum.” The Elzevir printing-house at Amsterdam and Leyden, boldly assuming the prerogatives of the whole body of theological scholars, issued a textus receptus of the N.T. in A.D. 1624. The best established exegetical results of earlier times were collected by Pearson in his great compendium, the “Critici Sacri,” nine vols. fol., London, 1660; and Matthew Pool in his “Synopsis Criticorum,” five vols. fol., London, 1669. Among the exegetes of this time the brothers, J. Cappellus of Sedan, who died A.D. 1624, and Louis Cappellus II. of Saumur, who died A.D. 1658, were distinguished for their linguistic knowledge and liberal criticism. Pococke of Oxford and Lightfoot of Cambridge were specially eminent orientalists. Cocceius wrote commentaries on almost all the books of Scripture, and his scholar Vitringa of Franeker, who died A.D. 1716, gained great reputation by his expositions of Isaiah and the Apocalypse. Among the Arminians the famous statesman Grotius, who died A.D. 1645, was the greatest master of grammatico-historical exposition in the century, and illustrated Scripture from classical literature and philology. The Reformed church too gave brilliant contributions to biblical archæology and history. John Selden wrote “De Syndriis Vett. Heb.,” “De diis Syris,” etc. Goodwin wrote “Moses and Aaron.” Ussher wrote “Annales V. et N.T.” Spencer wrote “De Legibus Heb.” The Frenchman Bochart, in his “Hierozoicon” and “Phaleg,” made admirable contributions to the natural history and geography of the Bible.

§ 161.7. Dogmatic theology was cultivated mainly in the Netherlands. Maccovius, a Pole, who died A.D. 1644, a professor at Franeker, introduced the scholastic method into Reformed dogmatics. The Synod of Dort cleared him of the charge of heresy made against him by Amesius, but condemned his method. Yet it soon came into very general use. Its chief representatives were Maresius of Groningen [Gröningen], Voetius and Mastricht of Utrecht, Hoornbeck [Hoornbeeck] of Leyden, and the German Wendelin, rector of Zerbst. Among the Cocceians the most distinguished were Heidanus of Leyden, Alting of Groningen [Gröningen], and, above all, Hermann Witsius of Franeker, whose “Economy of the Covenants” is written in a conciliatory spirit. The most distinguished Arminian dogmatist after Episcopius was Phil. Limborch of Amsterdam, who died A.D. 1712, in high repute also as an apologist, exegete, and historian. The greatest dogmatist of the Anglican church was Pearson, who died A.D. 1686, author of “An Exposition of the Creed.” The Frenchman Peyrerius obtained great notoriety from his statement, founded on Romans v. 12, that Adam was merely the ancestor of the Jews (Gen. ii. 7), while the Gentiles were of pre-Adamite origin (Gen. i. 26), and also by maintaining that the flood had been only partial. He gained release from prison by joining the Catholic church and recanted, but still held by his earlier views.—Ethics, consisting hitherto of little more than an exposition of the decalogue, was raised by Amyrault into an independent science. Amesius dealt with cases of conscience. Grotius, in his “De Veritate Relig. Chr.” and Abbadie, French pastor at Berlin, and afterwards in London, who died A.D. 1727, in his “Vérité de la Rel. Chrét.,” distinguished themselves as apologists. Claude and Jurieu gained high reputation as controversialists against Catholicism and its persecution of the Huguenots.—The Reformed church also in the interests of polemics pursued historical studies. Hottinger of Zürich, Spanheim of Leyden, Sam. Basnage of Zütpfen, and Jac. Basnage of the Hague, produced general church histories. Among the numerous historical monographs the most important are Hospinian’s “De Templis,” “De Monachis,” “De Festis,” “Hist. Sacramentaria,” “Historia Jesuitica;” Blondel’s “Ps.-Isidorus,” “De la Primauté de l’Egl.,” “Question si une Femme a été Assisse au Siège Papal” (§ 82, 6), “Apologia sent. Hieron. de Presbyt.” Also Daillé of Saumur on the non-genuineness of the “Apostolic Constitutions” and the Ps.-Dionysian writings, and his “De Usu Patrum” in opposition to Cave’s Catholicizing over-estimation of the Fathers. We have also the English scholar Ussher, who died A.D. 1656, “Brit. Ecclesiarum Antiquitates;” H. Dodwell, who died A.D. 1711, “Diss. Cyprianicæ,” etc.; Wm. Cave, who died A.D. 1713, “Hist. of App. and Fathers,” “Scriptorum Ecclst. Hist. Literaria,” etc.—Special mention should be made of Eisenmenger, professor of oriental languages at Heidelberg. In his “Entdecktes Judenthum,” two vols. quarto, moved by the over-bearing arrogance of the Jews of his day, he made an immense collection of absurdities and blasphemies of rabbinical theology from Jewish writings. At his own expense he printed 2,000 copies; for these the Jews offered him 12,000 florins, but he demanded 30,000. They now persuaded the court at Venice to confiscate them before a single copy was sold. Eisenmenger died in A.D. 1704, and his heirs vainly sought to have the copies of his work given up to them. Even the appeal of Frederick I. of Prussia was refused. Only when the king had resolved, in A.D. 1711, at his own expense to publish an edition from one copy that had escaped confiscation, was the Frankfort edition at last given back.

§ 161.8. The Apocrypha Controversy (§ 136, 4).—In A.D. 1520 Carlstadt raised the question of the books found only in the LXX., and answered it in the style of Jerome (§ 59, 1). Luther gave them in his translation as an appendix to the O.T. with the title “Apocrypha, i.e. Books, not indeed of Holy Scripture, but useful and worthy to be read.” Reformed confessions took up the same position. The Belgic Confession agreed indeed that these books should be read in church, and proof passages taken from them, in so far as they were in accord with the canonical Scriptures. The Anglican Book of Common Prayer gives readings from these books. On the other hand, although at the Synod of Dort the proposal to remove at least the apocryphal books of Ezra or Esdras, Tobit, Judith, Bel and the Dragon, was indeed rejected, it was ordered that in future all apocryphal books should be printed in smaller type than the canonical books, should be separately paged, with a special title, and with a preface and marginal notes where necessary. Their exclusion from all editions of the Bible was first insisted on by English and Scotch Puritans. This example was followed by the French, but not by the German, Swiss, and Dutch Reformed churches.—Continuation, § 182, 4.

§ 162. THE RELIGIOUS LIFE.[473]

The religious life in the Reformed church is characterized generally by harsh legalism, rigorous renunciation of the world, and a thorough earnestness, coupled with decision and energy of will, which nothing in the world can break or bend. It is the spirit of Calvin which impresses on it this character, and determines its doctrine. Only where Calvin’s influence was less potent, e.g. in the Lutheranized German Reformed, the catholicized Anglican Episcopal Church, and among the Cocceians, is this tendency less apparent or altogether wanting. On the other hand, often carried to the utmost extreme, it appears among the English Puritans (§§ 143, 3; 155, 1) and the French Huguenots (§ 153, 4), where it was fostered by persecution and oppression.

§ 162.1. England and Scotland.—During the period of the English Revolution (§ 155, 1, 2), after the overthrow of Episcopacy, Puritanism became dominant; and the incongruous and contradictory elements already existing within it assumed exaggerated proportions (§ 143, 3, 4), until at last the opposing parties broke out into violent contentions with one another. The ideal of Scottish and English Presbyterianism was the setting up of the kingdom of Christ as a theocracy, in which church and state were blended after the O.T. pattern. Hence all the institutions of church and state were to be founded on Scripture models, while all later developments were set aside as deteriorations from that standard. The ecclesiastical side of this ideal was to be realized by the establishment of a spiritual aristocracy represented in presbyteries and synods, which, ruling the presbyteries through the synods, and the congregations through the presbyteries, regarded itself as called and under obligation to inspect and supervise all the details of the private as well as public life of church members, and all this too by Divine right. Regarding their system as alone having divine institution, Presbyterians could not recognise any other religious or ecclesiastical party, and must demand uniformity, not only in regard to doctrine and creed, but also in regard to constitution, discipline, and worship.[474]—On the other hand, Independent Congregationalism, inasmuch as it made prominent the N.T. ideas of the priesthood of all believers and spiritual freedom, demanded unlimited liberty to each separate congregation, and unconditional equality for all individual church members. It thus rejected the theocratic ideal of Presbyterianism, strove after a purely democratic constitution, and recognised toleration of all religious views as a fundamental principle of Christianity. Every attempt to secure uniformity and stability of forms of worship was regarded as a repressing of the Spirit of God operating in the church, and so alongside of the public services private conventicles abounded, in which believers sought to promote mutual edification. But soon amid the upheavals of this agitated period a fanatical spirit spread among the various sects of the Independents. The persecutions under Elizabeth and the Stuarts had awakened a longing for the return of the Lord, and the irresistible advance of Cromwell’s army, composed mostly of Independents, made it appear as if the millennium was close at hand. Thus chiliasm came to be a fundamental principle of Independency, and soon too prophecy made its appearance to interpret and prepare the way for that which was coming. From the Believers of the old Dutch times we now come to the Saints of the early Cromwell period. These regarded themselves as called, in consequence of their being inspired by God’s Spirit, to form the “kingdom of the saints” on earth promised in the last days, and hence also, from Daniel ii. and vii., they were called Fifth Monarchy Men. The so called Short Parliament of A.D. 1653, in which these Saints were in a majority, had already laid the first stones of this structure by introducing civil marriage, with the strict enforcement, however, of Matthew v. 32, as well as by the abolition of all rights of patronage and all sorts of ecclesiastical taxes, when Cromwell dissolved it. The Saints had not and would not have any fixed, formulated theological system. They had, however, a most lively interest in doctrine, and produced a great diversity of Scripture expositions and dogmatic views, so that their deadly foes, the Presbyterians, could hurl against them old and new heretical designations by the hundred. The fundamental doctrine of predestination, common to all Puritans, was, even with them, for the most part, a presupposition of all theological speculation.

§ 162.2. At the same time with the Saints there appeared among the Independents the Levellers, political and social revolutionists, rather than an ecclesiastical and religious sect. They were unjustly charged with claiming an equal distribution of goods. Over against the absolutist theories of the Stuarts, all the Independents maintained that the king, like all other civil magistrates, is answerable at all times and in all circumstances to the people, to whom all sovereignty originally and inalienably belongs. This principle was taken by the Levellers as the starting-point of their reforms. As their first regulative principle in reconstructing the commonwealth and determining the position of the church therein they did not take the theocratic constitution of the O.T., as the Presbyterians did, nor the biblical revelation of the N.T., as the moderate Independents did, nor even the modern professed prophecy of the “Saints,” but the law of nature as the basis of all revelation, and already grounded in creation, with the sovereignty of the people as its ultimate foundation. While the rest of the Independents held by the idea of a Christian state, and only claimed that all Christian denominations, with the exception of the Catholics (§ 153, 6), should enjoy all political rights, the Levellers demanded complete separation of church and state. This therefore implied, on the one hand, the non-religiousness of the state, and, on the other, again with the exception of Catholics, the absolute freedom, independence, and equality of all religious parties, even non-Christian sects and atheists. Yet all the while the Levellers themselves were earnestly and warmly attached to Christian truth as held by the other Independents.—Roger Williams (§ 163, 3), a Baptist minister, in A.D. 1631 transplanted the first seeds of Levellerism from England to North America, and by his writings helped again to spread those views in England. When he returned home in A.D. 1651 he found the sect already flourishing. The ablest leader of the English Levellers was John Lilburn. In A.D. 1638, when scarcely twenty years old, he was flogged and sentenced to imprisonment for life, because he had printed Puritan writings in Holland and had them circulated in England. Released on the outbreak of the Revolution, he joined the Parliamentary army, was taken prisoner by the Royalists and sentenced to death, but escaped by flight. He was again imprisoned for writing libels on the House of Lords. Set free by the Rump Parliament, he became colonel in Cromwell’s army, but was banished the country when it was found that the spread of radicalism endangered discipline. Till the dissolution of the Short Parliament his followers were in thorough sympathy with the Saints. Afterwards their ways went more and more apart; the Saints drifted into Quakerism (§ 163, 4), while the Levellers degenerated into deism (§ 164, 3).

§ 162.3. Out of the religious commotion prevailing in England before, during, and after the Revolution there sprang up a voluminous devotional literature, intended to give guidance and directions for holy living. Its influence was felt in foreign lands, especially in the Reformed churches of the continent, and even German Lutheran Pietism was not unaffected by it (§ 159, 3). That this movement was not confined to the Puritans, among whom it had its origin, is seen from the fact that during the seventeenth century many such treatises were issued from the University Press of Cambridge. Lewis Bayly, Bishop of Bangor A.D. 1616-1632, wrote one of the most popular books of this kind, “The Practice of Piety,” which was in A.D. 1635 in its thirty-second and in A.D. 1741 in its fifty-first edition, and was also widely circulated in Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, and Polish translations.—Out of the vast number of important personages of the Revolution period we name the following three:

1. In John Milton, the highly gifted poet as well as eloquent and powerful politician, born A.D. 1608, died A.D. 1674, we find, on the basis of a liberal classical training received in youth, all the motive powers of Independency, from the original Puritan zeal for the faith and Reformation to the politico-social radicalism of the Levellers, combined in full and vigorous operation. From Italy, the beloved land of classical science and artistic culture, he was called back to England in A.D. 1640 at the first outburst of freedom-loving enthusiasm (§ 155, 1), and made the thunder of his controversial treatises ring over the battlefield of parties. He fought against the narrowness of Presbyterian control of conscience not less energetically than against the hierarchism of the Episcopal church; vindicates the permissibility of divorce (in view, no doubt, of his own first unhappy marriage); advanced in his “Areopagitica” of A.D. 1644 a plea for the unrestricted liberty of the press; pulverized in his “Iconoclastes” of A.D. 1649 the Εἰκὼν βασιλική, ascribed to Charles I.; in several tracts, “Defensio pro Populo Anglicano,” etc., justified the execution of the king against Salmasius’s “Defensio Regia pro Carolo I.;” and, even after he had in A.D. 1652 become incurably blind, he continued unweariedly his polemics till silenced by the Restoration. The “Iconoclastes” and “Defensio” were burned by the hangman, but he himself was left unmolested. He now devoted himself to poetry. “Paradise Lost” appeared in A.D. 1665, and “Paradise Regained” in A.D. 1671. To this period, when he had probably turned his back on all existing religious parties, belongs the composition of his “De doctrina Christiana,” a first attempt at a purely biblical theology, Arian in its Christology and Arminian in its soteriology.[475]

2. Richard Baxter, born A.D. 1615, died A.D. 1691, was quite a different sort of man, and showed throughout a decidedly ironical tendency. At once attracted and repelled by the Independent movement in Cromwell’s army, he joined the force in A.D. 1645 as military chaplain, hoping to moderate, if not to check, their extravagances. A severe illness obliged him to withdraw in A.D. 1647. After his recovery he returned to his former post as assistant-minister at Kidderminster in Worcestershire, and there remained till driven out by the Act of Uniformity of A.D. 1662 (§ 155, 3). Those fourteen years formed the period of his most successful labours. He then composed most of his numerous devotional works, three of which, “The Saint’s Everlasting Rest,” “The Reformed Pastor,” “A Call to the Unconverted,” are still widely read in the original and in translations. At first he hoped much from the Restoration; but when, on conscientious grounds, he refused a bishopric, he met only with persecution, ill treatment, and imprisonment. Through William’s Act of Toleration of A.D. 1689, he was allowed to pass the last year of his life in London. On the doctrine of predestination he took the moderate position of Amyrault (§ 161, 3). His ideal church constitution was a blending of Presbyterianism and Episcopacy, by restoring the original episcopal constitution of the second century, when even the smaller churches had each its own bishop with a presbytery by his side.[476]

3. John Bunyan, born A.D. 1628, died A.D. 1688, was in his youth a tinker or brazier, and as such seems to have led a rough, wild life. On the outbreak of the Civil War in A.D. 1642, he was drafted into the Parliamentary army.[477] At the close of the war he married a poor girl from a Puritan family, whose only marriage portion consisted in two Puritan books of devotion. It was now that the birthday of a new spiritual life began to dawn in him. He joined the Baptist Independents, the most zealous of the Saints of that time, was baptized by them in A.D. 1655, and travelled the country as a preacher, attracting thousands around him everywhere by his glorious eloquence. In A.D. 1660 he was thrown into prison, from which he was released by the Indulgence of A.D. 1672 (§ 155, 3). He now settled in Bedford, and from this time till his death, amid persecution and oppression, continued his itinerant preaching with ever-increasing zeal and success. “The Pilgrim’s Progress” was written by him in prison. It is an allegory of the freshest and most lively form, worthy to rank alongside the “Imitation of Christ” (§ 114, 7). In it the fanatical endeavour of the Saints to rear a millennial kingdom on earth is transfigured into a struggle overcoming all hindrances to secure an entrance into the heavenly Zion above. It has passed through numberless editions, and has been translated into almost all known languages.[478]

§ 162.4. The Netherlands.—From England the Reformed Pietism was transplanted to the Netherlands, where William Teellinck may be regarded as its founder. After finishing his legal studies he resided for a while in England, where he made the acquaintance of the Puritans and their writings, and was deeply impressed with their earnest and pious family life. He then went to Leyden to study theology, and in A.D. 1606 began a ministry that soon bore fruit. He was specially blessed at Middelburg in Zealand, where he died A.D. 1629. His writings, larger and smaller, more than a hundred in number, in which a peculiar sweetness of mystical love for the Redeemer is combined with stern Calvinistic views, after the style of St. Bernard, were circulated widely in numerous editions, eagerly read in many lands, and for fully a century exerted a powerful influence throughout the whole Reformed church. Teellinck in no particular departed from the prevailing orthodoxy, but unwittingly toned down its harshness in his tracts, and with the gentleness characteristic of him counselled brotherly forbearance amid the bitterness of the Arminian controversy. In spite of much hostility, which his best efforts could not prevent, many university theologians stood by his side as warm admirers of his writings. It will not be wondered at that among these was the pious Amesius of Franeker (§ 161, 7), the scholar of the able Perkins (§ 143, 5); but it is more surprising to find here the powerful champion of scholastic orthodoxy, Voetius of Utrecht, and his vigorous partisan, Hoornbeeck of Leyden. Voetius especially, who even in his preacademic career as a pastor had pursued a peculiarly exemplary and godly life, styled Teellinck the Reformed Thomas à Kempis, and owned his deep indebtedness to his devout writings. He opened his academic course in A.D. 1634 with an introductory discourse, “De Pietate cum Scientia conjungenda,” and year after year gave lectures on ascetical theology, out of which grew his treatise published in A.D. 1664, “Τὰ Ἀσκητικὰ s. Exercita Pietatis in usum Juventutis Acad.,” which is a complete exposition of evangelical practical divinity in a thoroughly scholastic form.

§ 162.5. During the controversy in the Dutch Reformed Church between Voetians and Cocceians, beginning in A.D. 1658, the former favoured the pietistic movement. In the German Pietist controversy the Cocceians were with the Pietists in their biblical orthodoxy joined with confessional indifferentism, but with the orthodox in their liberality and breadth on matters of life and conduct. The earnest, practical piety of the Voetians, again, made them sympathise with the Lutheran Pietists, and their zeal for pure doctrine and the Church confession brought them into relation with the orthodox Lutherans. As discord between the theologians arose over the obligation of the Sabbath law, so the difference among the people arose out of the question of Sabbath observance. The Voetians maintained that the decalogue prohibition of any form of work on Sabbath was still fully binding, while the Cocceians, on the ground of Mark ii. 27, Galatians iv. 9, Colossians ii. 16, etc., denied its continued obligation, their wives often, to the annoyance of the Voetians, sitting in the windows after Divine service with their knitting or sewing. But the opposition did not stop there; it spread into all departments of life. The Voetians set great value upon fasting and private meditation, avoided all public games and plays, dressed plainly, and observed a simple, pious mode of life; their pastors wore a clerical costume, etc. The Cocceians, again, fell in with the customs of the time, mingled freely in the mirth and pastimes of the people, went to public festivals and entertainments, their women dressed in elegant, stylish attire, their pastors were not bound by hard and fast symbols, but had full Scripture freedom, etc.—Continuation, § 169, 2.

§ 162.6. France, Germany, and Switzerland.—The Reformed church of France has gained imperishable renown as a martyr-church. Fanatical excesses, however, appeared among the prophets of the Cevennes (§ 153, 4), the fruits of which continued down into the eighteenth century, and appeared now and again in England, Holland, and Germany (§ 160, 2, 7).—In Germany the Reformed church, standing side by side with the numerically far larger Lutheran church, had much of the sternness and severity that characterized the Romanic-Calvinistic party in doctrine, worship, and life greatly modified; but where the Reformed element was predominant, as in the Lower Rhine, it was correspondingly affected by a contrary influence. The Reformed church in Germany in its service of praise kept to the psalms of Marot and Lobwasser (§ 143, 2). Maurice of Hesse published Lobwasser’s in A.D. 1612, accompanied by some new bright melodies, for the use of the churches in the land. Lutheran hymns, however, gradually found their way into the Reformed church, which also produced two gifted poets of its own. Louisa Henrietta, Princess of Orange, wife of the great elector, and Paul Gerhardt’s sovereign, wrote “Jesus my Redeemer lives;” and Joachim Neander, pastor in Bremen, wrote, “Thou most Highest! Guardian of mankind,” “To heaven and earth and sea and air,” “Here behold me, as I cast me.”—In German Switzerland the noble Breitinger of Zürich, who died A.D. 1645, the greatest successor of Zwingli and Bullinger, wrought successfully during a forty years’ ministry, and did much to revive and quicken the church life. That the spirit of Calvin and Beza still breathed in the church of Geneva is proved by the reception given there to such men as Andreä (§ 160, 1), Labadie (§ 163, 7), and Spener (§ 159, 3).

§ 162.7. Foreign Missions.—From two sides the Reformed church had outlets for its Christian love in the work of foreign missions; on the one side by the cession of the Portuguese East Indian colonies to the Netherlands in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and on the other side by the continuous formation of English colonies in North America throughout the whole century. In regard to missionary effort, the Dutch government followed in the footsteps of her Portuguese predecessors. She insisted that all natives, before getting a situation, should be baptized and have signed the Belgic Confession, and many who fulfilled these conditions remained as they had been before. But the English Puritans settled in America showed a zeal for the conversion of the Indians more worthy of the Protestant name. John Eliot, who is rightly styled the apostle of the Indians, devoted himself with unwearied and self-denying love for half a century to this task. He translated the Bible into their language, and founded seventeen Indian stations, of which during his lifetime ten were destroyed in a bloody war. Eliot’s work was taken up by the Mayhew family, who for five generations wrought among the Indians. The last of the noble band, Zacharias Mayhew, died on the mission field in A.D. 1803, in his 87th year.[479]—Continuation, § 172, 5.

V. Anti- and Extra-Ecclesiastical Parties.

§ 163. SECTS AND FANATICS.

Socinianism during the first decades of the century made extraordinary progress in Poland, but then collapsed under the persecution of the Jesuits. Related to the continental Anabaptists were the English Baptists, who rejected infant baptism; while the Quakers, who adopted the old fanatical theory of an inner light, set baptism and the Lord’s supper entirely aside. In the sect of the Labadists we find a blending of Catholic quietist mysticism and Calvinistic Augustinianism. Besides those regular sects, there were various individual enthusiasts and separatists. These were most rife in the Netherlands, where the free civil constitution afforded a place of refuge for all exiles on account of their faith. Here only was the press free enough to serve as a thoroughgoing propaganda of mysticism and theosophy. Finally the Russian sects, hitherto little studied, call for special attention.

§ 163.1. The Socinians (§ 148, 4).—The most important of the Socinian congregations in Poland, for the most part small and composed almost exclusively of the nobility, was that at Racau in the Sendomir Palatinate. Founded in 1569, this city, since 1600 under James Sieninski, son of the founder, recognised Socinianism as the established religion; and an academy was formed there which soon occupied a distinguished position, and gave such reputation to the place that it could be spoken of as “the Sarmatian Athens.” But the congregation at Lublin, next in importance to that of Racau, was destroyed as early as 1627 by the mob under fanatical excitement caused by the Jesuits. The same disaster befell Racau itself eleven years later. A couple of idle schoolboys had thrown stones at a wooden crucifix standing before the city gate, and had been for this severely punished by their parents, and turned out of school. The Catholics, however, made a complaint before the senate, where the Jesuits secured a sentence that the school should be destroyed, the church taken from “the Arians,” the printing press closed, but the ministers and teachers outlawed and branded with infamy. And the Jesuits did not rest until the Reichstag at Warsaw in 1658 issued decrees of banishment against “all Arians,” and forbad the profession of “Arianism” under pain of death.—The Davidist non-adoration party of Transylvanian Unitarians (§ 148, 3) was finally overcome, and the endeavours after conformity with the Polish Socinians prevailed at the Diet of Deesch in 1638, where all Unitarian communities engaged to offer worship to Christ, and to accept the baptismal formula of Matthew xxviii. 19. And under the standard of this so called Complanatio Deesiana 106 Unitarian congregations, with a membership of 60,000 souls, exist in Transylvania to this day.—In Germany Socinianism had, even in the beginning of the century, a secret nursery in the University of Altdorf, belonging to the territory of the imperial city of Nuremberg. Soner, professor of medicine, had been won over to this creed by Socinians residing at Leyden, where he had studied in 1597, 1598, and now used his official position at Altdorf for, not only instilling his Unitarian doctrines by means of private philosophical conversations into the minds of his numerous students, who flocked to him from Poland, Transylvania, and Hungary, but also for securing the adhesion of several German students. Only after his death in 1612 did the Nuremberg council come to know about this propaganda. A strict investigation was then made, all Poles were expelled, and all the Socinian writings that could be discovered were burned.—The later Polish Exultants sought and found refuge in Germany, especially in Silesia, Prussia, and Brandenburg, as well as in the Reformed Palatinate, and also founded some small Unitarian congregations, which, however, after maintaining for a while a miserable existence, gradually passed out of view. They had greater success and spread more widely in the Netherlands, till the states-general of 1653, in consequence of repeated synodal protests, and on the ground of an opinion given by the University of Leyden, issued a strict edict against the Unitarians, who now gradually passed over to the ranks of the Remonstrants (§ 161, 2) and the Collegiants. Also in England, since the time of Henry VIII., antitrinitarian confessors and martyrs were to be found. Even in 1611, under James I., three of them had been consigned to the flames. The Polish Socinians took occasion from this to send the king a Racovian Catechism; but in 1614 it was, by order of parliament, burned by the hands of the hangman. The Socinians were also excluded from the benefit of the Act of Toleration of 1689, which was granted to all other dissenters (§ 155, 3). The progress of deism, however, among the upper classes (§§ 164, 3; 171, 1) did much to prevent the extreme penal laws being carried into execution.—The following are the most distinguished among the numerous learned theologians of the Augustan age of Socinian scholarship, who contributed to the extending, establishing, and vindicating of the system of their church by exegetical, dogmatic, and polemical writings: John Crell, died 1631; Jonas Schlichting, died 1661; Von Wolzogen, died 1661; and Andr. Wissowatius, a grandson of Faustus Socinus, died 1678; and with these must also be ranked the historian of Polish Socinianism, Stanislaus Lubienicki, died 1675, whose “Hist. Reformat. Polonicæ,” etc., was published at Amsterdam in 1685.

§ 163.2. The Baptists of the Continent.

1. The Dutch Baptists (§ 147, 2). Even during Menno’s lifetime the Mennonites had split into the Coarse and the Fine. The Coarse, who had abandoned much of the primitive severity of the sect, and were by far the most numerous, were again divided during the Arminian controversy into Remonstrants and Predestinationists. The former, from their leader, were called Galenists, and from having a lamb as the symbol of their Church, Lambists. The latter were called Apostoolers from their leader, and Sunists because their churches had the figure of the sun as a symbol. The Lambists, who acknowledged no confession of faith, were most numerous. In A.D. 1800, however, a union of the two parties was effected, the Sunists adopting the doctrinal position of the Lambists.—During the time when Arminian pastors were banished from the Netherlands, three brothers Van der Kodde founded a sect of Collegiants, which repudiated the clerical office, assigned preaching and dispensation of sacraments to laymen, and baptized only adults by immersion. Their place of baptism was Rhynsburg on the Rhine, and hence they were called Rhynsburgers. Their other name was given them from their assemblies, which they styled collegia.

2. The Moravian Baptists (§ 147, 3). The Thirty Years’ War ruined the flourishing Baptist congregations in Moravia, and the reaction against all non-Catholics that followed the battle of the White Mountain near Prague, in A.D. 1620, told sorely against them. In A.D. 1622 a decree for their banishment was issued, and these quiet, inoffensive men were again homeless fugitives. Remnants of them fled into Hungary and Transylvania, only to meet new persecutions there. A letter of protection from Leopold I., A.D. 1659, secured them the right of settling in three counties around Pressburg. But soon these rigorous persecutions broke out afresh; they were beset by Jesuits seeking to convert them, and when this failed they were driven out or annihilated. At last, by A.D. 1757-1762, they were completely broken up, and most of them had joined the Roman Catholic church. A few families preserved their faith by flight into South Russia, where they settled in Wirschenka. When the Toleration Edict of Joseph II., of A.D. 1781, secured religious freedom to Protestants in Austria, several returned again to the faith of their fathers, in the hope that the toleration would be extended to them; but they were bitterly disappointed. They now betook themselves to Russia, and together with their brethren already there, settled in the Crimea, where they still constitute the colony of Hutersthal.

§ 163.3. The English Baptists.—The notion that infant baptism is objectionable also found favour among the English Independents. Owing to the slight importance attached to the sacraments generally, and more particularly to baptism, in the Reformed church, especially among the Independents, the supporters of the practice of the church in regard to baptism to a large extent occupied common ground with its opponents. The separation took place only after the rise of the fanatical prophetic sects (§ 161, 1). We must, however, distinguish from the continental Anabaptists the English Baptists, who enjoyed the benefit of the Toleration Act of William III., of A.D. 1689, along with the other dissenters, by maintaining their Independent-Congregationalist constitution (§ 155, 3). In A.D. 1691, over the Arminian question, they split up into Particular and General, or Regular and Free Will, Baptists. The former, by far the more numerous, held by the Calvinistic doctrine of gratia particularis, while the latter rejected it. The Seventh-Day Baptists, who observed the seventh instead of the first day of the week, were founded by Bampfield in A.D. 1665.[480]—From England the Baptists spread to North America, in A.D. 1630, where Roger Williams (§ 162, 2), one of their first leaders, founded the little state of Rhode Island, and organized it on thoroughly Baptist-Independent principles.[481]—Continuation, § 170, 6.

§ 163.4. The Quakers.—George Fox, born A.D. 1624, died A.D. 1691, was son of a poor Presbyterian weaver in Drayton, Leicestershire. After scant schooling he went to learn shoemaking at Nottingham, but in A.D. 1643 abandoned the trade. Harassed by spiritual conflicts, he wandered about seeking peace for his soul. Upon hearing an Independent preach on 2 Peter i. 19, he was moved loudly to contradict the preacher. “What we have to do with,” he said, “is not the word, but the Spirit by which those men of God spake and wrote.” He was seized as a disturber of public worship, but was soon after released. In A.D. 1649 he travelled the country preaching and teaching, addressing every man as “thou,” raising his hat to none, greeting none, attracting thousands by his preaching, often imprisoned, flogged, tortured, hunted like a wild beast. The core of his preaching was, not Scripture, but the Spirit, not Christ without but Christ within, not outward worship, not churches, “steeple-houses,” and bells, not doctrines and sacraments, but only the inner light, which is kindled by God in the conscience of every man, renewed and quickened by the Spirit of Christ, which suddenly lays hold upon it. The number of his followers increased from day to day. In A.D. 1652 he found, along with his friends, a kindly shelter in the house of Thomas Fell, of Smarthmore near Preston, and in his wife Margaret a motherly counsellor, who devoted her whole life to the cause. They called themselves “The Society of Friends.” The name Quaker was given as a term of reproach by a violent judge, whom Fox bad “quake before the word of God.” After the overthrow of the hopes of the Saints through the dissolution of the Short Parliament and Cromwell’s apostasy (§ 155, 2), many of them joined the Quakers, and led them into revolutionary and fanatical excesses. Confined hitherto to the northern counties, they now spread in London and Bristol, and over all the south of England. In January, A.D. 1655, they held a fortnight’s general meeting at Swannington, in Leicestershire. Crowds of apostles went over into Ireland, to North America and the West Indies, to Holland, Germany, France, and Italy, and even to Constantinople. They did not meet with great success. In Italy they encountered the Inquisition, and in North America the severest penal laws were passed against them. In A.D. 1656 James Naylor, one of their most famous leaders, celebrated at Bristol the second coming of Christ “in the Spirit,” by enacting the scene of Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. But the king of the new Israel was scourged, branded on the forehead with the letter B as a blasphemer, had his tongue pierced with a redhot iron, and was then cast into prison. Many absurd extravagances of this kind, which drew down upon them frequent persecutions, as well as the failure of their foreign missionary enterprises, brought most of the Quakers to adopt more sober views. The great mother Quakeress, Margaret Fell, exercised a powerful influence in this direction. George Fox, too, out of whose hands the movement had for a long time gone, now lent his aid. Naylor himself, in A.D. 1659, issued a recantation, addressed “to all the people of the Lord,” in which he made the confession, “My judgment was turned away, and I was a captive under the power of darkness.”

§ 163.5. The movement of Quakerism in the direction of sobriety and common sense was carried out to its fullest extent during the Stuart Restoration, A.D. 1660-1688. Abandoning their revolutionary tendencies through dislike to Cromwell’s violence, and giving up most of their fanatical extravagances, the Quakers became models of quiet, orderly living. Robert Barclay, by his “Catechesis et Fidei Confessio,” of A.D. 1673, gave a sort of symbolic expression to their belief, and vindicated his doctrinal positions in his “Theologiæ vere Christianæ Apologia” of A.D. 1676. During this period many of them laid down their lives for their faith. On the other side of the sea they formed powerful settlements, distinguished for religious toleration and brotherly love. The chief promoter of this new departure was William Penn, A.D. 1644-1718, son of an English admiral, who, while a student at Oxford, was impressed by a Quaker’s preaching, and led to attend the prayer and fellowship meetings of the Friends. In order to break his connexion with this party, his father sent him, in A.D. 1661, to travel in France and Italy. The frivolity of the French court failed to attract him, but for a long time he was spellbound by Amyrault’s theological lectures at Saumur. On his return home, in A.D. 1664, he seemed to have completely come back to a worldly life, when once again he was arrested by a Quaker’s preaching. In A.D. 1668 he formally joined the society. For a controversial tract, The Sandy Foundation Shaken, he was sent for six months to the Tower, where he composed the famous tract, No Cross, no Crown, and a treatise in his own vindication, “Innocency with her Open Face.” His father, who, shortly before his death in A.D. 1670, was reconciled to his son, left him a yearly income of £1,500, with a claim on Government for £16,000. In spite of continued persecution and oppression he continued unweariedly to promote the cause of Quakerism by speech and pen. In A.D. 1677, in company with Fox and Barclay, he made a tour through Holland and Germany. In both countries he formed many friendships, but did not succeed in establishing any societies. His hopes now turned to North America, where Fox had already wrought with success during the times of sorest persecution, A.D. 1671, 1672, In lieu of his father’s claim, he obtained from Government a large tract of land on the Delaware, with the right of colonizing and organizing it under English suzerainty. Twice he went out for this purpose himself, in A.D. 1682 and 1699, and formed the Quaker state of Pennsylvania, with Philadelphia as its capital. The first principle of its constitution was universal religious toleration, even to Catholics.[482]

§ 163.6. The Quaker Constitution, as fixed in Penn’s time, was strictly democratic and congregationalist, with complete exclusion of a clerical order. At their services any man or woman, if moved by the Spirit, might pray, teach, or exhort, or if no one felt so impelled they would sit on in silence. Their meeting-houses had not the form or fittings of churches, their devotional services had neither singing nor music. They repudiated water baptism, alike of infants and adults, and recognised only baptism of the Spirit. The Lord’s supper, as a symbolical memorial, is no more needed by those who are born again. Monthly gatherings of all independent members, quarterly meetings of deputies of a circuit, and a yearly synod of representatives of all the circuits, administered or drew up the regulations for the several societies. The Doctrinal Belief of the Quakers is completely dominated by its central dogma of the “inner light,” which is identified with reason and conscience as the common heritage of mankind. Darkened and weakened by the fall, it is requickened in us by the Spirit of the glorified Christ, and possesses us as an inner spiritual Christ, an inner Word of God. The Bible is recognised as the outer word of God, but is useful only as a means of arousing the inner word. The Calvinistic doctrine of election is decidedly rejected, and also that of vicarious satisfaction. But also the doctrines of the fall, original sin, justification by faith, as well as that of the Trinity, are very much set aside in favour of an indefinite subjective theology of feeling. The operation of the Holy Spirit in man’s redemption and salvation outside of Christendom is frankly admitted. On the other hand, the ethical-practical element, as shown in works of benevolence, in the battle for religious freedom, for the abolition of slavery, etc., is brought to the front. In regard to life and manners, the Quakers have distinguished themselves in all domestic, civil, industrial, and mercantile movements by quiet, peaceful industry, strict integrity, and simple habits, so that not only did they amass great wealth, but gained the confidence and respect of those around. They refused to take oaths or to serve as soldiers, or to engage in sports, or to indulge in any kind of luxury. In social intercourse they declined to acknowledge any titles of rank, would not bow or raise the hat to any, but addressed all by the simple “thou.” Their men wore broad-brimmed hats, a plain, simple coat, without collar or buttons, fastened by hooks. Their women wore a simple gray silk dress, with like coloured bonnet, without ribbon, flower, or feathers, and a plain shawl. Wearing mourning dress was regarded as a heathenish custom.[483]—Continuation, § 211, 3.

§ 163.7. Labadie and the Labadists.—Jean de Labadie, the scion of an ancient noble family, born A.D. 1610, was educated in the Jesuit school at Bordeaux, entered the order, and became a priest, but was released from office at his own wish in A.D. 1639, on account of delicate health. Even in the Jesuit college the principles that manifested themselves in his later life began to take root in him. By Scripture study he was led to adopt almost Augustinian views of sin and grace, as well as the conviction of the need of a revival of the church after the apostolic pattern. This tendency was confirmed and deepened by the influence of Spanish Quietism, which even the Jesuits had favoured to some extent. In the interest of these views he wrought laboriously for eleven years as Catholic priest in Amiens, Paris, and other places, amid the increasing hostility of the Jesuits. Their persecution, together with a growing clearness in his Augustinian convictions, led him formally to go over to the Reformed church in A.D. 1650. He now laboured for seven years as Reformed pastor at Montauban. In A.D. 1657, owing to political suspicions against him spread by the Jesuits, he withdrew from Montauban, and, after two years’ labour at Orange, settled at Geneva, where his preaching and household visitations bore abundant fruit. In A.D. 1666 he accepted a call to Middelburg, in Zealand. There he was almost as successful as he had been in Geneva; but there too it began to appear that in him there burned a fire strange to the Reformed church. The French Reformed synod took great offence at his refusal to sign the Belgic Confession. It was found that at many points he was not in sympathy with the church standards, that he had written in favour of chiliasm and the Apokatastasis, that in regard to the nature and idea of the church and its need of a reformation he was not in accord with the views of the Reformed church. The synod in 1668 suspended him from office, and, as he did not confess his errors, in the following year deposed him. Labadie then saw that what he regarded as his lifework, the restoration of the apostolic church, was as little attainable within the Reformed as within the Catholic church. He therefore organized his followers into a separate denomination, and was, together with them, banished by the magistrate. The neighbouring town of Veere received them gladly, but Middelburg now persuaded the Zealand council to issue a decree banishing them from that town also. The people of Veere were ready to defy this order, but Labadie thought it better to avoid the risk of a civil war by voluntary withdrawal; and so he went, in August, A.D. 1669, with about forty followers, to Amsterdam, where he laid the foundations of an apostolic church. This new society consisted of a sort of monastic household consisting only of the regenerate. They hired a commodious house, and from thence sent out spiritual workers as missionaries, to spread the principles of the “new church” throughout the land. Within a year they numbered 60,000 souls. They dispensed the sacrament according to the Reformed rite, and preached the gospel in conventicles. The most important gain to the party was the adhesion of Anna Maria von Schürman, born at Cologne A.D. 1607 of a Reformed family, but settled from A.D. 1623 with her mother in Utrecht, celebrated for her unexampled attainment in languages, science, and art. When in A.D. 1670, the government, urged by the synod, forbad attendance on the Labadists’ preaching, the accomplished and pious Countess-palatine Elizabeth, sister of the elector-palatine, and abbess of the rich cloister of Herford, whose intimate friend Schürman had been for forty years, gave them an asylum in the capital of her little state.

§ 163.8. In Herford “the Hollanders” met with bitter opposition from the Lutheran clergy, the magistracy, and populace, and were treated by the mob with insult and scorn. They themselves also gave only too good occasion for ridicule. At a sacramental celebration, the aged Labadie and still older Schürman embraced and kissed each other and began to dance for joy. In his sermons and writings Labadie set forth the Quietist doctrines of the limitation of Christ’s life and sufferings in the mortification of the flesh, the duty of silent prayer, the sinking of the soul into the depths of the Godhead, the community of goods, etc. Special offence was given by the private marriage of the three leaders, Labadie, Yvon, and Dulignon with young wealthy ladies of society, and their views of marriage among the regenerate as an institution for raising up a pure seed free from original sin and brought forth without pain. The Elector of Brandenburg, hitherto favourable, as guardian of the seminary was obliged, in answer to the complaints of the Herford magistracy, to appoint a commission of inquiry. Labadie wrote a defence, which was published in Latin, Dutch, and German, in which he endeavoured to harmonize his mystical views with the doctrines of the Reformed church. But in A.D. 1671 the magistrates obtained a mandate from the imperial court at Spires, which threatened the abbess with the ban if she continued to harbour the sectaries. In A.D. 1672 Labadie settled in Altona, where he died in A.D. 1674. His followers, numbering 160, remained here undisturbed till the war between Denmark and Sweden broke out in A.D. 1675. They then retired to the castle of Waltha in West Friesland, the property of three sisters belonging to the party. Schürman died in A.D. 1678, Dulignon in A.D. 1679, and Yvon, who now had sole charge, was obliged in A.D. 1688 to abolish the institution of the community of goods, after a trial of eighteen years, being able to pay back much less than he had received. After his death in A.D. 1707 the community gradually fell off, and after the property had gone into other hands on the death of the last of the sisters in A.D. 1725, the society finally broke up.

§ 163.9. During this age various fanatical sects sprang up. In Thuringia, Stiefel and his nephew Meth caused much trouble to the Lutheran clergy in the beginning of the century by their fanatical enthusiasm, till convinced, after twenty years, of the errors of their ways. Drabicius, who had left the Bohemian Brethren owing to differences of belief, and then lived in Hungary as a weaver in poor circumstances, boasted in A.D. 1638 of having Divine revelations, prophesied the overthrow of the Austrian dynasty in A.D. 1657, the election of the French king as emperor, the speedy fall of the Papacy, and the final conversion of all heathens; but was put to death at Pressburg in A.D. 1671 as a traitor with cruel tortures. Even Comenius, the noble bishop of the Moravians, took the side of the prophets, and published his own and others’ prophecies under the title “Lux in Tenebris.”—Jane Leade of Norfolk, influenced by the writings of Böhme, had visions, in which the Divine Wisdom appeared to her as a virgin. She spread her Gnostic revelations in numerous tracts, founded in A.D. 1670 the Philadelphian Society in London, and died in A.D. 1704, at the age of eighty-one. The most important of her followers was John Pordage, preacher and physician, whose theological speculation closely resembles that of Jac. Böhme. To the Reformed church belonged also Peter Poiret of Metz, pastor from A.D. 1664 in Heidelburg [Heidelberg], and afterwards of a French congregation in the Palatine-Zweibrücken. Influenced by the writings of Bourignon and Guyon, he resigned his pastorate, and accompanied the former in his wanderings in north-west Germany till his death in 1680. At Amsterdam in A.D. 1687 he wrote his mystical work, “L’Économie Divine” in seven vols., which sets forth in the Cocceian method the mysticism and theosophy of Bourignon. He died at Rhynsburg in A.D. 1719.—From the Lutheran church proceeded Giftheil of Württemburg [Württemberg], Breckling of Holstein, and Kuhlmann, who went about denouncing the clergy, proclaiming fanatical views, and calling for impracticable reforms. Of much greater importance was John George Gichtel, an eccentric disciple of Jac. Böhme, who in A.D. 1665 lost his situation as law agent in his native town of Regensburg, his property, and civil rights, and suffered imprisonment and exile from the city for his fanatical ideas. He died in needy circumstances in Amsterdam in A.D. 1710. He had revelations and visions, fought against the doctrine of justification, and denounced marriage as fornication which nullifies the spiritual marriage with the heavenly Sophia consummated in the new birth, etc. His followers called themselves Angelic Brethren, from Matthew xxii. 20, strove after angelic sinlessness by emancipation from all earthly lusts, toils, and care, regarded themselves as a priesthood after the order of Melchizedec [Melchisedec] for propitiating the Divine wrath.—Continuation, § 170.

§ 163.10. Russian Sects.—A vast number of sects sprang up within the Russian church, which are all included under the general name Raskolniks or apostates. They fall into two great classes in their distinctive character, diametrically opposed the one to the other.

1. The Starowerzi, or Old Believers. They originated in A.D. 1652, in consequence of the liturgical reform of the learned and powerful patriarch Nikon, which called forth the violent opposition of a large body of the peasantry, who loved the old forms. Besides stubborn adhesion to the old liturgy, they rejected all modern customs and luxuries, held it sinful to cut the beard, to smoke tobacco, to drink tea and coffee, etc. The Starowerzi, numbering some ten millions, are to this day distinguished by their pure and simple lives, and are split up into three parties:

1. Jedinowerzi, who are nearest to the orthodox church, recognise its priesthood, and are different only in their religious ceremonies and the habits of their social life;

2. The Starovbradzi, who do not recognise the priesthood of the orthodox church; and

3. the Bespopowtschini, who have no priests, but only elders, and are split up into various smaller sects.

Under the peasant Philip Pustosiwät, a party of Starowerzi, called from their leader Philippins, fled during the persecution of A.D. 1700 from the government of Olonez, and settled in Polish Lithuania and East Prussia, where to the number of 1,200 souls they live to this day in villages in the district of Gumbinnen, engaged in agricultural pursuits, and observing the rites of the old Russian church.

2. At the very opposite pole from the Starowerzi stand the Heretical Sects, which repudiate and condemn everything in the shape of external church organization, and manifest a tendency in some cases toward fanatical excess, and in other cases toward rationalistic spiritualism. As the sects showing the latter tendency did not make their appearance till the eighteenth century (§ 166, 2), we have here to do only with those of the former class. The most important of these sects is that of the Men of God, or Spiritual Christians, who trace their origin from a peasant, Danila Filipow, of the province of Wladimir. In 1645, say they, the divine Father, seated on a cloud of flame, surrounded by angels, descended from heaven on Mount Gorodin in a chariot of fire, in order to restore true Christianity in its original purity and spirituality. For this purpose he incarnated himself in Filipow’s pure body. He commanded his followers, who in large numbers, mainly drawn from the peasant class, gathered around him, not to marry, and if already married to put away their wives, to abstain from all intoxicating drinks, to be present neither at marriages nor baptisms, but above all things to believe that there is no other god besides him. After some years he adopted as his son another peasant, Ivan Suslow, who was said to have been born of a woman a hundred years old, by communicating to him in his thirtieth year his own divine nature. Ivan, as a new Christ, sent out twelve apostles to spread his doctrine. The Czar Alexis put him and forty of his adherents into prison; but neither the knout nor the rack could wring from them the mysteries of their faith and worship. At last, on a Friday, the czar caused the new Christ to be crucified; but on the following Sunday he appeared risen again among his disciples. After some years the imprisoning, crucifying, and resurrection were repeated. Imprisoned a third time in 1672, he owed his liberation to an edict of grace on the occasion of the birth of the Prince Peter the Great. He now lived at Moscow along with the divine father Filipow, who had hitherto consulted his own safety by living in concealment in the enjoyment of the adoration of his followers unmolested for thirty years, supported by certain wealthy merchants. Filipow is said to have ascended up in the presence of many witnesses, in 1700, into the seventh and highest heaven, where he immediately seated himself on the throne as the “Lord of Hosts,” and the Christ, Suslow, also returned thither in 1716, after both had reached the hundredth year of the human existence. As Suslow’s successor appeared a new Christ in Prokopi Lupkin, and after his death, in 1732, arose Andr. Petrow. The last Christ manifestation was revealed in the person of the unfortunate Czar Peter III., dethroned by his wife Catharine II. in 1762, who, living meanwhile in secret, shall soon return, to the terrible confusion of all unbelievers. With this the historical tradition of the earlier sect of the Men of God is brought to a close, and in the Skopsen, or Eunuchs, who also venerate the Czar Peter III. as the Christ that is to come again, a new development of the sect has arisen, carrying out its principles more and more fully (§ 210, 4). Other branches of the same party, among which, as also among the Skopsen, the fanatical endeavour to mortify the flesh is carried to the most extravagant length, are the Morelschiki or Self-Flagellators, the Dumbies, who will not, even under the severest tortures, utter a sound, etc. The ever-increasing development of this sect-forming craze, which found its way into several monasteries and nunneries, led to repeated judicial investigations, the penitent being sentenced for their fault to confinement in remote convents, and the obdurate being visited with severe corporal punishments and even with death. The chief sources of information regarding the history, doctrine, and customs of the “Men of God” and the Skopsen are their own numerous spiritual songs, collected by Prof. Ivan Dobrotworski of Kasan, which were sung in their assemblies for worship with musical accompaniment and solemn dances. On these occasions their prophets and prophetesses were wont to prophesy, and a kind of sacramental supper was celebrated with bread and water. The sacraments of the Lord’s supper and baptism, as administered by the orthodox church, are repudiated and scorned, the latter as displaced by the only effectual baptism of the Spirit. They have, indeed, in order to avoid persecution, been obliged to take part in the services of the orthodox national church, and to confess to its priests, avoiding, however, all reference to the sect.[484]

§ 164. PHILOSOPHERS AND FREETHINKERS.[485]

The mediæval scholastic philosophy had outlived itself, even in the pre-Reformation age; yet it maintained a lingering existence side by side with those new forms which the modern spirit in philosophy was preparing for itself. We hear an echo of the philosophical ferment of the sixteenth century in the Italian Dominican Campanella, and in the Englishman Bacon of Verulam we meet the pioneer of that modern philosophy which had its proper founder in Descartes. Spinoza, Locke, and Leibnitz were in succession the leaders of this philosophical development. Alongside of this philosophy, and deriving its weapons from it for attack upon theology and the church, a number of freethinkers also make their appearance. These, like their more radical disciples in the following century, regarded Scripture as delusive, and nature and reason as alone trustworthy sources of religious knowledge.

§ 164.1. Philosophy.—Campanella of Stilo in Calabria entered the Dominican order, but soon lost taste for Aristotelian philosophy and scholastic theology, and gave himself to the study of Plato, the Cabbala, astrology, magic, etc. Suspected of republican tendencies, the Spanish government put him in prison in A.D. 1599. Seven times was he put upon the rack for twenty-four hours, and then confined for twenty-seven years in close confinement. Finally, in A.D. 1626, Urban VIII. had him transferred to the prison of the papal Inquisition. He was set free in A.D. 1629, and received a papal pension; but further persecutions by the Spaniards obliged him to fly to his protector Richelieu in France, where in A.D. 1639 he died. He composed eighty-two treatises, mostly in prison, the most complete being “Philosophia Rationalis,” in five vols. In his “Atheismus Triumphatus” he appears as an apologist of the Romish system, but so insufficiently, that many said Atheismus Triumphans was the more fitting title. His “Monarchia Messiæ” too appeared, even to the Catholics, an abortive apology for the Papacy. In his “Civitas Solis,” an imitation of the “Republic” of Plato, he proceeded upon communistic principles.—Francis Bacon of Verulam, long chancellor of England, died A.D. 1626, the great spiritual heir of his mediæval namesake (§ 103, 8), was the first successful reformer of the plan of study followed by the schoolmen. With a prophet’s marvellous grasp of mind he organized the whole range of science, and gave a forecast of its future development in his “De Augmentis” and “Novum Organon.” He rigidly separated the domain of knowledge, as that of philosophy and nature, grasped only by experience, from the domain of faith, as that of theology and the church, reached only through revelation. Yet he maintained the position: Philosophia obiter libata a Deo abducit, plene hausta ad Deum reducit. He is the real author of empiricism in philosophy and the realistic methods of modern times. His public life, however, is clouded by thanklessness, want of character, and the taking of bribes. In A.D. 1621 he was convicted by his peers, deprived of his office, sentenced to imprisonment for life in the Tower, and to pay a fine of £40,000; but was pardoned by the king.[486]—The French Catholic Descartes started not from experience, but from self-consciousness, with his “Cogito, ergo sum” as the only absolutely certain proposition. Beginning with doubt, he rose by pure thinking to the knowledge of the true and certain in things. The imperfection of the soul thus discovered suggests an absolutely perfect Being, to whose perfection the attribute of being belongs. This is the ontological proof for the being of God.—His philosophy was zealously taken up by French Jansenists and Oratorians and the Reformed theologians of Holland, while it was bitterly opposed by such Catholics as Huetius and such Reformed theologians as Voetius.[487]—Spinoza, an apostate Jew in Holland, died A.D. 1677, gained little influence over his own generation by his profound pantheistic philosophy, which has powerfully affected later ages. A violent controversy, however, was occasioned by his “Tractatus Theologico-politicus,” in which he attacked the Christian doctrine of revelation and the authenticity of the O.T. books, especially the Pentateuch, and advocated absolute freedom of thought.[488]

§ 164.2. John Locke, died A.D. 1704, with his sensationalism took up a position midway between Bacon’s empiricism and Descartes’ rationalism, on the one hand, and English deism and French materialism, on the other. His “Essay concerning Human Understanding” denies the existence of innate ideas, and seeks to show that all our notions are only products of outer or inner experience, of sensation or reflection. In this treatise, and still more distinctly in his tract, “The Reasonableness of Christianity,” intended as an apology for Christianity, and even for biblical visions and miracles, as well as for the messianic character of Christ, he openly advocated pure Pelagianism that knows nothing of sin and atonement.[489]—Leibnitz, a Hanoverian statesman, who died A.D. 1716, introduced the new German philosophy in its first stage. The philosophy of Leibnitz is opposed at once to the theosophy of Paracelsus and Böhme and to the empiricism of Bacon and Locke, the pantheism of Spinoza, and the scepticism and manichæism of Bayle. It is indeed a Christian philosophy not fully developed. But inasmuch as at the same time it adopted, improved upon, and carried out the rationalism of Descartes, it also paved the way for the later theological rationalism. The foundation of his philosophy is the theory of monads wrought out in his “Theodicée” against Bayle and in his “Nouveaux Essais,” against Locke. In opposition to the atomic theory of the materialists, he regarded all phenomena in the world as eccentricities of so called monads, i.e. primary simple and indivisible substances, each of which is a miniature of the whole universe. Out of these monads that radiate out from God, the primary monad, the world is formed into a harmony once for all admired of God: the theory of pre-established harmony. This must be the best of worlds, otherwise it would not have been. In opposition to Bayle, who had argued in a manichæan fashion against God’s goodness and wisdom from the existence of evil, Leibnitz seeks to show that this does not contradict the idea of the best of worlds, nor that of the Divine goodness and wisdom, since finity and imperfection belong to the very notion of creature, a metaphysical evil from which moral evil inevitably follows, yet not so as to destroy the pre-established harmony. Against Locke he maintains the doctrine of innate ideas, contests Clarke’s theory of indeterminism, maintains the agreement of philosophy with revelation, which indeed is above but not contrary to reason, and hopes to prove his system by mathematical demonstration.[490]—Continuation, § 171, 10.

§ 164.3. Freethinkers.—The tendency of the age to throw off all positive Christianity first showed itself openly in England as the final outcome of Levellerism (§ 162, 2). This movement has been styled naturalism, because it puts natural in place of revealed religion, and deism, because in place of the redeeming work of the triune God it admits only a general providence of the one God. On philosophic grounds the English deists affirmed the impossibility of revelation, inspiration, prophecy, and miracle, and on critical grounds rejected them from the Bible and history. The simple religious system of deism embraced God, providence, freedom of the will, virtue, and the immortality of the soul. The Christian doctrines of the Trinity, original sin, satisfaction, justification, resurrection, etc., were regarded as absurd and irrational. Deism in England spread almost exclusively among upper-class laymen; the people and clergy stood firmly to their positive beliefs. Theological controversial tracts were numerous, but their polemical force was in great measure lost by the latitudinarianism of their authors.—The principal English deists of the century were

1. Edward Herbert of Cherbury, A.D. 1581-1648, a nobleman and statesman. He reduced all religion to five points: Faith in God, the duty of reverencing Him, especially by leading an upright life, atoning for sin by genuine repentance, recompense in the life eternal.

2. Thomas Hobbes, A.D. 1588-1679, an acute philosophical and political writer, looked on Christianity as an oriental phantom, and of value only as a support of absolute monarchy and an antidote to revolution. The state of nature is a bellum omnium contra omnes; religion is the means of establishing order and civilization. The state should decide what religion is to prevail. Every one may indeed believe what he will, but in regard to churches and worship he must submit to the state as represented by the king. His chief work is “Leviathan; or, The Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil.”

3. Charles Blount, who died a suicide in A.D. 1693, a rabid opponent of all miracles as mere tricks of priests, wrote “Oracles of Reason,” “Religio Laici,” “Great is Diana of the Ephesians,” and translated Philostratus’ “Life of Apollonius of Tyana.”

4. Thomas Browne, A.D. 1635-1682, a physician, who in his “Religio Medici” sets forth a mystical supernaturalism, took up a purely deistic ground in his “Vulgar Errors,” published three years later.

Among the opponents of deism in this age the most notable are Richard Baxter (§ 162, 3) and Ralph Cudworth, A.D. 1617-1688, a latitudinarian and Platonist, who sought to prove the leading Christian doctrines by the theory of innate ideas. He wrote “Intellectual System of the Universe” in A.D. 1678. The pious Irish scientist, Robert Boyle, founded in London, in A.D. 1691, a lectureship of £40 a year for eight discourses against deistic and atheistic unbelief.[491]—Continuation, § 171, 1.

§ 164.4. A tendency similar to that of the English deists was represented in Germany by Matthias Knutzen, who sought to found a freethinking sect. The Christian “Coran” contains only lies; reason and conscience are the true Bible; there is no God, nor hell nor heaven; priests and magistrates should be driven out of the world, etc. The senate of Jena University on investigation found that his pretension to 700 followers was a vain boast.—In France the brilliant and learned sceptic Peter Bayle, A.D. 1647-1706, was the apostle of a light-hearted unbelief. Though son of a Reformed pastor, the Jesuits got him over to the Romish church, but in a year and a half he apostatised again. He now studied the Cartesian philosophy, as Reformed professor at Sedan, vindicated Protestantism in several controversial tracts, and as refugee in Holland composed his famous “Dictionnaire Historique et Critique,” in which he avoided indeed open rejection of the facts of revelation, but did much to unsettle by his easy treatment of them.—Continuation, § 171, 3.

THIRD SECTION.

CHURCH HISTORY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.[492]

I. The Catholic Church in East and West.

§ 165. THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

During the first half of the century the Roman hierarchy suffered severely at the hand of Catholic courts, while in the second half storms gathered from all sides, threatening its very existence. Portugal, France, Spain, and Italy rested not till they got the pope himself to strike the deathblow to the Jesuits, who had been his chief supporters indeed, but who had now become his masters. Soon after the German bishops threatened to free themselves and their people from Rome, and what reforms they could not effect by ecclesiastical measures the emperor undertook to effect by civil measures. Scarcely had this danger been overcome when the horrors of the French Revolution broke out, which sought, along with the Papacy, to overthrow Christianity as well. But, on the other hand, during the early decades of the century Catholicism had gained many victories in another way by the counter-reformation and conversions. Its foreign missions, however, begun with such promise of success, came to a sad end, and even the home missions faded away, in spite of the founding of various new orders. The Jansenist controversy in the beginning of the century entered on a new stage, the Catholic church being driven into open semi-Pelagianism, and Jansenism into fanatical excesses. The church theology sank very low, and the Catholic supporters of “Illumination” far exceeded in number those who had fallen away to it from Protestantism.

§ 165.1. The Popes.—Clement XI., 1700-1721, protested in vain against the Elector Frederick III. of Brandenburg assuming the crown as King Frederick I. of Prussia, on Jan. 18th, A.D. 1701. In the Spanish wars of succession he sought to remain neutral, but force of circumstances led him to take up a position adverse to German interests. The new German emperor, Joseph I., A.D. 1705-1711, scorned to seek confirmation from the pope, and Clement consequently had the usual prayer for the emperor omitted in the church services. The relations became yet more strained, owing to a dispute about the jus primarum precum, Joseph claiming the right to revenues of vacancies as the patron. In A.D. 1707, the pope had the joy of seeing the German army driven out, not only of northern Italy, but also of Naples by the French. Again they came into direct conflict over Parma and Piacenza, Clement claiming them as a papal, the emperor claiming them as an imperial, fief. No pope since the time of Louis the Bavarian had issued the ban against a German emperor, and Clement ventured not to do so now. Refusing the invitation of Louis XIV. to go to Avignon, he was obliged either unconditionally to grant the German claims or to try the fortune of war. He chose the latter alternative. The miserable papal troops, however, were easily routed, and Clement was obliged, in A.D. 1708, to acknowledge the emperor’s brother, the Grand-duke Charles, as king of Spain, and generally to yield to Joseph’s very moderate demands. Clement was the author of the constitution Unigenitus, which introduced the second stage in the history of Jansenism. After the short and peaceful pontificate of Innocent XIII. A.D. 1721-1724, came Benedict XIII., A.D. 1724-1730, a pious, well-meaning, narrow-minded man, ruled by a worthless favourite, Cardinal Coscia. He wished to canonize Gregory VII., in the fond hope of thereby securing new favour to his hierarchical views, but this was protested against by almost all the courts. All the greater was the number of monkish saints with which he enriched the heavenly firmament. He promised to all who on their death-bed should say, “Blessed be Jesus Christ,” a 2,000 years’ shortening of purgatorial pains. His successor Clement XII., A.D. 1730-1740, deprived the wretched Coscia of his offices, made him disgorge his robberies, imposed on him a severe fine and ten years’ imprisonment, but afterwards resigned the management of everything to a greedy, grasping nephew. He was the first pope to condemn freemasonry, A.D. 1736. Benedict XIV., A.D. 1740-1758, one of the noblest, most pious, learned, and liberal of the popes, zealous for the faith of his church, and yet patient with those who differed, moderate and wise in his political procedure, mild and just in his government, blameless in life. He had a special dislike of the Jesuits (§ 156, 12), and jestingly he declared, if, as the curialists assert, “all law and all truth” lie concealed in the shrine of his breast, he had not been able to find the key. He wrote largely on theology and canon law, founded seminaries for the training of the clergy, had many French and English works translated into Italian, and was a liberal patron of art. To check popular excesses he tried to reduce the number of festivals, but without success.—Continuation, in Paragraphs § 165, 9, 10, 13.

§ 165.2. Old and New Orders.—Among the old orders that of Clugny had amassed enormous wealth, and attempts made by its abbots at reformation led only to endless quarrels and divisions. The abbots now squandered the revenues of their cloisters at court, and these institutions were allowed to fall into disorder and decay. When, in A.D. 1790, all cloisters in France were suppressed, the city of Clugny bought the cloister and church for £4,000, and had them both pulled down.—The most important new orders were:

1. The Mechitarist Congregation, originated by Mechitar the Armenian, who, at Constantinople in A.D. 1701, founded a society for the religious and intellectual education of his countrymen; but when opposed by the Armenian patriarch, fled to the Morea and joined the United Armenians (§ 72, 2). In A.D. 1712 the pope confirmed the congregation, which, during the war with the Turks was transferred to Venice, and in A.D. 1717 settled on the island St. Lazaro [Lazzaro]. Its members spread Roman Catholic literature in Armenia and Armenian literature in the West. At a later time there was a famous Mechitarist college in Vienna, which did much by writing and publishing for the education of the Catholic youth.

2. Frères Ignorantins, or Christian Brothers, founded in A.D. 1725 by De la Salle, canon of Rheims, for the instruction of children, wrought in the spirit of the Jesuits through France, Belgium, and North America. After the expulsion of the Jesuits from France in A.D. 1724, they took their place there till themselves driven out by the Revolution in A.D. 1790.[493]

3. The Liguorians or Redemptorists, founded in A.D. 1732 by Liguori, an advocate, who became Bishop of Naples in A.D. 1762. He died in A.D. 1787 in his ninety-first year, was beatified by Pius VII. in A.D. 1816, and canonized by Gregory XVI. in A.D. 1839, and proclaimed doctor ecclesiæ by Pius IX. in A.D. 1871 as a zealous defender of the immaculate conception and papal infallibility. His devotional writings, which exalt Mary by superstitious tales of miracles, were extremely popular in all Catholic countries. His new order was to minister to the poor. He declared the pope’s will to be God’s, and called for unquestioning obedience. Only after the founder’s death did it spread beyond Italy.—Continuation, § 186, 1.

§ 165.3. Foreign Missions.—In the accommodation controversy (§ 156, 12), the Dominicans prevailed in A.D. 1742; but the abolishing of native customs led to a sore persecution in China, from which only a few remnants of the church were saved. The Italian Jesuit Beschi, with linguistic talents of the highest order, sought in India to make use of the native literature for mission purposes and to place alongside of it a Christian literature. Here the Capuchins opposed the Jesuits as successfully as the Dominicans had in China. These strifes and persecutions destroyed the missions.—The Jesuit state of Paraguay (§ 156, 10) was put an end to in A.D. 1750 by a compact between Portugal and Spain. The revolt of the Indians that followed, inspired and directed by the Jesuits, which kept the combined powers at bay for a whole year, was at last quelled, and the Jesuits expelled the country in A.D. 1758.—Continuation § 186, 7.

§ 165.4. The Counter-Reformation (§ 153, 2).—Charles XII. of Sweden, in A.D. 1707, forced the Emperor Joseph I. to give the Protestants of Silesia the benefits of the Westphalian Peace and to restore their churches. But in Poland in A.D. 1717, the Protestants lost the right of building new churches, and in A.D. 1733 were declared disqualified for civil offices and places in the diet. In the Protestant city of Thorn the insolence of the Jesuits roused a rebellion which led to a fearful massacre in A.D. 1724. The Dissenters sought and obtained protection in Russia from A.D. 1767, and the partition of Poland between Russia, Austria, and Prussia in A.D. 1772 secured for them religious toleration. In Salzburg the archbishop, Count Firmian, attempted in A.D. 1729 a conversion of the evangelicals by force, who had, with intervals of persecution in the seventeenth century, been tolerated for forty years as quiet and inoffensive citizens. But in A.D. 1731 their elders swore on the host and consecrated salt (2 Chron. xiii. 5) to be true to their faith. This “covenant of salt” was interpreted as rebellion, and in spite of the intervention of the Protestant princes, all the evangelicals, in the severe winter of A.D. 1731, 1732, were driven, with inhuman cruelty, from hearth and home. About 20,000 of them found shelter in Prussian Lithuania; others emigrated to America. The pope praised highly “the noble” archbishop, who otherwise distinguished himself only as a huntsman and a drinker, and by maintaining a mistress in princely splendour.

§ 165.5. In France the persecution of the Huguenots continued (§ 153, 4). The “pastors of the desert” performed their duties at the risk of their lives, and though many fell as martyrs, their places were quickly filled by others equally heroic. The first rank belongs to Anton Court, pastor at Nismes from A.D. 1715; he died at Lausanne A.D. 1760, where he had founded a theological seminary. He laboured unweariedly and successfully in gathering and organizing the scattered members of the Reformed church, and in overcoming fanaticism by imparting sound instruction. Paul Rabaut, his successor at Nismes, was from A.D. 1730 to 1785 the faithful and capable leader of the martyr church. The judicial murder of Jean Calas at Toulouse in A.D. 1762 presents a hideous example of the fanaticism of Catholic France. One of his sons had hanged himself in a fit of passion. When the report spread that it was the act of his father, in order to prevent the contemplated conversion of his son, the Dominicans canonized the suicide as a martyr to the Catholic faith, roused the mob, and got the Toulouse parliament to put the unhappy father to the torture of the wheel. The other sons were forced to abjure their faith, and the daughters were shut up in cloisters. Two years later Voltaire called attention to the atrocity, and so wrought on public opinion that on the revision of the proceedings by the Parisian parliament, the innocence of the ill-used family was clearly proved. Louis XV. paid them a sum of 30,000 livres; but the fanatical accusers, the false witnesses, and the corrupt judges were left unpunished. This incident improved the position of the Protestants, and in A.D. 1787 Louis XVI. issued the Edict of Versailles, by which not only complete religious freedom but even a legal civil existence was secured them, which was confirmed by a law of Napoleon in A.D. 1802.

§ 165.6. Conversions.—Pecuniary interests and prospect of marriage with a rich heiress led to the conversion, in A.D. 1712, of Charles Alexander while in the Austrian service; but when he became Duke of Württemburg [Württemberg] he solemnly undertook to keep things as they were, and to set up no Catholic services in the country save in his own court chapel. Of other converts Winckelmann and Stolberg are the most famous. While Winckelmann, the greatest of art critics, not a religious but an artistic ultramontane, was led in A.D. 1754 through religious indifference into the Romish church, the warm heart of Von Stolberg was induced, mainly by the Catholic Princess Gallitzin (§ 172, 2) and a French emigrant, Madame Montague, to escape the chill of rationalism amid the incense fumes of the Catholic services.—Continuation, § 175, 7.

§ 165.7. The Second Stage of Jansenism (§ 157, 5).—Pasquier Quesnel, priest of the Oratory at Paris, suspected in 1675 of Gallicanism, because of notes in his edition of the works of Leo the Great, fled into the Netherlands, where he continued his notes on the N.T. Used and recommended by Noailles, Archbishop of Paris, and other French bishops, this “Jansenist” book was hated by the Jesuits and condemned by a brief of Clement XI. in A.D. 1708. The Jesuit confessor of Louis XIV., Le Tellier, selected 101 propositions from the book, and induced the king to urge their express condemnation by the pope. In the Constitution Unigenitus of A.D. 1713, Clement pronounced these heretical, and the king required the expulsion from parliament and church of all who refused to adopt this bull, which caused a division of the French church into Acceptants and Appellants. As many of the condemned propositions were quoted literally by Quesnel from Augustine and other Fathers, or were in exact agreement with biblical passages, Noailles and his party called for an explanation. Instead of this the pope threatened them with excommunication. In A.D. 1715 the king died, and under the Duke of Orleans’ regency in A.D. 1717, four bishops, with solemn appeal to a general council, renounced the papal constitution as irreconcilable with the Catholic faith. They were soon joined by the Sorbonne and the universities of Rheims and Nantes, Archbishop Noailles, and more than twenty bishops, all the congregations of St. Maur and the Oratorians with large numbers of the secular clergy and the monks, especially of the Lazarists, Dominicans, Cistercians, and Camaldulensians. The pope, after vainly calling them to obey, thundered the ban against the Appellants in A.D. 1718. But the parliament took the matter up, and soon the aspect of affairs was completely changed. The regent’s favourite, Dubois, hoping to obtain a cardinal’s hat, took the side of the Acceptants and carried the duke with him, who got the parliament in 1720 to acknowledge the bull, with express reservation, however, of the Gallican liberties, and began a persecution of the Appellants. Under Louis XV. the persecution became more severe, although in many ways moderated by the influence of his former tutor, Cardinal Fleury. Noailles, who died in 1729, was obliged in 1728 to submit unconditionally, and in A.D. 1730 the parliament formally ratified the bull. Amid daily increasing oppression, many of the more faithful Jansenists, mostly of the orders of St. Maur and the Oratory, fled to the Netherlands, where they gave way more and more to fanaticism. In 1727 a young Jansenist priest, Francis of Paris, died with the original text of the appeal in his hands. His adherents honoured him as a saint, and numerous reports of miracles, which had been wrought at his grave in Medardus churchyard at Paris, made this a daily place of pilgrimage to thousands of fanatics. The excited enthusiasts, who fell into convulsions, and uttered prophecies about the overthrow of church and state, grew in numbers and, with that mesmeric power which fanaticism has been found in all ages to possess powerfully influenced many who had been before careless and profane. One of these was the member of parliament De Montgeron, who, from being a frivolous scoffer, suddenly, in 1732, fell into violent convulsions, and in a three-volumed work, “La Vérité des Miracles Opérés par l’Intercession de François de Paris,” 1737, came forward as a zealous apologist of the party. The government, indeed, in 1732 ordered the churchyard to be closed, but portions of earth from the grave of the saint continued to effect convulsions and miracles. Thousands of convulsionists throughout France were thrown into prison, and in 1752, Archbishop Beaumont of Paris, with many other bishops, refused the last sacrament to those who could not prove that they had accepted the constitution. The grave of “St. Francis,” however, was the grave of Jansenism, for fanatical excess contains the seeds of dissolution and every manifestation of it hastens the catastrophe. Yet remnants of the party lingered on in France till the outbreak of the Revolution, of which they had prophesied.

§ 165.8. The Old Catholic Church in the Netherlands.—The first Jesuits appeared in Holland in A.D. 1592. The form of piety fostered by superior and inferior clergy in the Catholic church there, a heritage from the times of the Brethren of the Common Life (§ 112, 9), was directed to the deepening of Christian thought and feeling; and this, as well as the liberal attitude of the Archbishop of Utrecht, awakened the bitter opposition of the Jesuits. At the head of the local clergy was Sasbold Vosmeer, vicar-general of the vacant archiepiscopal see of Utrecht. Most energetically he set himself to thwart the Jesuit machinations, which aimed at abolishing the Utrecht see and putting the church of Holland under the jurisdiction of the papal nuncio at Cologne. On the ground of suspicions of secret conspiracy Vosmeer was banished. But his successors refused to be overruled or set aside by the Jesuits. Meanwhile in France the first stage of the Jansenist controversy had been passed through. The Dutch authorities had heartily welcomed the condemned book of their pious and learned countryman; but when the five propositions were denounced, they agreed in repudiating them, without, however, admitting that they had been taught in the sense objected to by Jansen. The Jesuits, therefore, charged them with the Jansenist heresy, and issued in A.D. 1697 an anonymous pamphlet full of lying insinuations about the origin and progress of Jansenism in Holland. Its beginning was traced back to a visit of Arnauld to Holland in A.D. 1681, and its effects were seen in the circulation of prayer-books, tracts, and sermons, urging diligent reading of Scripture, in the depreciation of the worship of Mary, of indulgences, of images of saints and relics, rosaries and scapularies (§ 186, 2), processions and fraternities, in the rigoristic strictness of the confessional, the use of the common language of the country in baptism, marriage, and extreme unction, etc. The archbishop of that time, Peter Codde, in order to isolate him, was decoyed to Rome, and there flattered with hypocritical pretensions of goodwill, while behind his back his deposition was carried out, and an apostolic vicar nominated for Utrecht in the person of his deadly foe Theodore de Cock. But the chapter refused him obedience, and the States of Holland forbad him to exercise any official function, and under threat of banishment of all Jesuits demanded the immediate return of the archbishop. Codde was now sent down with the papal blessing, but a formal decree of deposition followed him. Meanwhile the government pronounced on his rival De Cock, who avoided a trial for high treason by flight, a sentence of perpetual exile. But Codde, though persistently recognised by his chapter as the rightful archbishop, withheld on conscientious grounds from discharging official duties down to his death in A.D. 1710. Amid these disputes the Utrecht see remained vacant for thirteen years. The flock were without a chief shepherd, the inferior clergy without direction and support, the people were wrought upon by Jesuit emissaries, and the vacant pastorates were filled by the nuncio of Cologne. Thus it came about that of the 300,000 Catholics remaining after the Reformation, only a few thousands continued faithful to the national party, while the rest became bitter and extreme ultramontanes, as the Catholic church of Holland still is. Finally, in A.D. 1723, the Utrecht chapter took courage and chose a new archbishop in the person of Cornelius Steenowen. Receiving no answer to their request for papal confirmation, the chapter, after waiting a year and a half, had him and also his three successors consecrated by a French missionary bishop, Varlet, who had been driven away by the Jesuits. But in order to prevent the threatened loss of legitimate consecration for future bishops after Varlet’s death in A.D. 1742, a bishop elected at Utrecht was in that same year ordained to the chapter of Haarlem, and in A.D. 1758 the newly founded bishopric of Deventer was so supplied. All these, like all subsequent elections, were duly reported to Rome, and a strictly Catholic confession from electors and elected sent up; but each time, instead of confirmation, a frightful ban was thundered forth. This, however, did not deter the Dutch government from formally recognising the elections.—Meanwhile the second and last act of the Jansenist tragedy had been played in France. Many of the persecuted Appellants sought refuge in Holland, and the welcome accorded them seemed to justify the long cherished suspicion of Jansenism against the people of Utrecht. They repelled these charges, however, by condemning the five propositions and the heresies of Quesnel’s book; but they expressly refused the bull of Alexander VII. and its doctrine of papal infallibility. This put a stop to all attempts at reconciliation. The church of Utrecht meanwhile prospered. At a council held at Utrecht in A.D. 1765 it styled itself “The Old Roman Catholic Church of the Netherlands,” acknowledged the pope, although under his anathema, as the visible head of the Christian church, accepted the Tridentine decrees as their creed, and sent this with all the acts of council to Rome as proof of their orthodoxy. The Jesuits did all in their power to overturn the formidable impression which this at first made there; and they were successful. Clement XIII. declared the council null, and those who took part in it hardened sons of Belial. But their church at this day contains, under one archbishop and two bishops, twenty-six congregations, numbering 6,000 souls.[494]—Continuation, § 200, 3.

§ 165.9. Suppression of the Order of Jesuits, A.D. 1773.—The Jesuits had striven with growing eagerness and success after worldly power, and instead of absolute devotion to the interests of the papacy, their chief aim was now the erection of an independent political and hierarchical dominion. Their love of rule had sustained its first check in the overthrow of the Jesuit state of Paraguay; but they had secured a great part of the world’s trade (§ 156, 13), and strove successfully to control European politics. The Jansenist controversy, however, had called forth against them much popular odium; Pascal had made them ridiculous to all men of culture, the other monkish orders were hostile to them, their success in trade roused the jealousy of other traders, and their interference in politics made enemies on every hand. The Portuguese government took the first decided step. A revolt in Paraguay and an attempt on the king’s life were attributed to them, and the minister Pombal, whose reforms they had opposed, had them banished from Portugal in A.D. 1759, and their goods confiscated. Clement XIII., A.D. 1758-1769, chosen by the Jesuits and under their influence, protected them by a bull; but Portugal refused to let the bull be proclaimed, led the papal nuncio over the frontier, broke off all relations with Rome, and sent whole shiploads of Jesuits to the pope. France followed Portugal’s example when the general Ricci had answered the king’s demand for a reform of his orders: Sint ut sunt, aut non sint. For the enormous financial failure of the Jesuit La Valette, the whole order was made responsible, and at last, in A.D. 1764, banished from France as dangerous to the state. Spain, Naples, and Parma, too, soon seized all the Jesuits and transported them beyond the frontiers. The new papal election on the death of Clement XIII. was a life and death question with the Jesuits, but courtly influences and fears of a schism prevailed. The pious and liberal Minorite Ganganelli mounted the papal throne as Clement XIV., A.D. 1769-1774. He began with sweeping administrative reforms, forbad the reading of the bull In cœna Domini (§ 117, 3), and, pressed by the Bourbon court, issued in A.D. 1773 the bull Dominus ac Redemtor Noster suppressing the Jesuit order. The order numbered 22,600 members and the pope felt, in granting the bull, that he endangered his own life. Next year he died, not without suspicion of poisoning. All the Catholic courts, even Austria, put the decree in force. But the heretic Frederick II. tolerated the order for a long time in Silesia, and Catherine II. and Paul I. in their Polish provinces.—Pius VI., A.D. 1775-1799, in many respects the antithesis of his predecessor, was the secret friend of the exiled and imprisoned ex-Jesuits. After the outbreak of the French Revolution, a proposal was made at Rome, in A.D. 1792, for the formal restoration of the order, as a means of saving the seriously imperilled church, but it did not find sufficient encouragement.

§ 165.10. Anti-hierarchical Movements in Germany and Italy.—Even before Joseph II. could carry out his reforms in ecclesiastical polity, the noble elector Maximilian Joseph III., A.D. 1745-1777, with greater moderation but complete success, effected a similar reform in the Jesuit-overrun Bavaria. Himself a strict Catholic, he asserted the supremacy of the state over a foreign hierarchy, and by reforming the churches, cloisters, and schools of his country he sought to improve their position. But under his successor, Charles Theodore, A.D. 1777-1799, everything was restored to its old condition.—Meanwhile a powerful voice was raised from the midst of the German prelates that aimed a direct blow at the hierarchical papal system. Nicholas von Hontheim, the suffragan Bishop of Treves, had under the name Justinus Febronius published, in A.D. 1763, a treatise De Statu Ecclesiæ, in which he maintained the supreme authority of general councils and the independence of bishops in opposition to the hierarchical pretensions of the popes. It was soon translated into German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. The book made a great impression, and Clement XIII. could do nothing against the bold defender of the liberties of the church. In A.D. 1778, indeed, Pius VI. had the poor satisfaction of extorting a recantation from the old man of seventy-seven years, but he lived to see yet more deadly storms burst upon the church. Urged by Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria, the pope, in A.D. 1785, had made Munich the residence of a nuncio. The episcopal electors of Mainz, Cologne, and Treves, and the Archbishop of Salzburg, seeing their archiepiscopal rights in danger, met in congress at Ems in A.D. 1786, and there, on the basis of the Febronian proofs, claimed, in the so called Punctation of Ems, practical independence of the pope and the restoration of an independent German national Catholic church. But the German bishops found it easier to obey the distant pope than the near archbishops. So they united their opposition with that of the pope, and the undertaking of the archbishops came to nothing.—More threatening still for the existence of the hierarchy was the reign of Joseph II. in Austria. German emperor from A.D. 1765, and co-regent with his mother Maria Theresa, he began, immediately on his succession to sole rule in A.D. 1780, a radical reform of the whole ecclesiastical institutions throughout his hereditary possessions. In A.D. 1781 he issued his Edict of Toleration, by which, under various restrictions, the Protestants obtained civil rights and liberty of worship. Protestant places of worship were to have no bells or towers, were to pay stole dues to the Catholic priests, in mixed marriages the Catholic father had the right of educating all his children and the Catholic mother could claim the education at least of her daughters. By stopping all episcopal communications with the papal curia, and putting all papal bulls and ecclesiastical edicts under strict civil control, the Catholic church was emancipated from Roman influences, set under a native clergy, and made serviceable in the moral and religious training of the people, and all her institutions that did not serve this end were abolished. Of the 2,000 cloisters, 606 succumbed before this decree, and those that remained were completely sundered from all connexion with Rome. In vain the bishops and Pius VI. protested. The pope even went to Vienna in A.D. 1782; but though received with great respect, he could make nothing of the emperor. Joseph’s procedure had been somewhat hasty and inconsiderate, and a reaction set in, led by interested parties, on the emperor’s early death in A.D. 1790.—The Grand-duke Leopold of Tuscany, Joseph’s brother, with the aid of the pious Bishop Scipio von Ricci, inclined to Jansenism, sought also in a similar way to reform the church of his land at the Synod of Pistoia, in A.D. 1786. But here too at last the hierarchy prevailed.

§ 165.11. Theological Literature.—The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, A.D. 1685, gave the deathblow to the French Reformed theology, but it also robbed Catholic theology in France of its spur and incentive. The Huguenot polemic against the papacy, and that of Jansenism against the semi-pelagianism of the Catholic church, were silenced; but now the most rabid naturalism, atheism, and materialism held the field, and the church theology was so lethargic that it could not attempt any serious opposition. Yet even here some names are worthy of being recorded. Above all, Bernard de Montfaucon of St. Maur, the ablest antiquarian of France, besides his classical works, issued admirable editions of Athanasius, Chrysostom, Origen’s “Hexapla,” and the “Collectio Nova Patrum.” E. Renaudot, a learned expert in the oriental languages, wrote several works in vindication of the “Perpétuité de la Foi cath.,” a history of the Jacobite patriarchs of Alexandria, etc., and compiled a “Collectio liturgiarum Oriental,” in two vols. Of permanent worth is the “Bibliotheca Sacra” of the Oratorian Le Long, which forms an admirable literary-historical apparatus for the Bible. The learned Jesuit Hardouin, who pronounced all Greek and Latin classics, with few exceptions, to be monkish products of the thirteenth century, and denied the existence of all pre-Tridentine general councils, edited a careful collection of Acts of Councils in twelve vols. folio in Paris, 1715, and compiled an elaborate chronology of the Old Testament. His pupil, the Jesuit Berruyer, wrote a romancing “Hist. du Peuple de Dieu,” which, though much criticised, was widely read. Incomparably more important was the Benedictine Calmet, died A.D. 1757, whose “Dictionnaire de la Bible” and “Commentaire Littéral et Critique” on the whole Bible are really most creditable for their time. And, finally, the Parisian professor of medicine, Jean Astruc, deserves to be named as the founder of the modern Pentateuch criticism, whose “Conjectures sur les Mémoires Originaux,” etc., appeared in Brussels A.D. 1753.—Within the limits of the French Revolution the noble theosophist St. Martin, died A.D. 1805, a warm admirer of Böhme, wrote his brilliant and profound treatises.

§ 165.12. In Italy the most important contributions were in the department of history. Mansi, in his collection of Acts of Councils in thirty-one vols. folio, A.D. 1759 ff., and Muratori, in his “Scriptores Rer. Italic.,” in twenty-eight vols., and “Antiquitt. Ital. Med. Ævi,” in six vols., show brilliant learning and admirable impartiality. Ugolino, in a gigantic work, “Thesaurus Antiquitt. ss.,” thirty-four folio vols., A.D. 1744 ff., gathers together all that is most important for biblical archæology. The three Assemani, uncle and two nephews, cultured Maronites in Rome, wrought in the hitherto unknown field of Syrian literature and history. The uncle, Joseph Simon, librarian at the Vatican, wrote “Bibliotheca Orientalis,” in four vols., A.D. 1719 ff., and edited Ephraem’s [Ephraim’s] works in six vols. The elder nephew, Stephen Evodius, edited the “Acta ss. Martyrum Orient. et Occid.,” in two vols., and the younger, Joseph Aloysius, a “Codex Liturgicus Eccles. Univ.,” in thirteen vols. Among dogmatical works the “Theologia hist.-dogm.-scholastica,” in eight vols. folio, Rome, 1739, of the Augustinian Berti deserves mention. Zaccaria of Venice, in some thirty vols., proved an indefatigable opponent of Febronianism, Josephinism, and such-like movements, and a careful editor of older Catholic works. The Augustinian Florez, died A.D. 1773, did for Spain what Muratori had done for Italy in making collections of ancient writers, which, with the continuations of the brethren of his order, extended to fifty folio volumes.—In Germany the greatest Catholic theologian of the century was Amort. Of his seventy treatises the most comprehensive is the “Theologia Eclectica, Moralis et Scholastica,” in four vols. folio, A.D. 1752. He conducted a conciliatory polemic against the Protestants, contested the mysticism of Maria von Agreda (§ 156, 5), and vigorously controverted superstition, miracle-mongering, and all manner of monkish extravagances. To the time of Joseph II. belongs the liberal, latitudinarian supernaturalist Jahn of Vienna, whose “Introduction to the Old Testament,” and “Biblical Antiquities” did much to raise the standard of biblical learning. For his anti-clericalism he was deprived of his professorship in A.D. 1805, and died in A.D. 1816 a canon in Vienna. To this century also belongs the greatly blessed literary labours of the accomplished mystic, Sailer, beginning at Ingolstadt in A.D. 1777, and continued at Dillingen from A.D. 1784. Deprived in A.D. 1794 of his professorship on pretence of his favouring the Illuminati, it was not till A.D. 1799 that he was allowed to resume his academic work in Ingolstadt and Landshut. By numerous theological, ascetical, and philosophical tracts, but far more powerfully by his lectures and personal intercourse, he sowed the seeds of rationalism, which bore fruit in the teachings of many Catholic universities, and produced in the hearts of many pupils a warm and deep and at the same time a gentle and conciliatory Catholicism, which heartily greeted, even in pious Protestants, the foundations of a common faith and life. Compare § 187, 1.—Continuation, § 191.

§ 165.13. The German-Catholic Contribution to the Illumination.—The Catholic church of Germany was also carried away with the current of “the Illumination,” which from the middle of the century had overrun Protestant Germany. While the exorcisms and cures of Father Gassner in Regensburg were securing signal triumphs to Catholicism, though these were of so dubious a kind that the bishops, the emperor, and finally even the curia, found it necessary to check the course of the miracle worker, Weishaupt, professor of canon law in Ingolstadt, founded, in A.D. 1776, the secret society of the Illuminati, which spread its deistic ideas of culture and human perfectibility through Catholic South Germany. Though inspired by deadly hatred of the Jesuits, Weishaupt imitated their methods, and so excited the suspicion of the Bavarian government, which, in A.D. 1785, suppressed the order and imprisoned and banished its leaders.—Catholic theology too was affected by the rationalistic movement. But that the power of the church to curse still survived was proved in the case of the Mainz professor, Laurence Isenbiehl, who applied the passage about Immanuel, in Isaiah vii. 14, not to the mother of Christ, but to the wife of the prophet, for which he was deposed in A.D. 1774, and on account of his defective knowledge of theology was sent back for two years to the seminary. When in A.D. 1778 he published a learned treatise on the same theme, he was put in prison. The pope too condemned his exposition as pestilential, and Isenbiehl “as a good Catholic” retracted. Steinbühler, a young jurist of Salzburg, having been sentenced to death in A.D. 1781 for some contemptuous words about the Catholic ceremonies, was pardoned, but soon after died from the ill-treatment he had received. The rationalistic movement got hold more and more of the Catholic universities. In Mainz, Dr. Blau, professor of dogmatics, promulgated with impunity the doctrine that in the course of centuries the church has often made mistakes. In the Austrian universities, under the protection of the Josephine edict, a whole series of Catholic theologians ventured to make cynically free criticisms, especially in the field of church history. At Bonn University, founded in A.D. 1786 by the Elector-archbishop of Cologne, there were teachers like Hedderich, who sportively described himself on the title page of a dissertation as “jam quater Romæ damnatus,” Dereser, previously a Carmelite monk, who followed Eichhorn in his exposition of the biblical miracles, and Eulogius Schneider, who, after having made Bonn too hot for him by his theological and poetical recklessness, threw himself into the French Revolution, for two years marched through Alsace with the guillotine as one of the most dreaded monsters, and finally, in A.D. 1794, was made to lay his own head on the block.—At the Austrian universities, under the protection of the tolerant Josephine legislation, a whole series of Catholic theologians, Royko, Wolff, Dannenmayr, Michl, etc., criticised, often with cynical plainness, the proceedings and condition of the Catholic church. To this class also, in the first stage of his remarkably changeful and eventful career, belongs Ign. Aur. Fessler. From 1773, a Capuchin in various cloisters, last of all in Vienna, he brought down upon himself the bitter hatred of his order by making secret reports to the emperor about the ongoings that prevailed in these convents. He escaped their enmity by his appointment, in 1784, as professor of the oriental languages and the Old Testament at Lemberg, but was in 1787 dismissed from this office on account of various charges against his life, teaching, and poetical writings. In Silesia, in 1791, he went over to the Protestant church, joined the freemasons, held at Berlin the post of a councillor in ecclesiastical and educational affairs for the newly won Catholic provinces of Poland, and, after losing this position in consequence of the events of the war of 1806, found employment in Russia in 1809; first, as professor of oriental languages at St. Petersburg, and afterwards, when opposed and persecuted there also on suspicion of entertaining atheistical views, as member of a legal commission in South Russia. Meanwhile having gradually moved from a deistical to a vague mystical standpoint, he was in 1819 made superintendent and president of the evangelical consistory at Saratov, with the title of an evangelical bishop, and after the abolition of that office in 1833 he became general superintendent at St. Petersburg, where he died in 1839. His romances and tragedies as well as his theological and religious writings are now forgotten, but his “Reminiscences of his Seventy Years’ Pilgrimage,” published in 1824, are still interesting, and his “History of Hungary,” in ten volumes, begun in 1812, is of permanent value.

§ 165.14. The French Contribution to the Illumination.—The age of Louis XIV., with the morals of its Jesuit confessors, the lust, bigotry, and hypocrisy of its court, its dragonnades and Bastille polemic against revivals of a living Christianity among Huguenots, mystics, and Jansenists, its prophets of the Cevennes and Jansenist convulsionists, etc., called forth a spirit of freethinking to which Catholicism, Jansenism, and Protestantism appeared equally ridiculous and absurd. This movement was essentially different from English deism. The principle of the English movement was common sense, the universal moral consciousness in man, with the powerful weapon of rational criticism, maintaining the existence of an ideal and moral element in men, and holding by the more general principles of religion. French naturalism, on the other hand, was a philosophy of the esprit, that essentially French lightheartedness which laughed away everything of an ideal sort with scorn and wit. Yet there was an intimate relationship between the two. The philosophy of common sense came to France, and was there travestied into a philosophy d’esprit. The organ of this French philosophy was the “Encyclopédie” of Diderot and D’Alembert, and its most brilliant contributors, Montesquieu, Helvetius, Voltaire, and Rousseau. Montesquieu, A.D. 1689-1755, whose “Esprit des Lois” in two years passed through twenty-two editions, wrote the “Lettres Persanes,” in which with biting wit he ridiculed the political, social, and ecclesiastical condition of France. Helvetius, A.D. 1715-1771, had his book, “De l’Esprit,” burnt in A.D. 1759 by order of parliament, and was made to retract, but this only increased his influence. Voltaire, A.D. 1694-1778, although treating in his writings of philosophical and theological matters, gives only a hash of English deism spiced with frivolous wit, showing the same tendency in his historical and poetical works, giving a certain eloquence to the commonest and filthiest subjects, as in his “Pucelle” and “Candide.” He obtained, however, an immense influence that extended far past his own days. To the same class belongs Jean Jacques Rousseau, A.D. 1712-1778, belonging to the Roman Catholic church only as a pervert for seventeen years in the middle of his life. Of a nobler nature than Voltaire, he yet often sank into deep immorality, as he tells without reserve, but also without any hearty penitence, in his Confessions. His whole life was taken up with the conflict for his ideals of freedom, nature, human rights, and human happiness. In his “Contrat Social” of A.D. 1762, he commends a return to the natural condition of the savage as the ideal end of man’s endeavour. His “Emile” of A.D. 1761 is of epoch-making importance in the history of education, and in it he eloquently sets forth his ideal of a natural education of children, while he sent all his own (natural) children to a foundling hospital.—The physician De la Mettrie, who died at the court of Frederick the Great in A.D. 1751, carried materialism to its most extreme consequences, and the German-Frenchman Baron Holbach, A.D. 1723-1789, wrote the “Système de la Nature,” which in two years passed through eighteen editions.[495]

§ 165.15. These seeds bore fruit in the French Revolution. Voltaire’s cry “Écrasez l’infame,” was directed against the church of the Inquisition, the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and the dragonnades, and Diderot had exclaimed that the world’s salvation could only come when the last king had been strangled with the entrails of the last priest. The constitutional National Assembly, A.D. 1789-1791, wished to set aside, not the faith of the people, but only the hierarchy, and to save the state from a financial crisis by the goods of the church. All cloisters were suppressed and their property sold. The number of bishops was reduced to one half, all ecclesiastical offices without a pastoral sphere were abolished, the clergy elected by the people paid by the state, and liberty of belief recognised as an inalienable right of man. The legislative National Assembly, A.D. 1791, 1792, made all the clergy take an oath to the constitution on pain of deposition. The pope forbad it under the same threat. Then arose a schism. Some 40,000 priests who refused the oath mostly quitted the country. Avignon (§ 110, 4) had been incorporated in the French territory. The terrorist National Convention, A.D. 1792-1795, which brought the king to the scaffold on January 21st, A.D. 1793, and the queen on October 16th, prohibited all Christian customs, on 5th October abolished the Christian reckoning of time, and on November 7th Christianity itself, laid waste 2,000 churches and converted Notre Dame into a Temple de la Raison, where a ballet-dancer represented the goddess of reason. Stirred up by the fanatical baron, “Anacharsis” Cloots, “the apostle of human freedom and the personal enemy of Jesus Christ,” the Archbishop Gobel, now in his sixtieth year, came forward, proclaiming his whole past life a fraud, and owning no other religion than that of freedom. On the other hand, the noble Bishop Gregoire of Blois, the first priest to support the constitution, who voted for the abolition of royalty, but not the execution of the king, was not driven by the terrorism of the convention, of which he was a member, from a bold and open profession of Christianity, appearing in his clerical dress and unweariedly protesting against the vandalism of the Assembly. Robespierre[496] himself said, “Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer,” passed in A.D. 1794 the resolution, Le peuple français reconnait l’Être suprême et l’immortalité de l’âme, and issued an order to celebrate the fête de l’Être suprême. The Directory, A.D. 1795-1799, restored indeed Christian worship, but favoured the deistical sect of the Theophilanthropists, whose high-swelling phrases soon called forth public scorn, while in A.D. 1802 the first consul banished their worship from all churches. But meanwhile, in A.D. 1798, in order to nullify the opposition of the pope, French armies had overrun Italy and proclaimed the Church States a Roman Republic. Pius VI. was taken prisoner to France, and died in A.D. 1799 at Valence under the rough treatment of the French, without having in the least compromised himself or his office.[497]

§ 165.16. The Pseudo-Catholics.

1. The Abrahamites or Bohemian Deists. When Joseph II. issued his edict of toleration in A.D. 1781, a sect which had hitherto kept itself secret under the mask of Catholicism made its appearance in the Bohemian province of Pardubitz. The Abrahamites were descended from the old Hussites, and professed to follow the faith of Abraham before his circumcision. Their fundamental doctrine was deistic monotheism, and of the Bible they accepted only the ten commandments and the Lord’s Prayer. But as they would neither attend the Jewish synagogue nor the churches of any existing Christian sect, the emperor refused them religious toleration, drove them from their homes, and settled them in A.D. 1783 on the eastern frontiers. Many of them, in consequence of persecution, returned to the Catholic church, and even those who remained steadfast did not transmit their faith to their children.

§ 165.17.

1. The Frankists.—Jacob Leibowicz, the son of a Jewish rabbi in Galicia, attached himself in Turkey, where he assumed the name of Frank, to the Jewish sect of the Sabbatarians, who, repudiating the Talmud, adopted the cabbalistic book Sohar as the source of their more profound religious teaching. Afterwards in Podolia, which was then still Polish, he was esteemed among his numerous adherents as a Messiah sent of God. Bitterly hated by the rabbinical Jews, and accused of indulging in vile orgies in their assemblies, many of those Soharists were thrown into prison at the instigation of Bishop Dembowski of Kaminetz. But when they turned and accused their opponents of most serious crimes against Christendom, and, at Frank’s suggestion, pointing out what they alleged to be an identity between the book Sohar and the Christian doctrine of the Trinity and incarnation, made it known that they were inclined to become converts, they won the favour of the bishop. He arranged a disputation between the two parties, pronounced the Talmudists beaten, confiscated all available copies of the Talmud, dragged them through the streets tied to the tail of a horse, and then burnt them. Dembowski, however, died soon after in A.D. 1757, and the cathedral chapter expelled the Soharists from Kaminetz. They appealed to King Augustus III. and to Archbishop Lubienski of Lemberg, renewing their profession of faith in the Trinity, and promising to be subject to the pope. In a disputation with the Talmudists lasting three days they sought to prove that the Talmudists used Christian blood in their services, which afterwards led to the death of five of the Jews thus accused. By Frank’s advice, who took part neither in this nor in the former disputation, but was the secret leader of the whole movement, they now formally applied for admission into the Catholic church, and their leader now entered Lemberg in great state. They actually submitted to be thus driven by him, and 1,000 of his adherents were baptized at Lemberg. Frank was baptized at Warsaw under the name of Joseph, the king himself acting as sponsor. In all Catholic journals this event was celebrated as a signal triumph for the Catholic church. But Frank among his own disciples continued to play the rôle of a miracle-working Messiah. Hence in A.D. 1760 the Inquisition stepped in. Some of his followers were imprisoned, others banished, and he himself as a heresiarch condemned to confinement for life with hard labour, from which after thirteen years he was liberated on the first partition of Poland in A.D. 1772, through the favour of Catherine II., who employed him as secret political agent. Feeling that his life was insecure in Poland, he went to Moravia, and at Brünn reorganized his numerous and attached followers into a well-knit society, by which he was revered as the incarnation of the Deity, and his beautiful daughter Eva, brought up by her noble godmother, as “the divine Emuna.” How he was permitted, under the protection of the Catholic church, to continue here for sixteen years, playing the rôle of a Messiah, and to amass such wealth as enabled him to purchase, in A.D. 1788, from the impoverished prince of Homburg-Birstein his castle at Offenbach, with all the privileges attached to it, is an insoluble mystery. He now called himself Baron von Frank, formed with his followers from Moravia and Poland a brilliant establishment, which outwardly adhered to the Roman Catholic church, although he very seldom attended the Catholic services. Frank died in A.D. 1791, and was buried with great pomp, but without the presence of the Catholic clergy. His daughter Eva was able to maintain the extravagant establishment of her father for twenty-six years, when the debt resting on the castle reached three million florins. At last, in A.D. 1817, the long-threatened catastrophe occurred. Eva died suddenly, and a coffin said to contain her body was actually with all decorum laid in the grave.

§ 166. THE ORIENTAL CHURCHES.

The oppressed condition of the orthodox church in the Ottoman empire continued unchanged. It had a more vigorous development in Russia, where its ascendency was unchallenged. Although the Russian church, from the time of its obtaining an independent patriarchate at Moscow, in A.D. 1589, was constitutionally emancipated from the mother church of Constantinople, it yet continued in close religious affinity with it. This was intensified by the adoption of the common confession, drawn up shortly before by Peter Mogilas (§ 152, 3). The patriarchal constitution in Russia, however, was but short-lived, for Peter I., in 1702, after the death of the Patriarch Hadrian, abolished the patriarchate, arrogated to himself as emperor the highest ecclesiastical office, and in A.D. 1721 constituted “the Holy Synod,” to which, under the supervision of a procurator guarding the rights of the state, he assigned the supreme direction of spiritual and ecclesiastical affairs. To these proposals the Patriarch of Constantinople gave his approval. In this reform of the church constitution Theophanes Procopowicz, Metropolitan of Novgorod, was the emperor’s right hand.—The monophysite church of Abyssinia was again during this period the scene of Christological controversies.

§ 166.1. The Russian State Church.—From the time of the liturgical reformation of the Patriarch Nikon (§ 163, 10) a new and peculiar service of song took the place of the old unison style that had previously prevailed in the Russian church. Without instrumental accompaniment, it was sustained simply by powerful male voices, and was executed, at least in the chief cities, with musical taste and charming simplicity. Among the theologians, the above-named Procopowicz, who died in A.D. 1736, occupied a prominent position. His “Handbook of Dogmatics,” without departing from the doctrines of his church, is characterized by learning, clearness of exposition, and moderation. From the middle of the century, however, especially among the superior clergy, there crept in a Protestant tendency, which indeed held quite firmly by the old theology of the œcumenical synods of the Greek Church, but set aside or laid little stress upon later doctrinal developments. Even the celebrated and widely used catechism, drawn up originally for the use of the Grand-duke Paul Petrovich, by his tutor, the learned Platón, afterwards Metropolitan of Moscow, was not quite free from this tendency. It found yet more decided expression in the dogmatic handbook of Theophylact, archimandrite of Moscow, published in A.D. 1773.—Continuation, § 206, 1.

§ 166.2. Russian Sects.—To the sects of the seventeenth century (§ 163, 10) are to be added spiritualistic gnostics of the eighteenth, in which we find a blending of western ideas with the old oriental mysticism. Among those were the Malakanen, or consumers of milk, because, in spite of the orthodox prohibition, they used milk during the fasts. They rejected all anointings, even chrism and priestly consecration, and acknowledged only spiritual anointing by the doctrine of Christ. They also volatilized the idea of baptism and the Lord’s supper into that of a merely spiritual cleansing and nourishing by the word of the gospel. Otherwise they led a quiet and honourable life. More important still in regard to numbers and influence were the Duchoborzen. Although belonging exclusively to the peasant class, they had a richly developed theological system of a speculative character, with a notable blending of theosophy, mysticism, Protestantism, and rationalism. They idealized the doctrine of the sacraments after the style of the Quakers, would have no special places of worship or an ordained clergy, refused to take oaths or engage in military service, and led peaceable and useful lives. They made their first appearance in Moscow in the beginning of the eighteenth century under Peter the Great, and spread through other cities of Old Russia.—Continuation, § 210, 3.

§ 166.3. The Abyssinian Church (§§ 64, 1; 73, 2).—About the middle of the century a monk appeared, proclaiming that, besides the commonly admitted twofold birth of Christ, the eternal generation of the Father and the temporal birth of the Virgin Mary, there was a third birth through anointing with the Holy Spirit in the baptism in Jordan. He thus convulsed the whole Abyssinian church, which for centuries had been in a state of spiritual lethargy. The abuna with the majority of his church held by the old doctrine, but the new also found many adherents. The split thus occasioned has continued till the present time, and has played no unimportant part in the politico-dynastic struggles of the last ten years (§ 184, 9).

II. The Protestant Churches.

§ 167. THE LUTHERAN CHURCH BEFORE “THE ILLUMINATION.”

By means of the founding of the University of Halle in A.D. 1694 a fresh impulse was given to the pietist movement, and too often the whole German Church was embroiled in violent party strifes, in which both sides failed to keep the happy mean, and laid themselves open to the reproach of the adversaries. Spener died in A.D. 1705, Francke in A.D. 1727, and Breithaupt in A.D. 1732. After the loss of these leaders the Halle pietism became more and more gross, narrow, unscientific, regardless of the Church confession, frequently renouncing definite beliefs for hazy pious feeling, and attaching undue importance to pious forms of expression and methodistical modes of life. The conventionalism encouraged by it became a very Pandora’s box of sectarianism and fanaticism (§ 170, 1). But it had also set up a ferment in the church and in theology which created a wholesome influence for many years. More than 6,000 theologians from all parts of Germany had down to Francke’s death received their theological training in Halle, and carried the leaven of his spirit into as many churches and schools. A whole series of distinguished teachers of theology now rose in almost all the Lutheran churches of the German states, who, avoiding the onesidedness of the pietists and their opponents, taught and preached pure doctrine and a pious life. From Calixt they had learnt to be mild and fair towards the Reformed and Catholic churches, and by Spener they had been roused to a genuine and hearty piety. Gottfried Arnold’s protest, onesided as it was, had taught them to discover, even among heretics and sectaries, partial and distorted truths; and from Calov and Löscher they had inherited a zeal for pure doctrine. Most eminent among these were Albert Bengel, of Württemberg, who died in A.D. 1752, and Chr. Aug. Crusius of Leipzig, who died in A.D. 1775. But when the flood of “the Illumination” came rushing in upon the German Lutheran Church about the middle of the century, it overflowed even the fields sown by these noble men.

§ 167.1. The Pietist Controversies after the Founding of the Halle University (§ 159, 3).—Pietism, condemned by the orthodox universities of Leipzig and Wittenberg, was protected and encouraged in Halle. The crowds of students flocking to this new seminary roused the wrath of the orthodox. The Wittenberg faculty, with Deutschmann at its head, issued a manifesto in A.D. 1695, charging Spener with no less than 264 errors in doctrine. Nor were those of Leipzig silent, Carpzov going so far as to style the mild and peace-loving Spener a procella ecclesiæ. Other leading opponents of the pietists were Schelwig of Dantzig, Mayer of Wittenberg, and Fecht of Rostock. When Spener died in A.D. 1705 his opponents gravely discussed whether he could be thought of as in glory. Fecht of Rostock denied that it could be. Among the later champions of pure doctrine the worthiest and ablest was the learned Löscher, superintendent at Dresden, A.D. 1709-1747, who at least cannot be reproached with dead orthodoxy. His “Vollständiger Timotheus Verinus,” two vols., 1718, 1721, is by far the most important controversial work against pietism.[498] Francis Buddeus of Jena for a long time sought ineffectually to bring about a reconciliation between Löscher and the pietists of Halle. In A.D. 1710 Francke and Breithaupt obtained a valorous colleague in Joachim Lange; but even he was no match for Löscher in controversy. Meanwhile pietism had more and more permeated the life of the people, and occasioned in many places violent popular tumults. In several states conventicles were forbidden; in others, e.g. Württemberg and Denmark, they were allowed.

§ 167.2. The orthodox regarded the pietists as a new sect, with dangerous errors that threatened the pure doctrine of the Lutheran Church; while the pietists maintained that they held by pure Lutheran orthodoxy, and only set aside its barren formalism and dead externalism for biblical practical Christianity. The controversy gathered round the doctrines of the new birth, justification, sanctification, the church, and the millennium.

1. The new birth. The orthodox maintained that regeneration takes place in baptism (§ 141, 13), every baptized person is regenerate; but the new birth needs nursing, nourishment, and growth, and, where these are wanting, reawakening. The pietists identified awakening or conversion with regeneration, considered that it was effected in later life through the word of God, mediated by a corporeal and spiritual penitential struggle, and a consequent spiritual experience, and sealed by a sensible assurance of God’s favour in the believer’s blessed consciousness. This inward sealing marks the beginning, introduction into the condition of babes in Christ. They distinguished a theologia viatorum, i.e. the symbolical church doctrine, and a theologia regenitorum, which has to do with the soul’s inner condition after the new birth. They have consequently been charged with maintaining that a true Christian who has arrived at the stage of spiritual manhood may and must in this life become free from sin.

2. Justification and Sanctification. In opposition to an only too prevalent externalizing of the doctrine of justification, Spener has taught that only living faith justifies, and if genuine must be operative, though not meritorious. Only in faith proved to be living by a pious life and active Christianity, but not in faith in the external and objective promises of God’s word, lies the sure guarantee of justification obtained. His opponents therefore accused him of confounding justification and sanctification, and depreciating the former in favour of the latter. And, though not by Spener, yet by many of his followers, justification was put in the background, and in a onesided manner stress was laid upon practical Christianity. Spener and Francke had expressly preached against worldly dissipation and frivolity, and condemned dancing, the theatre, card-playing, as detrimental to the progress of sanctification, and therefore sinful; while the orthodox regarded them as matters of indifference. Besides this, the pietists held the doctrine of a day of grace, assigned to each one within the limit of his earthly life (terminism).

3. The Church and the Pastorate. Orthodoxy regarded word and sacrament and the ministry which administered them as the basis and foundation of the church; pietism held that the individual believers determined the character and existence of the church. In the one case the church was thought to beget, nurse, and nourish believers; in the other believers, constituted, maintained, and renewed the church, accomplishing this best by conventicles, in which living Christianity preserved itself and diffused its influence abroad. The orthodox laid great stress upon clerical ordination and the grace of office; pietists on the person and his faith. Spener had taught that only he who has experienced in his own heart the power of the gospel, i.e. he who has been born again, can be a true preacher and pastor. Löscher maintained that the official acts of an unconverted preacher, if only he be orthodox, may be blessed as well as those of a converted man, because saving power lies not in the person of the preacher, but in the word of God which he preaches, in its purity and simplicity, and in the sacraments which he dispenses in accordance with their institution. The pietists then went so far as absolutely to deny that saving results could follow the preaching of an unconverted man. The proclamation of forgiveness by the church without the inward sealing had for them no meaning; yea, they regarded it as dangerous, because it quieted conscience and made sinners secure. Hence they keenly opposed private confession and churchly absolution. Of a special grace of office they would know nothing: the true ordination is the new birth; each regenerate one, and such a one only, is a true priest. The orthodox insisted above all on pure doctrine and the church confession; the pietists too regarded this as necessary, but not as the main thing. Spener decidedly maintained the duty of accepting the church symbols; but later pietists rejected them as man’s work, and so containing errors. Among the orthodox, again, some went so far as to claim for their symbols absolute immunity from error. Spener’s opposition to the compulsory use of fixed Scripture portions, prescribed forms of prayer, and the exorcism formulary occasioned the most violent contentions. On the other hand, his reintroduction of the confirmation service before the first communion, which had fallen into general desuetude, was imitated, and soon widely prevailed, even among the orthodox.

4. Eschatology. Spener had interpreted the biblical doctrine of the 1,000 years’ reign as meaning that, after the overthrow of the papacy and the conversion of heathens and Jews, a period of the most glorious and undisturbed tranquillity would dawn for the kingdom of Christ on earth as prelude to the eternal sabbath. His opponents denounced this as chiliasm and fanaticism.

5. There was, finally, a controversy about Divine providence occasioned by the founding of Francke’s orphan house at Halle. The pietists pointed to the establishment and growth of this institution as an instance of immediate divine providence; while Löscher, by indicating the common means employed to secure success, reduced the whole affair to the domain of general and daily providence, without denying the value of the strong faith in God and the active love that characterized its founder, as well as the importance of the Divine blessing which rested upon the work.[499]

§ 167.3. Theology (§ 159, 4).—The last two important representatives of the Old Orthodox School were Löscher, who, besides his polemic against pietism, made learned contributions to biblical philology and church history; and his companion in arms, Cyprian of Gotha, who died in A.D. 1745, the ablest combatant of Arnold’s “Ketzerhistorie,” and opponent of union efforts and of the papacy.—The Pietist School, more fruitful in practical than scientific theology, contributed to devotional literature many works that will never be forgotten. The learned and voluminous writer Joachim Lange, who died A.D. 1744, the most skilful controversialist among the Halle pietists, author of the “Halle Latin Grammar,” which reached its sixtieth edition in A.D. 1809, published a commentary on the whole Bible in seven folio vols. after the Cocceian method. Of importance as a historian of the Reformation was Salig of Wolfenbüttel, who died in A.D. 1738. Christian Thomasius at first attached himself to the pietists as an opponent of the rigid adherence to the letter of the orthodox, but was repudiated by them as an indifferentist. To him belongs the honour of having turned public opinion against the persecution of witches (§ 117, 4). Out of the contentions of pietists and orthodox there now rose a third school, in which Lutheran theology and learning were united with genuine piety and profound thinking, decided confessionalism with moderation and fairness. Its most distinguished representatives were Hollaz of Pomerania, died 1713 (“Examen Theologicum Acroamaticum”); Buddeus of Jena, died 1729 (“Hist. Ecclst. V.T.,” “Instit. Theol. Dogma,” “Isagoge Hist. Theol. Univ.”); J. Chr. Wolf of Homburg, died 1739 (“Biblioth. Hebr.,” “Curæ Philol. et Crit. in N.T.”); Weismann of Tübingen, died 1747 (“Hist. Ecclst.”); Carpzov of Leipzig, died A.D. 1767 as superintendent at Lübeck (“Critica s. V.T.,” “Introductio ad Libros cen. V.T.,” “Apparatus Antiquitt. s. Codicis”); J. H. Michaelis of Halle, died 1731 (“Biblia. Hebr. c. Variis Lectionibus et Brev. Annott.,” “Uberiores Annott. in Hagiograph.”); assisted in both by his learned nephew Chr. Ben. Michaelis of Halle, died 1764; J. G. Walch of Jena, died 1755 (“Einl. in die Religionsstreitigkeiten,” “Biblioth. Theol. Selecta,” “Biblioth. Patristica,” “Luther’s Werke”); Chr. Meth. Pfaff of Tübingen, died 1760 (“K. G., K. Recht, Dogmatik, Moral”); L. von Mosheim of Helmstädt [Helmstadt] and Göttingen, died 1755, the father of modern church history (“Institt. Hist. Ecclst.,” “Commentarii Rebus Christ. ante Constant. M.,” “Dissertationes,” etc.); J. Alb. Bengel of Stuttgart, died 1752 (“Gnomon N.T.,” a commentary on the N.T. distinguished by pregnancy of expression and profundity of thought; from his interpretation of Revelation he expected the millennium to begin in A.D. 1836); and Chr. A. Crusius of Leipzig, died 1775 (“Hypomnemata ad Theol. Propheticam.”)—A fourth theological school arose out of the application of the mathematical method of demonstration by the philosopher Chr. von Wolff of Halle, who died A.D. 1754. Wolff attached himself to the philosophical system of Leibnitz, and sought to unite philosophy and Christianity; but under the manipulation of his logico-mathematical method of proof he took all vitality out of the system, and the pre-established harmony of the world became a purely mechanical clockwork. He looked merely to the logical accuracy of Christian truths, without seeking to penetrate their inner meaning, gave formal exercise to the understanding, while the heart was left empty and cold; and thus inevitably revelation and mystery made way for a mere natural theology. Hence the charge brought against the system of tending to fatalism and atheism, not only by narrow pietists like Lange, but by able and liberal theologians like Buddeus and Crusius, was quite justifiable. By a cabinet order of Frederick William I. in A.D. 1723 Wolff was deposed, and ordered within two days, on pain of death, to quit the Prussian states. But so soon as Frederick II. ascended the throne, in A.D. 1740, he recalled the philosopher to Halle from Marburg, where he had meanwhile taught with great success.[500] Sig. Jac. Baumgarten, the pious and learned professor in Halle, who died in A.D. 1757, was the first to introduce Wolff’s method into theology. In respect of contents his theology occupies essentially the old orthodox ground. The ablest promoter of the system was John Carpov of Weimar, who died in A.D. 1768 (“Theol. Revelata Meth. Scientifica Adornata”). When applied to sermons, the Wolffian method led to the most extreme insipidity and absurdity.

§ 167.4. Unionist Efforts.—The distinguished theologian Chr. Matt. Pfaff, chancellor of the University of Tübingen, who, without being numbered among the pietists, recognised in pietism a wholesome reaction against the barren worship of the letter which had characterized orthodoxy, regarded a union between the Lutheran and Reformed churches on their common beliefs, which in importance far exceeded the points of difference, as both practicable and desirable; and in A.D. 1720 expressed this opinion in his “Alloquium Irenicum ad Protestantes,” in which he answered the challenge of the “Corpus Evangelicorum” at Regensburg (§ 153, 1). His proposal, however, found little favour among Lutheran theologians. Not only Cyprian of Gotha, but even such conciliatory theologians as Weismann of Tübingen and Mosheim of Helmstädt [Helmstadt], opposed it. But forty years later a Lutheran theologian, Heumann of Göttingen, demonstrated that “the Reformed doctrine of the supper is true,” and proposed, in order to end the schism, that Lutherans should drop their doctrine of the supper and the Reformed their doctrine of predestination. This pamphlet, edited after the author’s death by Sack of Berlin, in A.D. 1764, produced a great sensation, and called forth a multitude of replies on the Lutheran side, the best of which were those of Walch of Jena and Ernesti of Leipzig. Even within the Lutheran church, however, it found considerable favour.

§ 167.5. Theories of Ecclesiastical Law.—Of necessity during the first century of the Protestant church its government was placed in the hands of the princes, who, because there were no others to do so, dispensed the jura episcopalia as præcipua membra ecclesiæ. What was allowed at first in the exigency of these times came gradually to be regarded as a legal right. Orthodox theology and the juristic system associated with it, especially that of Carpzov, justified this assumption in what is called the episcopal system. This theory firmly maintains the mediæval distinction between the spiritual and civil powers as two independent spheres ordained of God; but it installs the prince as summus episcopus, combining in his person the highest spiritual with the highest civil authority. In lands, however, where more than one confession held sway, or where a prince belonging to a different section of the church succeeded, the practical difficulties of this theory became very apparent; as, e.g., when a Reformed or Romish prince had to be regarded as summus episcopus of a Lutheran church. Driven thus to seek another basis for the claims of royal supremacy, a new theory, that of the territorial system, was devised, according to which the prince possessed highest ecclesiastical authority, not as præcipuum membrum ecclesiæ, but as sovereign ruler in the state. The headship of the church was therefore not an independent prerogative over and above that of civil government, but an inherent element in it: cujus regio, illius et religio. The historical development of the German Reformation gave support to this theory (§ 126, 6), as seen in the proceedings of the Diet of Spires in A.D. 1526, in the Augsburg and Westphalian Peace. A scientific basis was given it by Puffendorf of Heidelberg, died A.D. 1694, in alliance with Hobbes (§ 163, 3). It was further developed and applied by Christian Thomasius of Halle, died A.D. 1728, and by the famous J. H. Böhmer in his “Jus Ecclesiasticum Potestantium.” Thomasius’ connexion with the pietists and his indifference to confessions secured for the theory a favourable reception in that party. Spener himself indeed preferred the Calvinistic presbyterial constitution, because only in it could equality be given to all the three orders, ministerium ecclesiasticum, magistratus politicus, status œconomicus. This protest by Spener against the two systems was certainly not without influence upon the construction of a third theory, the collegial system, proposed by Pfaff of Tübingen, died A.D. 1760. According to this scheme there belonged to the sovereign as such only the headship of the church, jus circa sacra, while the jura in sacra, matters pertaining to doctrine, worship, ecclesiastical law and its administration, installation of clergy, and excommunication, as jura collegialia, belonged to the whole body of church members. The normal constitution therefore required the collective vote of all the members through their synods. But outward circumstances during the Reformation age had necessitated the relegating the discharge of these collegial rights to the princes, which in itself was not unallowable, if only the position be maintained that the prince acts ex commisso, and is under obligation to render an account to those who have commissioned him. This system, on account of its democratic character, found hearty supporters among the later rationalists. But as a matter of fact nowhere was any of the three systems consistently carried out. The constitution adopted in most of the national churches was a weak vacillation between all the three.[501]

§ 167.6. Church Song (§ 159, 3) received, during the first half of the century, many valuable contributions. Two main groups of singers may be distinguished:

1. The pietistic school, characterized by a biblical and practical tendency. The spiritual life of believers, the work of grace in conversion, growth in holiness, the varying conditions and experiences of the religious life, were favourite themes. They were fitted, not so much for use in the public services, as for private devotion, and few comparatively have been retained in collections of church hymns. The later productions of this school sank more and more into sentimentalism and allegorical and fanciful play of words. We may distinguish among the Halle pietists an older school, A.D. 1690-1720, and a younger, A.D. 1720-1750. The former, coloured by the fervent piety of Francke, produced simple, hearty, and often profound songs. The most distinguished representatives were Freylinghausen, died A.D. 1739, Francke’s son-in-law, and director of the Halle Orphanage, editor in A.D. 1717 of a hymn-book widely used among the pietists, was author of the hymns “Pure Essence, spotless Fount of Light,” “The day expires;” Chr. Fr. Richter, physician to the Orphanage, died A.D. 1711, author of thirty-three beautiful hymns, including “God, whom I as Love have known;” Emilia Juliana, Countess of Schwarzburg Rudolstadt, died A.D. 1706, who wrote 586 hymns, including “Who knows how near my end may be?” Schröder, pastor in Magdeburg, died A.D. 1728, wrote “One thing is needful: Let me deem;” Winckler, cathedral preacher of Magdeburg, died A.D. 1722, author of “Strive, when thou art called of God;” Dessler, rector of Nuremburg, died A.D. 1722, composer of “I will not let Thee go, Thou help in time of need,” “O Friend of souls, how well is me;” Gotter, died A.D. 1735, who wrote, “O Cross, we hail thy bitter reign;” Cresselius, pastor in Dusseldorf [Düsseldorf], author of “Awake, O man, and from thee shake.” The younger Halle school represents pietism in its period of decay. Its best representatives are J. J. Rambach, professor at Giessen, died A.D. 1735, who wrote “I am baptized into thy name;” Allendorf, court preacher at Cöthen, died A.D. 1773, editor of a collection of poetic renderings from the Canticles.

2. The poets of the orthodox party, although opposed to the pietists, are all more or less touched by the fervent piety of Spener. Neumeister, pastor at Hamburg, died A.D. 1756, was an orthodox hymn-writer of thoroughly conservative tendencies, zealously opposing the onesidedness of pietism, with a strong, ardent faith in the orthodox creed, but without much significance as a poet. Schmolck, pastor at Schweidnitz, died A.D. 1737, wrote over 1,000 hymns, including “Blessed Jesus, here we stand,” “Hosanna to the Son of David! Raise,” “Welcome, thou Victor in the strife.” Sol. Franck, secretary to the consistory at Weimar, died A.D. 1725, wrote over 300 hymns, including “Rest of the weary, thou thyself art resting now.” The mediating party between pietism and orthodoxy, represented by Bengel and Crusius in theology, is represented among hymn-writers by J. Andr. Rothe, died A.D. 1758, and by Mentzer, died A.D. 1734, composer of “Oh, would I had a thousand tongues!” In A.D. 1750 J. Jac. von Moser collected a list of 50,000 spiritual songs printed in the German language.—Continuation, § 171, 1.

§ 167.7. Sacred Music (§ 159, 5).—Decadence of musical taste accompanied the lowering of the poetic standard, and pietists went even further than the orthodox in their imitation and adaptation of operatic airs. Freylinghausen, not only himself composed many such melodies, but made a collection from various sources in A.D. 1704, retaining some of the more popular of the older tunes.—There now arose, amid all this depravation of taste, a noble musician, who, like the good householder, could bring out of his treasure things new and old. J. Seb. Bach, the most perfect organist who ever lived, was musical director of the School of St. Thomas, Leipzig, and died A.D. 1750. He turned enthusiastically to the old chorale, which no one had ever understood and appreciated as he did. He harmonized the old chorales for the organ, made them the basis for elaborate organ studies, gave expression to his profoundest feelings in his musical compositions and in his recitatives, duets, and airs, reproduced at the sacred concerts many fine old chorales wedded to most appropriate Scripture passages. He is for all times the unrivalled master in fugue, harmony, and modulation. In his passion music we have expression given to the profoundest ideas of German Protestantism in the noblest music. After Bach comes a master in oratorio music hitherto unapproached, G. Fr. Handel of Halle, who, from A.D. 1710 till his death in A.D. 1759, lived mostly in England. For twenty-five years he wrought for the opera-house, and only in his later years gave himself to the composing of oratorios. His operas are forgotten, but his oratorios will endure to the end of time. His most perfect work is the “Messiah,” which Herder describes as a Christian epic in music. Of his other great compositions, “Samson,” “Judas Maccabæus,” and “Jephtha” may be mentioned.[502]

§ 167.8. The Christian Life and Devotional Literature.—Pietism led to a powerful revival of religious life among the people, which it sustained by zealous preaching and the publication of devotional works. A similar activity displayed itself among the orthodox. Francke began his charitable labours with seven florins; but with undaunted faith he started his Orphanage, writing over its door the words of Isaiah xl. 31. In faith and benevolence Woltersdorff was a worthy successor of Francke; and Baron von Canstein applied his whole means to the founding of the Bible Institute of Halle. Missions too were now prosecuted with a zeal and success which witnessed to the new life that had arisen in the Lutheran church.—A remarkable manifestation of the pietistic spirit of this age is seen in The Praying Children in Silesia, A.D. 1707. Children of four years old and upward gathered in open fields for singing and prayer, and called for the restoration of churches taken away by the Catholics. The movement spread over the whole land. In vain was it denounced from the pulpits and forbidden by the authorities. Opposition only excited more and more the zeal of the children. At last the churches were opened for their services. The excitement then gradually subsided. It was, however, long a subject of discussion between the pietists and the orthodox; the latter denouncing it as the work of the devil, the former regarding it as a wonderful awakening of God’s grace.—Best remembered of the many devotional writers of this period are Bogatsky of Halle, died A.D. 1774, whose “Golden Treasury” is still highly esteemed;[503] and Von Moser, died A.D. 1785, who lived a noble and exemplary life at Stuttgart amid much sore persecution. The great need of simple explanation of Scripture appears from the great sale of such popular commentaries as those of Pfaff at Tübingen, 1730, Starke at Leipzig, 1741, and the Halle Bible of S. J. Baumgarten, 1748.

§ 167.9. Missions to the Heathen.—The quickening of religious life by pietism bore fruit in new missionary activity. Frederick IV. of Denmark founded in his East Indian possessions the Tranquebar mission in A.D. 1706, under Ziegenbalg and Plutschau. Ziegenbalg, who translated the New Testament into Tamil, died in A.D. 1719. From the Danish possessions this mission carried its work over into the English Indian territories. Able and zealous workers were sent out from the Halle Institute, of whom the greatest was Chr. Fr. Schwartz, who died in A.D. 1798, after nearly fifty years of noble service in the mission field. In the last quarter of the century, however, under the influence of rationalism, zeal for missions declined, the Halle society broke up, and the English were allowed to reap the harvest sown by the Lutherans. The Halle professor Callenberg founded in A.D. 1728 a society for the conversion of the Jews, in the interests of which Stephen Schultz travelled over Europe, Asia, and Africa, preaching the Cross among the Jews. Christianity had been introduced among the Eskimos in Greenland in the eleventh century (§ 93, 5), but the Scandinavian colony there had been forgotten, and no trace of the religion which it had taught any longer remained. This reproach to Christianity lay sore on the heart of Hans Egede, a Norwegian pastor, and he found no rest till, supported by a Danish-Norwegian trading house, he sailed with his family in A.D. 1721 for these frozen and inhospitable shores. Amid almost inconceivable hardships, and with at first but little success, he continued to labour unweariedly, and even after the trading company abandoned the field he remained. In A.D. 1733 he had the unexpected joy of welcoming three Moravian missionaries, Christian David and the brothers Stach. His joy was too soon dashed by the spiritual pride of the new arrivals, who insisted on modelling everything after their own Moravian principles, and separated themselves from the noble Egede, when he refused to yield, as an unspiritual and unconverted man. Egede, on the other hand, though deeply offended at their confounding justification and sanctification, their contempt of pure doctrine, and their unscriptural views and mode of speech, was ready to attribute all this to their defective theological training. He rewarded their unkindness, when they were stricken down in sore sickness, with unwearied, loving care. In A.D. 1736 he returned to Denmark, leaving his son Paul to carry on his work, and continued director of the Greenland Mission Seminary in Copenhagen till his death in A.D. 1758.[504]—Continuation, § 171, 5.

§ 168. THE CHURCH OF THE MORAVIAN BRETHREN.[505]

The highly gifted Count Zinzendorf, inspired even as a boy, out of fervent love to the Saviour, with the idea of gathering together the lovers of Jesus, took occasion of the visit of some Moravian Exultants to his estate to realize his cherished project. On the Hutberg he dropped the mustard seed of the dream of his youth into fertile soil, where, under his fervent care, it soon grew into a stately tree, whose branches spread over all European lands, and thence through all parts of the habitable globe. The society which he founded was called “The Society of the United Brethren.” The fact that this society was not overwhelmed by the extravagances to which for a time it gave way, that its fraternising with the fanatics, the extravagant talk in which its members indulged about a special covenant with the Saviour, and their not over-modest claims to a peculiar rank in the kingdom of God, did not lead to its utter overthrow in the abyss of fanaticism, and that on the slippery paths of its mystical marriage theory it was able to keep its feet, presents a phenomenon, which stands alone in church history, and more than anything else proves how deeply rooted founder and followers were in the saving truths of the gospel. The count himself laid aside many of his extravagances, and what still remained was abandoned by his sensible and prudent successor Spangenberg, so far as it was not necessarily involved in the fundamental idea of a special covenant with the Saviour. The special service rendered by the society was the protest which it raised against the generally prevailing apostasy. During this period of declension it saved the faith of many pious souls, affording them a welcome refuge, with rich spiritual nourishment and nurture. With the reawakening of the religious life in the nineteenth century, however, its adherents lost ground in Europe more and more, by maintaining their old onesidedness in life and doctrine, their depreciatory estimate of theological science, and the quarrelsome spirit which they generally manifested. But in one province, that of missions to the heathen, their energy and success have never yet been equalled. Their thorough and well-organized system of education also deserves particular mention. At present the Society of the Brethren numbers half a million, distributed among 100 settlements or thereabout.

§ 168.1. The Founder of the Moravian Brotherhood, Nic. Ludwig Count von Zinzendorf and Pottendorf, was born in Dresden in A.D. 1700. Spener was one of his sponsors at baptism. His father dying early, and his mother marrying a second time, the boy, richly endowed with gifts of head and heart, was brought up by his godly pietistic grandmother, the Baroness von Gersdorf. There in his earliest youth he learned to seek his happiness in the closest personal fellowship with the Lord, and the tendency of his whole future life to yield to the impulses of pious feeling already began to assert itself. In his tenth year he entered the Halle Institute under Francke, where the pietistic idea of the need of the ecclesiolæ in ecclesia took firm possession of his heart. Even in his fifteenth year he sought its realization by founding among his fellow students “The Order of the Grain of Mustard Seed” (Matt. xiii. 31). After completing his school course, his uncle and guardian, in order to put an end to his pietistic extravagances, sent him to study law at the orthodox University of Wittenberg. Here he had at first to suffer a sort of martyrdom as a rigid pietist swimming against the orthodox current. His residence at Wittenberg, however, was beneficial to him in freeing him unconsciously of the Halle pietism, which had restrained his spiritual development. He did indeed firmly maintain the fundamental idea of pietism, ecclesiolæ in ecclesia, but in his mind it gained a wider significance than pietism had given it. His endeavours to secure a personal conference, and where possible a union, between the Halle and Wittenberg leaders were unsuccessful. In A.D. 1719 he left Wittenberg and travelled for two years, visiting the most distinguished representatives of all confessions and sects. This too fostered his idea of a grand gathering of all who love the Lord Jesus. On his return home, in A.D. 1721, at the wish of his relatives he entered the service of the Saxon government. But a religious genius like Zinzendorf could find no satisfaction in such employment. And soon an opportunity presented itself for carrying out the plan to which his thoughts and longings were directed.[506]

§ 168.2. The Founding of the Brotherhood, A.D. 1722-1727. The Schmalcald, and still more the Thirty Years’ War, had brought frightful suffering and persecution upon the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren. Many of them sought refuge in Poland and Prussia. One of the refugees was the famous educationist J. Amos Comenius, who died in A.D. 1671, after having been bishop of the Moravians at Lissa in Posen from 1648. Those who remained behind were, even after the Peace of Westphalia, subjected to the cruellest oppression! Only secretly in their houses and at the risk of their lives could they worship God according to the faith of their fathers; and they were obliged publicly to profess their adherence to the Romish church. Thus gradually the light of the gospel was extinguished in the homes of their descendants, and only a tradition, becoming ever more and more faint, remained as a memory of their ancestral faith. A Moravian carpenter, Christian David, born and reared in the Romish church, but converted by evangelical preaching, succeeded in the beginning of the eighteenth century in fanning into a flame again in some families the light that had been quenched. This little band of believers, under David’s leading, went forth in A.D. 1722 and sought refuge on Zinzendorf’s estate in Lusatia. The count was then absent, but the steward, with the hearty concurrence of the count’s grandmother, gave them the Hutberg at Berthelsdorf as a settlement. With the words of Psalm lxxxiv. 4 on his lips, Christian David struck the axe into the tree for building the first house. Soon the little town of Herrnhut had arisen, as the centre of that Christian society which Zinzendorf now sought with all his heart and strength to develop and promote. Gradually other Moravians dropped in, but a yet greater number from far and near streamed in, of all sorts of religious revivalists, pietists, separatists, followers of Schwenckfeld, etc. Zinzendorf had no thought of separation from the Lutheran church. The settlers were therefore put under the pastoral care of Rothe, the worthy pastor of Berthelsdorf (§ 167, 6). To organize such a mixed multitude was no easy task. Only Zinzendorf’s glorious enthusiasm for the idea of a congregation of saints, his eminent organizing talents, the wonderful elasticity and tenacity of his will, the extraordinary prudence, circumspection, and wisdom of his management, made it possible to cement the incongruous elements and avoid an open breach. The Moravians insisted upon restoring their old constitution and discipline, and of the others, each wished to have prominence given to whatever he thought specially important. Only on one point were they all agreed, the duty of refusing to conform to the Lutheran church and its pastor Rothe. The count, therefore, felt obliged to form a new and separatist society. Personally he had no special liking for the old Moravian constitution; but the lot decided in its favour, while the idea of continuing a pre-Reformation martyr church was not without a certain charm. Thus Zinzendorf drew up a constitution with old Moravian forms and names, on the basis of which the colony was established, August 13th, A.D. 1727, under the name of the United Brotherhood.

§ 168.3. The Development of the Brotherhood down to Zinzendorf’s Death, A.D. 1727-1760.—With great energy the new society proceeded to found settlements in Germany, Holland, England, Ireland, Denmark, Norway, and North America, as well as among German residents in other lands. In A.D. 1734, Zinzendorf submitted to examination at Tübingen as candidate for license, and in A.D. 1737 received episcopal consecration from the Berlin court preacher, Jablonsky, who was at the same time bishop of the Moravian Brethren, which the same prelate had two years previously granted to Dr. Nitschmann, another member of the society. The efforts of the Brethren to spread their cause now attracted attention. The Saxon government in A.D. 1736 sent to Herrnhut a commission, of which Löscher was a member. But in A.D. 1736, before it submitted its report, which on the whole was favourable, Zinzendorf quitted the country, probably by the elector’s command at the instigation of the Austrian government, which objected to the harbouring of so many Bohemian and Moravian emigrants. Like all those at this time persecuted on account of religion he took refuge in Wetterau (§ 170, 2). With his little family of pilgrims he settled at Ronneburg near Büdingen, founded the prosperous churches of Marienborn and Herrnhaag, and travelled extensively in Europe and America. This period of exile was the period when the society was most successful in spreading outwardly, but it was also the period when it suffered most from troubles and dissensions within. It was bitterly attacked by Lutheran theologians, and much more venomously by apostates from its own fold. The Brethren at this time afforded only too much ground for misunderstanding and reproach. To this period belongs the famous fiction of a special covenant, the Pandora-box of all other absurdities; the development of the count’s own theological views and peculiar form of expression in his numerous works; the composition and introduction of unsavoury spiritual songs, with their silly conceits and many blasphemous and even obscene pictures and analogies; the market-crier laudations of their church, the not always pure methods of propaganda, the introduction of a marriage discipline fitted to break down all modest restraints; and, finally, the so-called Niedlichkeiten, or boisterous festivals. Even the pietists opposed these antinomian excesses. Tersteegen, too (§ 169, 1), whose mystic tendency inclined him strongly toward pietist views, reproached the Herrnhuters with frivolity. This polemic, disagreeable as it was, exercised a wholesome influence upon the society. The count became more guarded in his language, and more prudent in his behaviour, while he set aside the most objectionable excrescences of doctrine and practice that had begun to show themselves in the community. At last, in A.D. 1747, the Saxon government repeated the edict of banishment so far as the person of the founder was concerned, and when, two years later, the society expressly accepted the Augsburg Confession, it was formally recognised in Saxony. In this same year, A.D. 1749, an English act of parliament recognised it as a church with a pure episcopal succession on equal terms with the Anglican episcopal church.—Zinzendorf continued down to his death to direct the affairs of this church, which hung upon him with childlike affection, reflecting his personality, not only in its excellences, but also in all its extravagances. He died in A.D. 1760 in the full enjoyment of that blessedness which his fervent love for the Saviour had brought him.

§ 168.4. Zinzendorf’s Plan and Work.—While Zinzendorf received his first impulse from pietism, he soon perceived its onesidedness and narrowness. He would have no conventicle, but one organized community; no ideal invisible, but a real visible church; no narrow methodism, but a rich, free administration of the Christian spirit. He did not, in the first instance, aim at the conversion of the world, nor even at the reformation of the church, but at gathering and preserving those belonging to the Saviour. He hoped, however, to erect a reservoir in which he might collect every little brooklet of living water, from which he might again water the whole world. And when he succeeded in organizing a community, he was quite convinced that it was the Philadelphia of the Apocalypse (iii. 7 ff.), that it introduced “the Philadelphian period” of church history, of which all prophets and apostles had prophesied. His plan had originally reference to all Christendom, and he even took a step toward realizing this universal idea. In order to build a bridge between the Catholic church and his own community, he issued, in A.D. 1727, a Christo-Catholic hymn-book and prayer-book, and had even sketched out a letter to the pope to accompany a copy of his book. He also attempted, by a letter to the patriarchs and then to Elizabeth, empress of Russia, to interest the Greek church in his scheme, dwelling upon the Greek extraction of the church of the Moravian Brethren (§ 79, 2). His gathering of members, however, was practically limited to the Protestant churches. All confessions and sects afforded him contingents. He was himself heartily attached to the distinctive doctrines of the Lutheran church. But in a society whose distinctive characteristic it was to be the gathering point for the pious of all nationalities, doctrine and confession could not be the uniting bond. It could be only a fellowship of love and not of creed, and the bond a community of loving sentiment and loving deeds. The inmost principle of Lutheranism, reconciliation by the blood of Christ, was saved, indeed was made the characteristic and vital doctrine, the one point of union between Moravians, Lutherans, and Reformed. Over the three parties stood the count himself as ordinarius; but this gave an external and not a confessional unity. The subsequent acceptance of the Augsburg Confession, in A.D. 1749, was a political act, so as to receive a civil status, and had otherwise no influence. Instead then of the confession, Zinzendorf made the constitution the bond of union. Its forms were borrowed from the old Moravian church order, but dominated and inspired by Zinzendorf’s own spirit. The old Moravian constitution was episcopal and clerical, and proceeded from the idea of the church; while the new constitution of Herrnhut was essentially presbyterial, and proceeded from the idea of the community, and that as a communion of saints. The Herrnhut bishops were only titular bishops; they had no diocese, no jurisdiction, no power of excommunication. All these prerogatives belonged to the united eldership, in which the lay element was distinctly predominant. Herrnhut had no pastors, but only preaching brothers; the pastoral care devolved upon the elders and their assistants. But beside these half-Lutheran and pseudo-Moravian peculiarities, there was also a Donatist element at the basis of the constitution. This lay in the fundamental idea of absolutely true and pure children of God, and reached full expression in the concluding of a special covenant with the Saviour at London on Sept. 16th, A.D. 1741. Leonard Dober for some years administered the office of an elder-general. But at the London synod it was declared that he had not the requisite gifts for that office. Dober now wished to resign. While in confusion as to whom they could appoint, it flashed into the minds of all to appoint the Saviour Himself. “Our feeling and heart conviction was, that He made a special covenant with His little flock, taking us as His peculiar treasure, watching over us in a special way, personally interesting Himself in every member of our community, and doing that for us perfectly which our previous elders could only do imperfectly.”

§ 168.5. Among the numerous extravagances which Zinzendorf countenanced for a time, the following may be mentioned.

1. The notion of the motherhood of the Holy Spirit. Zinzendorf described the holy Trinity as “man, woman, and child.” The Spirit is the mother in three respects: the eternal generation of the Son of God, the conception of the Man Jesus, and the second birth of believers.

2. The notion of the fatherhood of Jesus Christ (Isa. ix. 6). Creation is ascribed solely to the Son, hence Christ is our special, direct Father. The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is only, “in the language of men, our father-in-law or grandfather.”

3. In reference to our Lord’s life on earth, Zinzendorf delighted in using terms of contempt, in order to emphasize the depths of His humiliation.

4. In like manner he uses reproachful terms in speaking of the style of the sacred Scriptures, and the inspired community prefers a living Bible.

5. The theory and practice of mystical marriage, according to Ephesians v. 32. The community and each member of it are spiritual brides of Christ, and the marriage relation and begetting of children were set forth and spiritualized in a singularly indelicate manner.

§ 168.6. Zinzendorf’s greatness lay in the fervency of his love of the Saviour, and in the yearning desire to gather under the shadow of the cross all who loved the Lord. His weakness consisted not so much in his manifested extravagances, as in his idea that he had been called to found a society. To the realizing of this idea he gave his life, talents, heart, and means. The advantages of rank and culture he also gave to this one task. He was personally convinced of his Divine call, and as he did not recognise the authority of the written word, but only subjective impressions, it is easily seen how he would drift into absurdities and inconsistencies. The end contemplated seemed to him supremely important, so that to realize it he did not scruple to depart from strict truthfulness.—Zinzendorf’s writings, over one hundred in number, are characterized by originality, brilliancy, and peculiar forms of expression. Of his 2,000 hymns, mostly improvised for public services, 700 of the best were revised and published by Knapp. Two are still found in most collections, and are more or less reproduced in our English hymns, “Jesus still lead on,” and “Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness.”

§ 168.7. The Brotherhood under Spangenberg’s Administration.—For its present form the Brotherhood is indebted to its wise and sensible bishop, Aug. Gottl. Spangenberg, who died A.D. 1792. Born in 1704, he became personally acquainted with Zinzendorf in 1727, after he had completed his studies at Jena under Buddæus, and continued ever after on terms of close intimacy with him and his community. Through the good offices of G. A. Francke, son and successor of A. H. Francke, he was called in Sept., 1732, to the office of an assistantship in the theological faculty at Halle, and appointed school inspector of the Orphanage; but very soon offence was taken at the brotherly fellowship which he had, not only with the society of Herrnhut, but also with other separatists. The misunderstanding that thus arose led in April, 1733, to his deprivation under a royal cabinet order, and his expulsion by military power from Halle. He now formally joined the communion of the Brethren. The first half of his signally blessed ministry of sixty years among the Moravians was chiefly devoted to foreign mission work, both in their colonies abroad and in their stations in heathen lands. In Holland in 1734, in England and Denmark in 1735, he obtained official permission for the founding of Moravian colonies in Surinam, in the American state of Georgia, and in Santa Cruz, the forming and management of which he himself undertook, besides directing the mission work in these places. Returning from America in 1762, he won, after Zinzendorf’s death, so complete an ascendency in the church in every respect, that he may well be regarded as its second founder. At the Synod of Marienborn, in A.D. 1764, the constitution was revised and perfected. Zinzendorf’s monarchical prerogative was surrendered to the eldership, and Spangenberg prudently secured the withdrawal of all excrescences and extravagances. But the central idea of a special covenant was not touched, and Sept. 16th is still held as a grand pentecost festival. In the fifth section of the statutes of the United Brethren at Gnaden, 1819, it distinguishes itself from all the churches as a “society of true children of God; as a family of God, with Jesus as its head.” In the fourth section of the “Historical Account of the Constitution of the United Brethren at Gnaden, 1823,” the society is described as “a company of living members of the invisible body of Jesus Christ;” and in its litany for Easter morning, it adds as a fourth particular to the article of the creed: “I believe that our brothers N. N., and our sisters N. N. have joined the church above, and have entered into the joy of the Lord.” The synod of A.D. 1848 modified this article, and generally the society’s distinctive views are not made so prominent. This liberal tendency had dogmatic expression given to it in Spangenberg’s “Idea Fidei Fratrum.” Only a few new settlements have been formed since Zinzendorf’s death, and none of any importance; while the hitherto flourishing Moravian settlements in Wetterau were destroyed and their members banished, in A.D. 1750, by the reigning prince, Count von Isenburg-Büdingen, on account of their refusing to take the oath of allegiance.—After the first attempt to establish societies among the German emigrants in Livonia and Esthonia in A.D. 1729-1743 had ended in the expulsion of the Herrnhuters, these regions proved in the second half of the century a more fruitful field than any other. They secured there a relation to the national church such as they never attained unto elsewhere. They had in these parts formally organized a church within the church, whose members, mostly peasants, felt convinced that they had been called by the Lord’s own voice as His chosen little flock, a proceeding which caused infinite trouble, especially in Livonia, to the faithful pastors, who perceived the deadly mischief that was being wrought, and witnessed against them from God’s word. This protest was too powerful and convincing to be disregarded, and now, not only too late, but also in too half-hearted a way, Herrnhut began, in A.D. 1857, to turn back, so as to save its Livonian institute by inward regeneration from certain overthrow.

§ 168.8. The doctrinal peculiarities of the Brotherhood cannot be quite correctly described as un-Lutheran, or anti-Lutheran. Bengel smartly characterized them in a single phrase: “They plucked up the stock of sound doctrine, stripped oft what was most essential and vital, and retained the half of it,” which not only then, but even still retains its truth and worth. Salvation is regarded as proceeding purely from the Son, the God-Man, so that the relation of the Father and of the Holy Spirit to redemption is scarcely even nominal; and the redemption of the God-Man again is viewed one-sidedly as consisting only in His sufferings and death, while the other side, that is grounded on His life and resurrection, is either carefully passed over, or its fruit is represented as borrowed from the atoning death. Thus not only justification, but sanctification is derived exclusively from the death of Christ, and this, not so much as a forensic substitutionary satisfaction, although that is not expressly denied, but rather as a Divine love-sacrifice which awakens an answering love in us. The whole of redemption is viewed as issuing from Christ’s blood and wounds; and since from this mode of viewing the subject God’s grace and love are made prominent rather than His righteousness, we hear almost exclusively of the gospel, and little or nothing of the law. All preaching and teaching were avowedly directed to the awakening of pious feelings of love to God, and thus tended to foster a kind of religious sentimentalism.

§ 168.9. The peculiarities of worship among the Brethren were also directed to the excitement of pious feeling; their sensuously sweet sacred music, their church hymns, overcharged with emotion, their richly developed liturgies, their restoration of the agape with tea, biscuit, and chorale-singing, the fraternal kiss at communion, in their earlier days also washing of the feet, etc. The daily watchword from the O.T. and doctrinal texts from the N.T. were regarded as oracles, and were intended to give a special impress to the religious feelings of the day. As early as A.D. 1727 they had a hymn-book containing 972 hymns. Most of these were compositions of their own, a true reflection of their religious sentiments at that period. It also contained Bohemian and Moravian hymns, translated by Mich. Weiss, and also many old favourites of the evangelical church, often sadly mutilated. By A.D. 1749 it had received twelve appendices and four supplements. In these appendices, especially in the twelfth, the one-sided tendency to give prominence to feeling was carried to the most absurd lengths of caricature in the use of offensive and silly terms of endearment as applied to the Saviour. Zinzendorf admitted the defects of this production, and had it suppressed in 1751, and in London prepared a new, expurgated edition of the hymn-book. Under Spangenberg’s presidency Christian Gregor issued, in A.D. 1778, a hymn-book, containing 542 from Zinzendorf’s book and 308 of his own pious rhymes. He also published a chorale book in A.D. 1784. Among their sacred poets Zinzendorf stands easily first. His only son, Christian Renatus, who died A.D. 1752, left behind him a number of sacred songs. Their hymns were usually set to the melodies of the Halle pietists.

§ 168.10. In regard to the Christian life, the Brotherhood withdrew from politics and society, adopted stereotyped forms of speech and peculiar usages, even in their dress. They sought to live undisturbed by controversy, in personal communion with the Saviour. Their separatism as a covenanted people may be excused in view of the unbelief prevailing in the Protestant church, but it has not been overcome by the reawakening of spiritual life in the Church. As to their ecclesiastical constitution, Christ Himself, as the Chief Elder of the church, should have in it the direct government. The leaders, founding upon Proverbs xvi. 33 and Acts i. 26, held that fit expression was given to this principle by the use of the lot; but soon opposition to this practice arose, and with its abandonment the “special covenant” theory lost all its significance. The lot was used in election of office-bearers, sending of missionaries, admission to membership, etc. But in regard to marriage, it was used only by consent of the candidates for marriage, and an adverse result was not enforced. The administration of the affairs of the society lay with the conference of the united elders. From time to time general synods with legislative power were summoned. The membership was divided into groups of married, widowed, bachelors, maidens, and children, with special duties, separate residences, and also special religious services in addition to those common to all. The church officers were bishops, presbyters, deacons, deaconesses, and acolytes.

§ 168.11. Missions to the Heathen.—Zinzendorf’s meeting with a West Indian negro in Copenhagen awakened in him at an early period the missionary zeal. He laid the matter before the church, and in A.D. 1732 the first Herrnhut missionaries, Dober and Nitschmann, went out to St. Thomas, and in the following year missions were established in Greenland, North America, almost all the West Indian islands, South America, among the Hottentots at the Cape, the East Indies, among the Eskimos of Labrador, etc. Their missionary enterprise forms the most brilliant and attractive part of the history of the Moravians. Their procedure was admirably suited to uncultured races, and only for such. In the East Indies, therefore, they were unsuccessful. They were never wanting in self-denying missionaries, who resigned all from love to the Saviour. They were mostly pious, capable artisans, who threw themselves with all their hearts into their new work, and devoted themselves with affectionate tenderness to the advancement of the bodily and spiritual interests of those among whom they laboured. One of the noblest of them all was the missionary patriarch Zeisberger, who died in A.D. 1808, after toiling among the North American Indians for sixty-three years. These missions were conducted at a surprisingly small outlay. The Brethren also interested themselves in the conversion of the Jews. In A.D. 1738 Dober wrought among the Jews of Amsterdam; and with greater success in A.D. 1739, Lieberkühn, who also visited the Jews in England and Bohemia, and was honoured by them with the title of “rabbi.”[507]

§ 169. THE REFORMED CHURCH BEFORE THE “ILLUMINATION.”

The sharpness of the contest between Calvinism and Lutheranism was moderated on both sides. The union efforts prosecuted during the first decades of the century in Germany and Switzerland were always defeated by Lutheran opposition. In the Dutch and German Reformed Churches, even during the eighteenth century, Cocceianism was still in high repute. After it had modified strict Calvinism, the opposition between Reformed orthodoxy and Arminian heterodoxy became less pronounced, and more and more Arminian tendencies found their way into Reformed theology. What pietism and Moravianism were for the Lutheran church of Germany, Methodism was, in a much greater measure, and with a more enduring influence, for the episcopal church of England.

§ 169.1. The German Reformed Church.—The Brandenburg dynasty made unwearied efforts to effect a union between the Lutheran and Reformed churches throughout their territories (§ 154, 4). Frederick I. (III.) instituted for this purpose in A.D. 1703 a collegium caritativum, under the presidency of the Reformed court preacher Ursinus (ranked as bishop, that he might officiate at the royal coronation), in which also, on the side of the Reformed, Jablonsky, formerly a Moravian bishop, and, on the part of the Lutherans, the cathedral preacher Winkler of Magdeburg and Lüttke, provost of Cologne-on-the-Spree, took part. Spener, who wanted not a made union but one which he himself was making, gave expression to his opinion, and soon passed over. Lüttke after a few sederunts withdrew, and when Winkler in A.D. 1703 published a plan of union, Arcanum regium, which the Lutheran church merely submitted for the approval of the Reformed king, such a storm of opposition arose against the project, that it had to be abandoned. In the following year the king took up the matter again in another way. Jablonsky engaged in negotiations with England for the introduction of the Anglican episcopal system into Prussia, in order by it to build a bridge for the union with Lutheranism. But even this plan failed, in consequence of the succession of Frederick William I. in A.D. 1713, whose shrewd sense strenuously opposed it.—The vacillating statements of the Confessio Sigismundi (§ 154, 3) regarding predestination made it possible for the Brandenburg Reformed theologians to understand it as teaching the doctrine of particular as well as universal grace, and so to make it correspond with Brandenburg Reformed orthodoxy. The rector of the Joachimsthal Gymnasium in Berlin, Paul Volkmann, in A.D. 1712, interpreted it as teaching universal grace, and so in his Theses theologicæ he constructed a system of theology, in which the divine foreknowledge of the result, as the reconciling middle term between the particularism and universalism of the call, was set forth in a manner favourable to the latter. The controversy that was aroused over this, in which even Jablonsky argued for the more liberal view, while on the other side Barckhausen, Volkmann’s colleague, in his Amica Collatio Doctrinæ de Gratia, quam vera ref. confitetur Ecclesia, cum Doctr. Volkmanni, etc., came forward under the name of Pacificus Verinus as his most determined opponent, was put a stop to in A.D. 1719 by an edict of Frederick William I., which enjoined silence on both parties, without any result having been reached.—One of the noblest mystics that ever lived was Gerhard Tersteegen, died A.D. 1769. He takes a high rank as a sacred poet. Anxious souls made pilgrimages to him from far and near for comfort, counsel, and refreshment. Though not exactly a separatist, he had no strong attachment to the church.[508]—The prayer-book of Conrad Mel, pastor and rector at Hersfeld in Hesse, died A.D. 1733, continues to the present day a favourite in pious families of the Reformed communion.

§ 169.2. The Reformed Church in Switzerland.—The Helvetic Confession, with its strict doctrine of predestination and its peculiar inspiration theory (§ 161, 3), had been indeed accepted, in A.D. 1675, by all the Reformed cantons as the absolute standard of doctrine in church and school; but this obligation was soon felt to be oppressive to the conscience, and so the Archbishop of Canterbury and the kings of England and Prussia repeatedly interceded for its abrogation. In Geneva, though vigorously opposed by a strictly orthodox minority, the Vénérable Compagnie succeeded, in A.D. 1706, with the rector of the Academy at its head, J. A. Turretin, whose father had been one of the principal authors of the formula, in modifying the usual terms of subscription, Sic sentio, sic profiteor, sic docebo, et contrarium non docebo, into Sic docebo quoties hoc argumentum tractandum suscipiam, contrarium non docebo, nec ore, nec calamo, nec privatim, nec publice; and afterwards, in A.D. 1725, it was entirely set aside, and adhesion to the Scriptures of the O. and N.T., and to the catechism of Calvin, made the only obligation. More persistent on both sides was the struggle in Lausanne; yet even there it gradually lost ground, and by the middle of the century it had no longer any authority in Switzerland.—The union efforts made by the Prussian dynasty found zealous but unsuccessful advocates in the chancellor Pfaff of Lutheran Württemberg (§ 167, 4), and in Reformed Switzerland in J. A. Turretin of Geneva.

§ 169.3. The Dutch Reformed Church.—Toward the end of the seventeenth century, in consequence of threats on the part of the magistrates, the passionate violence of the dispute between Voetians and Cocceians (§ 162, 5) was moderated; but in the beginning of the eighteenth century the flames burst forth anew, reaching a height in 1712, when a marble bust of Cocceius was erected in a Leyden church. An obstinate Voetian, Pastor Fruytier of Rotterdam, was grievously offended at this proceeding, and published a controversial pamphlet full of the most bitter reproaches and accusations against the Cocceians, which, energetically replied to by the accused, was much more hurtful than useful to the interests of the Voetians. At last a favourable hearing was given to a word of peace which a highly respected Voetian, the venerable preacher of eighty years of age, J. Mor. Mommers, addressed to the parties engaged in the controversy. He published in A.D. 1738, under the title of “Eubulus,” a tract in which he proved that neither Cocceius himself nor his most distinguished adherents had in any essential point departed from the faith of the Reformed church, and that from them, therefore, in spite of all differences that had since arisen, the hand of fellowship should not be withheld. In consequence of this, the magistrates of Gröningen first of all decided, that forthwith, in filling up vacant pastorates, a Cocceian and Voetian should be appointed alternately; a principle which gradually became the practice throughout the whole country. At the same time also care was now taken that in the theological faculties both schools should have equal representation. But meanwhile also new departures had been made in each of the two parties. Among the Voetians, after the pattern formerly given them by Teellinck (§ 162, 4), followed up by the Frisian preacher Theod. Brakel, died A.D. 1669, and further developed by Jodocus von Lodenstein of Utrecht, died A.D. 1677, mysticism had made considerable progress; and the Cocceians, in the person of Hermann Witsius, drew more closely toward the pietism of the Voetians and the Lutherans. The most distinguished representative of this conciliatory party was F. A. Lampe of Detmold, afterwards professor in Utrecht, previously and subsequently pastor in Bremen, in high repute in his church as a hymn-writer, but best known by his commentary on John.—These conciliatory measures were frustrated by the publication, in A.D. 1740, of a work by Schortinghuis of Gröningen, which pronounced the Scriptures unintelligible and useless to the natural man, but made fruitful to the regenerate and elect by the immediate enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, evidenced by deep groanings and convulsive writhings. It was condemned by all the orthodox. The author now confined himself to his pastorate, where he was richly blessed. He died in A.D. 1750. His notions spread like an epidemic, till stamped out by the united efforts of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities in A.D. 1752.

§ 169.4. Methodism.—In the episcopal church of England the living power of the gospel had evaporated into the formalism of scholastic learning and a mechanical ritualism. A reaction was set on foot by John Wesley, born A.D. 1703, a young man of deep religious earnestness and fervent zeal for the salvation of souls. During his course at Oxford, in A.D. 1729, along with some friends, including his brother Charles, he founded a society to promote pious living.[509] Those thus leagued together were scornfully called Methodists. From A.D. 1732, George Whitefield, born in A.D. 1714, a youth burning with zeal for his own and his fellow men’s salvation, wrought enthusiastically along with them. In A.D. 1735 the brothers Wesley went to America to labour for the conversion of the Indians in Georgia. On board ship they met Nitschmann, and in Savannah Spangenberg, who exercised a powerful influence over them. John Wesley accepted a pastorate in Savannah, but encountered so many hindrances, that he decided to return to England in A.D. 1738. Whitefield had just sailed for America, but returned that same year. Meanwhile Wesley visited Marienborn and Herrnhut, and so became personally acquainted with Zinzendorf. He did not feel thoroughly satisfied, and so declined to join the society. On his return he began, along with Whitefield, the great work of his life. In many cities they founded religious societies, preached daily to immense crowds in Anglican churches, and when the churches were refused, in the open air, often to 20,000 or even 30,000 hearers. They sought to arouse careless sinners by all the terrors of the law and the horrors of hell, and by a thorough repentance to bring about immediate conversion. An immense number of hardened sinners, mostly of the lower orders, were thus awakened and brought to repentance amid shrieks and convulsions. Whitefield, who divided his attentions between England and America, delivered in thirty-four years 18,000 sermons; Wesley, who survived his younger companion by twenty-one years, dying in A.D. 1791, and was wont to say the world was his parish, delivered still more. Their association with the Moravians had been broken off in A.D. 1740. To the latter, not only was the Methodists’ style of preaching objectionable, but also their doctrine of “Christian perfection,” according to which the true, regenerate Christian can and must reach a perfect holiness of life, not indeed free from temptation and error, but from all sins of weakness and sinful lusts. Wesley in turn accused the Herrnhuters of a dangerous tendency toward the errors of the quietists and antinomians. Zinzendorf came himself to London to remove the misunderstanding, but did not succeed. The great Methodist leaders were themselves separated from one another in A.D. 1741. Whitefield’s doctrine of grace and election was Calvinistic; Wesley’s Arminian.—From A.D. 1748 the Countess of Huntingdon attached herself to the Methodists, and secured an entrance for their preaching into aristocratic circles. With all her humility and self-sacrifice she remained aristocrat enough to insist on being head and organizer. Seeing she could not play this rôle with Wesley, she attached herself closely to Whitefield. He became her domestic chaplain, and with other clergymen accompanied her on her travels. Wherever she went she posed as a “queen of the Methodists,” and was allowed to preach and carry on pastoral work. She built sixty-six chapels, and in A.D. 1768 founded a seminary for training preachers at Trevecca in Wales, under the oversight of the able and gentle John Fletcher, reserving supreme control to herself. After Whitefield’s death, in A.D. 1770, the opposition between the Calvinistic followers of Whitefield and the Arminian Wesleyans burst out in a much more violent form. Fletcher and his likeminded fellow labourers were charged with teaching the horrible heresy of the universality of grace, and were on that account discharged by the countess from the seminary of Trevecca. They now joined Wesley, around whom the great majority of the Methodists had gathered.

§ 169.5. The Methodists did not wish to separate from the episcopal church, but to work as a leaven within it. Whitefield was able to maintain this connexion by the aid of his aristocratic countess and her relationship with the higher clergy; but Wesley, spurning such aid, and trusting to his great powers of organization, felt driven more and more to set up an independent society. When the churches were closed against him and his fellow workers, and preaching in the open air was forbidden, he built chapels for himself.[510] The first was opened in Bristol, in A.D. 1739. When his ordained associates were too few for the work, he obtained the assistance of lay preachers. He founded two kinds of religious societies: The united societies embraced all, the band societies only the tried and proved of his followers. Then he divided the united societies again into classes of from ten to twenty persons each, and the class-leaders were required to give accurate accounts of the spiritual condition and progress of those under their care. Each member of the united as well as the band societies held a society ticket, which had to be renewed quarterly. The outward affairs of the societies were managed by stewards, who also took care of the poor. A number of local societies constituted a circuit with a superintendent and several itinerant preachers.[511] Wesley superintended all the departments of oversight, administration, and arrangement, supported from A.D. 1744 by an annual conference. Daily preaching and devotional exercises in the chapels, weekly class-meetings, monthly watchnights, quarterly fasts and lovefeasts, an annual service for the renewing of the covenant, and a great multiplication of prayer-meetings, gave a special character to Methodistic piety. Charles Wesley composed hymns for their services. They carefully avoided collision with the services of the state church. The American Methodists, who had been up to this time supplied by Wesley with itinerant missionaries, in A.D. 1784, after the War of Independence, gave vigorous expression to their wish for a more independent ecclesiastical constitution, which led Wesley, in opposition to all right order, to ordain for them by his own hand several preachers, and to appoint, in the person of Thomas Coke, a superintendent, who assumed in America the title of bishop. Coke became the founder of the Methodist Episcopal Church of America, which soon outstripped all other denominations in its zeal for the conversion of sinners, and in consequent success. The breach with the mother church was completed by the adoption of a creed in which the Thirty-nine Articles were reduced to twenty-five. At the last conference presided over by Wesley, A.D. 1790, it was announced that they had in Britain 119 circuits, 313 preachers, and in the United States 97 circuits and 198 preachers. After Wesley’s death, in A.D. 1791, his autocratic supremacy devolved, in accordance with the Methodist “Magna Charta,” the Deed of Declaration of A.D. 1784, upon a fixed conference of 100 members, but its hierarchical organization has been the cause of many subsequent splits and divisions.[512]

§ 169.6. Theological Literature—Clericus, of Amsterdam, died A.D. 1736, an Arminian divine, distinguished himself in biblical criticism, hermeneutics, exegesis, and church history. J. J. Wettstein was in A.D. 1730 deposed for heresy, and died in A.D. 1754 as professor at the Remonstrant seminary at Amsterdam. His critical edition of the N.T. of A.D. 1751 had a great reputation. Schultens of Leyden, died A.D. 1750, introduced a new era for O.T. philology by the comparative study of related dialects, especially Arabic. He wrote commentaries on Job and Proverbs. Of the Cocceian exegetes we mention, Lampe of Bremen, died A.D. 1729, “Com. on John,” three vols., etc., and J. Marck of Leyden, died A.D. 1731, “Com. on Minor Prophets.” In biblical antiquity, Reland of Utrecht, died A.D. 1718, wrote “Palæstina ex vett. monum. Illustr. Antiquitt. ss.;” in ecclesiastical antiquity, Bingham, died A.D. 1723, “Origines Ecclest.; or, Antiquities of the Christian Church,” ten vols., 1724, a masterpiece not yet superseded. Of English apologists who wrote against the deists, Leland, died A.D. 1766, “Advantage and Necessity of the Christian Revelation;” Stackhouse, died A.D. 1752, “History of the Bible.” Of dogmatists, Stapfer of Bern, died A.D. 1775, and Wyttenbach of Marburg, died A.D. 1779, who followed the Wolffian method. Among church historians, J. A. Turretin of Geneva, died A.D. 1757, and Herm. Venema of Franeker, died A.D. 1787.—The most celebrated of the writers of sacred songs in the English language was the Congregationalist preacher Isaac Watts, died A.D. 1748, whose “Hymns and Spiritual Songs,” which first appeared in A.D. 1707, still hold their place in the hymnbooks of all denominations, and have largely contributed to overthrow the Reformed prejudice against using any other than biblical psalms in the public service of praise.

§ 170. NEW SECTS AND FANATICS.

The pietism of the eighteenth century, like the Reformation of the sixteenth, was followed by the appearance of all sorts of fanatics and extremists. The converted were collected into little companies, which, as ecclesiolæ in ecclesia, preserved the living flame amid prevailing darkness, and out of these arose separatists who spoke of the church as Babylon, regarded its ordinances impure, and its preaching a mere jingle of words. They obtained their spiritual nourishment from the mystical and theosophical writings of Böhme, Gichtel, Guyon, Poiret, etc. Their chief centre was Wetterau, where, in the house of Count Casimir von Berleburg, all persecuted pietists, separatists, fanatics, and sectaries found refuge. The count chose from them his court officials and personal servants, although he himself belonged to the national Reformed church. There was scarcely a district in Protestant Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands where there were not groups of such separatists; some mere harmless enthusiasts, others circulated pestiferous and immoral doctrines. Quite apart from pietism Swedenborgianism made its appearance, claiming to have a new revelation. Of the older sects the Baptists and the Quakers sent off new swarms, and even predestinationism gave rise to a form of mysticism allied to pantheism.

§ 170.1. Fanatics and Separatists in Germany.—Juliana von Asseburg, a young lady highly esteemed in Magdeburg for her piety, declared that from her seventh year she had visions and revelations, especially about the millennium. She found a zealous supporter in Dr. J. W. Petersen, superintendent of Lüneburg. After his marriage with Eleonore von Merlau, who had similar revelations, he proclaimed by word and writing a fantastic chiliasm and the restitution of all things. He was deposed in A.D. 1692, and died in A.D. 1727.[513] Henry Horche, professor of theology at Herborn, was the originator of a similar movement in the Reformed church. He founded several Philadelphian societies (§ 163, 9) in Hesse, and composed a “mystical and prophetical bible,” the so called “Marburg Bible,” A.D. 1712. Of other fanatical preachers of that period one of the most prominent was Hochmann, a student of law expelled from Halle for his extravagances, a man of ability and eloquence, and highly esteemed by Tersteegen. Driven from place to place, he at last found refuge at Berleburg, and died there in A.D. 1721. In Württemberg the pious court chaplain, Hedinger, of Stuttgart, died A.D. 1703, was the father of pietism and separatism. The most famous of his followers were Gruber and Rock, who, driven from Württemberg, settled with other separatists at Wetterau, renouncing the use of the sacraments and public worship. Of those gathered together in the court of Count Casimir, the most eminent were Dr. Carl, his physician, the French mystic Marsay, and J. H. Haug, who had been expelled from Strassburg, a proficient in the oriental languages. They issued a great number of mystical works, chief of all the Berleburg Bible, in eight vols., 1726-1742, of which Haug was the principal author. Its exposition proceeded in accordance with the threefold sense; it vehemently contended against the church doctrine of justification, against the confessional writings, the clerical order, the dead church, etc. It showed occasionally profound insight, and made brilliant remarks, but contained also many trivialities and absurdities. The mysticism which is prominent in this work lacks originality, and is compiled from the mystico-theosophical writings of all ages from Origen down to Madame Guyon.

§ 170.2. The Inspired Societies in Wetterau.—After the unfortunate issue of the Camisard War in A.D. 1705 (§ 153, 4) the chief of the prophets of the Cevennes fled to England. They were at first well received, but were afterwards excommunicated and cast into prison. In A.D. 1711 several of them went to the Netherlands, and thence made their way into Germany. Three brothers, students at Halle, named Pott, adopted their notion of the gift of inspiration, and introduced it into Wetterau in A.D. 1714. Gruber and Rock, the leaders of the separatists there, were at first opposed to the doctrine, but were overpowered by the Spirit, and soon became its most enthusiastic champions. Prayer-meetings were organized, immense lovefeasts were held, and by itinerant brethren an ecclesia ambulatoria was set on foot, by which spiritual nourishment was brought to believers scattered over the land and the children of the prophets were gathered from all countries. The “utterances” given forth in ecstasy were calls to repentance, to prayer, to the imitation of Christ, revelations of the divine will in matters affecting the communities, proclamations of the near approach of the Divine judgment upon a depraved church and world, but without fanatical-sensual chiliasm. Also, except in the contempt of the sacraments, they held by the essentials of the church doctrine. In A.D. 1715 a split occurred between the true and the false among the inspired. The true maintained a formal constitution, and in A.D. 1716 excluded all who would not submit to that discipline. By A.D. 1719 only Rock claimed the gift of inspiration, and did so till his death in A.D. 1749. Gruber died in A.D. 1728, and with him a pillar of the society fell. Rock was the only remaining prop. A new era of their history begins with their intercourse with the Herrnhuters. Zinzendorf sent them a deputation in A.D. 1730, and paid them a visit in person at Berleberg [Berleburg]. Rock’s profound Christian personality made a deep impression upon him. But he was offended at their contempt of the sacraments, and at the convulsive character of their utterances. This, however, did not hinder him from expressing his reverence for their able leader, who in return visited Zinzendorf at Herrnhut in A.D. 1732. In the interests of his own society Zinzendorf shrank from identifying himself with those of Wetterau. Rock denounced him as a new Babylon-botcher, and he retaliated by calling Rock a false prophet. When the Herrnhuters were driven from Wetterau in A.D. 1750 (§ 168, 3, 7), the inspired communities entered on their inheritance. But with Rock’s death in A.D. 1749 prophecy had ceased among them. They sank more and more into insignificance, until the revival of spiritual life, A.D. 1816-1821, brought them into prominence again. Government interference drove most of them to America.

§ 170.3. Quite a peculiar importance belongs to J. C. Dippel, theologian, physician, alchemist, discoverer of Prussian blue and oleum dippelii, at first an orthodox opponent of pietism, then, through Gottfr. Arnold’s influence, an adherent of the pietists, and ultimately of the separatists. In A.D. 1697, under the name of Christianus Democritus, he began to write in a scoffing tone of all orthodox Christianity, with a strange blending of mysticism and rationalism, but without any trace profound Christian experience. Persecuted on every hand, exiled or imprisoned, he went hither and thither through Germany, Holland, Denmark, and Sweden, and found a refuge at last at Berleberg [Berleburg] in A.D. 1729. Here he came in contact with the inspired, who did everything in their power to win him over; but he declared that he would rather give himself to the devil than to this Spirit of God. He was long intimate with Zinzendorf, but afterwards poured out upon him the bitterest abuse. He died in the count’s castle at Berleberg [Berleburg] in A.D. 1734.[514]

§ 170.4. Separatists of Immoral Tendency.—One of the worst was the Buttlar sect, founded by Eva von Buttlar, a native of Hesse, who had married a French refugee, lived gaily for ten years at the court of Eisenach, and then joined the pietists and became a rigid separatist. Separated from her husband, she associated with the licentiate Winter, and founded a Philadelphian society at Allendorf in A.D. 1702, where the foulest immoralities were practised. Eva herself was reverenced as the door of paradise, the new Jerusalem, the mother of all, Sophia come from heaven, the new Eve, and the incarnation of the Spirit. Winter was the incarnation of the Father, and their son Appenfeller the incarnation of the Son. They pronounced marriage sinful; sensual lusts must be slain in spiritual communion, then even carnal association is holy. Eva lived with all the men of the sect in the most shameless adultery. So did also the other women of the community. Expelled from Allendorf after a stay of six weeks, they sought unsuccessfully to gain a footing in various places. At Cologne they went over to the Catholic church. Their immoralities reached their climax at Lüde near Pyrmont. Winter was sentenced to death in A.D. 1706, but was let off with scourging. Eva escaped the same punishment by flight, and continued her evil practices unchecked for another year. She afterwards returned to Altona, where with her followers leading outwardly an honourable life, she attached herself to the Lutheran church, and died, honoured and esteemed, in A.D. 1717.—In a similar way arose in A.D. 1739 the Bordelum sect, founded at Bordelum by the licentiates Borsenius and Bär; and the Brüggeler sect, at Brüggeler in Canton Bern, where in A.D. 1748 the brothers Kohler gave themselves out as the two witnesses (Rev. xi.). Of a like nature too was the sect of Zionites at Ronsdorf in the Duchy of Berg. Elias Eller, a manufacturer at Elberfeld, excited by mystical writings, married in A.D. 1725 a rich old widow, but soon found more pleasure in a handsome young lady, Anna von Buchel, who by a nervous sympathetic infection was driven into prophetic ecstasy. She proclaimed the speedy arrival of the millennium; Eller identified her with the mother of the man-child (Rev. xii. 1). When his wife had pined away through jealousy and neglect and died, he married Buchel. The first child she bore him was a girl, and the second, a boy, soon died. When a strong opposition arose in Elberfeld against the sect, he, along with his followers, founded Ronsdorf, as a New Zion, in A.D. 1737. The colony obtained civil rights, and Eller was made burgomaster. Anna having died in A.D. 1744, Eller gave his colony a new mother, and practised every manner of deceit and tyranny. After the infatuation had lasted a long time, the eyes of the Reformed pastor Schleiermacher, grandfather of the famous theologian, were at last opened. By flight to the Netherlands he escaped the fate of another revolter, whom Eller persuaded the authorities at Düsseldorf to put to death as a sorcerer. Every complaint against himself was quashed by Eller’s bribery of the officials. After his death in A.D. 1750 his stepson continued this Zion game for a long time.

§ 170.5. Swedenborgianism.—Emanuel von Swedenborg was born at Stockholm, in A.D. 1688, son of the strict Lutheran bishop of West Gothland, Jasper Swedberg. He was appointed assessor of the School of Mines at Stockholm, and soon showed himself to be a man of encyclopædic information and of speculative ability. After long examination of the secrets of nature, in a condition of magnetic ecstasy, in which he thought that he had intercourse with spirits, sometimes in heaven, sometimes in hell, he became convinced, in A.D. 1743, that he was called by these revelations to restore corrupted Christianity by founding a church of the New Jerusalem as the finally perfected church. He published the apocalyptic revelations as a new gospel: “Arcana Cœlestia in Scr. s. Detecta,” in seven vols.; “Vera Chr. Rel.,” two vols. After his death, in A.D. 1772, his “Vera Christiana Religio” was translated into Swedish, but his views never got much hold in his native country. They spread more widely in England, where John Clowes, rector of St. John’s Church, Manchester, translated his writings, and himself wrote largely in their exposition and commendation. Separate congregations with their own ministers, and forms of worship, sprang up through England in A.D. 1788, and soon there were as many as fifty throughout the country. From England the New Church spread to America.—In Germany it was specially throughout Württemberg that it found adherents. There, in A.D. 1765, Oetinger (§ 171, 9) recognised Swedenborg’s revelations, and introduced many elements from them into his theosophical system.—Swedenborg’s religious system was speculative mysticism, with a physical basis and rationalizing results. The aim of religion with him is the opening of an intimate correspondence between the spiritual world and man, and giving an insight into the mystery of the connexion between the two. The Bible (excluding the apostolic epistles, as merely expository), pre-eminently the Apocalypse, is recognised by him as God’s word; to be studied, however, not in its literal but in its spiritual or inner sense. Of the church dogmas there is not one which he did not either set aside or rationalistically explain away. He denounces in the strongest terms the church doctrine of the Trinity. God is with him only one Person, who manifests Himself in three different forms: the Father is the principle of the manifesting God; the Son, the manifested form; the Spirit, the manifested activity. The purpose of the manifestation of Christ is the uniting of the human and Divine; redemption is nothing more than the combating and overcoming of the evil spirits. But angels and devils are spirits of dead men glorified and damned. He did not believe in a resurrection of the flesh, but maintained that the spiritual form of the body endures after death. The second coming of Christ will not be personal and visible, but spiritual through a revelation of the spiritual sense of Holy Scripture, and is realized by the founding of the church of the New Jerusalem.[515]

§ 170.6. New Baptist Sects (§ 163, 3).—In Wetterau about A.D. 1708 an anabaptist sect arose called Dippers, because they did not recognise infant baptism and insisted upon the complete immersion of adult believers. They appeared in Pennsylvania in A.D. 1719, and founded settlements in other states. Of the “perfect” they required absolute separation from all worldly practices and enjoyments and a simple, apostolic style of dress. To baptism and the Lord’s supper they added washing the feet and the fraternal kiss and anointing the sick. The Seventh-day Baptists observe the seventh instead of the first day of the week, and enjoin on the “perfect” celibacy and the community of goods. New sects from England continued to spread over America. Of these were the Seed or Sucker Baptists, who identified the non-elect with the seed of the serpent, and on account of their doctrine of predestination regarded all instruction and care of children useless. A similar predestinarian exaggeration is seen in the Hard-shell Baptists, who denounce all home and foreign missions as running counter to the Divine sovereignty. Many, sometimes called Campbellites from their founder, reject any party name, claiming to be simply Christians, and acknowledge only so much in Scripture as is expressly declared to be “the word of the Lord.” The Six-Principles-Baptists limit their creed to the six articles of Hebrews vi. 1, 2. The brothers Haldane, about the middle of the eighteenth century, founded in Scotland the Baptist sect of Haldanites, which has with great energy applied itself to the practical cultivation of the Christian life.—Continuation, §§ 208, 1; 211, 3.

§ 170.7. New Quaker Sects.—The Jumpers, who sprang up among the Methodists of Cornwall about A.D. 1760, are in principle closely allied to the early Quakers (§ 163, 4). They leaped and danced after the style of David before the ark and uttered inarticulate howls. They settled in America, where they have adherents still.—The Shakers originated from the prophets of the Cevennes who fled to England in A.D. 1705. They converted a Quaker family at Bolton in Lancashire named Wardley, and the community soon grew. In A.D. 1758 Anna Lee, wife of a farrier Stanley, joined the society, and, as the apocalyptic bride, inaugurated the millennium. She taught that the root of all sin was the relationship of the sexes. Maltreated by the mob, she emigrated to America, along with thirty companions, in A.D. 1774. Though persecuted here also, the sect increased and formed in the State of New York the Millennial Church or United Society of Believers. Anna died in A.D. 1784; but her prophets declared that she had merely laid aside the earthly garb and assumed the heavenly, so that only then the veneration of “Mother Anna” came into force. As Christ is the Son of the eternal Wisdom, Anna is the daughter; as Christ is the second Adam, she is the second Eve, and spiritual mother of believers as Christ is their father. Celibacy, community of goods, common labour (chiefly gardening), as a pleasure, not a burden, common domestic life as brothers and sisters, and constant intercourse with the spirit world, are the main points in her doctrine. By the addition of voluntary proselytes and the adoption of poor helpless children the sect has grown, till now it numbers 3,000 or 4,000 souls in eighteen villages. The capital is New Lebanon in the State of New York. The name Shakers was given them from the quivering motion of body in their solemn dances. In their services they march about singing “On to heaven we will be going,” “March heavenward, yea, victorious band,” etc. Like the Quakers (§ 163, 6) they have neither a ministry nor sacraments, and their whole manner of life is modelled on that of the Quakers. The purity of the relation of brothers and sisters has always been free from suspicion.[516]

§ 170.8. Predestinarian-Mystical Sects.—The Hebræans, founded by Verschoor, a licentiate of the Reformed church of Holland deposed under suspicion of Spinozist views, in the end of the seventeenth century, hold it indispensably necessary to read the word of God in the original. They were fatalists, and maintained that the elect could commit no sin. True faith consisted in believing this doctrine of their own sinlessness. About the same time sprang up the Hattemists, followers of Pontiaan von Hattem, a preacher deposed for heresy, with fatalistic views like the Hebræans, but with a strong vein of pantheistic mysticism. True piety consisted in the believer resting in God in a purely passive manner, and letting God alone care for him. The two sects united under the name of Hattemists, and continued to exist in Holland and Zealand till about A.D. 1760.

§ 171. RELIGION, THEOLOGY, AND LITERATURE OF THE “ILLUMINATION.”[517]

In England during the first half of the century deism had still several active propagandists, and throughout the whole century efforts, not altogether unsuccessful, were made to spread Unitarian views. From the middle of the century, when the English deistic unbelief had died out, the “Illumination,” under the name of rationalism, found an entrance into Germany. Arminian pelagianism, recommended by brilliant scholarship, English deism, spread by translations and refutations, and French naturalism, introduced by a great and much honoured king, were the outward factors in securing this result. The freemason lodges, carried into Germany from England, a relic of mediævalism, aided the movement by their endeavour after a universal religion of a moral and practical kind. The inward factors were the Wolffian philosophy (§ 167, 3), the popular philosophy, and the pietism, with its step-father separatism (§ 170), which immediately prepared the soil for the sowing of rationalism. Orthodoxy, too, with its formulas that had been outlived, contributed to the same end. German rationalism is essentially distinguished from Deism and Naturalism by not breaking completely with the Bible and the church, but eviscerating both by its theories of accommodation and by its exaggerated representations of the limitations of the age in which the books of Scripture were written and the doctrines of Christianity were formulated. It thus treats the Bible as an important document, and the church as a useful religious institution. Over against rationalism arose supernaturalism, appealing directly to revelation. It was a dilution of the old church faith by the addition of more or less of the water of rationalism. Its reaction was therefore weak and vacillating. The temporary success of the vulgar rationalism lay, not in its own inherent strength, but in the correspondence that existed between it and the prevailing spirit of the age. The philosophy, however, as well as the national literature of the Germans, now began a victorious struggle against these tendencies, and though itself often indifferent and even hostile to Christianity, it recognised in Christ a school-master. Pestalozzi performed a similar service to popular education by his attempts to reform effete systems.

§ 171.1. Deism, Arianism, and Unitarianism in the English Church.

1. The Deists (§ 164, 3). With Locke’s philosophy (§ 164, 2) deism entered on a new stage of its development. It is henceforth vindicated on the ground of its reasonableness. The most notable deists of this age were John Toland, an Irishman, first Catholic, then Arminian, died A.D. 1722, author of “Christianity not Mysterious,” “Nazarenus, or Jewish, Gentile, and Mohametan Christianity,” etc. The Earl of Shaftesbury, died A.D. 1713, wrote “Characteristics of Men,” etc. Anthony Collins, J.P. in Essex, died A.D. 1729, author of “Priestcraft in Perfection,” “Discourse of Freethinking,” etc. Thomas Woolston, fellow of Cambridge, died in prison in A.D. 1733, author of “Discourse on the Miracles of the Saviour.” Mandeville of Dort, physician in London, died A.D. 1733, wrote “Free Thoughts on Religion.” Matthew Tindal, professor of law in Oxford, died A.D. 1733, wrote “Christianity as Old as the Creation.” Thomas Morgan, nonconformist minister, deposed as an Arian, then a physician, died A.D. 1743, wrote “The Moral Philosopher.” Thomas Chubb, glover and tallow-chandler in Salisbury, died A.D. 1747, author of popular compilations, “The True Gospel of Jesus Christ.” Viscount Bolingbroke, statesman, charged with high treason and pardoned, died A.D. 1751, writings entitled, “Philosophical Works.”—Along with the deists as an opponent of positive Christianity may be classed the famous historian and sceptic David Hume, librarian in Edinburgh, died A.D. 1776, author of “Inquiry concerning the Human Understanding,” “Natural History of Religion,” “Dialogues concerning Natural Religion,” etc.[518]—Deism never made way among the people, and no attempt was made to form a sect. Among the numerous opponents of deism these are chief: Samuel Clarke, died A.D. 1729; Thomas Sherlock, Bishop of London, died A.D. 1761; Chandler, Bishop of Durham, died A.D. 1750; Leland, Presbyterian minister in Dublin, died A.D. 1766, wrote “View of Principal Deistic Writers,” three vols., 1754; Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester, died A.D. 1779; Nath. Lardner, dissenting minister, died A.D. 1768, wrote “Credibility of the Gospel History,” seventeen vols., 1727-1757. With these may be ranked the famous pulpit orator of the Reformed church of France, Saurin, died A.D. 1730, author of Discours hist., crit., theol., sur les Evénements les plus remarkables du V. et N.T.

2. The So-called Arians. In the beginning of the century several distinguished theologians of the Anglican church sought to give currency to an Arian doctrine of the Trinity. Most conspicuous was Wm. Whiston, a distinguished mathematician, physicist, and astronomer of the school of Sir Isaac Newton, and his successor in the mathematical chair at Cambridge. Deprived of this office in A.D. 1708 for spreading his heterodox views, he issued in A.D. 1711 a five-volume work, “Primitive Christianity Revived,” in which he justified his Arian doctrine of the Trinity as primitive and as taught by the ante-Nicene Fathers, and insisted upon augmenting the N.T. canon by the addition of twenty-nine books of the apostolic and other Fathers, including the apostolic “Constitutions” and “Recognitions” which he maintained were genuine works of Clement. Subsequently he adopted Baptist views, and lost himself in fantastic chiliastic speculations. He died A.D. 1752. More sensible and moderate was Samuel Clarke, also distinguished as a mathematician of Newton’s school and as a classical philologist. As an opponent of deism in sermons and treatises he had gained a high reputation as a theologian, when his work, “The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity,” in A.D. 1712, led to his being accused of Arianism by convocation; but by conciliatory explanations he succeeded in retaining his office till his death in A.D. 1729. But the excitement caused by the publication of his work continued through several decades, and was everywhere the cause of division. His ablest apologist was Dan. Whitby, and his keenest opponent Dan. Waterland.

3. The Later Unitarians. The anti-trinitarian movement entered on a new stage in A.D. 1770. After Archdeacon Blackburne of London, in A.D. 1766, had started the idea, at first anonymously, in his “Confessional,” he joined in A.D. 1772 with other freethinkers, among whom was his son-in-law Theophilus Lindsey, in presenting to Parliament a petition with 250 signatures, asking to have the clergy of the Anglican church freed from the obligation of subscribing to the Thirty-nine Articles and the Liturgy, and to have the requirement limited to assent to the Scriptures. This prayer was rejected in the Lower House by 217 votes against 71. Lindsey now resigned his clerical office, announced his withdrawal from the Anglican church, founded and presided over a Unitarian congregation in London from A.D. 1774, and published a large number of controversial Unitarian tracts. He died in A.D. 1808. The celebrated chemist and physicist Joseph Priestley, A.D. 1733-1806, who had been a dissenting minister in Birmingham from A.D. 1780, joined the Unitarian movement in 1782, giving it a new impetus by his high scientific reputation. He wrote the “History of the Corruptions of Christianity,” and the “History of Early Opinions about Jesus Christ,” denying that there is any biblical foundation for the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, and seeking to show that it had been forced upon the church against her will from the Platonic philosophy. These and a whole series of other controversial writings occasioned great excitement, not only among theologians, but also among the English people of all ranks. At last the mob rose against him in A.D. 1791. His house and all his scientific collections and apparatus were burnt. He narrowly escaped with his life, and soon after settled in America, where he wrote a church history in four vols. Of his many English opponents the most eminent was Bishop Sam. Horsley, a distinguished mathematician and commentator on the works of Sir Isaac Newton.

§ 171.2. Freemasons.—The mediæval institution of freemasons (§ 104, 13) won much favour in England, especially after the Great Fire of London in A.D. 1666. The first step toward the formation of freemason lodges of the modern type was taken about the end of the sixteenth century, when men of distinction in other callings sought admission as honorary members. After the rebuilding of London and the completion of St. Paul’s in A.D. 1710, most of the lodges became defunct, and the four that continued to exist united in A.D. 1717 into one grand lodge in London, which, renouncing material masonry, assumed the task of rearing the temple of humanity. In A.D. 1721 the Rev. Mr. Anderson prepared a constitution for this reconstruction of a trade society into a universal brotherhood, according to which all “free masons” faithfully observing the moral law as well as all the claims of humanity and patriotism, came under obligation to profess the religion common to all good men, transcending all confessional differences, without any individual being thereby hindered from holding his own particular views. Although, in imitation of the older institution, all members by reason of their close connexion were bound to observe the strictest secrecy in regard to their masonic signs, rites of initiation and promotion, and forms of greeting, it is not properly a secret society, since the constitution was published in A.D. 1723, and members publicly acknowledge that they are such.—From London the new institute spread over all England and the colonies. Lodges were founded in Paris in A.D. 1725, in Hamburg in A.D. 1737, in Berlin in A.D. 1740. This last was raised in A.D. 1744 into a grand lodge, with Frederick II. as grand master. But soon troubles and disputes arose, which broke up the order about the end of the century. Rosicrucians (§ 160, 1) and alchemists, pretending to hold the secrets of occult science, Jesuits (§ 210, 1), with Catholic hierarchical tendencies, and “Illuminati” (§ 165, 13), with rationalistic and infidel tendencies, as well as adventurers of every sort, had made the lodges centres of quackery, juggling, and plots.[519]

§ 171.3. The German “Illumination.”

1. Its Precursors. One of the first of these, following in the footsteps of Kuntzen and Dippel, was J. Chr. Edelmann of Weissenfels, who died A.D. 1767. He began in A.D. 1735 the publication of an immense series of writings in a rough but powerful style, filled with bitter scorn for positive Christianity. He went from one sect to another, but never found what he sought. In A.D. 1741 he accepted Zinzendorf’s invitation, and stayed with the count for a long time. He next joined the Berleberg [Berleburg] separatists, because they despised the sacraments, and contributed to their Bible commentary, though Haug had to alter much of his work before it could be used. This and his contempt for prayer brought the connexion between him and the society to an end. He then led a vagabond life up and down through Germany. Edelmann regarded himself as a helper of providence, and at least a second Luther. Christianity he pronounced the most irrational of all religions; church history a conglomeration of immorality, lies, hypocrisy, and fanaticism; prophets and apostles, bedlamites; and even Christ by no means a perfect pattern and teacher. The world needs only one redemption—redemption from Christianity. Providence, virtue, and immortality are the only elements in religion. No less than 166 separate treatises came from his facile pen.—Laurence Schmidt of Wertheim in Baden, a scholar of Wolff, was author of the notorious “Wertheimer Bible Version,” which rendered Scripture language into the dialect of the eighteenth century, and eviscerated it of all positive doctrines of revelation. This book was confiscated by the authorities, and its author cast into prison.

§ 171.4.

1. The Age of Frederick the Great. Hostility to all positive Christianity spread from England and France into Germany. The writings of the English deists were translated and refuted, but mostly in so weak a style that the effect was the opposite of that intended. Whilst English deism with its air of thoroughness made way among the learned, the poison of frivolous French naturalism committed its ravages among the higher circles. The great king of Prussia Frederick II., A.D. 1740-1786, surrounded by French freethinkers Voltaire, D’Argens, La Metrie, etc., wished every man in his kingdom to be saved after his own fashion. In this he was quite earnest, although his personal animosity to all ecclesiastical and pietistic religion made him sometimes act harshly and unjustly. Thus, when Francke of Halle (son of the famous A. H. Francke) had exhorted his theological students to avoid the theatre, the king, designating him “hypocrite” Francke, ordered him to attend the theatre himself and have his attendance attested by the manager. His bitter hatred of all “priests” was directed mainly against their actual or supposed intolerance, hypocrisy, and priestly arrogance; and where he met with undoubted integrity, as in Gellert and Seb. Bach, or simple, earnest piety, as in General Ziethen, he was not slow in paying to it the merited tribute of hearty acknowledgment and respect. His own religion was a philosophical deism, from which he could thoroughly refute Holbach’s materialistic “Système de la Nature.”—Under the name of the German popular philosophy (Moses Mendelssohn, Garve, Eberhard, Platner, Steinbart, etc.), which started from the Wolffian philosophy, emptied of its Christian contents, there arose a weak, vapoury, and self-satisfied philosophizing on the part of the common human reason. Basedow was the reformer of pedagogy in the sense of the “Illumination,” after the style of Rousseau, and crying up his wares in the market made a great noise for a while, although Herder declared that he would not trust calves, far less men, to be educated by such a pedagogue. The “Universal German Library” of the Berlin publisher Nicolai, 106 vols. A.D. 1765-1792, was a literary Inquisition tribunal against all faith in revelation or the church. The “Illumination” in the domain of theology took the name of rationalism. Pietistic Halle cast its skin, and along with Berlin took front rank among the promoters of the “Illumination.” In the other universities champions of the new views soon appeared, and rationalistic pastors spread over all Germany, to preach only of moral improvement, or to teach from the pulpit about the laws of health, agriculture, gardening, natural science, etc. The old liturgies were mutilated, hymn-books revised after the barbarous tastes of the age, and songs of mere moral tendency substituted for those that spoke of Christ’s atonement. An ecclesiastical councillor, Lang of Regensburg, dispensed the communion with the words: “Eat this bread! The Spirit of devotion rest on you with His rich blessing! Drink a little wine! The virtue lies not in this wine; it lies in you, in the divine doctrine, and in God.” The Berlin provost, W. Alb. Teller, declared publicly: “The Jews ought on account of their faith in God, virtue, and immortality, to be regarded as genuine Christians.” C. Fr. Bahrdt, after he had been deposed for immorality from various clerical and academical offices, and was cast off by the theologians, sought to amuse the people with his wit as a taphouse-keeper in Halle, and died there of an infamous disease in A.D. 1792.

§ 171.5.

1. The Wöllner Reaction.—In vain did the Prussian government, after the death of Frederick the Great, under Frederick William II., A.D. 1786-1797, endeavour to restore the church to the enjoyment of its old exclusive rights by punishing every departure from its doctrines, and insisting that preaching should be in accordance with the Confession. At the instigation of the Rosicrucians (§ 160, 1) and of the minister Von Wöllner, a country pastor ennobled by the king, the Religious Edict of 1788 was issued, followed by a statement of severe penalties; then by a Schema Examinationis Candidatorum ss. Ministerii rite Instituendi; and in A.D. 1791, by a commission for examination under the Berlin chief consistory and all the provincial consistories, with full powers, not only over candidates, but also over all settled pastors. But notwithstanding all the energy with which he sought to carry out his edict, the minister could accomplish nothing in the face of public opinion, which favoured the resistance of the chief consistory. Only one deposition, that of Schulz of Gielsdorf, near Berlin, was effected, in A.D. 1792. Frederick William III., A.D. 1797-1840, dismissed Wöllner in A.D. 1798, and set aside the edict as only fostering hypocrisy and sham piety.

§ 171.6. The Transition Theology.—Four men, who endeavoured to maintain their own belief in revelation, did more than all others to prepare the way for rationalism: Ernesti of Leipzig, in the department of N.T. exegesis; Michaelis of Göttingen, in O.T. exegesis; Semler of Halle, in biblical and historical criticism; and Töllner of Frankfort-on-the-Oder, in dogmatics. J. A. Ernesti, A.D. 1707-1781, from A.D. 1734 rector of St. Thomas’ School, from A.D. 1742 professor at Leipzig, colleague to Chr. A. Crusius (§ 167, 3), was specially eminent as a classical scholar, and maintained his reputation in that department, even after becoming professor of theology in A.D. 1758. His Institutio Interpretis N.T., of A.D. 1761, made it an axiom of exegesis that the exposition of Scripture should be conducted precisely as that of any other book. But even in the domain of classical literature there must be an understanding of the author as a whole, and the expositor must have appreciation of the writer’s spirit, as well as have acquaintance with his language and the customs of his age. And just from Ernesti’s want of this, his treatise on biblical hermeneutics is rationalistic, and he became the father of rationalistic exegesis, though himself intending to hold firmly by the doctrine of inspiration and the creed of the church.—What Ernesti did for the N.T., J. D. Michaelis, A.D. 1717-1791, son of the pious and orthodox Chr. Bened. Michaelis, did for the O.T. He was from A.D. 1750 professor at Göttingen, a man of varied learning and wide influence. He publicly acknowledged that he had never experienced anything of the testimonium Sp. s. internum, and rested his proofs of the divinity of the Scriptures wholly on external evidences, e.g. miracles, prophecy, authenticity, etc., a spider’s web easily blown to pieces by the enemy. No one has ever excelled him in the art of foisting his own notions on the sacred authors and making them utter his favourite ideas. A conspicuous instance of this is his “Laws of Moses,” in six vols.—In a far greater measure than either Ernesti or Michaelis did J. Sol. Semler, A.D. 1725-1791, pupil of Baumgarten, and from A.D. 1751 professor at Halle, help on the cause of rationalism. He had grown up under the influence of Halle pietism in the profession of a customary Christianity, which he called his private religion, which contributed to his life a basis of genuine personal piety. But with a rare subtlety of reasoning as a man of science, endowed with rich scholarship, and without any wish to sever himself from Christianity, he undermined almost all the supports of the theology of the church. This he did by casting doubt on the genuineness of the biblical writings, by setting up a theory of inspiration and accommodation which admitted the presence of error, misunderstanding, and pious fraud in the Scriptures, by a style of exposition which put aside everything unattractive in the N.T. as “remnants of Judaism,” by a critical treatment of the history of the church and its doctrines, which represented the doctrines of the church as the result of blundering, misconception, and violence, etc. He was a voluminous author, leaving behind him no less than 171 writings. He sowed the wind, and reaped the whirlwind, by which he himself was driven along. He firmly withstood the installation of Bahrdt at Halle, opposed Basedow’s endeavours, applied himself eagerly to refute the “Wolfenbüttel Fragments” of Reimarus, edited by Lessing in 1774-1778, which represented Christianity as founded upon pure deceit and fraud, and defended even the edict of Wöllner. But the current was not thus to be stemmed, and Semler died broken-hearted at the sight of the heavy crop from his own sowing.—J. Gr. Töllner, A.D. 1724-1774, from A.D. 1756 professor at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, was in point of learning and influence by no means equal to those now named; yet he deserves a place alongside of them, as one who opened the door to rationalism in the department of dogmatics. He himself held fast to the belief in revelation, miracles, and prophecy, but he also regarded it as proved that God saves men by the revelation of nature; the revelation of Scripture is only a more sure and perfect means. He also examined the divine inspiration of Scripture, and found that the language and thoughts were the authors’ own, and that God was concerned in it in a manner that could not be more precisely determined. Finally, in treating of the active obedience of Christ, he gives such a representation of it as sets aside the doctrine of the church.

§ 171.7. The Rationalistic Theology.—From the school of these men, especially from that of Semler, went forth crowds of rationalists, who for seventy years held almost all the professorships and pastorates of Protestant Germany. At their head stands Bahrdt, A.D. 1741-1792, writer at first of orthodox handbooks, who, sinking deeper and deeper through vanity, want of character, and immorality, and following in the steps of Edelmann, wrote 102 vols., mostly of a scurrilous and blasphemous character. The rationalists, however, were generally of a nobler sort: Griesbach of Jena, A.D. 1745-1812, distinguished as textual critic of the N.T.; Teller of Berlin, published a lexicon to the N.T., which substituted “leading another life” for regeneration, “improvement” for sanctification, etc.; Koppe of Göttingen, and Rosenmüller of Leipzig wrote scholia on N.T., and Schulze and Bauer on the O.T. Of far greater value were the performances of J. G. Eichhorn of Göttingen, A.D. 1752-1827, and Bertholdt of Erlangen, A.D. 1774-1822, who wrote introductions to the O.T. and commentaries. In the department of church history, H. P. C. Henke of Helmstädt and the talented statesman, Von Spittler of Württemberg, wrote from the rationalistic standpoint. Steinbart and Eberhardt [Eberhard] wrote more in the style of the popular philosophy. The subtle-minded J. H. Tieftrunk, A.D. 1760-1837, professor of philosophy at Halle, introduced into theology the Kantian philosophy with its strict categories. Jerusalem, Zollikofer, and others did much to spread rationalistic views by their preaching.[520]

§ 171.8. Supernaturalism.—Abandoning the old orthodoxy without surrendering to rationalism, the supernaturalists sought to maintain their hold of the Scripture revelation. Many of them did so in a very uncertain way: their revelation had scarcely anything to reveal which was not already given by reason. Others, however, eagerly sought to preserve all essentially vital truths. Morus of Leipzig, Ernesti’s ablest student, Less of Göttingen, Döderlein of Jena, Seiler of Erlangen, and Nösselt of Halle, were all representatives of this school. More powerful opponents of rationalism appeared in Storr of Tübingen, A.D. 1746-1805, who could break a lance even with the philosopher of Königsberg, Knapp of Halle, and Reinhard of Dresden, the most famous preacher of his age. Reinhard’s sermon on the Reformation festival of A.D. 1800 created such enthusiasm in favour of the Lutheran doctrine of justification, that government issued an edict calling the attention of all pastors to it as a model. The most distinguished apologists were the mathematician Euler of St. Petersburg, the physiologist, botanist, geologist, and poet Haller of Zürich and the theologians Lilienthal of Königsberg and Kleuker of Kiel. The most zealous defender of the faith was the much abused Goeze of Hamburg, who fought for the palladium of Lutheran orthodoxy against his rationalistic colleagues, against the theatre, against Barth, Basedow, and such-like, against the “Wolfenbüttel Fragments,” against the “Sorrows of Werther,” etc. His polemic may have been over-violent, and he certainly was not a match for such an antagonist as Lessing; he was, however, by no means an obscurantist, ignoramus, fanatic, or hypocrite, but a man in solemn earnest in all he did. In the field of church history important services were rendered by Schröckh of Wittenberg and Walch of Göttingen, laborious investigators and compilers, Stäudlin and Planck of Göttingen, and Münter of Copenhagen.—Among English theologians of this tendency toward the end of the century, the most famous was Paley of Cambridge, A.D. 1743-1805, whose “Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy” and “Evidences of Christianity” were obligatory text-books in the university. His “Horæ Paulinæ” prove the credibility of the Acts of the Apostles from the epistles, and his “Natural Theology” demonstrates God’s being and attributes from nature.

§ 171.9. Mysticism and Theosophy.—Oetinger of Württemburg [Württemberg], the Magus of the South, A.D. 1702-1782, takes rank by himself. He was a pupil of Bengel (§ 167, 3), well grounded in Scripture, but also an admirer of Böhme and sympathising with the spiritualistic visions of Swedenborg. But amid all, with his biblical realism and his theosophy, which held corporeity to be the end of the ways of God, he was firmly rooted in the doctrines of Lutheran orthodoxy.—The best mystic of the Reformed church was J. Ph. Dutoit of Lausanne, A.D. 1721-1793, an enthusiastic admirer of Madame Guyon; he added to her quietist mysticism certain theosophical speculations on the original nature of Adam, the creation of woman, the fall, the necessity of the incarnation apart from the fall, the basing of the sinlessness of Christ upon the immaculate conception of his mother, etc. He gathered about him during his lifetime a large number of pious adherents, but after his death his theories were soon forgotten.

§ 171.10. The German Philosophy.—As Locke accomplished the descent from Bacon to deism and materialism, so Wolff effected the transition from Leibnitz to the popular philosophy. Kant, A.D. 1724-1804, saved philosophy from the baldness and self-sufficiency of Wolffianism, and pointed it to its proper element in the spiritual domain. Kant’s own philosophy stood wholly outside of Christianity, on the same platform with rationalistic theology. But by deeper digging in the soil it unearthed many a precious nugget, of whose existence the vulgar rationalism had never dreamed, without any intention of becoming a schoolmaster to lead to Christ. Kant showed the impossibility of a knowledge of the supernatural by means of pure reason, but admitted the ideas of God, freedom, and immortality as postulates of the practical reason and as constituting the principle of all religion, whose only content is the moral law. Christianity and the Bible are to remain the basis of popular instruction, but are to be expounded only in an ethical sense. While in sympathy with rationalism, he admits its baldness and self-sufficiency. His keen criticism of the pure reason, the profound knowledge of human weakness and corruption shown in his doctrine of radical evil, his categorical imperative of the moral law, were well fitted to awaken in more earnest minds a deep distrust of themselves, a modest estimate of the boasted excellences of their age, and a feeling that Christianity could alone meet their necessities.—F. H. Jacobi, A.D. 1743-1819, “with the heart a Christian, with the understanding a pagan,” as he characterized himself, took religion out of the region of mere reason into the depths of the universal feelings of the soul, and so awakened a positive aspiration.—J. G. Fichte, A.D. 1762-1814, transformed Kantianism, to which he at first adhered, into an idealistic science of knowledge, in which only the ego that posits itself appears as real, and the non-ego, only by its being posited by the ego; and thus the world and nature are only a reflex of the mind. But when, accused of atheism in A.D. 1798, he was expelled from his position in Jena, he changed his views, rushing from the verge of atheism into a mysticism approaching to Christianity. In his “Guide to a Blessed Life,” A.D. 1806, he delivered religion from being a mere servant to morals, and sought the blessedness of life in the loving surrender of one’s whole being to the universal Spirit, the full expression of which he found in John’s Gospel. Pauline Christianity, on the other hand, with its doctrine of sin and redemption, seemed to him a deterioration, and Christ Himself only the most complete representative of the incarnation of God repeated in all ages and in every pious man.—In the closing years of the century, Schelling brought forward his theory of identity, which was one of the most powerful instruments in introducing a new era.[521]

§ 171.11. The German National Literature.—When the powerful strain of the evangelical church hymn had well-nigh expired in the feeble lispings of Gellert’s sacred poetry, Klopstock began to chant the praises of the Messiah in a higher strain. But the pathos of his odes met with no response, and his “Messiah,” of which the first three cantos appeared in A.D. 1748, though received with unexampled enthusiasm, could do nothing to exorcise the spirit of unbelief, and was more praised than read. The theological standpoint of Lessing, A.D. 1729-1781, is set forth in one of his letters to his brother. “I despise the orthodox even more than you do, only I despise the clergy of the new style even more. What is the new-fashioned theology of those shallow pates compared with orthodoxy but as dung-water compared with dirty water? On this point we are at one, that our old religious system is false; but I cannot say with you that it is a patchwork of bunglers and half philosophers. I know nothing in the world upon which human ingenuity has been more subtly exercised than upon it. That religious system which is now offered in place of the old is a patchwork of bunglers and half philosophers.” He is offended at men hanging the concerns of eternity on the spider’s thread of external evidences, and so he was delighted to hurl the Wolfenbüttel “Fragments” at the heads of theologians and the Hamburg pastor Goeze, whom he loaded with contumely and scorn. Thoroughly characteristic too is the saying in the “Duplik:” That if God holding in his right hand all truth, and in his left hand the search after truth, subject to error through all eternity, were to offer him his choice, he would humbly say, “Father the left, for pure truth is indeed for thee alone.” In his “Nathan” only Judaism and Mohammedanism are represented by truly noble and ideal characters, while the chief representative of Christianity is a gloomy zealot, and the conclusion of the parable is that all three rings are counterfeit. In another work he views revelation as one of the stages in “The Education of the Human Race,” which loses its significance as soon as its purpose is served. In familiar conversation with Jacobi he frankly declared his acceptance of the doctrine of Spinoza: Ἓν καὶ πᾶν.[522] Wieland, A.D. 1733-1813, soon turned from his youthful zeal for ecclesiastical orthodoxy to the popular philosophy of the cultured man of the world. Herder, A.D. 1744-1803, with his enthusiastic appreciation of the poetical contents of the Bible, especially of the Old Testament, was not slow to point out the insipidity of its ordinary treatment. Goethe, A.D. 1749-1832, profoundly hated the vandalism of neology, delighted in “The Confessions of a Fair Soul” (§ 172, 2), had in earlier years sympathy with the Herrnhuters, but in the full intellectual vigour of his manhood thought he had no need of Christianity, which offended him by its demand for renunciation of self and the world. Schiller, A.D. 1759-1805, enthusiastically admiring everything noble, beautiful and good, misunderstood Christianity, and introduced into the hearts of the German people Kantian rationalism clothed in rich poetic garb. His lament on the downfall of the gods of Greece, even if not so intended by the poet himself, told not so much against orthodox Christianity as against poverty-stricken deism, which banished the God of Christianity from the world and set in his place the dead forces of nature. And if indeed he really thought that for religion’s sake he should confess to no religion, he has certainly in many profoundly Christian utterances given unconscious testimony to Christianity.—The Jacobi philosophy of feeling found poetic interpreters in Jean Paul Richter, A.D. 1763-1825, and Hebel, died A.D. 1826, in whom we find the same combination of pious sentiment which is drawn toward Christianity and the sceptical understanding which allied itself to the revolt against the common orthodoxy. J. H. Voss, a rough, powerful Dutch peasant, who in his “Luise” sketched the ideal of a brave rationalistic country parson, and, with the inexorable rigour of an inquisitor, hunted down the night birds of ignorance and oppression. But alongside of those children of the world stood two genuine sons of Luther, Matthias Claudius, A.D. 1740-1815, and J. G. Hamann, A.D. 1730-1788, the “Magus of the North” and the Elijah of his age, of whom Jean Paul said that his commas were planetary systems and his periods solar systems, to whom the philosopher Hemsterhuis erected in the garden of Princess Gallitzin a tablet with the inscription: “To the Jews a stumbling-block, to the Greeks foolishness.” With them may also be named two noble sons of the Reformed church, the physiognomist Lavater, A.D. 1741-1801, and the devout dreamer, Jung-Stilling, A.D. 1740-1817. The famous historian, John von Müller, A.D. 1752-1809, well deserves mention here, who more than any previous historian made Christ the centre and summit of all times; and also the no less famous statesman C. F. von Moser, the most German of the Germans of this century, who, with noble Christian heroism, in numerous political and patriotic tracts, battled against the prevailing social and political vices of his age.

§ 171.12. The great Swiss educationist Pestalozzi, A.D. 1746-1827, assumed toward the Bible, the church, and Christianity an attitude similar to that of the philosopher of Königsberg. The conviction of the necessity and wholesomeness of a biblical foundation in all popular education was rooted in his heart, and he clearly saw the shallowness of the popular philosophy, whether presented under the eccentric naturalism of Rousseau or the bald utilitarianism of Basedow. His whole life issued from the very sanctuary of true Christianity, as seen in his self-sacrificing efforts to save the lost, to strengthen the weak, and to preach to the poor by word and deed the gospel of the all-merciful God whose will it is that all should be saved. He began his career as an educationist in A.D. 1775 by receiving into his house deserted beggar children, and carried on his experiments in his educational institutions at Burgdorf till A.D. 1798, and at Isserten till A.D. 1804. His writings, which circulated far and wide, gained for his methods recognition and high approval.[523]

§ 172. CHURCH LIFE IN THE PERIOD OF THE “ILLUMINATION.”

The ancient faith of the church had even during this age of prevailing unbelief its seven thousand who refused to bow the knee to Baal. The German people were at heart firmly grounded in the Christianity of the Bible and the church, and where the pulpit failed had their spiritual wants supplied by the devout writings of earlier days. Where the modern vandalism of the “Illumination” had mutilated and watered down the books of praise, the old church songs lingered in the memories of fathers and mothers, and were sung with ardour at family worship. For many men of culture, who were more exposed to danger, the Society of the Brethren afforded a welcome refuge. But even among the most accomplished of the nation many stood firmly in the old paths. Lavater and Stilling, Haller and Euler, the two Mosers, father and son, John von Müller and his brother J. G. Müller, are not by any means the only, but merely the best known, of such true sons of the church. In Württemberg and Berg, where religious life was most vigorous, religious sects were formed with new theological views which made a deep impression on the character and habits of the people. Also toward the end of the century an awakened zeal in home and foreign missions was the prelude of the glorious enterprises of our own days.

§ 172.1. The Hymnbook and Church Music.—Klopstock, followed by Cramer and Schlegel, introduced the vandalism of altering the old church hymns to suit modern tastes and views. But a few, like Herder and Schubert, raised their voices against such philistinism. The “Illuminist” alterations were unutterably prosaic, and the old pathos and poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth century hymns were ruthlessly sacrificed. The spiritual songs of the noble and pious Gellert are by far the best productions of this period.—Church Music too now reached its lowest ebb. The old chorales were altered into modern forms. A multitude of new, unpopular melodies, difficult of comprehension, with a bald school tone, were introduced; the last trace of the old rhythm disappeared, and a weary monotony began to prevail, in which all force and freshness were lost. As a substitute, secular preludes, interludes, and concluding pieces were brought in. The people often entered the churches during the playing of operatic overtures, and were dismissed amid the noise of a march or waltz. The church ceased to be the patron and promoter of music; the theatre and concert room took its place. The opera style thoroughly depraved the oratorio. For festival occasions, cantatas in a purely secular, effeminate style were composed. A true ecclesiastical music no longer existed, so that even Winterfeld closed his history of church music with Seb. Bach. It was, if possible, still worse with the mass music of the Roman Catholic church. Palestrina’s earnest and capable school was completely lost sight of under the sprightly and frivolous opera style, and with the organ still more mischief was done than in the Protestant church.

§ 172.2. Religious Characters.—The pastor of Ban de la Roche in Steinthal of Alsace, “the saint of the Protestant church,” J. Fr. Oberlin, A.D. 1740-1826, deserves a high place of honour. During a sixty years’ pastorate “Father Oberlin” raised his poverty-stricken flock to a position of industrial prosperity, and changed the barren Steinthal into a patriarchal paradise. The same may be said of a noble Christian woman of that age, Sus. Cath. von Klettenberg, Lavater’s “Cordata,” Goethe’s “Fair Soul,” whose genuine confessions are wrought into “Wilhelm Meister,” the centre of a beautiful Christian circle in Frankfort, where the young Goethe received religious impressions that were never wholly forgotten.—Community of religious yearnings brought together pious Protestants and pious Catholics. The Princess von Gallitzin, her chaplain Overberg, and minister Von Fürstenberg formed a noble group of earnest Catholics, for whom the ardent Lutheran Hamann entertained the warmest affection.

§ 172.3. Religious Sects.—In Württemberg there arose out of the pietism of Spener, with a dash of the theosophy of Oetinger, the party of the Michelians, so named from a layman, Michael Hahn, whose writings show profound insight into the truths of the gospel. He taught the doctrine of a double fall, in consequence of which he depreciated though he did not forbid marriage; of a restitution of all things; while he subordinated justification to sanctification, the Christ for us to the Christ in us, etc. As a reaction against this extreme arose the Pregizerians, who laid exclusive stress upon baptism and justification, declared assurance and heart-breaking penitence unnecessary, and imparted to their services as much brightness and joy as possible. Both sects spread over Württemberg and still exist, but in their common opposition to the destructive tendencies of modern times, they have drawn more closely together. In their chiliasm and restitutionism they are thoroughly agreed.—The Collenbuschians in Canton Berg propounded a dogmatic system in which Christ empties Himself of His divine attributes, and assumes with sinful flesh the tendencies to sin that had to be fought against, the sufferings of Christ are attributed to the wrath of Satan, and His redemption consists in His overcoming Satan’s wrath for us and imparting His Spirit to enable us to do works of holiness. The most distinguished adherents of Collenbusch were the two Hasencamps and the talented Bremen pastor Menken.

§ 172.4. The Rationalistic “Illumination” outside of Germany.—In Amsterdam, in A.D. 1791, a Restored Lutheran Church or Old Light was organized on the occasion of the intrusion of a rationalistic pastor. It now numbers eight Dutch congregations with 14,000 adherents and 11 pastors. Under the name of Christo Sacrum some members of the French Reformed church at Delft, in A.D. 1797, founded a denomination which received adherents of all confessions, holding by the divinity of Christ and His atonement, and treating all confessional differences as non-essential and to be held only as private opinions. In their public services they adopted mainly the forms of the Anglican episcopal church. Though successful at first, it soon became rent by the incongruity of its elements. In England the dissenters and Methodists provided a healthy protest against the lukewarmness of the State church. In William Cowper, A.D. 1731-1800, we have a noble and brilliant poet of high lyrical genius, whose life was blasted by the terrorism of a predestinarian doctrine of despair and the religious melancholy produced by Methodistic agonies of soul.

§ 172.5. Missionary Societies and Missionary Enterprise.—In order to arouse interest in the idea of a grand union for practical Christian purposes, the Augsburg elder, John Urlsperger, travelled through England, Holland, and Germany. The Basel Society for Spreading Christian Truth, founded in A.D. 1780, was the firstfruits of his zeal, and branches were soon established throughout Switzerland and Southern Germany. The Basel Bible Society was founded in A.D. 1804, and the Missionary Society in A.D. 1816.—At a meeting of English Baptist preachers at Kettering, in Northamptonshire, in A.D. 1792, William Carey was the means of starting the Baptist Missionary Society. Carey was himself its first missionary. He sailed for India in A.D. 1793, and founded the Serampore Mission in Bengal. The work of the society has now spread over the East and West Indies, the Malay Archipelago, South Africa, and South America. A popular preacher, Melville Horne, who had been himself in India, published “Letters on Missions,” in A.D. 1794, in which he earnestly counselled a union of all true Christians for the conversion of the heathen. In response to this appeal a large number of Christians of all denominations, mostly Independents, founded in A.D. 1795, the London Missionary Society, and in the following year the first missionary ship, The Duff, under Captain Wilson, sailed for the South Seas with twenty-nine missionaries on board. Its operations now extend to both Indies, South Africa, and North America; but its chief hold is in the South Seas. In the Society Islands the missionaries wrought for sixteen years without any apparent result, till at last King Pomare II. of Tahiti sought baptism as the first-fruits of their labours. A victory gained over a pagan reactionary party in A.D. 1815 secured complete ascendency to Christianity. The example of the London Society was followed by the founding of two Scottish societies in A.D. 1796 and a Dutch society in A.D. 1797, and the Church Missionary Society in London in A.D. 1799, for the English possessions in Africa, Asia, etc. The Danish Lutheran (§ 167, 9) and the Herrnhut (§ 168, 11) societies still continued their operations.[524]—Continuation, §§ 183, 184.

FOURTH SECTION.

CHURCH HISTORY OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

I. General and Introductory.

§ 173. SURVEY OF RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS OF NINETEENTH CENTURY.

A reaction had set in against the atheistic spirit of the French Revolution, and the victories of A.D. 1813, 1815, encouraged the pious in their Christian confidence. Princes and people were full of gratitude to God. Alexander I., Francis I., and Frederick William III., representing the three principal churches, in A.D. 1815, after the political situation had been determined by the Congress of Vienna, formed “the Holy Alliance,” a league of brotherly love for mutual defence and maintenance of peace, to which all the European princes adhered with the exception of the pope, the sultan, and the king of England. Through Metternich’s arts it ultimately degenerated into an instrument of repression and tyranny.—Incongruous elements were present everywhere. The restoration of the papacy in A.D. 1814 had given a new impulse to ultramontanism, as did also the Reformation centenary of A.D. 1817 to Protestantism; while supernaturalism and pietism prevailing in the Lutheran and Reformed churches led to renewed attempts at union. Old sects were strengthened and new sects arose. Pantheism, materialism, and atheism, as well as socialism and communism, without concealment attacked Christianity; while pauperism and vagabondage, on the one hand, and the Stock Exchange swindling of capitalists, on the other, spread moral consumption through all classes of society. The ultramontanes, led by the Jesuits, reasserted the most arrogant claims of the papacy. The climax was reached when Pius IX. obtained a decree of council affirming his infallibility, while by the Nemesis of history the royal crown was torn from his head.

§ 174. NINETEENTH CENTURY CULTURE IN RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHURCH.

Down to A.D. 1840, when zeal for it began to abate, philosophy exercised an important influence on the religious development of the age, both in the departments of science and of life. While rationalism was not able to transcend the standpoint of Kant, the other theological tendencies were more or less determined formally, and even materially by the philosophical movements of this period. Alongside of philosophy, literature, itself to a great extent coloured by contemporary philosophy, exerted a powerful influence on the religious opinions of the more cultured among the people. The sciences, too, came into closer relations, partly friendly, partly hostile, to Christianity; and art in some of its masterpieces paid a noble tribute to the church.

§ 174.1. The German Philosophy (§ 171, 10).—Fries, whose philosophy was Kantian rationalism, modified by elements borrowed from Jacobi, influenced such theologians as De Wette. Schelling, in his “Philosophy of Identity,” had advanced from Fichte’s idealism to a pantheistic naturalism. From Fichte he had learned that this world is nothing without spirit; but while Fichte recognised this world, the non-ego, as reality only in so far as man seizes upon it and penetrates it by his spirit, and so raises it into real being, Schelling regards spirit as nothing else than the life of nature itself. In the lower stages of this nature-life spirit is still slumbering and dreaming, but in man it has attained unto consciousness. The nature-life as a whole, or the world-soul, is God; man is the reflex of God and the world in miniature, a microcosmos. In the world’s development God comes into objective being and unfolds his self-consciousness; Christianity is the turning point in the world’s history; its fundamental dogmas of revelation, trinity, incarnation, and redemption are suggestive attempts to solve the world’s riddle. Schelling’s poetic view of the world penetrated all the sciences, and gave to them a new impulse. Though hateful to the old rationalists, this system found ardent admirers among the younger theologians. As Schelling to Fichte, so Hegel was attached to Schelling, and wrought his pantheistic naturalism into a pantheistic spiritualism. Not so much in the life of nature as in the thinking and doing of the human spirit, the divine revelation is the unfolding of the divine self-consciousness from non-being into being. Judaism and Christianity are progressive stages of this process; Judaism stands far below classic paganism; but in Christianity we have the perfect religion, to be developed into the highest form of philosophy. The Protestant church doctrine was now again accorded the place of honour. Marheincke developed Lutheran orthodoxy into a system of speculative theology based on Hegelian principles; while Göschel infused into it a pietist spirit, which made many hail the new departure as the long-sought reconciliation of theology and philosophy. But after Hegel’s death in A.D. 1831 the condition of matters suddenly changed. His school split into an orthodox wing following the master’s ecclesiastical tendencies, and a heterodox wing which deified the human spirit. Strauss, Bauer, and Feuerbach led this heterodox party in theology, and Ruge in reference to social, æsthetic, and political questions. Persecuted by the state in A.D. 1843, the Young Hegelians joined the rationalists, whom they had before sneered at as “antediluvian theologians.” Schelling, who had been silent for almost thirty years, took Hegel’s chair in Berlin as his decided opponent in A.D. 1841, and with his dualistic doctrine of potencies, from which he finally advanced to a Christian gnosticism, obtained a temporary influence among the younger theologians. He died at the baths of Ragaz in Switzerland in A.D. 1854. He flashed for a moment like a meteor, and as suddenly his light was quenched.

§ 174.2. The domination of the Hegelian philosophy was overthrown by the split in the school and the radicalism of the adherents of the left wing, and Schelling in the second stage of his philosophical development had not succeeded in founding any proper school of his own. A group of younger philosophers, with I. H. Fichte at their head, starting from the Hegelian dialectic, have striven to free philosophy from the reproach of pantheism and to develop a speculative theism in touch with historical Christianity. Other members of this school are Weisse, Braniss, Chalibæus, Ulrici, Wirth, Romang, etc.—Herbart renounces all that philosophers from Fichte senior to Fichte junior had done, and declares the metaphysical end of their systems beyond the horizon of philosophy, which must limit itself to the province of experience. His realism is in diametrical opposition to Hegel’s idealism. Toward Christianity his philosophy occupies a position of indifference. Influenced by Kant’s theory of knowledge as well as by the Fichte-Schelling-Hegel idealism and Herbart’s realism, with an infusion of Leibnitz’s monad doctrine, Hermann Lotze of Göttingen has, since A.D. 1844, set forth a system of “teleological idealism.” He develops his metaphysical principles from what we have by immediate experience internal and external, and the invariability of the causal mechanism in everything that happens in the inner and outer world he explains as the realizing of moral purposes.—Schopenhauer’s philosophy, which only in the later years of his life (died A.D. 1860) began to attract attention, is in spirit utterly opposed to the religion and ethics of Christianity. Its task is to describe “The World as Will and Idea;” first at that stage of entering into visibility which is represented in man does will, the thing-in-itself, become joined with idea, and makes its appearance now with it over against the world as a conscious subject. But since idea is regarded as a pure illusion of the will, this leads to a pessimism which takes absolute despair as the only legitimate moral principle. E. von Hartmann went still further in the same direction in his “Philosophy of the Unconscious,” published in 1869, of which an English translation in three vols. appeared in 1884. He identifies the will with matter and idea with spirit, demands in addition to the absolute despair of the individual here and hereafter, the complete surrender of the personality to the world-process in order to the attainment of its end, the annihilation of the world. This dissolution of the world consists in the complete withdrawal of the will into the absolute as the only unconscious, so that at last the wrong and misery of being produced by the irrational will are abolished in this withdrawal. From this philosophical standpoint Hartmann attempted in A.D. 1874 to take Christianity to pieces, showing some favour to Vatican Catholicism, but pouring out the vials of his wrath upon Protestantism. His “religion of the future” consists in a yearning for freedom from all the burden and misery of being and share in the world-process by relapsing into the blessedness of non-being.—In France, England, and America much favour has been shown to the atheistic-sensual Positivism of Aug. Comte, which, excluding every form of theology and morals, requires only the so-called exact sciences as the object of philosophy. On his later notions of a “religion of humanity,” see § 210, 1. On essentially similar lines proceeds Herbert Spencer, in his “System of Synthetic Philosophy,” to whose school also Darwin belonged. His followers are styled agnostics, because they regard all knowledge of God and divine things as absolutely impossible, and evolutionists, because their master endeavours to construct all the sciences on the basis of the evolution theory.

§ 174.3. The Sciences.—Schelling’s profound theories were of all the more significance from their not being restricted to the philosophical strivings of his time, but inspiring the other sciences with the breath of a new life. To the fullest extent the natural sciences exposed themselves to this influence. There was not wanting indeed a certain shadowy mysticism, to which especially the fancies of mesmeric magnetism largely contributed; but this fog gradually cleared away, and the Christian elements were purified from their pantheistic surroundings. Steffens and Von Schubert taught that the divine book of nature is to be regarded as the reflex and expansion of the divine revelation in Scripture. The Hegelian philosophy, too, seemed at first likely to infuse a Christian spirit into the other sciences. In Göschel, at least, there was a thinker who imparted to jurisprudence a Christian character, and to Christianity a juristic construction. In other respects Hegel’s philosophy in its application to the other departments of science gave in many ways a predominance to an abstruse dialectic tendency. Its adherents of the extreme left sought to construct all sciences a priori from the pure idea, and at the same time to root out from them the last vestiges of the Christian spirit.

The greatest names in natural science, Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Haller, Davy, Cuvier, etc., are household words in Christian circles. All these and many more were firmly convinced that there was no conflict between their most brilliant discoveries and Christian truth. In A.D. 1825 the Earl of Bridgwater founded a lectureship, and treatises on the power, wisdom, and goodness of God as manifested in the creation, have been written by Buckland, Chalmers, Whewell, Bell, etc. It was otherwise in Germany. Even Schleiermacher, in his “Letters to Lücke,” in A.D. 1829, expressed his fears of the prophesied overthrow of all Christian theories of the world by the incontrovertible results of physical research, and Bretschneider in his “Letters to a Statesman,” in A.D. 1830, proclaimed to the world without regret that already what Schleiermacher only feared had actually come to pass. Physicists, awakening from the glamour of the Schelling nature philosophy, pronounced all speculation contraband, and declared pure empiricism, the simple investigation of actual things, the only permissible object of their labour. And although they handed over to theologians and philosophers questions about spirit in and over nature, as not belonging to their province, a younger generation maintained that spirit was non-existent, because it could not be discovered by the microscope and dissecting knife. Carl Vogt defined thought to be a secretion of the brain, and Moleschott regarded life as a mere mode of matter and man’s existence after life only as the manuring of the fields. Feuerbach proclaimed that “man is what he eats,” and Buchner [Büchner] popularized these views into a gospel for social democrats and nihilists. Oersted, the famous discoverer of electro-magnetism, had sought “the spirit in nature,” but the spirit which he found was not that of the Bible and the church. The grandmaster of German scientific research, Alex. von Humboldt, saw in the world a cosmos of noble harmony as a whole and in its parts, but of Christian ideas in God’s great book of nature he finds no trace. In A.D. 1859 the great English naturalist Darwin, died A.D. 1882, introduced into the arena the theory of “Natural Selection,” by means of which the modification and development of the few primary animal forms through the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest by sexual selection is supposed, in millions, perhaps milliards, of years, to have brought forth the present variety and manifoldness of animal species. Multitudes of naturalists now accept his theory of the descent of men and apes from a common stem.—In Medicine De Valenti on the Protestant side, with pietistic earnestness, maintains that Christian faith is a vehicle of healing power; while a circle in Munich on the Catholic side make worship of saints and the host a conditio sine qua non of all medicine. A more moderate attitude is assumed by the Roman Catholic Dr. Capellmann of Aachen, in his “Pastoral Medicine.”

§ 174.4. Of Christian Jurists we have, on the Protestant side, Stahl, Savigny, Puchta, Jacobson, Richter, Meier, Scheuerl, Hinschius, etc.; and on the Catholic side, Walther, Philipps, etc. Among Historians, the greatest in modern times is Leopold von Ranke, who, with his disciples, occupies a thoroughly Christian standpoint. There has appeared, however, on the part of many Protestant historians, such as Voigt, Leo, Mentzel, Vorreiter, Hurter, Gfroerer [Gfrörer], etc., a tendency in the most conspicuous manner to recognise and admire the brilliant phenomena of mediæval Catholicism, even going to the length of renouncing the vital principles of Protestantism, and glorifying a Boniface, a Gregory VII., and an Innocent III., and characterizing the Reformation as a revolution. Ultramontanes have been only too ready to turn to their own use all such concessions, but show no inclination to make similar admissions damaging to their side, so that with them history consists rather in the abuse of everything Protestant as vile and perfidious, instead of being a record of independent research. Janssen [Jansen] of Frankfort stands out prominently above the billows of the “Kulturkampf” (§ 197), as the greatest master of this ultramontane style of history making.—Geography, first raised to the rank of a science by Carl Ritter, received from its great founder a Christian impress and owes much of its development to the researches of Christian missionaries. Finally, Philology, in the hands of Creuzer, Görres, Sepp, etc., unfolds in a Christian spirit the religion and mythology of classical paganism; and in the hands of Nägelsbach and Lübker expounds the religious life of the ancient world in relation to Christian truth.

§ 174.5. National Literature (§ 171, 11).—To some extent Goethe, but much more decidedly the romantic school of poets, was attached to Schelling’s philosophy of nature. The romanticists developed a deep religiousness of feeling, as shown in Novalis and La Motte Fouqué, and violent opposition to rationalistic theology as shown in Tieck, which in the case of Fr. Schlegel ran to the other extreme of moral frivolity as seen in his “Lucinde.” The romantic school as thus represented by Schlegel was joined by the party of Young Germany with its gospel of the rehabilitation of the flesh. Its mouthpiece was the gifted poet Heine. The pantheistic deification of nature by Schelling, and the self-deification of the Hegelian school obtained poetic expression in Leop. Schafer’s Laienbrevier und Weltpriester, as well as in Sallet’s Laienevangelium; while the sympathies of the young Hegelians with the revolutionary movements gained utterance in the poems of Herwegh, and in a more serious tone in those of Freiligrath. More recently the views of the Protestantenverein (§ 180) have found their poetical representative in Nic. Eichhorn, whose “Jesus of Nazareth,” a tragical drama, 1880, deals with the life, works, and sufferings of the “historical Christ,” after the style of free Protestant science, with rich psychological analysis of the character in a brilliant imaginative production. Though composed with a view to theatrical representation, it has never yet been put on the stage.

§ 174.6. The Christian element was present in the noble patriotic songs of E. M. Arndt[525] and Max. von Schenkendorf much more distinctly than in the romantic school. Enthusiasm in the struggle for freedom awakened faith in the living God. Uhland’s lovely lyrics, with their enthusiasm for the present interests of the Fatherland, entitle him to rank among patriotic poets, and their brilliant and profound rendering of the old German legends places him in the romantic school, which, however, in clearness and depth he leaves far behind. Without being a distinctively Christian poet, his warm sympathy with the life of the German people gives him a genuine interest in the Christian religion. The same may be said of Rückert’s highly finished poems, which transplanted the fragrant flowers of oriental sensuousness and contemplativeness into the garden of German poetry. A more decided Christian consecration of poetic genius is seen in the noble and beautiful lyrics of Emanuel Geibel, died 1884, the greatest and most Christian of the secular poets of the present. Of those ordinarily ranked as sacred poets may be named Knapp, Döring, Spitta, Garve, Vict. Strauss, etc., who for the most part contributed their sacred songs to Knapp’s “Christoterpe” (1833-1853). A later publication of equal merit, called the “Neue Christoterpe,” has been edited since 1880 by Kögel, Baur, and Frommel. But with all the Christian depth and spirituality, freshness and warmth, which we meet with in the productions of these Christian poets, none of them has been able to rise to the noble simplicity, power, popular force, and fitting them for church use, objectivity which are present in the old evangelical church hymns. In this respect they all bear too conspicuously the signature of their age, with its subjective tone and the noise and turmoil of present conflicts. Of all modern poets, Rückert alone approaches in his advent hymn the measure and spirit of the old church song.—In the department of novels and romance there has been shown an almost invariable hostility toward Christianity, religion being either entirely avoided or held up to contempt by having as its representatives, simpletons, hypocrites, or knaves.

§ 174.7. In France, Chateaubriand in his “Genie du Christianisme” pronounces an eloquent eulogy on the half-pagan Christianity of the Middle Ages. In another work he makes the representatives of heathenism in the age of Constantine act like Homeric heroes, and those of Christianity speak “like theologians of the age of Bossuet.” Lamartine may be described as a Christian romanticist. Victor Hugo, Balzac, George Sand, Sue, Dumas, etc., influenced by the Revolution, developed an antichristian tendency; while naked naturalism, photographic realism in depicting the lowest side of Parisian life, especially adultery and prostitution, is represented by Flaubert, Daudet, De Goncourt, Zola, etc.—In Italy, the amiable Manzoni gave noble expression to Christian feeling in his “Inni Sacri,” and in his masterly romance “Promessi Sposi;” and the famous poet Silvio Pellico, in his “La mia Prigioni,” affords a noble example of the sustaining power of true religion during ten years’ rigorous imprisonment in an Austrian dungeon. The most gifted of modern Italian poets, Giacomo Leopardi, sank into despairing pessimism, which expressed itself in the domain of religion in biting satire and savage irony. Among the poets of the present who, with glowing patriotism, not only yearned for the deliverance and unity of Italy, but also lived to see these accomplished, and have since given expression, though from different political and religious standpoints, to the desire for the reconciliation of the free united kingdom with the irreconcilable church, the most distinguished are Aleardi, Carducci, Imbriani, Guercini, Cavalotti.—In Spain, Caecilia Böhl von Faber, although the daughter of a German father, and educated in Germany, introduced, under the name Fernan Caballero, the modern romance in a thoroughly national Spanish style, and in a purely moral and catholic Christian spirit. In the Flemish Provinces, Hendrik Conscience, the able novelist, has described Flemish village life in a spirit fully in sympathy with Christianity.—England had in Lord Byron a poet of the first rank, who more than any other poet had experience in himself of the convulsions and contradictions of his age. In powerful and impressive tones he sets forth the unreconciled disharmonies of nature and of human life. Incurable pain, despair, weariness of life, and hatred of mankind, without hope, yet without desire for reconciliation, enthusiastic admiration of the ancient world, passionate love of liberty and titanic pride in human might mingle with scenes of grumbling, misery, and profligacy. On the other hand, the rich and mostly solid English novel literature is prevailingly inspired by a Christian spirit.

§ 174.8. Popular Education.—While the poetic national literature for the most part found entrance only among the cultured and adult circles, this age, almost as fond of writing as of reading, produced an enormous quantity of books for the people and for children. But only a few succeeded in catching the proper tone for the masses and the youth, and still fewer supplied their readers with what was genuinely pious. Pestalozzi’s “Lienhard und Gertrud,” Hebel’s “Schatzkästlein,” and Tschokke’s “Goldmacherdorf,” respected at least the Christian feeling of the people, although they did not strengthen or foster it. But, on the other hand, in recent years a number of writers have appeared, thoroughly popular, and at the same time thoroughly Christian, who, as popular poets and novelists, have become apostles of Christian views, morals, and customs to the people. The most distinguished of these are Jeremiah Gotthelf (Albert Bitzius, died 1854), whose “Kate the Grandmother” was translated in the Sunday Magazine for 1865, Von Horn, Carl Stöber, Wildenhahn, Nathusius, Frommel, Weitbrecht, etc. In the Catholic church Albanus Stoltz, died 1883, developed a wonderful power of popular composition, which, however, he subsequently put at the service of a fanatical ultramontanism, and so sacrificed much of its nobility and worth. From the enormous mass of children’s books only extremely few attain their aim. In the front rank stands the brilliant patriarch of Christian tale writing, Von Schubert, died 1860. After him are Barth, the author of “Poor Henry,” Stöber, and the Swiss Spyri, and the Catholic Christian Schmid, author of the “Easter Eggs.”—The Public Schools, especially under Dinter (died 1831), member of the consistory and schoolboard of Königsberg, were for a long time nurseries of the tame, flat, and self-satisfied rationalism of the ancien régime; but since 1830, and more particularly in consequence of the violent agitations of the seminary director Diesterweg, who died in 1866, put to silence in 1847, but still for his work in connexion with education always highly respected, many of the teachers took a higher flight in the naturalistic-democratic direction. By word and pen Diesterweg carried on a propaganda in favour of a free and liberal education for the people. His disciples, wanting his earnest Christian spirit, carried out recklessly his radical tendencies, and now the Christian faith has no more persistent foes than the teachers of the public schools. In A.D. 1870, a Teachers’ Association in Vienna gave a vote of 6,000 in favour of radicalism. At a Hamburg meeting in A.D. 1872 of 5,100 teachers, progress was shown by individuals raising their voices in defence of Christianity, which, however, were generally drowned in shrieks and hisses. A Teachers’ Evangelical Association held its ninth assembly at Hamburg in A.D. 1881 with 1,500 members. Christian opinions are now ably represented in schools, educational journals, and literature. A burning question at present is whether the national school should be preferred to the denominational school. Liberals in church and state say it should; conservatives say it should not; while both parties think their views supported by the experience of the past. The Prussian minister of education, Falk, A.D. 1872-1879, firmly insisted upon the development of the national system, but his successors Von Puttkamer and Von Gossler reverted to the denominational system. The German Evangelical School Congress of Hamburg in October, 1882, demanded that both elementary and secondary schools should have a confessional character.

§ 174.9. Art.—The intellectual quickening called forth with the opening of the new century imparted new spirit and life to the cultivation of the arts. Winckelmann, died A.D. 1768, had opened the way to an understanding of pagan classical art, and romanticism awakened appreciation of and enthusiasm for mediæval Christian art. The greatest masters of Architecture were Schinckel, Klenze, and Heideloff. The foundation stone of the final part of the Cologne cathedral was laid by a Protestant king, Frederick William IV., in A.D. 1842, and the work was finished by a Protestant builder in A.D. 1880. Statuary had three great masters, who gave expression to profound Christian ideas in bronze and marble, the Italian Canova, the German Dannecker, and greatest of all, the Dane Thorwaldsen, whose Christ and the Apostles and other works form a main attraction to visitors in Copenhagen. Three younger German masters of the art, who have heired their fame, are Rauch, Rietschl, and Drake.—In Painting too a new era now began. A group of gay German artists in Rome, with Overbeck at their head, formed a Society in A.D. 1813, and mostly became perverts to Romanism. Peter Cornelius, the ablest of the school, himself born a Catholic, answered his friends’ request to place Luther in a picture of the last judgment, in hell: “Yes, but with the Bible in his hands and the devils trembling before him”; and in a subsequent picture of the judgment, he gave the German reformer his place among the saints in heaven. His pupil, Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld is well known by his “Bibel in Bildern.” Ludwig Richter, the Albert Dürer of the nineteenth century and creator of the modern woodcut, has filled German houses with his artistic and poetic creations, which breathe of God, nature, and the family fireside. The Frenchman, Gustave Doré of Strassburg, has also illustrated the Bible in a manner worthy of ranking alongside of Schnorr, though a characteristically French striving for effect is everywhere discernible.—Painted Glass (§ 104, 14) for church windows had during the eighteenth century passed almost wholly out of use, but again in the nineteenth came into favour, and was made at Dresden, Nuremberg, and Munich. The most eminent artist in this department was Ainmiller of Munich, specimens of whose workmanship are to be seen in all parts of the world.

§ 174.10. Music and the Drama.—In Vienna the three great masters of musical composition, Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, produced in the department of sacred music some of their noblest works. Mendelssohn, in his St. Paul and Elijah and in his Psalms, sought to reproduce the power and truth of the simple word of God. An early death prevented him giving expression to his ideal of Christ in music. The Hungarian virtuoso Liszt sacrifices sacred calmness and dignity to theatrical effect. His son-in-law, Richard Wagner, inspired by Schopenhauer’s philosophy, a richly endowed poet and composer, proclaimed by his followers as the Messiah of the music of the future, going back to mediæval legend, has produced a quasi-Christian musical drama, in which the gospel of pessimism takes the place of the gospel of the grace of God.—Quite different is the Passion Play of the Bavarian village Oberammergau, which is a reproduction of the mediæval mysteries (§ 115, 12). It originated in a vow made in 1633 on the occasion of a plague which visited the place, and is repeated every ten years on the Sundays from the end of May to the middle of September. The history of the Saviour’s passion is here represented with interludes from Messianic Old Testament passages explained by a chorus like that of the classical tragedy, with appropriate scenery, drapery, and musical accompaniment. In the presence of an immense concourse of strangers for whose accommodation a large amphitheatre was been built, almost all the villagers, men, women, and children, take part in the performance and show rare artistic power. The text of the drama for the most part agrees with the gospel narrative, only occasionally interspersed with legend, and quite free from ultramontane hagiology and mariolatry. The performance of A.D. 1850, and still more that of A.D. 1880, attracted crowds of pilgrims and tourists to the quiet and remote valley. An independent exhibition, falling little behind the original in the artistic character of its composition and production, was given, in 1883, on the Sundays of July and August in the Tyrolese village of Brixlegg, and was visited by similar crowds.

§ 175. INTERCOURSE AND NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN THE CHURCHES.

Protestants could recognise, as Catholics could not, elements of truth and beauty in the creeds of their opponents. When a peaceful and conciliatory spirit was shown by individual Catholic clergymen, it was the occasion of suspicion and persecution on the part of the old Romish party. Schemes of union were entertained by the Old Catholics (§ 190), and negotiations were entered on by the Greek Orthodox church, on the one hand, and the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, on the other, but in both cases without any practical result. On the union negotiations between the different Protestant sects, see § 178; and on the Prusso-Anglican bishopric of Jerusalem, see § 184, 8. Of the numerous conversions from Protestantism to Catholicism and from Catholicism to Protestantism, we can here mention only such as have excited public interest in some special way.

§ 175.1. Romanizing Tendencies among Protestants.—Not only in England, where an important high-church party embraced a more than half-Catholic Puseyism (§ 202, 2), but even in Protestant Germany a Romanizing current set in on many sides. A taste for the romantic, artistic, historical (§ 174, 5, 9, 4), as well as feudalist-aristocratic and hyper-Lutheran ecclesiastical tendencies led the way in this direction. Many sought rest in the bosom of the church “where alone salvation is found,” while others, too deeply rooted in evangelical truth, bewailed the loss of “noble and venerable” institutions in the worship, life, and constitution of the church, but were unable to accept the various unevangelical accretions which made void the doctrine of justification by faith alone. This was the position of Löhe of Neuendettelsau, in point of doctrine a strict Lutheran, who published a selection of Catholic legends as patterns of self-denial for his deaconesses, wished to restore anointing of the sick, etc. Some Protestant pastors expressed warm sympathy with the Pope during his misfortunes in A.D. 1860, and approved of the continuance of the papacy and the pope’s temporal dominion. A conference of Catholics (Count Stolberg, Dr. Michelis, etc.) and Protestants (Leo, Bindewald, etc.) at Erfurt in A.D. 1860, on the basis of a common recognition of the moral advantages of the papacy, sought to bring about a union of the churches. Still more remarkable is the story told by the Old Catholic professor Friedrich. Just before the opening of the Vatican Council, certain evangelical pastors of Saxony wrote letters to Bishop Martin of Paderborn, which Friedrich himself read, urging that at the council permission should be given to priests to marry and to give the cup in the communion to the laity, and promising that in that case they themselves and many like-minded pastors would join the Romish church. That the letters were written and received is unquestionable; but it is doubtful whether folly and imbecility or a wish to hoax and mystify, directed the pen. The writer or writers, as the examination before the consistory of the locality proved, are not to be sought among the pastors whose names are appended. How far the Protestant ultra-conservative reactionary party goes with the ultramontanes and how far it would aid the overthrow and undermining of the Protestant state and evangelical church, is shown by the conduct of the Privy Councillor and Chief Justice Ludwig von Gerlach (§ 176, 1), who, in 1872, in the Prussian House of Representatives, took his place among the ultramontane party of the centre, hostile to the empire and friendly to the Poles, and in his pamphlet “Kaiser und Papst” of 1872 described the new German empire as an incarnate antichrist. Also the Lutheran Guelphs of Hanover are zealous supporters of all the demands of the centre in the Prussian parliament and in the German Reichstag.

§ 175.2. The Attitude of Catholicism toward Protestantism.—Every Catholic bishop has still on assuming office to take the oath, Hæreticos pro posse persequar. The Jesuits, restored in A.D. 1814, soon pervaded every section with their intolerant spirit. The huge lie that Protestantism is in matters of State as well as of church essentially revolutionary, while Catholicism is the bulwark of the State against revolution and democracy, was affirmed with such audacity that even Protestant statesmen believed it. The Roman Jesuit Perrone (§ 191, 9) taught the Catholic youth in a controversial Italian catechism that “they should feel a creeping horror come over them at the mere mention of the word Protestantism, more even than when a murderous attack was made upon them, for Protestantism and its defenders are in the religious and moral world just the same as the plague and plague-stricken are in the physical world, and in all lands Protestants are the scum of all that is vile and immoral,” etc. In a pastoral of A.D. 1855, Von Ketteler, Bishop of Mainz, compared the Germans, who by the Reformation rent the unity of the church, to the Jews who crucified the Messiah. Romish prelates have vied with one another in their abuse of Protestants and Protestantism. In A.D. 1881, Leo XIII. speaking of the spread of Russian nihilism, charged Protestant missionaries with spreading the dominion of the prince of darkness. Prof. Hohoff of Paderborn, in his “Hist. Studies on Protestantism and Socialism,” Paderb., 1881, reiterated the accusation: “Yes, it is so, Protestantism has begotten atheism, materialism, scepticism, nihilism. The Reformation was the murderer of all science, the greatest foe of culture and learning, and the falsifier of all history.... Melanchthon’s Loci may be styled the most unscientific production in the domain of dogmatics.... Yes, the Reformation has proved a prime source of superstition, a step backward in the history of civilization.... The Catholic church has been the champion of conscience, reason, and freedom.... No one is thoroughly capable of judging historical facts without prejudice as the believing Catholic Christian.”—But while the vast majority of Catholic writers thus abuse Protestantism, others like Seltmann of Eberswald seek to win over to the ranks of the Romish church those who can be befooled by fair speeches. The “Protestant” correspondents in Seltmann’s periodical write under the cloak of anonymity.—In Spain the Reformation was long attributed to the Augustinians, who were jealous of the Dominicans as the only dispensers of indulgences, and to Luther’s desire to marry; but the poet Nuñez de Arca in his “Vision de Fray Martin,” attributed it to the corruption of the church and papacy of its time, and regarded with sympathy the spiritual struggles of the reformer. Though as a good Catholic he concludes his poem with the ban of the church against Luther, he yet describes him as a just and well-deserving man.

§ 175.3. Romish Controversy.—In the beginning of A.D. 1872 the Waldensian Professor Sciarelli published as a challenge the thesis that the Apostle Peter never set foot in Rome, and Pius IX. with childlike simplicity gave his consent to a public disputation, which came off at Rome on 9th and 10th February. Three Protestant champions, with Sciarelli at their head, were confronted by three Catholics, headed by Fabiani, before 125 auditors admitted by ticket. Both sides claimed the victory; but the shorthand reports were more widely read through Italy than could be agreeable to the papal court.

§ 175.4. Roman Catholic Union Schemes.—While American Protestant missionaries strove zealously for the conversion of the schismatical Eastern Churches, Rome with equal diligence but little success endeavoured to win over these and the orthodox Greeks to her own communion. There was great joy over the conversion of the Bulgarians to Romanism in A.D. 1860. Taking advantage of a national movement for the restoration of a patriarchate independent of Constantinople (§ 207, 3), some French Jesuits succeeded in persuading a small number of malcontents to agree to a union with Rome. In 1861 the pope consecrated an old Bulgarian priest, Jos. Sokolski, archbishop of the united Bulgarian church. Very soon, however, he and almost all his followers returned to their allegiance to the Greek Orthodox church. Leo XIII. in his encyclical of A.D. 1880, by giving conspicuous honour to Cyril and Methodius, and uttering kind sentiments about the Christian church in the East, and conferring high rank on dignitaries of the Eastern church, seeks to smooth the way for a union of the two great churches.

§ 175.5. Greek Orthodox Union Schemes.—In A.D. 1867 the Archbishop of Canterbury addressed a letter to the Patriarch of Constantinople and the whole Eastern church, to open the way to a common understanding and union of the churches, sending a modern Greek translation of the Book of Common Prayer, and asking their assistance at the consecration of an Anglican church at Constantinople. The patriarch Gregorius [Gregory] granted this request, and answered the letter in a friendly manner, passing over the Anglican’s warnings against superstitious additions to the doctrine, e.g. mariolatry, but characterizing all the contrary doctrines of the Thirty-nine Articles as “very modern.” At the same time vigorous measures were being taken with a similar object by members of the Russian and of the Anglican churches. In 1870 Professor Overbeck of Halle undertook to act as intermediary in these negotiations. He had in 1865 published, in answer to the papal encyclical with syllabus of December 8th, 1864 (§ 185, 2), a tract with the motto Ex oriente lux, in which he placed the claims of the Orthodox eastern church before the Roman Catholic as well as Protestant. On the opening of the Vatican Council in 1869 he advocated in a pamphlet the breaking up of the papal church and the formation of Catholic national churches. In North America Professor Bjerring, of the Catholic seminary for priests at Baltimore, took the same position. In March, 1871, he went to St. Petersburg, was there ordained as an Orthodox priest, and on his return to New York instituted a Sunday service in the English language according to the Greek rite. Of any further advance in this direction of union nothing is known.

§ 175.6. Old Catholic Union Schemes.—Döllinger (§ 191, 5) in A.D. 1871 was hopeful of a union not only with the Greek, but also with the Anglican church, and similar hopes were entertained in England and Russia, and distinguished representatives of both communions took part in the Old Catholic congresses (§ 190, 1). On the invitation of Döllinger, as president of the committee commissioned by the Freiburg Congress of A.D. 1874 to treat about union with the Anglican church, forty friends of union from Germany, England, Denmark, France, Russia, Greece, and America met in conference at Bonn. After a lively debate the cleft between East and West was bridged over by a compromise treating the filioque as an unnecessary addition to the Nicene symbol, and asserting that, however desirable a mutual understanding on doctrinal questions might be, existing differences in constitution, discipline, and worship presented no bar to union. The Catholics presented the Anglicans with fourteen theses essential to union, in which the anti-Protestant doctrines were for the most part toned down, but transubstantiation distinctly asserted. Subsequent conferences never got beyond these preliminaries. It was, however, agreed that, in case of necessity, Anglicans and Old Catholics might dispense the supper to one another.

§ 175.7. Conversions.—The most famous converts of the century were Hurter, the biographer of Innocent III., the Countess Ida von Hahn-Hahn, writer of religious romances, Gfroerer [Gfrörer], the church historian, the radical Hegelian Daumer, the historian of ante-tridentine theology Hugo Lämmer, and Dr. Ed. Preuss, who had written against the immaculate conception and for criminal conduct had to flee the country. In A.D. 1844 Carl Haas, a Protestant pastor, went over to the Romish church, but the two new dogmas of Pius IX. led him to study the works of Luther. He now returned to the Lutheran church, vindicating his procedure in a treatise entitled, “To Rome, and from Rome back again to Wittenberg, 1881.” Also the Mecklenburg Lutheran pastor, Dr. A. Hager, who, after his conversion, had undertaken the editorship of an ultramontane newspaper in Breslau in 1873, was obliged in a few years to resign the appointment. His return to the evangelical church was being talked about, when he suddenly died in 1883, after having received the last sacrament in the Catholic church. The climax of abuse of Luther and the Lutheran church was reached by the Hanoverian Evers, who had gone over in 1880; in all his scandalous and vituperative writings he describes himself on the title page as “formerly Lutheran pastor.” His mud-throwing, however, was carried so far, that even the ultramontane Köln. Volkszeitung was constrained to advise him to write more decently.

§ 175.8. The Mortara affair of A.D. 1858 attracted special attention. The eight-year old son of the Jew Mortara of Bologna was violently taken from his parents to Rome because his Christian nurse said that two years before, during a dangerous illness, she had baptized him. The church answered the entreaties of the parents and the universal outcry by saying that the sacrament had an indelible character, and that the pope could not change the law. Again in A.D. 1864, the ten-year old Jewish boy, Joseph Coën, apprentice weaver in Rome, was decoyed by a priest to his cloister and there persuaded to receive baptism. In vain his mother, the Jewish community, and even the French ambassador, urged his restoration; and when, in A.D. 1870, the temporal power of the pope was overthrown, the lad, now sixteen years old, had himself become such a fanatical Catholic that he refused to have anything to do with his mother as an unbeliever.

§ 175.9. In the Tyrol in A.D. 1830 there were numerous conversions from Catholicism to Protestantism (§ 198, 1). A Catholic priest in Baden, Henhöfer of Mühlhausen, influenced by the writings of Sailer and Boos, went over to the Lutheran church in A.D. 1823, and continued down to his death in A.D. 1862 a vigorous opponent of the prevailing rationalism. Count Leopold von Seldnitzsky, formerly Prince-Bishop of Breslau, felt obliged in 1840, in consequence of the conscientious objections he had to perform his official duties toward church and state during the ecclesiastico-political controversies of 1830 (§ 193, 1), to resign his appointments. He was subsequently led in A.D. 1863, through reading the Scriptures and Luther’s works, after a sore struggle, to join the evangelical Church. He devoted all his means to the founding of Protestant educational institutions at Berlin and Breslau. He died in A.D. 1871, in his eighty-fourth year. The proclamation by the Vatican of the dogma of infallibility drove many pious and earnest Catholics out of the Romish communion. Of these Carl von Richthofen, Canon of Breslau, engages our special interest. Son of a pious Lutheran mother, and trained up under Gossner’s mild spiritual direction (§ 187, 2), his gentle and deeply religious nature had attached itself to the Roman Catholic church of his father only under the illusion that the Romish doctrine of justification was not wholly irreconcilable with the evangelical doctrine. He at first submitted to but soon renounced the Vatican decree; was excommunicated by Archbishop Förster, voluntarily resigned his emoluments; joined the Old Catholics in A.D. 1873, and the separated Old Lutherans in A.D. 1875. In the following year he died a painful death from the explosion of a petroleum lamp.—Upon the whole Rome has made most converts in America and England; and she has suffered losses more or less severe in France, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Spain, and Bohemia.

§ 175.10. The Luther Centenary, A.D. 1883.—The celebration of Luther’s birth was carried out with great enthusiasm throughout all Germany, more than a thousand tracts on Luther and the Reformation were published, statues were erected, special services were held in all Lutheran churches, high schools, and universities, and brilliant demonstrations were made at Jena, Worms, Wittenberg, and Eisleben. There were founded at Kiel a Luther-house, at Worms and at the Wartburg Luther libraries, in Leipzig and Berlin Luther churches. At Eisleben a bronze statue of the reformer was solemnly unveiled representing his tearing the papal bull with his right hand and pressing the Bible to his heart with his left. Another noble monument was raised by the munificence of the emperor by the issuing during this year of the first volume of pastor Knaake’s critical edition of Luther’s works. A “German Luther Institute” aims at assisting children of the poorer clergy and teachers, and a “Reformation History Society” has undertaken the task of issuing popular tracts on the persons, events and principles of that and the succeeding period based upon original documents. Protestants of all lands, with the exception of the English high-church party, contributed liberally; the Americans had a copy of the great Luther statue of the Worms monument (§ 178, 1) made and erected in Washington. Even in Italy the liberal press eulogised Luther, while the ultramontanes loaded his memory with unmeasured calumny and reproach. The threatened counter-demonstrations of German ultramontanes fell quite flat and harmless. The Zwingli Centenary of January 1st, A.D. 1884, was celebrated with enthusiasm throughout the Reformed church, especially in Switzerland. On the other hand, the celebration of the five-hundredth anniversary of Wiclif’s death on December 31st, 1884, created comparatively little interest.

II. Protestantism in General.[526]

§ 176. RATIONALISM AND PIETISM.

At the beginning of the century rationalism was generally prevalent, but philosophy and literature soon weakened its foundations, and the war of independence moved the hearts of the people toward the faith of their fathers. Pietism entered the lists against rationalism, and the Halle controversy of A.D. 1830 marked the crisis of the struggle. The rationalists were compelled to make appeal to the people by popular agitators. During A.D. 1840 they managed to found several “free churches,” which, however, had for the most part but a short and unprosperous existence. They were more successful in A.D. 1860 with the Protestantenverein as the instrument of their propaganda (§ 180).

§ 176.1. The old Rationalism was attacked by the disciples of Hegel and Schelling, and in A.D. 1834 Röhr of Weimar found Hase of Jena as keen an opponent as any pietist or orthodox controversialist. That recognised leader of the old rationalists had coolly attempted to substitute a new and rational form of doctrine, worship, and constitution for the antiquated formularies of the Reformation, and drew down upon himself the rebuke even of those who sympathized with him in his doctrinal views.—In A.D. 1817 Claus Harms of Kiel, on the occasion of the Reformation centenary, opened an attack upon those who had fallen away from the faith of their fathers, by the publication of ninety-five new theses, recalling attention to Luther’s almost forgotten doctrines. In A.D. 1827 Aug. Hahn in an academical discussion at Leipzig maintained that the rationalists should be expelled from the church, and Hengstenberg started his Evangelische Kirchenzeitung. The jurist Von Gerlach in A.D. 1830 charged Gesenius and Wegscheider of Halle with open contempt of Christian truth, and called for State interference. In all parts of Germany, amid the opposition of scientific theologians and the scorn of philosophers, pietism made way against rationalism, so that even men of culture regarded it as a reproach to be reckoned among the rationalists. Unbelief, however, was widespread among the masses. When Sintenis, preacher in Magdeburg in A.D. 1840, declared the worship of Christ superstitious, and was reprimanded by the consistory, his neighbours, the pastors Uhlich and König, founded the society of the “Friends of Light,” whose assembly at Köthen then was attended by thousands of clergymen and laymen. In one of these assemblies in A.D. 1844, Wislicenus of Halle, by starting the question, Whether the Scriptures or the reason is to be regarded as the standard of faith? shattered the illusion that rationalism still occupied the platform of the church and Scripture. The left wing of the school of Schleiermacher took offence at the severe measures demanded by Hengstenberg and his party, and in 1846 issued in Berlin a manifesto with eighty-eight signatures against the paper pope of antiquated Reformation confessions and the inquisitorial proceedings of the Kirchenzeitung party, as inimical to all liberty of faith and conscience, wishing only to maintain firm hold of the truth that Jesus Christ is yesterday, to-day, and for ever the one and only ground of salvation. The Friends of Light, combining with the German Catholics and the Young Hegelians, founded Free churches at Halle, Königsberg, and many other places. Their services and sermons void of religion, in which the Bible, the living Christ, and latterly even the personal God, had no place, but only the naked worship of humanity, had temporary vitality imparted them by the revolutionary movements of A.D. 1848. This gave the State an excuse, long wished for, to interfere, and soon scarcely a trace of their churches was to be found.

§ 176.2. Pietism had not been wholly driven out of the evangelical church during the period of ecclesiastical impoverishment, but, purified from many eccentric excesses, and seeking refuge and support for the most part by attaching itself to the community of the Moravian Brethren, it had, even in Württemberg, established itself independently and in an essentially theosophical-chiliastic spirit. There too a kind of spiritualism was introduced by the physician and poet Justin Kerner of Weinsberg, and the philosopher Eschenmayer of Tübingen, with spirit revelations from above and below. Amid the religious movements of the beginning of the century Pietism gained a decided advantage. It took the form of a protest against the rationalism prevailing among the clergy. The earnest and devout sought spiritual nourishment at conventicles and so-called Stunden addressed by laymen, mostly of the working class, well acquainted with Scripture and works in practical divinity. Persecuted by the irreligious mob, the rationalist clergy, and sometimes by the authorities, they by-and-by secured representatives among the younger clergy and in the university chairs, and carried on vigorous missions at home and abroad. This pietism was distinctly evangelical and Protestant. It did not oppose but endeavoured simply to restore the orthodoxy of the church confession. Yet it had many of the characteristics of the earlier pietism: over-estimation of the invisible to the disparagement of the visible church, of sanctification over justification, a tendency to chiliasm, etc.—Of no less importance in awakening the religious life throughout Germany, and especially in Switzerland, was the missionary activity of Madame de Krüdener of Riga. This lady, after many years of a gay life, forsook the world, and began in A.D. 1814 her travels through Europe, preaching repentance, proclaiming the gospel message in the prisons, the foolishness of the cross to the wise of this world, and to kings and princes the majesty of Christ as King of kings. Wherever she went she made careless sinners tremble, and drew around her crowds of the anxious and spiritually burdened of every sort and station. Honoured by some as a saint, prophetess, and wonder-worker, ridiculed by others as a fool, persecuted as a dangerous fanatic or deceiver, driven from one country to another, she died in the Crimea in A.D. 1824.[527]

§ 176.3. The Königsberg Religious Movement, A.D. 1835-1842.—The pious theosophist, J. H. Schönherr of Königsberg, starting from the two primitive substances, fire and water, developed a system of theosophy in which he solved the riddles of the theogony and cosmogony, of sin and redemption, and harmonized revelation with the results of natural science. At first influenced by these views, but from A.D. 1819 expressly dissenting from them, J. W. Ebel, pastor in the same city, gathered round him a group of earnest Christian men and women, Counts Kanitz and Finkenstein and their wives, Von Tippelskirch, afterwards preacher to the embassy at Rome, the theological professor H. Olshausen, the pastor Dr. Diestel, and the medical doctor Sachs. After some years Olshausen and Tippelskirch withdrew, and dissensions arose which gave opportunity to the ecclesiastical authorities to order an investigation. Ebel was charged with founding a sect in which impure practices were encouraged. He was suspended in A.D. 1835, and at the instigation of the consistory a criminal process was entered upon against him. Dr. Sachs, who had been expelled from the society, was the chief and almost only witness, but vague rumours were rife about mystic rites and midnight orgies. Ebel and Diestel were deposed in A.D. 1839, and pronounced incapable of holding any public office; and as a sect founder Ebel was sentenced to imprisonment in the common jail. On appeal to the court of Berlin, the deposition was confirmed, but all the rest of the sentence was quashed, and the parties were pronounced capable of holding any public offices except those of a spiritual kind. Two reasons were alleged for deposition:

1. That Ebel, though not from the pulpit or in the public instruction of the young, yet in private religious teaching, had inculcated his theosophical views.

2. That both of them as married men had given expression to opinions injurious to the purity of married life.

In general they were charged with spreading a doctrine which was in conflict with the principles of Christianity, and making such use of sexual relations as was fitted to awaken evil thoughts in the minds of hearers. Ebel was pronounced guiltless of sectarianism.—Kanitz wrote a book in defence, which represents Ebel and Diestel as martyrs to their pure Christian piety in an age hostile to every pietistic movement; whereas Von Wegnern, followed by Hepworth Dixon, in a romancing and frivolous style, lightly give currency to evil surmisings without offering any solid basis of proof. The whole affair still waits for a patient and unprejudiced investigation.[528]

§ 176.4. The Bender Controversy.—At the Luther centenary festival of A.D. 1883, Prof. Bender of Bonn declared that in the confessional writings of the Reformation evangelical truth had been obscured by Romish scholasticism, introduced by subtle jurists and sophistical theologians. This called forth vigorous opposition, in which two of his colleagues, 38 theological students, 59 members of the Rhenish synod, took part. General-Superintendent Baur, also, in a new year’s address, inveighed against Bender’s statements. On the other hand, 170 students of Bonn, 32 of these theological students, gave a grand ovation to the “brave vindicator of academic freedom.” The Rhenish and Westphalian synods bewailed the offence given by Bender’s address, and protested against its hard and unfounded attacks upon the confessional writings. At the Westphalian synod, Prof. Mangold said that the faculty was as much offended at the address as the church had been, but that its author, when he found how his words had created such feeling, sought in every way to repress the agitation, and had intended only to pass a scientific judgment on ecclesiastical and theological developments.

§ 177. EVANGELICAL UNION AND LUTHERAN SEPARATION.

From A.D. 1817 Prussia favoured and furthered the scheme for union between the two evangelical churches, and over this question a split arose in the camp of pietism. On the one hand were the confessionalists, determined to maintain what was distinctive in their symbols, and on the other, those who would sacrifice almost anything for union. For the most part both churches cordially seconded the efforts of the royal head of the church; only in Silesia did a Lutheran minority refuse to give way, which still maintains a separate existence.

§ 177.1. The Evangelical Union.—Circumstances favoured this movement. Both in the Lutheran and in the Reformed church comparatively little stress was laid upon distinctive confessional doctrines, and pietism and rationalism, for different reasons, had taught the relative unimportance of dogma. And so a general accord was given to the king’s proposal, at the Reformation centenary of A.D. 1817, to fortify the Protestant church by means of a Union of Lutherans and Calvinists. The new Book of Common Order of A.D. 1822, in the preparation of which the pious king, Frederick William III., had himself taken part, was indeed condemned by many as too high-church, even Catholicizing in its tendency. A revised edition in A.D. 1829, giving a wider choice of formularies, was legally authorized, and the union became an accomplished fact. There now existed in Prussia an evangelical national church with a common government and liturgy, embracing within it three different sections: a Lutheran, and a Reformed, which held to their distinctive doctrines, though not regarding these as a cause of separation, and a real union party, which completely abandoned the points of difference. But more and more the union became identified with doctrinal indifferentism and slighting of all church symbols, and those in whom the church feeling still prevailed were driven into opposition to the union (§ 193). The example of Prussia in sacking the union of the two churches was followed by Nassau, Baden, Rhenish Bavaria, Anhalt, and to some extent in Hesse (§§ 194, 196).

§ 177.2. The Lutheran Separation.—Though the union denied that there was any passing over from one church to another, it practically declared the distinctive doctrines to be unessential, and so assumed the standpoint of the Reformed church. Steffens (§ 174, 3), the friend of Scheibel of Breslau, who had been deprived of his professorship in A.D. 1832 for his determined opposition to the union, and died in exile in 1843 (§ 195, 2), headed a reaction in favour of old Lutheranism. Several suspended clergymen in Silesia held a synod at Breslau in A.D. 1835, to organize a Lutheran party, but the civil authorities bore so heavily upon them that most of them emigrated to America and Australia. Guericke of Halle, secretly ordained pastor, ministered in his own house to a small company of Lutheran separatists, was deprived of his professorship in A.D. 1835, and only restored in A.D. 1840, after he had apologised for his conduct. From A.D. 1838, the laws were modified by Frederick William IV., imprisoned clergymen were liberated in A.D. 1840, and a Lutheran church of Prussia independent of the national church was constituted by a general synod at Breslau in A.D. 1841, which received recognition by royal favour in A.D. 1845. The affairs are administered by a supreme council resident in Breslau, presided over by the distinguished jurist Huschke. Other separations were prevented by timely concessions on the part of the national church. The separatists claim 50,000 members, with fifty pastors and seven superintendents.

§ 177.3. The Separation within the Separation.—Differences arose among the separate Lutherans, especially over the question of the visible church. The majority, headed by Huschke, defined the visible church as an organism of various offices and orders embracing even unbelievers, which is to be sifted by the divine judgment. To it belongs the office of church government, which is a jus divinum, and only in respect of outward form a jus humanum. The opposition understood visibility of the preaching of the word and dispensation of sacraments, and held that unbelievers belonged as little to the visible as to the invisible church. The distribution of orders and offices is a merely human arrangement without divine appointment, individual members are quite independent of one another, the church recognises no other government than that of the unfettered preaching of the word, and each pastor rules in his own congregation. Diedrich of Jabel and seven other pastors complained of the papistical assumptions of the supreme council, and at a general synod in A.D. 1860 refused to recognise the authority of that council, or of a majority of synods, and in A.D. 1861, along with their congregations, they formally seceded and constituted the so called Immanuel Synod.

§ 178. EVANGELICAL CONFEDERATION.

The union had only added a third denomination to the two previously existing, and was the means of even further dissension and separation. Thus the interests of Protestantism were endangered in presence of the unbelief within her own borders and the machinations of the ultramontane Catholics without. An attempt was therefore made in A.D. 1840 to combine the scattered Protestant forces, by means of confederation, for common work and conflict with common foes.

§ 178.1. The Gustavus Adolphus Society.—In A.D. 1832, on the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of the saviour of German Protestantism, on the motion of Superintendent Grossman of Leipzig, a society was formed for the help of needy Protestant churches, especially in Catholic districts. At first almost confined to Saxony, it soon spread over Germany, till only Bavaria down to A.D. 1849, and Austria down to A.D. 1860, were excluded by civil enactment from its operations. The masses were attracted by the simplicity of its basis, which was simply opposition to Catholicism, and the demagogical Friends of Light soon found supremacy in its councils. Because of opposition to the expulsion of Rupp, in A.D. 1846, as an apostate from the principle of protestantism, great numbers with church leanings seceded, and attempted to form a rival union in A.D. 1847. After recovering from the convulsions of A.D. 1848, under the wise guidance of Zimmermann of Darmstadt, the society regained a solid position. In A.D. 1883 it had 1,779 branches, besides 392 women’s and 11 students’ unions, and a revenue for the year of about £43,000.—The same feeling led to the erection of the Luther Monument at Worms. This work of genius, designed by Rietschel, and completed after his death in A.D. 1857 by his pupils, and inaugurated on 25th June, A.D. 1868, represents all the chief episodes in the Reformation history. It was erected at a cost of more than £20,000, raised by voluntary contributions, and the scheme proved so popular that there was a surplus of £2,000, which was devoted to the founding of bursaries for theological students.

§ 178.2. The Eisenach Conference.—The other German states borrowed the idea of confederation from Prussia and Württemberg. It took practical shape in the meetings of deputies at Eisenach, begun in A.D. 1852, and was held for a time yearly, and afterwards every second year, to consult together on matters of worship, discipline and constitution. Beyond ventilating such questions the conference yielded no result.

§ 178.3. The Evangelical Alliance.—An attempt was made in England, on the motion of Dr. Chalmers (§ 202, 7), at a yet more comprehensive confederation of all Protestant churches of all lands against the encroachments of popery and puseyism (§ 202, 2). After several preliminary meetings the first session of the Evangelical Alliance was held in London in August, A.D. 1846. Its object was the fraternizing of all evangelical Christians on the basis of agreement upon the fundamental truths of salvation, the vindication and spread of this common faith, and contention for liberty of conscience and religious toleration. Nine articles were laid down as terms of membership: Belief in the inspiration of Scripture, in the Trinity, in the divinity of Christ, in original sin, in justification by faith alone, in the obligatoriness of the two sacraments, in the resurrection of the body, in the last judgment, and in the eternal blessedness of the righteous and the eternal condemnation of the ungodly. It could thus include Baptists, but not Quakers. In A.D. 1855 it held its ninth meeting at the great Paris Industrial Exhibition as a sort of church exhibition, the representatives of different churches reporting on the condition of their several denominations. The tenth meeting, of A.D. 1857, was held in Berlin. The council of the Alliance, presided over by Sir Culling Eardley, presented an address to King Frederick William IV., in which it was said that they aimed a blow not only against the sadduceanism, but also against the pharisaism of the German evangelical church. The confessional Lutherans, who had opposed the Alliance, regarded this latter reference as directed against them. The king, however, received the deputation most graciously, while declaring that he entertained the brightest hopes for the future of the church, and urged cordial brotherly love among Christians. Though many distinguished confessionalists were members of the Alliance none of them put in an appearance. The members of the “Protestantenverein” (§ 180) would not take part because the articles were too orthodox. On the other hand, numerous representatives of pietism, unionism, Melanchthonianism, as well as Baptists, Methodists, and Moravians, crowded in from all parts, and were supported by the leading liberals in church and state. While there was endless talk about the oneness and differences of the children of God, about the universal priesthood, about the superiority of the present meeting over the œcumenical councils of the ancient church, about the want of spiritual life in the churches, even where the theology of the confessions was professed, etc., with denunciations of half-Catholic Lutheranism and its sacramentarianism and officialism, and many a true and admirable statement of what the church’s needs are, Merle d’Aubigné introduced discord by the hearty welcome which he accorded his friend Bunsen, which was intensified by the passionate manner in which Krummacher reported upon it. The gracious royal reception of the members of the Alliance, at which Krummacher gave expression to his excited feelings in the words, “Your Majesty, we would all fall not at your feet, but on your neck!” was described by his brother, Dr. F. W. Krummacher, as a sensible prelude to the solemn scenes of the last judgment. Sir Culling Eardley declared, “There is no more the North Sea.” Lord Shaftesbury said in London that with the Berlin Assembly a new era had begun in the world’s history; and others who had returned from it extolled it as a second Pentecost.

§ 178.4. The Evangelical Church Alliance.—After the revolution of A.D. 1848, the most distinguished theologians, clergymen and laymen well-affected toward the church, sought to bring about a confederation of the Lutheran, Reformed, United, and Moravian churches. When they held their second assembly at Wittenberg, A.D. 1849, many of the strict Lutherans had already withdrawn, especially those of Silesia. The Lutheran congress, held shortly before at Leipzig under the presidency of Harless, had pronounced the confederation unsatisfactory. The political reaction in favour of the church had also taken away the occasion for such a confederation. Yet the yearly deliberations of this council on matters of practical church life did good service. An attempt made at the Berlin meeting of A.D. 1853 to have the Augustana adopted as the church confession awakened keen opposition. At the Stuttgart meeting of A.D. 1857 there were violent debates on foreign missions and evangelical Catholicity between the representatives of confessional Lutheranism who had hitherto maintained connection with the confederation and the unionist majority. The Lutherans now withdrew. The attempt made at the Berlin October assembly of A.D. 1871, amid the excitement produced by the glorious issue of the Franco-Prussian War and the founding of the new German empire with a Protestant prince, to draw into the confederation confessional Lutherans and adherents of the “Protestantenverein,” in order to form a grand German Protestant national church, miscarried, and a meeting of the confederation in the old style met again at Halle in the following year. But it was now found that its day was past.

§ 178.5. The Evangelical League.—At a meeting of the Prussian evangelical middle party in autumn, 1886, certain members, “constrained by grief at the surrender of arms by the Prussian government in the Kulturkampf,” gathered together for private conference, and resolved in defence of the threatened interests of the evangelical church to found an “Evangelical League” out of the various theological and ecclesiastical parties. Prominent party leaders on both sides being admitted, a number of moderate representatives of all schools were invited to a consultative gathering at Erfurt. On January 15th, 1887, a call to join the membership of the league was issued. It was signed by distinguished men of the middle party, such as Beyschlag, Riehm of Halle, etc., moderate representatives of confessionalism and the positive union, such as Kawerau of Kiel, Fricke of Leipzig, Witte, Warneck, etc., and liberal theologians like Lipsius and Nippold of Jena, etc.; and it soon received the addition of about 250 names. It recognised Jesus Christ, as the only begotten Son of God, as the only means of salvation, and professed the fundamental doctrines of the Reformation. It represented the task of the League as twofold: on the one hand the defending at all points the interests of the evangelical church against the advancing pretensions of Rome, and, on the other hand, the strengthening of the communal consciousness of the Christian evangelical church against the cramping influence of party, as well as in opposition to indifferentism and materialism. For the accomplishment of this task the league organized itself under the control of a central board with subordinate branches over all Germany, each having a committee for representing its interests in the press, and with annual general assemblies of all the members for common consultation and promulgating of decrees.

§ 179. LUTHERANISM, MELANCHTHONIANISM, AND CALVINISM.

Widespread as the favourable reception of the Prussian union had been, there were still a number of Lutheran states in which the Reformed church had scarcely any adherents, e.g. Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, Mecklenburg, and Schleswig-Holstein; and the same might be said of the Baltic Provinces and of the three Scandinavian kingdoms. Also in Austria, France, and Russia the two denominations kept apart; and in Poland, the union of A.D. 1828 was dissolved in A.D. 1849 (§ 206, 3). The Lutheran confessional reaction in Prussia afforded stimulus to those who had thus stood apart. In all lands, amid the conflict with rationalism, the confessional spirit both of Lutheran and Reformed became more and more pronounced.

§ 179.1. Lutheranism within the Union.—After the Prussian State church had been undermined by the revolution of A.D. 1848, an unsuccessful attempt was made to have a pure Lutheran confessional church set up in its place. At the October assembly in Berlin, in A.D. 1871, an ineffectual effort was made by the United Lutherans to co-operate with those who were unionists on principle. During the agitation caused by the May Laws (§ 197, 5) and the Sydow proceedings (§ 180, 4), the first general evangelical Lutheran conference was held in August, A.D. 1873, in Berlin. It assumed a moderate conciliatory tone toward the union, pronounced the efforts of the “Protestantenverein” (§ 180) an apostasy from the fundamental doctrines of the gospel, bewailed the issuing of the May Laws, protested against their principles, but acknowledged the duty of obedience, and concluded an address to the emperor with a petition on behalf of a democratic church constitution and civil marriage.—The literary organs of the United Lutherans are the “Evang. Kirchenzeitung,” edited by Hengstenberg, and now by Zöckler, and the “Allgem. konserv. Monatsschrift für die christl. Deutschl.,” by Von Nathusius.

§ 179.2. Lutheranism outside of the Union.—A general Lutheran conference was held under the presidency of Harless, in July, A.D. 1868, at which the sentiments of Kliefoth, denouncing a union under a common church government without agreement about doctrine and sacraments, met with almost universal acceptance. At the Leipzig gathering of A.D. 1870, Luthardt urged the duty of firmly maintaining doctrinal unity in the Lutheran church. The assembly of the following year agreed to recognise the emperor as head of the church only in so far as he did not interfere with the dispensation of word and sacrament, admitted the legality of a merely civil marriage but maintained that despisers of the ecclesiastical ordinance should be subjected to discipline, that communion fellowship is to be allowed neither to Reformed nor unionists if fixed residents, but to unionists faithful to the confession if temporary residents, even without expressly joining their party; and also with reference to the October assembly of the previous year the union of the two Protestant churches of Germany under a mixed system of church government was condemned. The third general conference of Nüremburg [Nuremberg], in A.D. 1879, dealt with the questions: Whether the church should be under State control or free? Whether the schools should be denominational or not? and in both cases decided in favour of the latter alternative.—Its literary organ is Luthardt’s “Allg. Luth. Kirchenzeitung.”

§ 179.3. Melancthonianism [Melanchthonianism] and Calvinism.—The Reformed church of Germany has maintained a position midway between Lutheranism and Calvinism very similar to the later Melanchthonianism. Ebrard indeed sought to prove that strict predestinarianism was only an excrescence of the Reformed system, whereas Schweitzer, purely in the interests of science (§ 182, 9, 16), has shown that it is its all-conditioning nerve and centre, to which it owes its wonderful vitality, force, and consistency. Heppe of Marburg went still further than Ebrard in his attempt to combine Lutheranism and Calvinism in a Melancthonian [Melanchthonian] church (§ 182, 16), by seeking to prove that the original evangelical church of Germany was Melanchthonian, that after Luther’s death the fanatics, more Lutheran than Luther, founded the so-called Lutheran church and completed it by issuing the Formula of Concord; that the Calvinizing of the Palatinate, Hesse, Brandenburg, Anhalt was only a reaction against hyper- or pseudo-Lutheranism, and that the restoration of the original Melanchthonianism, and the modern union movement were only the completion of that restoration. Schenkel’s earlier contributions to Reformation history moved in a similar direction. Ebrard also, in A.D. 1851, founded a “Ref. Kirchenzeitung.”—But even the genuine strict Calvinism had zealous adherents during this century, not only in Scotland (§ 202, 7) and the Netherlands (§ 200, 2), but also in Germany, especially in the Wupperthal. G. D. Krummacher, from A.D. 1816 pastor in Elberfeld, and his nephew F. W. Krummacher of Barmen, were long its chief representatives. When Prussia sought in A.D. 1835 to force the union in the Wupperthal, and threatened the opposing Reformed pastors with deposition, the revolt here proved almost as serious as that of the Lutherans in Silesia. The pastors, with the majority of their people agreed at last to the union only in so far as it was in accordance with the Reformed mode of worship. But a portion, embracing their most important members, stood apart and refused all conciliation. The royal Toleration Act of A.D. 1847 allowed them to form an independent congregation at Elberfeld with Dr. Kohlbrügge as their minister. This divine, formerly Lutheran pastor at Amsterdam, was driven out owing to a contest with a rationalising colleague, and afterwards, through study of Calvin’s writings, became an ardent Calvinist. This body, under the name of the Dutch Reformed church, constituted the one anti-unionist, strictly Calvinistic denomination in Prussia.—The De Cock movement (§ 200, 2), out of which in A.D. 1830 the separate “Chr. Ref. Church of Holland” sprang, spread over the German frontiers and led to the founding there of the “Old Ref. Church of East Frisia and Bentheim,” which has now nine congregations and seven pastors.—At the meeting of the Evangelical Alliance in New York in A.D. 1873, the Presbyterians present resolved to convoke an œcumenical Reformed council. A conference in London in A.D. 1875 brought to maturity the idea of a Pan-Presbyterian assembly. The council is to meet every third year; the members recognise the supreme authority of the Old and New Testament in matters of faith and practice, and accept the consensus of all the Reformed confessions. The first “General Presbyterian Council” met in Edinburgh from 3rd to 10th July, A.D. 1877, about 300 delegates being present. The proceedings consisted in unmeasured glorification of presbyterianism “drawn from the whole Scripture, from the seventy elders of the Pentateuch to the twenty-four elders of the Apocalypse.” The second council met at Philadelphia in A.D. 1880, and boasted that it represented forty millions of Presbyterians. It appointed a committee to draw up a consensus of the confessions of all Reformed churches. The third council of 305 members met at Belfast in A.D. 1884, and after a long debate declined, by a great majority, to adopt a strictly formulated consensus of doctrine as uncalled for and undesirable, and by the reception of the Cumberland Presbyterians they even surrendered the Westminster Confession (§ 155, 1) as the only symbol qualifying for membership of the council. The fourth council met in London in A.D. 1887.—An œcumenical Methodist congress was held in London in A.D. 1881, attended by 400 delegates.

§ 180. THE “PROTESTANTENVEREIN.”

Rationalists of all descriptions, adherents of Baur’s school, as well as disciples of Hegel and Schleiermacher of the left wing, kept far off from every evangelical union. But the common negation of the tendencies characterizing the evangelical confederations and the common endeavour after a free, democratic, non-confessional organization of the German Protestant church, awakened in them a sense of the need of combination and co-operation. While in North Germany this feeling was powerfully expressed from A.D. 1854, in the able literary organ the “Protest. Kirchenzeitung,” in South Germany, with Heidelberg as a centre and Dean Zittel as chief agitator, local “Protestantenvereine” were formed, which combined in a united organization in the Assembly of Frankfort, A.D. 1863. After long debates the northern and southern societies were joined in one. In June, A.D. 1865, the first general Protestant assembly was held at Eisenach, and the nature, motive, and end of the associations were defined. To these assemblies convened from year to year members of the society crowded from all parts of Germany in order to encourage one another to persevere in spreading their views by word and pen, and to take steps towards the founding of branch associations for disseminating among the people a Christianity which renounces the miraculous and sets aside the doctrines of the church.

§ 180.1. The Protestant Assembly.—The first general German Protestant Assembly, composed of 400 clerical and lay notabilities, met at Eisenach in A.D. 1865, under the presidency of the jurist Bluntschli of Heidelberg and the chief court preacher Schwarz of Gotha. A peculiar lustre was given to the meeting by the presence of Rothe of Heidelberg. Of special importance was Schwarz’s address on “The Limits of Doctrinal Freedom in Protestantism,” which he sought not in the confession, not in the authority of the letter of Scripture, not even in certain so called fundamental articles, but in the one religious moral truth of Christianity, the gospel of love and the divine fatherhood as Christ taught it, expounded it in his life and sealed it by his death. In Berlin, Osnabrück, and Leipzig, the churches were refused for services according to the Protestantenverein. In A.D. 1868 fifteen heads of families in Heidelberg petitioned the ecclesiastical council to grant them the use of one of the city churches where a believing clergyman might conduct service in the old orthodox fashion. This request was refused by fifty votes against four. Baumgarten denounced this intolerance, and declared that unless repudiated by the union it would be a most serious stain upon its reputation. In A.D. 1877 he publicly withdrew from the society.

§ 180.2. The “Protestantenverein” Propaganda.—The views of the union were spread by popular lectures and articles in newspapers and magazines. The “Protestanten-Bibel,” edited by Schmidt and Holtzendorff in A.D. 1872, of which an English translation has been published, giving the results of New Testament criticism, “laid the axe at the root of the dogmatics and confessionalism,” and proved that “we are still Christians though our conception of Christianity diverges in many points from that of the second century, and we proclaim a Christianity without miracles and in accordance with the modern theory of the universe.” The success of such efforts to spread the broad theology has been greatly over-estimated. Enthusiastic partisans of the union claimed to have the whole evangelical world at their back, while Holtzendorff boasted that they had all thoughtful Germans with them.

§ 180.3. Sufferings Endured.—In many instances members of the society were disciplined, suspended and deposed. In October, A.D. 1880, Beesenmeyer of Mannheim, on his appointment to Osnabrück, was examined by the consistory. He confessed an economic but not an essential Trinity, the sinlessness and perfect godliness but not the divinity of Christ, the atoning power of Christ’s death but not the doctrine of vicarious satisfaction. He was pronounced unorthodox, and so unfit to hold office. Schroeder, a pastor in the consistory of Wiesbaden in A.D. 1871, on his refusing to use the Apostles’ Creed at baptism and confirmation, was deposed, but on appealing to the minister of worship, Dr. Falk, he was restored in the beginning of A.D. 1874. The Stettin consistory declined to ordain Dr. Hanne on account of his work “Der ideale u. d. geschichtl. Christus,” and an appeal to the superior court and another to the king were unsuccessful. Several members of the church protested against the call of Dr. Ziegler to Liegnitz in A.D. 1873, on account of his trial discourse and a previous lecture on the authority of the Bible, and the consistory refused to sustain the call. The Supreme Church Council, however, when appealed to, declared itself satisfied with Ziegler’s promise to take unconditionally the ordination vow, which requires acceptance of the fundamental doctrines of the gospel and not the peculiar theological system of the symbols.

§ 180.4. The conflicts in Berlin were specially sharp. In A.D. 1872 the aged pastor of the so called New Church, Dr. Sydow, delivered a lecture on the miraculous birth of Jesus, in which he declared that he was the legitimate son of Joseph and Mary. His colleague, Dr. Lisco, son of the well-known commentator, spoke of legendary elements in the Apostles’ Creed, and denied its authority. Lisco was reprimanded and cautioned by the consistory. Sydow was deposed. He appealed, together with twenty-six clergymen of the province of Brandenburg, and twelve Berlin pastors, to the Supreme Church Council. The Jena theologians also presented a largely signed petition to Dr. Falk against the procedure of the consistory, while the Weimar and Württemberg clergy sent a petition in favour of maintaining strict discipline. The superior court reversed the sentence, on the ground that the lecture was not given in the exercise of his office, and severely reprimanded Sydow for giving serious offence by its public delivery. At a Berlin provincial synod in A.D. 1877, an attack was made by pastor Rhode on creed subscription. Hossbach, preaching in a vacant church, declared that he repudiated the confessional doctrine of the divinity of Christ, regarded the life of Jesus in the gospels as a congeries of myths, etc. Some loudly protested and others as eagerly pressed for his settlement. The consistory accepted Rhode’s retractation and annulled Hossbach’s call. The Supreme Church Council supported the consistory, and issued a strict order to its president to suffer no departure from the confession. The congregation next chose Dr. Schramm, a pronounced adherent of the same party, who was also rejected. In A.D. 1879 Werner, biographer of Boniface, a more moderate disciple of the same school, holding a sort of Arian position, received the appointment. When, in A.D. 1880, the Supreme Church Council demanded of Werner a clear statement of his belief regarding Scripture, the divinity and resurrection of Christ, and the Apostles Creed, and on receiving his reply summoned him to a conference at Berlin, he resigned his office.

§ 180.5. The conflicts in Schleswig Holstein also caused considerable excitement. Pastor Kühl of Oldensworth had published an article at Easter, A.D. 1880, entitled, “The Lord is Risen indeed,” in which the resurrection was made purely spiritual. He was charged with violating his ordination vow, sectaries pointed to his paper as proof of their theory that the state church was the apocalyptic Babylon, and petitions from 115 ministers and 2,500 laymen were presented against him to the consistory of Kiel. The consistory exhorted Kühl to be more careful and his opponents to be more patient. In the same year, however, he published a paper in which he denied that the order of nature was set aside by miracles. He was now advised to give up writing and confine himself to his pastoral work. A pamphlet by Decker on “The Old Faith and the New,” was answered by Lühr, and his mode of dealing with the ordination vow was of such a kind as to lead pastor Paulsen to speak of it as a “chloroforming of his conscience.”

§ 181. DISPUTES ABOUT FORMS OF WORSHIP.

During the eighteenth century the services of the evangelical church had become thoroughly corrupted and disordered under the influence of the “Illumination,” and were quite incapable of answering to the Christian needs and ecclesiastical tastes of the nineteenth century. Whenever there was a revival in favour of the faith of their fathers, a movement was made in the direction of improved forms of worship. The Rationalists and Friends of Light, however, prevented progress except in a few states. Even the official Eisenach Conference did no more than prepare the way and indicate how action might afterwards be taken.

§ 181.1. The Hymnbook.—Traces of the vandalism of the Illumination were to be seen in all the hymnbooks. The noble poet Ernst Moritz Arndt was the first to enter the lists as a restorer; and various attempts were made by Von Elsner, Von Raumer, Bunsen, Stier, Knapp, Daniel, Harms, etc., to make collections of sacred songs answerable to the revived Christian sentiment of the people. These came to be largely used, not in the public services, but in family worship, and prepared the way for official revisal of the books for church use. The Eisenach Conference of A.D. 1853 resolved to issue 150 classical hymns with the old melodies as an appendix to the old collection and a pattern for further work. Only with difficulty was the resolution passed to make A.D. 1750 the terminus ad quem in the choice of pieces. Wackernagel insisted on a strict adherence to the original text and retired from the committee when this was not agreed to. Only in a few states has the Eisenach collection been introduced; e.g. in Bavaria, where it has been incorporated in its new hymnbook.

§ 181.2. The Book of Chorales.—In A.D. 1814, Frederick William III. of Prussia sought to secure greater prominence to the liturgy in the church service. In A.D. 1817, Natorp of Münster expressed himself strongly as to the need of restoring the chorale to its former position, and he was followed by the jurist Thibaut, whose work on “The Purity of Tone” has been translated into English. The reform of the chorale was carried out most vigorously in Württemberg, but it was in Bavaria that the old chorale in its primitive simplicity was most widely introduced.

§ 181.3. The Liturgy.—Under the reign of the Illuminists the liturgy had suffered even more than the hymns. The Lutherans now went back to the old Reformation models, and liturgical services, with musical performances, became popular in Berlin. Conferences held at Dresden did much for liturgical reform, and the able works and collections of Schöberlein supplied abundant materials for the practical carrying out of the movement.

§ 181.4. The Holy Scriptures.—The Calw Bible in its fifth edition adopted somewhat advanced views on inspiration, the canon and authenticity, while maintaining generally the standpoint of the most reverent and pious students of scripture. Bunsen’s commentary assumed a “mediating” position, and the “Protestant Bible” on the New Testament, translated into English, that of the advanced school. Besser’s expositions of the New Testament books, of which we have in English those on John’s gospel, had an unexampled popularity. The Eisenach Conference undertook a revision of Luther’s translation of the Bible. The revised New Testament was published in A.D. 1870, and accepted by some Bible societies. The much more difficult task of Old Testament revision was entrusted to a committee of distinguished university theologians, which concluded its labours in A.D. 1881. A “proof” Bible was issued in A.D. 1883, and the final corrected rendering in A.D. 1886. A whole legion of pamphlets were now issued from all quarters. Some bitterly opposing any change in the Luther-text, others severely criticising the work, so that the whole movement seems now at a standstill.[529]—In England, in May, 1885, the work of revision of the English version of the Bible, undertaken by order of convocation, was completed after fifteen years’ labour, and issued jointly by the two universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The revised New Testament, prepared four years previously, had been telegraphed in short sections to America by the representative of the New York Herald, so that the complete work appeared there rather earlier than in England. But in the case of the Old Testament revision such freebooting industry was prevented by the strict and careful reserve of all concerned in the work. The revised New Testament had meanwhile never been introduced into the public services; whether the completed Bible will ever succeed in overcoming this prejudice remains to be seen.[530]

§ 182. PROTESTANT THEOLOGY IN GERMANY.

The real founder of modern Protestant theology, the Origen of the nineteenth century, is Schleiermacher. His influence was so powerful and manysided that it extended not merely to his own school, but also in almost all directions, even to the Catholic church, embracing destructive and constructive tendencies such as appeared before in Origen and Erigena. Alongside of the vulgar rationalism, which still had notable representatives, De Wette founded the new school of historico-critical rationalism, and Neander that of pietistic supernaturalism, which soon overshadowed the two older schools of rational and supra-rational supernaturalism. On the basis of Schelling’s and Hegel’s philosophy Daub founded the school of speculative theology with an evangelical tendency; but after Hegel’s death it split into a right and left wing. As the former could not maintain its position, its adherents by-and-by went over to other schools; and the latter, setting aside speculation and dogmatics, applied itself to the critical investigation of the early history of Christianity, and founded the school of Baur at Tübingen. Schleiermacher’s school also split into a right and left wing. Each of them took the union as its standard; but the right, which claimed to be the “German” and the “Modern” theology, wished a union under a consensus of the confessions, and sought to effect an accommodation between the old faith and the modern liberalism; whereas the left wished union without a confession, and unconditioned toleration of “free science.” This latter tendency, however, secured greater prominence and importance from A.D. 1854, through combination with the representatives of the historico-critical and the younger generation of the Baurian school, from which originated the “free Protestant” theology. On the other hand, under the influence of pietism, there has arisen since A.D. 1830, especially in the universities of Erlangen, Leipzig, Rostock, and Dorpat, a Lutheran confessional school, which seeks to develop a Lutheran system of theology of the type of Gerhard and Bengel. A similar tendency has also shown itself in the Reformed church. The most recent theological school is that founded by Ritschl, resting on a Lutheran basis but regarded by the confessionalists as rather allied to the “free Protestant” theology, on account of its free treatment of certain fundamental doctrines of Lutheranism.—Theological contributions from Scandinavia, England, and Holland are largely indebted to German theology.

§ 182.1. Schleiermacher, A.D. 1768-1834.—Thoroughly grounded in philosophy and deeply imbued with the pious feeling of the Moravians among whom he was trained, Schleiermacher began his career in A.D. 1807 as professor and university preacher at Halle, but, to escape French domination, went in the same year to Berlin, where by speech and writing he sought to arouse German patriotism. There he was appointed preacher in A.D. 1809, and professor in A.D. 1810, and continued to hold these offices till his death in A.D. 1834. In A.D. 1799 he published five “Reden über d. Religion.” In these it was not biblical and still less ecclesiastical Christianity which he sought with glowing eloquence to address to the hearts of the German people, but Spinozist pantheism. The fundamental idea of his life, that God, “the absolute unity,” cannot be reached in thought nor grasped by will, but only embraced in feeling as immediate consciousness, and hence that feeling is the proper seat of religion, appears already in his early productions as the centre of his system. In the following year, A.D. 1800, he set forth his ethical theory in five “Monologues:” every man should in his own way represent humanity in a special blending of its elements. The study and translation of Plato, which occupied him now for several years, exercised a powerful influence upon him. He approached more and more towards positive Christianity. In a Christmas Address in A.D. 1803 on the model of Plato’s Symposium, he represents Christ as the divine object of all faith. In A.D. 1811 he published his “Short Outline of Theological Study,” which has been translated into English, a masterly sketch of theological encyclopædia. In A.D. 1821 he produced his great masterpiece, “Der Chr. Glaube,” which makes feeling the seat of all religion as immediate consciousness of absolute dependence, perfectly expressed in Jesus Christ, whose life redeems the world. The task of dogmatics is to give scientific expression to the Christian consciousness as seen the life of the redeemed; it has not to prove, but only to work out and exhibit in relation to the whole spiritual life what is already present as a fact of experience. Thus dogmatics and philosophy are quite distinct. He proves the evangelical Protestant character of the doctrines thus developed by quotations from the consensus of both confessions. Notwithstanding his protest, many of his contemporaries still found remnants of Spinozist pantheism. On certain points too, he failed to satisfy the claims of orthodoxy; e.g. in his Sabellian doctrine of the Trinity, his theory of election, his doctrine of the canon, and his account of the beginning and close of our Lord’s life, the birth and the ascension.[531]

§ 182.2. The Older Rationalistic Theology.—The older, so-called vulgar rationalism, was characterized by the self-sufficiency with which it rejected all advances from philosophy and theology, science and national literature. The new school of historico-critical rationalism availed itself of every aid in the direction of scientific investigation. The father of the vulgar rationalism of this age was Röhr of Weimar, who exercised his ingenuity in proving how one holding such views might still hold office in the church. To this school also belonged Paulus of Heidelberg, described by Marheineke as one who believes he thinks and thinks he believes but was incapable of either; Wegscheider of Halle, who in his “Institutions theol. Christ. dogmaticæ” repudiates miracles; Bretschneider of Gotha, who began as a supernaturalist and afterwards went over to extreme rationalism; and Ammon of Dresden, who afterwards passed over to rational supernaturalism.

§ 182.3. The founder of Historico-critical Rationalism was De Wette; a contemporary of Schleiermacher in Berlin University, but deprived of office in A.D. 1819 for sending a letter of condolence to the mother of Sands, which was regarded as an apology for his crime. From A.D. 1822 till his death in A.D. 1849 he continued to work unweariedly in Basel. His theological position had its starting point in the philosophy of his friend Fries, which he faithfully adhered to down to the end of his life. His friendship with Schleiermacher had also a powerful influence upon him. He too placed religion essentially in feeling, which, however, he associated much more closely with knowledge and will. In the church doctrines he recognised an important symbolical expression of religious truths, and so by the out and out rationalist he was all along sneered at as a mystic. But his chief strength lay in the sharp critical treatment which he gave to the biblical canon and the history of the O.T. and N.T. His commentaries on the whole of the N.T. are of permanent value, and contain his latest thoughts, when he had approached most nearly to positive Christianity. His literary career began in A.D. 1806 with a critical examination of the books of Chronicles. He also wrote on the Psalms, on Jewish history, on Jewish archæology, and made a new translation of the Bible. His Introductions to the O.T. and N.T. have been translated into English.—Winer of Leipzig is best known by his “Grammar of New Testament Greek,” first published in A.D. 1822, of which several English and American translations have appeared, the latest and best that of Dr. Moulton, made in A.D. 1870, from the sixth German edition. He also edited an admirable “Bibl. Reallexicon,” and wrote a work on symbolics which has been translated into English under the title “A Comparative View of the Doctrines and Confessions of the Various Communities of Christendom” (Edin., 1873).—Gesenius of Halle, who died A.D. 1842, has won a high reputation by his grammatical and lexicographical services and as author of a commentary on Isaiah—Hupfeld of Marburg and Halle, who died A.D. 1866, best known by his work in four vols. on the Psalms, in his critical attitude toward the O.T., belonged to the same party.—Hitzig of Zürich and Heidelberg, who died A.D. 1875, far outstripped all the rest in genius and subtlety of mind and critical acuteness. He wrote commentaries on most of the prophets and critical investigations into the O.T. history.—Ewald of Göttingen, A.D. 1803-1875, whose hand was against every man and every man’s hand against him, held the position of recognised dictator in the domain of Hebrew grammar, and uttered oracles as an infallible expounder of the biblical books. In his Journal for Biblical Science, he held an annual auto da fe of all the biblico-theological literature of the preceding year; and, assuming a place alongside of Isaiah and Jeremiah, he pronounced in every preface a prophetic burden against the theological, ecclesiastical, or political ill doers of his time. His exegetical writings on the poetical and prophetical books of the O.T., his “History of Israel down to the Post-Apostolic Age,” and a condensed reproduction of his “Bible Doctrine of God,” under the title: “Revelation, its Nature and Record” and “Old and New Testament Theology,” have all appeared in English translations, and exhibit everywhere traces of brilliant genius and suggestive originality.[532]

§ 182.4. Supernaturalism of the older type (§ 171, 8) was now represented by Storr, Reinhard, Planck, Knapp, and Stäudlin. In Württemberg Storr’s school maintained its pre-eminence down to A.D. 1830. Neander, Tholuck, and Hengstenberg may be described as the founders and most powerful enunciators of the more recent Pietistic Supernaturalism. Powerfully influenced by Schleiermacher, his colleague in Berlin, Neander, A.D. 1789-1850, exercised an influence such as no other theological teacher had exerted since Luther and Melanchthon. Adopting Schleiermacher’s standpoint, he regarded religion as a matter of feeling: Pectus est quod theologum facit. By his subjective pectoral theology he became the father of modern scientific pietism, but it incapacitated him from understanding the longing of the age for the restoration of a firm objective basis for the faith. He was adverse to the Hegelian philosophy no less than to confessionalism. Neander was so completely a pectoralist, that even his criticism was dominated by feeling, as seen in his vacillations on questions of N.T. authenticity and historicity. His “Church History,” of which we have admirable English translations, was an epoch-making work, and his historical monographs were the result of careful original research.[533]—Tholuck, A.D. 1799-1877, from A.D. 1826 professor at Halle, at first devoted to oriental studies, roused to practical interests by Baron von Kottwitz of Berlin, gave himself with all his wide culture by preaching, lecturing and conversing to lead his students to Christ. His scientific theology was latitudinarian, but had the warmth and freshness of immediate contact with the living Saviour. His most important works are apologetical and exegetical. In his “Preludes to the History of Rationalism” he gives curious glimpses into the scandalous lives of students in the seventeenth century; and he afterwards confessed that these studies had helped to draw him into close sympathy with confessionalism. While always lax in his views of authenticity, he came to adopt a very decided position in regard to revelation and inspiration.—Hengstenberg, A.D. 1802-1869, from A.D. 1826 professor in Berlin, had quite another sort of development. Rendered determined by innumerable controversies, in none of which he abated a single hair’s breadth, he looked askance at science as a gift of the Danaides, and set forth in opposition to rationalism and naturalism a system of theology unmodified by all the theories of modern times. Born in the Reformed church and in his understanding of Scripture always more Calvinist than Lutheran, rationalising only upon miracles that seemed to detract from the dignity of God, and in his later years inclined to the Romish doctrine of justification, he may nevertheless claim to be classed among the confessionalists within the union. He deserves the credit of having given a great impulse to O.T. studies and a powerful defence of O.T. books, though often abandoning the position of an apologist for that of an advocate. His “Christology of the Old Testament,” in four vols., “Genuineness of the Pentateuch and Daniel,” three vols., “Egypt and the Books of Moses,” commentaries on Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Ezekiel, the Gospel of John, Revelation, and his “History of the Kingdom of God in the Old Testament,” have all been translated into English.

§ 182.5. The so called Rational Supernaturalism admits the supernatural revelation in holy scripture, and puts reason alongside of it as an equally legitimate source of religious knowledge, and maintains the rationality of the contents of revelation. Its chief representative was Baumgarten-Crusius of Jena. Of a similar tendency, but more influenced by æsthetic culture and refined feeling, and latterly inclining more and more to the standpoint of “free Protestantism,” Carl Hase, after seven years’ work in Tübingen, opened his Jena career in A.D. 1830, which he closed by resigning his professorship in A.D. 1883, after sixty years’ labour in the theological chair. In his “Life of Jesus,” first published A.D. 1829, he represents Christ as the ideal man, sinless but not free from error, endowed with the fulness of love and the power of pure humanity, as having truly risen and become the author of a new life in the kingdom of God, of which the very essence is most purely and profoundly expressed in the gospel of the disciple who lay upon the Master’s heart. The latest revision of this work, issued in A.D. 1876 under the title “Geschichte Jesu,” treats the fourth gospel as non-Johnannine in authorship and mythical in its contents, and explains the resurrection by the theory of a swoon or a vision. In his “Hutterus Redivivus,” A.D. 1828, twelfth edition 1883, he seeks to set forth the Lutheran dogmatic as Hutter might have done had he lived in these days. This led to the publication of controversial pamphlets in A.D. 1834-1837, which dealt the deathblow to the Rationalismus Vulgaris. His “Church History,” distinguished by its admirable little sketches of leading personalities, was published in A.D. 1834, and the seventh edition of A.D. 1854 has been translated into English.

§ 182.6. Speculative Theology.—Its founder was Daub, professor at Heidelberg from A.D. 1794 till his death in A.D. 1836. Occupying and writing from the philosophical standpoints of Kant, Fichte, and Schelling successively, he published in A.D. 1816 “Judas Iscariot,” an elaborate discussion of the nature of evil, but passed over in A.D. 1833, with his treatise on dogmatics, to the Hegelian position. He exerted great influence as a professor, but his writings proved to most unintelligible.—Marheineke of Berlin in the first edition of his “Dogmatics” occupied the standpoint of Schelling, but in the second set forth Lutheran orthodoxy in accordance with the formulæ of the Hegelian system.—After Hegel’s death in A.D. 1831 his older pupils Rosenkranz and Göschel sought to enlist his philosophy in the service of orthodoxy. Richter was the first to give offence, by his “Doctrine of the Last Things,” in which he denounced the doctrine of immortality in the sense of personal existence after death. Strauss, A.D. 1808-1874, represented the “Life of Jesus,” in his work of A.D. 1835, as the product of unintentional romancing, and in his “Glaubenslehre” of A.D. 1840, sought to prove that all Christian doctrines are put an end to by modern science, and openly taught pantheism as the residuum of Christianity. Bruno Bauer, after passing from the right to the left Hegelian wing, described the gospels as the product of conscious fraud, and Ludwig Feuerbach, in his “Essence of Christianity,” A.D. 1841, set forth in all its nakedness the new gospel of self-adoration. The breach between the two parties in the school was now complete. Whatever Rosenkranz and Schaller from the centre, and Göschel and Gabler from the right, did to vindicate the honour of the system, they could not possibly restore the for ever shattered illusion that it was fundamentally Christian. Those of the right fell back into the camps of “the German theology” and the Lutheran confessionalism; while in the latest times the left has no prominent theological representative but Biedermann of Zürich.

§ 182.7. The Tübingen School.—Strauss was only the advanced skirmisher of a school which was proceeding under an able leader to subject the history of early Christianity to a searching examination. Fred. Chr. Baur of Tübingen, A.D. 1792-1860, almost unequalled among his contemporaries in acuteness, diligence, and learning, a pupil of Schleiermacher and Hegel, devoted himself mainly to historical research about the beginnings of Christianity. In this department he proceeded to reject almost everything that had previously been believed. He denied the genuineness of all the New Testament writings, with the exception of Revelation and the Epistles to the Romans, Galatians, and Corinthians; treating the rest as forgeries of the second century, resulting from a bitter struggle between the Petrine and Pauline parties. This scheme was set forth in a rudimentary form in the treatise on “The So-called Pastoral Epistles of the Apostle Paul,” A.D. 1835. His works, “Paul, the Apostle,” and the “History of the First Three Centuries,” have been translated into English. He had as collaborateurs in this work, Schwegler, Zeller, Hilgenfeld, Volkmar, etc. Ritschl, who was at first an adherent of the school, made important concessions to the right, and in the second edition of his great work, “Die Entstehung d. alt-kath. Kirche,” of A.D. 1857, announced himself as an opponent. Hilgenfeld of Jena, too, marked out new lines for himself in New Testament Introduction and in the estimate of early church doctrine, modifying in various ways the positions of Baur. The labours of this school and its opponents have done signal service in the cause of science.

§ 182.8. Strauss, who had meanwhile occupied himself with the studies of Von Hutten, Reimarus, and Lessing’s “Nathan,” feeling that the researches of the Tübingen school had antiquated his “Life of Jesus,” and stimulated by Renan’s “Life of Jesus,” written with French elegance and vivacity, in which he described Christ as an amiable hero of a Galilæan village story, undertook in 1864 a semi-jubilee reproduction of his work, addressed to “the German people.” This was followed by a severe controversial pamphlet, “The Half and the Whole,” in which he lashed the halting attempts of Schenkel as well as the uncompromising conservatism of Hengstenberg. He now pointed out cases of intentional romancing in the gospel narratives; the resurrection rests upon subjective visions of Christ’s disciples. His “Lectures on Voltaire” appeared in A.D. 1870, and in A.D. 1872 the most radical of all his books, “The Old and the New Faith,” which makes Christianity only a modified Judaism, the history of the resurrection mere “humbug,” and the whole gospel story the result of the “hallucinations” of the early Christians. The question whether “we” are still Christians he answers openly and honourably in the negative. He has also surmounted the standpoint of pantheism. The religion of the nineteenth century is pancosmism, its gospel the results of natural science with Darwin’s discoveries as its bible, its devotional works the national classics, its places of worship the concert rooms, theatres, museums, etc. The most violent attacks on this book came from the Protestantenverein. Strauss had said, “If the old faith is absurd, then the modernized edition of the ‘Protestantenverein’ and the school of Jena is doubly, trebly so. The old faith only contradicts reason, not itself; the new contradicts itself at every point, and how can it then be reconciled with reason?”[534]

§ 182.9. The Mediating Theology.—This tendency originated from the right wing of the school of Schleiermacher, still influenced more or less by the pectoralism of Neander. It adopted in dogmatics a more positive and in criticism a more conservative manner. It earnestly sought to promote the interests of the union not merely as a combination for church government, but as a communion under a confessional consensus. Its chief theological organs were the “Studien und Kritiken,” started in A.D. 1828, edited by Ullmann and Umbreit in Heidelberg, afterwards by Riehm and Köstlin in Halle, and the “Jahrbücher für deutsche Theologie” of Dorner and Leibner, A.D. 1856-1878.—Although the mediating theology sought to sink all confessional differences, denominational descent was more or less traceable in most of its adherents. Its leading representatives from the Reformed church were: Alexander Schweizer, who most faithfully preserved the critical tendency of Schleiermacher, and, in a style far abler and subtler than any other modern theologian, expounded the Reformed system of doctrine in its rigid logical consistency. In his own system he gives a scientific exposition of the evangelical faith from the unionist standpoint, with many pious reflections on Scripture and the confession as well as results of Christian experience, based upon the threefold manifestation of God set forth without miracle in the physical order of the world, in the moral order of the world, and in the historical economy of the kingdom of God.—Sack, one of the oldest and most positive of Schleiermacher’s pupils, professor at Bonn, then superintendent at Magdeburg, wrote on apologetics and polemics. Hagenbach of Basel, A.D. 1801-1874, is well-known by his “Theological Encyclopædia and Methodology,” “History of the Reformation,” and “History of the Church in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” all of which are translated into English.—John Peter Lange of Bonn, A.D. 1802-1884, a man of genius, imaginative, poetic, and speculative, with strictly positive tendencies, widely known by his “Life of Christ” and the commentary on Old and New Testament, edited and contributed to by him.—Dr. Philip Schaff may also be named as the transplanter of German theology of the Neander-Tholuck type to the American soil. Born in Switzerland, he accepted a call as professor to the theological seminary of the German Reformed church at Mercersburg in 1843. He soon fell under suspicion of heresy, but was acquitted by the Synod of New York in 1845. In 1869 he accepted a call to a professorship in the richly endowed Presbyterian Union Theological Seminary of New York. Writing first in German and afterwards in English, his works treat of almost all the branches of theological science, especially in history and exegesis. He is also president of several societies engaged in active Christian work.

§ 182.10. Among those belonging originally to the Lutheran church were Schleiermacher’s successor in Berlin, Twesten, whose dogmatic treatise did not extend beyond the doctrine of God, a faithful adherent of Schleiermacher’s right wing on the Lutheran side; Nitzsch, professor in Bonn A.D. 1822-1847, and afterwards of Berlin till his death in A.D. 1868, best known by his “System of Christian Doctrine,” and his Protestant reply to Möhler’s “Symbolism,” a profound thinker with a noble Christian personality, and one of the most influential among the consensus theologians. Julius Müller of Halle, A.D. 1801-1878, if we except his theory of an ante-temporal fall, occupied the common doctrinal platform of the confessional unionists. His chief work, “The Christian Doctrine of Sin,” is a masterpiece of profound thinking and original research. Ullmann, A.D. 1796-1865, professor in Halle and Heidelberg, a noble and peace-loving character, distinguished himself in the domain of history by his monograph on “Gregory Nazianzen,” his “Reformers before the Reformation,” and most of all by his beautiful apologetical treatise on the “Sinlessness of Jesus.”—Isaac Aug. Dorner, A.D. 1809-1884, born and educated in Württemberg, latterly professor in Berlin, applied himself mainly to the elaborating of Christian doctrine, and gave to the world, in his “Doctrine of the Person of Christ,” in A.D. 1839, a work of careful historical research and theological speculation. The fundamental ideas of his Christology are the theory favoured by the “German” theology generally of the necessity of the incarnation even apart from sin (which Müller strongly opposed), and the notion of the archetypal Christ, the God-Man, as the collective sum of humanity, in whom “are gathered the patterns of all several individualities.” His “System of Christian Doctrine” formed the copestone of an almost fifty years’ academical career. Christ’s virgin birth is admitted as the condition of the essential union in Him of divinity and humanity; but the incarnation of the Logos extends through the whole earthly life of the Redeemer; it is first completed in his exaltation by means of his resurrection; it was therefore an operation of the Logos, as principle of all divine movement, extra carnem. His “System of Christian Ethics” was edited after his death by his son.[535]—Richard Rothe, A.D. 1799-1867, appointed in A.D. 1823 chaplain to the Prussian embassy at Rome, where he became intimately acquainted with Bunsen. In A.D. 1828 he was made ephorus at the preachers’ seminary of Wittenberg, and afterwards professor in Bonn and Heidelberg. Rothe was one of the most profound thinkers of the century, equalled by none of his contemporaries in the grasp, depth, and originality of his speculation. Though influenced by Schleiermacher, Neander, and Hegel, he for a long time withdrew like an anchoret from the strife of theologians and philosophers, and took up a position alongside of Oetinger in the chamber of the theosophists. His mental and spiritual constitution had indeed much in common with that great mystic. In his first important work, “Die Anfänge der chr. Kirche,” he gave expression to the idea that in its perfected form the church becomes merged into the state. The same thought is elaborated in his “Theological Ethics,” a work which in depth, originality, and conclusiveness of reasoning is almost unapproached, and is full of the most profound Christian views in spite of its many heterodoxies. In his later years he took part in the ecclesiastical conflicts in Baden (§ 196, 3) with the Protestantenverein (§ 180, 1), and entered the arena of public ecclesiastical life.[536]—Beyschlag of Halle, in his “Christologie d. N. T.,” A.D. 1866, carried out Schleiermacher’s idea of Christ as only man, not God and man but the ideal of man, not of two natures but only one, the archetypal human, which, however, as such is divine, because the complete representation of the divine nature in the human. From this standpoint, too, he vindicates the authenticity of John’s Gospel, and from Romans ix.-xi. works out a “Pauline Theodicy.”—Hans Lassen Martensen, A.D. 1808-1884, professor at Copenhagen, Bishop of Zealand and primate of Denmark, with high speculative endowments and a considerable tincture of theosophical mysticism, has become through his “Christian Dogmatics,” “Christian Ethics,” in three vols., etc., of a thoroughly Lutheran type, one of the best known theologians of the century.

§ 182.11. Among Old Testament exegetes the most distinguished are: Umbreit, A.D. 1795-1860, of Heidelberg, who wrote from the supernaturalist standpoint, influenced by Schleiermacher and Herder, commentaries on Solomon’s writings and those of the prophets, and on Job; Bertheau of Göttingen, of Ewald’s school, wrote historico-critical and philological commentaries on the historical books; and Dillmann, Hengstenberg’s successor in Berlin, specially distinguished for his knowledge of the Ethiopic language and literature, has written critical commentaries on the Pentateuch and Job.—Among New Testament exegetes we may mention: Lücke of Göttingen, known by his commentary on John’s writings; Bleek, the able New Testament critic and commentator on the Epistle to the Hebrews; Meyer, A.D. 1800-1873, most distinguished of all, whose “Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament,” begun in A.D. 1832, in which he was aided by Huther, Lunemann, and Düsterdieck, is well-known in its English edition as the most complete exegetical handbook to the New Testament; Weiss of Kiel and Berlin, author of treatises on the doctrinal systems of Peter and of John, “The Biblical Theology of the New Testament,” “Life of Christ,” “Introduction to New Testament,” revises and rewrites commentaries on Mark, Luke, John, and Romans, in the last edition of the Meyer series.—A laborious student in the domain of New Testament textual criticism was Constant. von Tischendorff [Tischendorf] of Leipzig, A.D. 1815-1874, who ransacked all the libraries of Europe and the East in the prosecution of his work. The publication of several ancient codices, e.g. the Cod. Sinaiticus, a present from the Sinaitic monks to the czar on the thousandth anniversary of the Russian empire in A.D. 1862, the Cod. Vaticanus N.T., a new edition of the LXX., the most complete collection of New Testament apocrypha and pseudepigraphs, and finally a whole series of editions of the New Testament (from A.D. 1841-1873 there appeared twenty-four editions, of which the Editio Octava Major of 1872 is the most complete in critical apparatus), are the rich and ripe fruits of his researches. A second edition, compared throughout with the recensions of Tregelles and Westcott and Hort, was published by Von Gebhardt, and a third volume of Prolegomena was added by C. R. Gregory. As a theologian he attached himself, especially in later years, to the Lutheranism of his Leipzig colleagues, and on questions of criticism and introduction took up a strictly conservative position as seen in his well known tract, “When were our Gospels written?”

§ 182.12. Among the university teachers of his time John Tob. Beck, A.D. 1804-1878, assumed a position all his own. After a pastorate of ten years he began in A.D. 1836 his academical career in Basel, and went in A.D. 1843 to Tübingen, where he opposed to the teaching of Baur’s school a purely biblical and positive theology, with a success that exceeded all expectations. A Württemberger by birth, nature, and training, he quite ignored the history of the church and its dogmas as well as modern criticism, and set forth a system of theology drawn from a theosophical realistic study of the Bible. He took little interest in the excited movements of his age for home and foreign missions, union, confederation, and alliances, in questions about liturgies, constitution, discipline, and confessions, in all which he saw only the form of godliness without the power. Better times could be hoped for only as the result of the immediate interposition of God. His “Pastoral Theology” and “Biblical Psychology” have been translated into English.

§ 182.13. The Lutheran Confessional Theology.—Sartorius, A.D. 1797-1859, from A.D. 1822 professor in Dorpat, then from A.D. 1835 general superintendent at Königsberg, made fresh and vigorous attacks upon rationalism, and supported the union as preserving “the true mean” of Lutheranism. He is best known by his “Doctrine of Divine Love.” Rudelbach,—a Dane by birth and finally settled in Copenhagen, occupying the same ground, became a violent opponent of the union.—Guericke of Halle, beginning as a pietist, passed through the union into a rigorous Lutheran, and joined Rudelbach in editing the journal afterwards conducted by Luthardt of Leipzig.—Alongside of these older representatives of Lutheran orthodoxy there arose a second generation which from A.D. 1840 has fallen into several groups. Their divergencies were mainly on two points:

1. On the place and significance of the clerical order, some viewing it as based on the general priesthood of believers and resting on the call of the congregation for the orderly administration of the means of grace, others regarding it as a divine institution, yet without adopting the Romanizing and Anglican theory of apostolic succession; and

2. On the more important question of biblical prophecy, where one party maintained the spiritualistic, widely favoured since the time of Jerome, and another party, attaching itself to Crusius and Bengel, insisted upon a realistic interpretation.

At the head of the first group, which maintained the old Protestant theory of church and office and looked askance at chiliastic theories, supporting the old doctrines by all available materials from modern science, stands Harless, A.D. 1806-1879, professor in Erlangen and Leipzig, the chief ecclesiastical commissioner in Dresden, and finally at Munich. His theological reputation rests upon his “Commentary on Ephesians,” A.D. 1835, his “Christian Ethics,” A.D. 1842. Alongside of him Thomasius of Erlangen, A.D. 1802-1875, wrought in a similar direction.—Keil, A.D. 1807-1888, from A.D. 1833 professor in Dorpat, since A.D. 1858 living retired in Leipzig, of all Hengstenberg’s students has most faithfully preserved his master’s exegetical and critical conservatism. He began in A.D. 1861 in connexion with Delitzsch his “Old Testament Commentary” on strictly conservative lines. We have an English translation of that work, and also of his “Introduction to the Old Testament” and his “Old Testament Archæology.”—Philippi, A.D. 1809-1882, son of Jewish parents, during his academic career in Dorpat, A.D. 1841-1852, exercised a powerful influence in securing for strict Lutheranism a very widespread ascendency among the clergy of Livonia. From A.D. 1852 till his death in A.D. 1882 he resided in Rostock. As exegete and dogmatist, he has, like a John Gerhard and Quenstedt of the nineteenth century, reproduced the Lutheran theology of the seventeenth century, unmodified by the developments of modern thought. He is known to English readers by his “Commentary on Romans.” His chief work is “Kirchl. Glaubenslehre,” in six vols.—Alongside of him, and scarcely less important, stands Theodosius Harnack, who went from Dorpat in A.D. 1853 to Erlangen, but returned to Dorpat in A.D. 1866, and retired in A.D. 1873. He has written upon the worship of the church of the post-apostolic age, on Luther’s theology, and practical theology.

§ 182.14. At the head of the second group, characterized by a decided biblical realism and inclined to a biblical chiliasm, stands Von Hofmann of Erlangen, A.D. 1810-1877, whose “Weissagung und Erfüllung,” 1841, represents the very antipodes of Hengstenberg’s view of the Old Testament, placing history and prophecy in vital relation to one another, and studying prophecy in its historical setting. In his “Schriftbeweis” we have an entirely new system of doctrine drawn from Scripture, the doctrine of the atonement being set forth in quite a different form from that generally approved, but vindicated by its author against Philippi as “a new way of teaching old truth.” In his commentary on the New Testament, he takes up a conservative position on questions of criticism and introduction.—Franz Delitzsch, in Rostock, A.D. 1846, Erlangen, A.D. 1850, in Leipzig since A.D. 1867, more intimately acquainted with rabbinical literature than any other Christian theologian, became an enthusiastic adherent of Hofmann’s position. His theology, however, has a more decidedly theosophical tendency, while his critical attitude is more liberal. He is well known by his “Biblical Psychology,” commentary on Psalms, Isaiah, Solomon’s writings, Job, Hebrews, and a new commentary on Genesis in which he accepts many of the positions of the advanced school of biblical criticism.—Luthardt of Leipzig in the domain of New Testament exegesis and dogmatics works from the standpoint of Hofmann. His “Commentary on John’s Gospel,” “Authorship of Fourth Gospel,” and “Apologetical Lectures on the Fundamental, Saving and Moral Truths of Christianity,” are well known.—Hofmann’s conception of Old Testament doctrine is admirably carried out by Oehler, A.D. 1812-1872, with learning and speculative power, in his “Theology of the Old Testament,” and in various important monographs on Old Testament doctrines.—The most important representatives of the third group, which strongly emphasizes the extreme Lutheran theory of the church and office, are Kliefoth of Schwerin, liturgist and biblical commentator; and Vilmar, who opened his academic career at Marburg, in 1856, with a controversial programme entitled “The Theology of Facts against the Theology of Rhetoric.” Vilmar’s lectures, able, though sketchy and incomplete, were published after his death in A.D. 1868 by some of his disciples. To the same school belonged Von Zezschwitz of Erlangen, A.D. 1825-1886, whose “Catechetics” is a treasury of solid learning.

§ 182.15. Among Lutheran theologians taking little or nothing to do with these controversial questions, Kahnis, A.D. 1814-1888, from A.D. 1850 professor at Leipzig, occupied a strict Lutheran confessional standpoint, diverging only in the adoption of a subordinationist doctrine on the person of Christ, a Sabellian theory of the Trinity, and a theory of the Lord’s supper in some points differing from that of the strict Lutherans. His historical sketches are vigorous and lively.—Zöckler of Giessen and Greifswald has made important contributions to church history, exegesis, and dogmatics, and especially to the theory and history of natural theology. In 1886 he began the publication of a short biblical commentary contributed to by the most distinguished positive theologians, he himself editing the New Testament and Strack the Old Testament. It is to be in twelve vols., and is being translated into English.—Von Oetingen of Dorpat has devoted himself to social problems and moral statistics.—Frank of Erlangen has proved a powerful apologist for old Lutheranism, and in his “System of Christian Evidence” has introduced a new branch of theology, in which the subjective Christian certitude which the believer has with his faith is made the basis of the scientific exposition of the truth set forth in his “System of Christian Truth,” a thoughtful and speculative treatise on doctrine, followed by “The System of Christian Morals” as the conclusion of his theological work.—Lutheran theology had also zealous representatives in several distinguished jurists: Göschel, president of the consistory of Magdeburg, who wrote against Strauss, sought to derive profound Christian teaching from Goethe and Dante, and wrote on the last things, and on man in respect of body, soul, and spirit; Stahl, A.D. 1802-1861, professor of law at Erlangen and Berlin, leader since A.D. 1849 of the high-church aristocratic reactionary party in the Prussian chamber, supported his views by reference to the Scripture doctrine of the divine origin of magisterial authority.

§ 182.16. As zealous representatives of Reformed Confessionalism who set aside the dogma of predestination and so show no antagonism to the union, may be named: Heppe, opponent of Vilmar in Marburg, who devoted much of his career as a historian to the undermining of Lutheranism, then wrought upon the histories of provincial churches, of Catholic mysticism and pietism, etc.; and Ebrard, A.D. 1818-1887, a brilliant believing theologian who combated rationalism and Catholicism, professor from A.D. 1847 of Reformed theology at Erlangen, known by his “Gospel History: a Compendium of Critical Investigations in Support of the Historical Church of the Four Gospels,” his “Apologetics,” in 3 vols., “Commentary on Hebrews,” etc.

§ 182.17. The Free Protestant Theology.—This school originated in the left wing of Schleiermacher’s following, and has as its literary organs, Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschrift and the Jahrbücher für prot. Theologie.—The distinguished statesman, Von Bunsen, A.D. 1791-1860, ambassador at Rome and afterwards at London, at first stood at the head of the revival of the church interests and life; but in his “Church of the Future,” conceived a constitutional idea on a democratic basis, for which he sought support in historical studies on the Ignatian age, etc., and the historical refutation of the orthodox Christology and trinitarianism. His elaborate work on “Egypt’s Place in the World’s History,” full of arbitrary criticism, negative and positive, on the chronological and historical data of the Old Testament, seeks to show that, by restoring the Egyptian chronology, we for the first time make the Bible history fit into general history. “The Signs of the Times” comprise glowing philippics against the hierarchical pretensions of Papists and even more dangerous Lutherans, insists on Scripture being translated out of the Semitic into the Japhetic mode of speech, to which end he devoted his last great works, “God in History” and his “Bible Commentary,” the latter finished after his death by Kamphausen and Holtzmann.—Schenkel, A.D. 1813-1885, professor at Heidelberg from A.D. 1851 till his resignation in A.D. 1884, from the right wing of the mediating school, through unionism and Melanchthonianism advanced to the standpoint of his “Charakterbild Jesu,” which strips Christ of all supernatural features, yet proclaims him the redeemer of the world, and strives to save his resurrection as a historical and saving truth, and explains his appearances after the resurrection as “real manifestations of the personality living and glorified after death.” In later years he sought to draw yet more closely to positive Christianity. Keim of Zürich and Giessen, A.D. 1825-1878, the ablest of all recent historians of the life of Jesus, and with all his radicalism preserving some conservative tendencies, is best known by his “Jesus of Nazareth,” in six vols.—Holtzmann of Heidelberg and Strassburg, passed from the mediating school over to that of Tübingen, from which in important points he has now departed.—To the same rank belongs Hausrath of Heidelberg, whose “History of the New Testament Times” is well known. Under the pseudonym of George Taylor he has composed several highly successful historical romances.—The organs of this school are Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschrift, and since 1875 the Jena “Jahrbücher für protest. Theologie.”

§ 182.18. In the Old Testament Department a liberal critical school has arisen which has reversed the old relation of “the law and the prophets,” treating the origin of the law as post-exilian, and as in not coming at the beginning, but at the end of the Jewish history. Reuss, whose “History of the New Testament Books” marked an epoch in New Testament introduction, was the first who moved in this direction, in his lectures begun at Strassburg in A.D. 1834, the results of which are given us in his “History of the Theology of the Apostolic Age” and in his “History of the Canon.” Meanwhile Vatke of Berlin had, in A.D. 1835, undertaken to prove that the patriarchal religion was pure Semitic nature worship, and that the prophets were the first to raise it into a monotheistic Jehovism. Little success attended his efforts. Greater results were obtained by Reuss’ two pupils, Graf in A.D. 1866, and Kayser in A.D. 1874. The most brilliant exposition of this theory was given by Julius Wellhausen of Greifswald, transferred in A.D. 1882 to the Philosophical Faculty of Halle, in his “History of Israel.” In his “Prolegomena to History of Israel,” and article “Israel” in “Encyclopædia Britannica,” he gives expression with clearness and force to his radical negative criticism, and develops a purely naturalist conception of the Old Testament. Professor Kuenen of Leyden transplanted these views to the Netherlands, and Robertson Smith has introduced them into Scotland and England, while in Germany they are taught by a number of the younger teachers, Stade in Giessen, Merx in Heidelberg, Smend in Basel, etc. And now at last in A.D. 1882 the venerable master of the school, Edward Reuss, has himself in his “Geschichte d. h. Schr. d. A. Test.” given a brilliant and in many points modified exposition of these radical theories. The history of Israel, according to him, divides itself into the four successive periods of the heroes, of the prophets, of the priests, and of the scribes, characterized respectively by individualism, idealism, formalism, and traditionalism. Even before the close of prophetism the priestly influence began to assert itself, but it was only in the post-exilian period under the domination of the priests that the construction and codification of the law began to make impression on the Jewish people. So too in the age of the kings there existed a Levitical tradition about rites and worship, which traced back its first outlines to the time of Moses, though at this period there could have been no written official codex of any kind. In regard to Moses, we are to think not only of his person as historical, but also of his career as that of a man inspired by the divine spirit and recognised as such by his contemporaries and fellow-countrymen.—Also Wellhausen, who has hitherto concerned himself only with the critical introduction to the Old Testament books, not with their historical or theological interpretation, supplied this defect to some extent by his “Prolegomena to the History of Israel.” He admits that much of the history of Israel related in the Old Testament is credible. He even goes so far as to allow that this history was a preparation and forerunner of Christianity, but without miracle and prophecy, and without any immediate interposition of God in the affairs of Israel.

§ 182.19. Among the most distinguished free-thinking dogmatists of recent times, Biedermann of Zürich, A.D. 1819-1885, has occupied the most advanced position. His principal work, “Christliche Dogmatik,” A.D. 1869, defined God and the origin of the world as the self-development of the Absolute Idea according to the Hegelian scheme, recognises in the person of Christ the first realization of the Christian principle of the divine sonship in a personal life, then proceeds with free exposition of the Scripture and church doctrines, and combats openly the doctrines of the church and through them also those of Scripture, as setting religion purely in the domain of the imagination.—Lipsius of Leipzig, Kiel, and Jena, in his earliest treatise on the Pauline Doctrine of Justification in A.D. 1853, held the position of the mediating theology, but under the influence of Kant, Hegel, and Baur has been led to adopt the standpoint of the “Free Protestant” school. His history of gnosticism and his researches in early apocryphal literature are important contributions to our knowledge of primitive Christianity. His “Lehrbuch d. ev. prot. Dogmatik,” 1876, 2nd ed., 1879, on the basis of Kant and Schleiermacher, fixing the limits of science with the former, and maintaining with the latter the necessity of religious faith and life, not rejecting metaphysics generally, but only its speculations on God and divine things lying quite outside of human experience, seeks from the common faith of the Christian church of all ages, as it is expressed in the Scriptures and in the confessions, by the application of the freest subjective criticism of the letter of revelation, to secure a theory of the world in harmony with modern views.—Pfleiderer, Twesten’s successor in Berlin, in his “Paulinism,” “Influence of Paul on Development of Christianity” and “History of the Philosophy of Religion,” occupies more the Hegelian speculative standpoint than that of Kantian criticism.

§ 182.20. Ritschl and his School.—Ritschl, 1822-1889, from A.D. 1846 in Bonn, from A.D. 1864 in Göttingen, on his withdrawal from the Tübingen party, applied himself to dogmatic studies and founded a school, the adherents of which, divided into right and left wings, have secured quite a number of academical appointments. After the completion of his great dogmatic work on “Justification and Reconciliation,” Ritschl resumed his historical studies in a “History of Pietism,” which he traces back through the persecuted anabaptists of the Reformation age to the Tertiaries of the Franciscan order and the mysticism of St. Bernard. He earnestly maintains his adherence to the confessions of the Lutheran church, and regards it as the task of his life to disentangle the pure Lutheran doctrine from the accretions of scholastic metaphysics. Even more decidedly than Schleiermacher, he banishes all philosophy from the domain of theology. The grand significance of Kant’s doctrine of knowledge, with its assertion of the incomprehensibility of all transcendent truth except the ethical postulates of God, freedom and immortality, as set forth in a more profound manner by Lotze, is indeed admitted, but only as a methodological basis of all religious inquiries, and with determined rejection of every material support from Kant’s construction of religion within the limits of the pure reason. Ritschl rather pronounces in favour of the formal principle of Protestantism, and declares distinctly that all religious truth must be drawn directly from Scripture, primarily from the New Testament as the witness of the early church uncorrupted by the Platonic-Aristotelian metaphysic, but also secondarily from the Old Testament as the record of the content of revelation made to the religious community of Israel. The truthfulness of the biblical, especially of the New Testament, system of truth, rests, however, not on any theory of inspiration, but on its being an authentic statement of the early church of the doctrine of Christ, inasmuch as to this witness the necessary degree of fides humana belongs. Ritschl’s Christology rests on the witness of Christ to himself in the synoptists, through which he proclaims himself the one prophet who in the divine purpose of grace for mankind has received perfect consecration, sent by God into the world to represent the founding of the kingdom of God on earth foreshadowed in the Old Testament revelation; but no attempt is made to explain how Christ became possessed of the secrets of the divine decree. To him, as the first and only begotten Son of God, standing in essential union with the Father, belongs the attribute of deity and the right of worship. But of an eternal pre-existence of Christ we can speak only in so far as this is meant of the eternal gracious purpose of God to redeem the world through him by means of the complete unfolding of the kingdom of God in the fellowship of love. Whatever goes beyond this in the fourth gospel, its Johannine authenticity not being otherwise contested, as well as in Paul’s epistles and in the Epistle to the Hebrews, resulted from the necessity felt by their writers for assigning a sufficient reason for the assumption of such incomparable glory on the part of Christ. As the archetype of humanity destined for the kingdom of God, Christ is the original object of the divine love, so that the love of God to the members of his kingdom comes to them only through him. And as the earthly founding, so also the heavenly completion, of the kingdom of God is assigned to Christ, and hence after his resurrection all power was given to him, of the transcendent exercise of which, however, we can know nothing. The universality of human sin is admitted by Ritschl as a fact of experience, but he despairs of reaching any dogmatic statement as to the origin of sin through the temptation of a superhuman evil power. But that sin is inherited and as original guilt is under the condemnation of God, is not taught or pre-supposed by the teaching either of Christ or of the apostles. Redemption (reconciliation and justification) consists in the forgiveness of sins, by which the guilt that estranges from God is removed and the sinner is restored into the fellowship of the kingdom of God. Forgiveness, however, is not given on condition of the vicarious penal sufferings of Christ, whose sufferings and death are of significance rather because his life and works were a complete fulfilment of his calling, and witnessed to as such by God’s raising him from the dead. Justification secures the reception of the penitent sinner into the fellowship of the kingdom of God, preached and perfectly developed by Christ, and the sonship enjoyed in its membership, prefigured in Christ himself, which contains in itself the desire as well as the capacity to do good works out of love to God.—The school of Ritschl is represented in Göttingen by its founder and by Schultz and Wendt, in Marburg by Herrmann, in Bonn by Bender, in Giessen by Gottschick and Kattenbusch, in Strassburg by Lobstein, in Basel by Kaftan, formerly of Berlin.[537]

§ 182.21. Opponents and critics of the school of Ritschl, especially from the confessional Lutheran ranks, have appeared in considerable numbers. Luthardt of Leipzig in A.D. 1878 opened the campaign against Ritschilianism, followed by Bestmann, charging it with undermining Christianity. The Hanoverian synod of A.D. 1882 decided by a large majority that the scientific results of theological science must be ruled by the confessions of the evangelical church. The chief theme at the following Hanoverian Pentecost Conference was the “Incarnation of the Son of God,” the discussion being led by Professor Dieckhoff of Rostock, against whom no voice was raised in favour of the views of Ritschl. Not long after, Professor Fricke of Leipzig published a lecture given by him at the Meissen Conference, on the Present Relations of Metaphysics and Theology, followed by utterances of Kübel of Tübingen, Grau of Königsberg, Kreibig and H. Schmidt at Berlin, all unfavourable to Ritschl’s theology.—The main objections are, according to Bestmann: idolatry of Kant, depreciation of the religious factor in Christianity in favour of the ethical by laying out a moral foreground without providing a dogmatic background, reducing the objective fundamental truths of the confession into subjective ethical ideas, etc.; according to Luthardt: Ritschl’s position that it does not matter so much what the facts of the Christian faith are in themselves, as what they mean for us, makes his whole dogmatic system hang in the air, if in Christianity we have to do not with what God, Christ, the resurrection are, but only what significance we attach to them, Christianity is stript of all importance, the significance of a thing must have its foundation in the thing itself, etc.; according to Dieckhoff: Ritschl on his accepting the divinity of Christ lays down the rule that the special content of what is meant by the term divinity must be transferable to the believer, and so for Ritschl, Christ is a mere man who in his person was the first to represent a relation to God which is destined for all men in like measure, etc.; according to Fricke: new Kantian scepticism with regard to ideals and transcendentals, reducing religious elements to moral, with Ritschl’s removal of all metaphysical facts the chief verities of our Christian faith are taken away, at least in the scientific form in which we have them, e.g. the doctrine of the Trinity, our Christology, our theory of satisfaction, in place of which comes the Catholic justitia infusa, etc.; according to Münchmayer: “the object of justification with Ritschl is not the individual but the community, it is no act of God upon the individual but an eternal purpose of God for the community, its effect on the individual is not objective divine forgiveness of guilt but a subjective act of incorporation of the individual into the redeemed community; Christ and his work are not the ground of justification, but only the means of revealing the eternal justifying will of God, and therefore finally a continuation of the historical work of Christ by means of his church takes the place of the personal intercession of the exalted Redeemer for the penitent sinner.” Kreibig and Schmidt express themselves in a similar manner.—Ritschl has not himself undertaken any reply, but his disciples have sought to remove what they regard as misunderstandings, and generally to vindicate the system of their master.

§ 182.22. Writers on Constitutional Law and History.—The most distinguished writers on the constitutional law of the church are Eichhorn and Dove of Göttingen, Jacobsen of Königsberg, Wasserschleben of Giessen, Richter and Hinschius of Berlin, Friedberg of Leipzig, who belong to the unionist party; while Bickell of Marburg, Mejer of Göttingen and Hanover, Von Scheuerl of Erlangen, and Sohm of Strassburg belong to the confessional Lutherans.—Of ecclesiastical historians (§ 5, 4, 5) the number is so great that we cannot even enumerate their names.—The “Theologische Literaturzeitung” of Schürer and Harnack is a liberal scientific journal, distinguished for its fair criticisms by writers whose names are given.

§ 183. HOME MISSIONS.

In regard to home mission work, the Protestant church long lagged behind the Catholic, which had wrought vigorously through its monkish orders. England first entered with zeal into the field, especially dissenters and members of the low church party, and subsequently also the high church ritualistic party (§ 202, 1, 3), which now takes an active interest in this work. Germany, in view of the scanty means at the disposal of the pietists and the church party, made noble efforts. In other continental countries, but especially in North America, much was done for home missions. Soon the whole Protestant world began to organize benevolent and evangelistic institutions. The laborious Wichern, in A.D. 1849, went through all Germany to arouse interest in home missions, and started a yearly congress on the subject in Wittenberg. Till his death in A.D. 1881, Wichern continued to direct this congress and further the interests which it represented.

§ 183.1. Institutions.—The earliest charity school was that founded at Düsselthal by Count Recke-Volmarstein, in A.D. 1816, followed by Zeller’s at Beuggen in A.D. 1820. One of the most famous of these institutions was the Rauhe Haus of Wichern, at Horn, near Hamburg, A.D. 1833.[538] Fliedner’s Deaconess Institute at Kaiserswerth is the pride of the evangelical church. It has now 190 branches, with 625 sisters, in the four continents. There are many independent institutions modelled upon it in Germany, England, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Russia, and France. In A.D. 1881 there were in Germany 31, and in the cities of other lands 22, principal deaconess institutions of this German order, with 4,751 sisters and 1,491 fields of labour outside of the institution. The original institute of Kaiserswerth comprises a hospital with 600 patients, a refuge for fallen women and liberated prisoners, an orphanage for girls, a seminary for governesses, and a home for female imbeciles.[539] Löhe founded the deaconess institute of Neuendettelsau, on strict Lutheran principles, with hospital, girls’ school, and asylum for imbecile children. In France a most successful institution was founded by pastor Bost of Laforce, in A.D. 1848, for foundlings, imbeciles, and epileptics. In England, George Müller, a poor German student of Halle, a pupil of Tholuck, beginning in A.D. 1832, founded at Bristol five richly endowed orphanages after the pattern of that of A. H. Francke, in which thousands of destitute street children have been educated, and for this and other purposes has spent nearly £1,000,000 without ever asking any one for a contribution, acting on the belief that “the God of Elijah still lives.” The London City Mission employs 600 missionaries. In New York, since A.D. 1855, about 60,000 street children have been placed, by the Society for Poor Children, in Christian families, and 21 Industrial schools are maintained with 10,000 scholars.—Tract Societies in London, Hamburg, Berlin, etc., send out millions of tracts for Christian instruction and awakening. The Society for North Germany successfully pursues a similar work; the Calw Publication Society circulates Christian text-books with woodcuts at a remarkably small price. In Berlin the Evangelical Book Society issues reprints of the older tracts on practical divinity. Christian women, like the English Quakeress Elizabeth Fry, the noble Amalie Sieveking of Hamburg, Miss Florence Nightingale, the heroine of the Crimean war, and the brave Maria Simon of Dresden, who organized the female nursing corps of the wars of 1866, 1870, 1871, helped on the work of home missions in all lands, especially in the departments of tending the poor and the sick.

§ 183.2. The Order of St. John, secularized in A.D. 1810, was reorganized by Frederick William IV. in A.D. 1852 into an association for the care of the sick and poor. Under a grand-master it has 350 members and 1,500 associates. Its revenues are formed from entrance fees and annual contributions. It has thirty hospitals. In A.D. 1861 it founded a hospital for men in Beyrout during the persecution of Christians in Syria, and in A.D. 1868 gave aid during the famine that followed the typhus epidemic in East Prussia, and did noble service in the wars of A.D. 1864, 1866, and 1870.

§ 183.3. The Itinerant Preacher Gustav Werner in Württemberg.—Abandoning his charge in A.D. 1840, Werner began his itinerant labours, and during the year formed more than a hundred groups of adherents over all Württemberg. His preaching was allegorical and eschatological, and avoided the doctrines of satisfaction and justification. On his repudiating the Augsburg Confession, the church boards refused to recognise him, and he went hither and thither preaching a Christian communism. In A.D. 1842 he bought a site in Reutlingen, built a house, and founded a school for eighty children. In order to develop his views of carrying on industrial arts on a Christian basis, he bought, in A.D. 1850, the paper factory at Reutlingen for £4,000, and subsequently transferred it to Dettingen on a larger scale, at an outlay of £20,000. By A.D. 1862 he had established no less than twenty-two branches, in which manufacturing was carried on, with institutions of all kinds for education, pastoral work, rescuing the lost and raising the fallen. Each member lives and works for the whole; none receives wages; surplus income goes to increase the number and extent of the institutions. Vast multitudes of sunken and destitute families have been by these means restored to respectable social positions and to a moral religious life.

§ 183.4. Bible Societies.—The Bible societies constitute an independent branch of the home mission. Modern efforts to circulate Scripture began in England. As a necessary adjunct to missionary societies, the great British and Foreign Bible Society was founded in London in A.D. 1804, embracing all Protestant sects, excepting the Quakers. It circulates Bibles without note or comment. The Apocryphal controversy of A.D. 1825-1827 resulted in the society resolving not to print the Apocrypha in its issues. In consequence of this decision, fifty German societies, including the present society of Berlin, seceded. The New York Association, founded in A.D. 1817, is in thorough accord with the London society. The Baden Missionary Society revived the discussion in A.D. 1852 by making it the subject of essay for a prize, which was won by the learned work of Keerl, who, along with the stricter Lutherans, condemned the Apocrypha. The other side was taken by Stier and Hengstenberg, and most of the consistories advised adherence to the old practice, as all misunderstanding was prevented by Luther’s preface and the prohibition against using passages from the Apocrypha as sermon texts.—Bible societies altogether have issued during the century 180,000,000 Bibles and New Testaments in 324 different languages.[540]

§ 184. FOREIGN MISSIONS.

Protestant zeal for missions to the heathen has gone on advancing since the end of last century (§ 172, 5). Missionary societies increase from year to year. In A.D. 1883 there were seventy independent societies with innumerable branches, which contribute annually about £1,500,000, or five times as much as the Romish church, and maintain 2,000 mission stations, 2,940 European and American missionaries, and 1,000 ordained native pastors and 25,000 native teachers and assistants, having under their care 2,214,000 converts from heathenism. In missionary enterprise England holds the first place, next comes America, and then Germany. Among Protestant sects the Methodists and Baptists are most zealous in the cause of missions, and the Moravian Brethren have wrought most successfully in this department. The missions also did much to prepare the way for the suppression of the slave trade by the European powers in A.D. 1830, and the emancipation of all slaves in the British possessions in A.D. 1834, at a cost of £20,000,000. The noble English philanthropist, William Wilberforce, unweariedly laboured for these ends.—Also in England, Germany, Russia, and France new associations were formed for missions to the Jews, and the work was carried on with admirable patience, though the visible results were very small.

§ 184.1. Missionary Societies.—The great American Missionary Society was founded at Boston in A.D. 1810, the English Wesleyan in A.D. 1814, the American Methodist in A.D. 1819, the American Episcopal in A.D. 1820, and the Society of Paris in A.D. 1824. The new German societies were on confessional lines: that of Basel in A.D. 1816, of Berlin in A.D. 1823, the Rhenish with the mission seminary at Barmen in A.D. 1829, the North German, on the basis of the Augsburg Confession, in A.D. 1836. The Dresden Society, which resumed the old Lutheran work in the East Indies (§ 167, 9), founded a seminary at Leipzig in A.D. 1849, in order to get the benefit of the university. Lutheran societies, mostly affiliated with that of Leipzig, were started in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Russia, Bavaria, Hanover, Mecklenburg, Hesse, and America. The Neuendettelsau Institute wrought through the Iowa Synod among the North American Indians, and through the Immanuel Synod among the aborigines of Australia. The Hermannsburg Institute under Harms prosecuted mission work with great zeal. In A.D. 1853, Harms sent out in his own mission ship eight missionaries and as many Christian colonists. It has been objected to this mission, that endeavours after social elevation and industrial training have driven to the background the main question of individual conversion.—The advanced liberal school in Switzerland and Germany sought in A.D. 1883 to start a mission on their own particular lines. They do not propose any opposition to existing agencies, and intend to make their first experiment among the civilized races of India and Japan.

§ 184.2. Europe and America.—The Swedish mission in Lapland (§ 160, 7) was resumed in A.D. 1825 by Stockfleth. The Moravians carried on their work among the Eskimos in Greenland, which had now become a wholly Christian country, and also in Labrador, which was almost in the same condition. The chaplain of the Hudson Bay Company, J. West, founded a successful mission in that territory in A.D. 1822. Among the natives and negro slaves in the British possessions, the United States, and West Indies, Moravians, Methodists, Baptists, and Anglican Episcopalians patiently and successfully carried on the work. Among the natives and bush negroes, descendants of runaway slaves, in Guiana, the Moravians did a noble work.—Catholic South America remained closed against Protestant missions. But the ardent zeal of Capt. Allen Gardiner led him to choose the inhospitable shores of Patagonia as a field of labour. He landed there in A.D. 1850 with five missionaries, but in the following year their corpses only were found. The work, however, was started anew in A.D. 1856, and prosecuted with success under the direction of an Anglican bishop.

§ 184.3. Africa.—The Moravians have laboured among the Hottentots, the Berlin missionaries among the wild Corannas, and the French Evangelical Society among the Bechuanas. Hahn of Livonia is the apostle of the Hereros. On the East Coast the London Missionary Society has wrought among the warlike Kaffirs, and other British societies are labouring in Natal among the Zulus. On the West Coast the English colony of Sierra Leone was founded for the settling and Christianizing of liberated slaves, and farther south is Liberia, a similar American colony; both in a flourishing condition, under the care of Methodists, Baptists, and Anglican Episcopalians. The Basel missionaries labour on the Gold Coast, Baptists in Old Calabar, and the American and North German Societies on the Gaboon River.—The London missionaries won Radama of Madagascar to Christianity in A.D. 1818, but his successor Ranavalona instituted a bloody persecution of the Christians in A.D. 1835, during which David Jones, the apostle of the Malagassy, suffered martyrdom in A.D. 1843. In the island of Mauritius, where there is an Anglican bishop, many Malagassy Christians found refuge. After the queen’s death in A.D. 1861, her Christian son Radama II. recalled the Christian exiles and the missionaries. He soon became the victim of a palace revolution. His wife and successor Rosaherina continued a heathen till her death in A.D. 1868, but put no obstacle in the way of the gospel. But her cousin Ranavalona II. overthrew the idol worship, was baptized in A.D. 1869, and in the following year burned the national idols. Protestantism now made rapid strides, till interrupted by French Jesuit intrigues, which have been favoured by the recent French occupation.

§ 184.4. Livingstone and Stanley have made marvellous contributions to our geographical knowledge of Central Africa and to Christian missions there. The Scottish missionary, David Livingstone, factory boy, afterwards physician and minister, wrought, A.D. 1840-1849, under the London Missionary Society in South Africa, and then entered on his life work of exploration in Central Africa. During his third exploring journey into the interior in A.D. 1865 as a British consul, he was not heard of for a whole year. H. M. Stanley, of the New York Herald, was sent in A.D. 1871, and found him in Ujiji on Lake Tanganyiká. Livingstone died of dysentery on the southern bank of this lake in A.D. 1873. Still more important was Stanley’s second journey, A.D. 1874-1877, which yielded the most brilliant scientific results, and was epoch-making in the history of African missions. He got the greatest potentate in those regions, King Mtesa of Uganda, who had been converted by the Arabs to Mohammedanism, to adopt Christianity and permit a Christian church to be built in his city. Stanley’s letters from Africa roused missionary fervour throughout England. The Church Missionary Society in A.D. 1877 set up a mission station in the capital, and put a steamer on the Victoria Nyanza. The church services were regularly attended, education and the work of civilization zealously prosecuted, Sunday labour and the slave trade prohibited, etc. French Jesuits entered in A.D. 1879, insinuating suspicions of the English missionaries into the ear of the king, and the machinations of the Arab slave-dealers made their position dangerous. Missionaries arrived by way of Egypt with flattering recommendations from the English foreign secretary in the name of the queen. But the traders, by means of an Arabic translation of a letter purporting to be from the English consul at Zanzibar, cast suspicion on the document as a forgery, and represented its bearers as in the pay of the hostile Egyptians. Mtesa’s wrath knew no bounds, and only his favour for the missionary physician saved the mission and led him to send an embassy of three chiefs and two missionaries to England in June, A.D. 1879, to discover the actual truth. His anger meanwhile cooled, and the work of the mission was resumed. He was preparing to put an utter end to the national heathenism, when suddenly a report spread that the greatest of all the Lubaris or inferior deities, that of the Nyanza Lake, had become incarnate in an old woman, in order to heal the king and restore the ancient religion. The whole populace was in an uproar; Mtesa, under threat of deposition, restored heathenism, with human sacrifice, man stealing, and the slave trade. Then the Lubari excitement cooled down. Mtesa, moved by a dream, declared himself again a Mohammedan, and converted the Christian church into a mosque. The English missionaries, stripped of all means, starved, and subjected to all sorts of privations, did not flinch. At last, in January, A.D. 1881, the embassy, sent eighteen months before to England, reached home again, and, by the story of their reception, caused a revulsion of feeling in favour of the English mission, which again flourished under the protection of the king. But Mtesa died in 1884. His son and successor, Mwanga, a suspicious, peevish young despot, addicted to all forms of vice, began again the most cruel persecution, of which Bishop Hannington, sent out from England, with fifty companions, were the victims. Only four escaped.

§ 184.5. Asia.—The most important mission field in Asia is India. The old Lutheran mission there had great difficulties to contend against: the system of caste distinctions, the proud self-sufficiency of the pantheistic Brahmans, the politico-commercial interests of the East India Company, etc. The Leipzig Society has sixteen stations among the Tamuls, and alongside are English, American, and German missionaries of every school. The Gossner Society works among the Kohls of Chota Nagpore, where a rival mission has been started by the puseyite bishop of Calcutta, Dr. Milman, to which, in A.D. 1868, six of the twelve German missionaries and twelve of the thirty-six chapels were transferred. The Basel missionaries labour in Canara and Malabar. The military revolt in Northern India in A.D. 1857 interrupted missionary operations for two years; but the work was afterwards resumed with great vigour. The Christian benevolence shown during the famine of A.D. 1878, in which three millions perished, made a great impression in favour of the Protestant church. In the preceding years throughout all India only between 5,000 and 10,000 souls were annually added; but in A.D. 1878 the number of new converts rose to 100,000, and in A.D. 1879 there were 44,000.—The island of Ceylon was, under Portuguese and Dutch rule, in great part nominally Christianized; but when compulsion was removed under British rule, this sham profession was at an end. Multitudes fell back into heathenism, and in the first ten years of the British dominion 900 new idol temples were erected. From A.D. 1812 Baptist, Methodist, and Anglican missionaries have toiled with small appearance of fruit. In Farther India the American missionaries have wrought since A.D. 1813. Judson and his heroic wife did noble work among the Karens and the Burmans. Also in Malacca, Singapore, and Siam the Protestant missions have had brilliant success. The work in Sumatra has been retarded by the opposition of the Malays and deadly malarial fever. The preaching of the gospel was eminently successful in Java, where since A.D. 1814 Baptist missionaries and agents of the London Society have wrought heroically. In Celebes the Dutch missionaries found twenty Christian congregations of old standing, greatly deteriorated for want of pastoral care, but still using the Heidelberg Catechism. At Banjermassin, in A.D. 1835 the Rhenish Society founded their first station in Borneo, and wrought not unsuccessfully among the heathen Dyaks. But in A.D. 1859 a rebellion of the Mohammedan residents led to the expulsion of the Dutch and the murder of all Christians. Only a few of the missionaries escaped martyrdom, and subsequently settled in Sumatra.

§ 184.6. The work in China began in A.D. 1807, when the London Missionary Society settled Morrison in Canton, where he began the study of the language and the translation of the Bible. Gutzlaff of Pomerania, in A.D. 1826, conceived the plan of evangelizing China through the Chinese converts, but, though he continued his efforts till his death in A.D. 1854, the scheme failed through the unworthiness of many of the professors. The war against the opium traffic, A.D. 1839-1842, opened five ports to the mission, and led to the transference of Hongkong to the English. The Chinese mission now made rapid strides; but the interior was still untouched. The conflict between the governor of Canton and the English, French, and Americans, and the chastisement administered to the Chinese in A.D. 1857, led the emperor, in A.D. 1858, to make a treaty with the three powers and also with Russia, by which the whole land was opened up for trade and missions, and full toleration granted to Christianity. Popular hatred of strangers, and especially of missionaries, however, occasioned frequently bloody encounters, and in A.D. 1870 there was a furious outburst directed against the French missionaries. During a terrible famine in North China, in A.D. 1878, when more than five millions perished, the heroic and self-sacrificing conduct of the missionaries brought them into high favour. Throughout China there are now 320 organized Christian congregations with 50,000 adherents under 238 foreign missionaries.—After seclusion for three centuries, Japan, about the same time as China, was opened by treaty to European and American commerce, notwithstanding the opposition of the old feudal nobility, the so-called Daimios. In A.D. 1871 the mikado’s government succeeded in overcoming completely the power of the daimios and setting aside the shiogun or military vizier, who had exercised supreme executive power. European customs were introduced, but the rigorous enactments against native converts to Christianity were still enforced. A cruel persecution of native Christians was carried on in A.D. 1867, but the Protestant missionaries continued to work unweariedly, preparing dictionaries and reading books. The Buddhist priests sought to get up a rival mission to send agents to America and Europe, whereas many of the leading newspapers expressed the opinion that Japan must soon put Christianity in the place of Buddhism as the state religion.

§ 184.7. Polynesia and Australia.—The flourishing Protestant church of Tahiti, the largest and finest of the Society Islands (§ 172, 5), suffered from the appearance of two French Jesuits in A.D. 1836. When Queen Pomare compelled them to withdraw, the French government, resenting this as an indignity to their nation, sent a fleet to attack the defenceless people, proclaimed a French protectorate, and introduced not only Catholic missionaries, but European vices. Amid much persecution, however, the Protestants held their own. In December, 1880, Pomare V. resigned, and the Society Islands became a dependency of France.—In the south-east groups great opposition was shown, but in the north-west Christianity made rapid progress. The island of Raiatea was the centre of the South Sea missions. There from A.D. 1819 John Williams, the apostle of the South Seas, wrought till he met a martyr’s death in A.D. 1839. He went from place to place in a mission ship built by his own hands. The Harvey Group were Christianized in A.D. 1821, and the Navigator Group in A.D. 1830. The French took the Marquesas Islands in A.D. 1838, and introduced Catholic missionaries. The attempt to evangelize the New Hebrides led to the death of Williams and two of his companions. Missionaries of the London Society, A.D. 1797-1799, had failed in the Friendly Islands through the savage character of the natives, but in A.D. 1822 the Methodists made a successful start. The gospel was carried thence to Fiji, which is now under British rule. Both groups have become almost wholly Christianized. The Sandwich Islands form a third mission centre, wrought by the American board. Kamehameha I. gladly adopted the elements of Christian civilization, though rejecting Christianity: while his successor Kamehameha II. in A.D. 1829 abolished tabu and overthrew the idol temples. In A.D. 1851 Christianity was adopted as the national religion. The work was more difficult in New Zealand, where the Church Missionary Society, represented by Samuel Marsden, the apostle of New Zealand, began operations in A.D. 1814. For ten years the position of the missionaries was most hazardous; yet they held on, and the conversion of the most bloodthirsty of the chiefs did much to advance their cause. In New Guinea the London Society has been making steady progress. Among the stolid natives of the continent of New Holland, the so called Papuans, the labours of the Moravians since A.D. 1849 have not yielded much fruit. Since A.D. 1875 the German-Australian Immanuel Synod, supported by Neuendettelsau, has laboured for the conversion of the heathen in the inland districts.

§ 184.8. Missions to the Jews.—In A.D. 1809 the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews (§ 172, 5) was formed by a union of all denominations, but soon passed into the hands of the Anglicans. By the circulation of the Scriptures and tracts, and by the sending out of missionaries, mostly Jewish converts, the work was persevered in amid many discouragements. In A.D. 1818 Poland was opened to its missionaries, and there some 600 Jews were baptized. The society carried on its operations also in Germany, Holland, France, and Turkey. The work in Poland was interrupted by the Crimean war, and was not resumed till A.D. 1875. In Bessarabia Faltin has laboured successfully among the Jews since A.D. 1860. He was joined in the work in A.D. 1867 by the converted Rabbi Gurland, who had studied theology at Halle and Berlin. In A.D. 1871 Gurland accepted a call to similar work in Courland and Lithuania, and since A.D. 1876 has been Lutheran pastor at Mitau. In A.D. 1841 the evangelical bishopric of St. James was founded in Jerusalem by the English and Prussian governments conjointly, presentations to be made alternately, but the ordination to be according to the Anglican rite. The first bishop was Alexander, a Jewish convert. He died in A.D. 1845 and was succeeded by the zealous missionary Gobat, elected by the Prussian government. He died in A.D. 1879 and was succeeded by Barclay, who died in A.D. 1881. It was now again Prussia’s turn to make an appointment. The English demand to have Lutheran ministers ordained successively deacon, presbyter, and bishop had given offence, and so no new appointment has been made. In June 1886 the English-Prussian compact was formally cancelled and a proposal made to found an independent Prussian Evangelical bishopric.

§ 184.9. Missions among the Eastern Churches.—In A.D. 1815 the Church Missionary Society founded a missionary emporium in the island of Malta, as a tract depôt for the evangelizing the East; and in A.D. 1846 the Malta Protestant College was erected for training native missionaries, teachers, physicians, etc., for work in the various oriental countries. In the Ionian islands, in Constantinople, and in Greece, British and American missionaries began operations in A.D. 1819 by erecting schools and circulating the scriptures. At first the orthodox clergy were favourable, but as the work progressed they became actively hostile, and only two mission schools in Syra and Athens were allowed to continue. In Syria the Americans made Beyrout their head quarters in A.D. 1824, but the work was interrupted by the Turco-Egyptian conflicts. Subsequently, however, it flourished more and more, and, before the Syrian massacre of A.D. 1860 (§ 207, 2), there were nine prosperous stations in Syria. The founding of the Jerusalem bishopric in A.D. 1841, and the issuing of the Hatti-Humayun in A.D. 1856 (§ 207, 2), induced the Church Missionary Society to make more vigorous efforts which, however, were afterwards abandoned for want of success. Down to the outbreak of the persecution of Syrian Christians in A.D. 1860, this society had five flourishing stations. From A.D. 1831 the Americans had wrought zealously and successfully among the Armenians in Constantinople and neighbourhood, but in A.D. 1845 the Armenian patriarch excited a violent persecution which threatened the utter overthrow of the work. The British ambassador, Sir Stratford de Redcliffe, however, insisted upon the Porte recognising the rights of the Protestant Armenians as an independent religious denomination, and since then the missions have prospered. Among the Nestorians in Turkey and Persia the Americans, with Dr. Grant at their head, began operations in A.D. 1834; but through Jesuit intrigues the suspicions of the Kurds and Turks were excited, and in A.D. 1843 and 1846 a war of extermination was waged against the mountain Nestorians, which annihilated the Protestant missions among them. Operations, however, have been recommenced with encouraging success. Among the deeply degraded Copts in Egypt, and extending from them into Abyssinia, the Moravians had been working without any apparent result from A.D. 1752 to A.D. 1783. In A.D. 1826 the Church Missionary Society, under German missionaries trained at Basel (Gobat, Irenberg, Krapf [Krapff], etc.), took up the work, till it was stopped by the government in A.D. 1837. In A.D. 1855 the Basel missionaries began again to work in Abyssinia with the approval of King Theodore. This state of things soon changed. Theodore’s ambition was to conquer Egypt and overthrow Islam. But when in A.D. 1863 this scheme only called forth threats from London and Paris, he gave loose rein to his natural ferocity and put the English consul and the German missionaries in chains. By means of an armed expedition in A.D. 1868, England compelled the liberation of the prisoners, and Theodore put an end to his own life. After the withdrawal of the English the country was desolated by civil wars, and at the close of these troubles in A.D. 1878 the mission resumed its operations.

III. Catholicism in General.

§ 185. THE PAPACY AND THE STATES OF THE CHURCH.

The papacy, humiliated but not destroyed by Napoleon I., was in A.D. 1814 by the aid of princes of all creeds restored to the full possession of its temporal and spiritual authority, and amid many difficulties it reasserted for the most part successfully its hierarchical claims in the Catholic states and in those whose Protestantism and Catholicism were alike tolerated. Many severe blows indeed were dealt to the papacy even in the Roman states by revolutionary movements, yet political reaction generally by-and-by put the church in a position as good if not better than it had before. But while on this side the Alps, especially since the outbreak of A.D. 1848, ultramontanism gained one victory after another in its own domain, in Italy, it suffered one humiliation after another; and while the Vatican Council, which put the crown upon its idolatrous assumptions (§ 189, 3), was still sitting, the whole pride of its temporal sovereignty was shattered: the States of the Church were struck out of the number of the European powers, and Rome became the capital and residence of the prince of Sardinia as king of United Italy. But reverence for the pope now reached a height among catholic nations which it had never anywhere attained before.

§ 185.1. The First Four Popes of the Century.—Napoleon as First Consul of the French Republic, in A.D. 1801 concluded a concordat with Pius VII., A.D. 1800-1823, who under Austrian protection was elected pope at Venice, whereby the pope was restored to his temporal and spiritual rights, but was obliged to abandon his hierarchical claims over the church of France (§ 203, 1). He crowned the consul emperor of the French at Paris in A.D. 1804, but when he persisted in the assertion of his hierarchical principles, Napoleon in A.D. 1808 entered the papal territories, and in May, A.D. 1809, formally repudiated the donation of “his predecessor” Charlemagne. The pope treated the offered payment of two million francs as an insult, threatened the emperor with the ban, and in July, A.D. 1809, was imprisoned at Savona, and in A.D. 1812 was taken to Fontainebleau. He refused for a time to give canonical institution to the bishops nominated by the emperor, and though at last he yielded and agreed to reside in France, he soon withdrew his concession, and the complications of A.D. 1813 constrained the emperor, on February 14th, to set free the pope and the Papal States. In May the pope again entered Rome. One of his first official acts was the restoration of the Jesuits by the bull Sollicitudo omnium, as by the unanimous request of all Christendom. The Congregation of the Index was again set up, and during the course of the year 737 charges of heresy were heard before the tribunal of the holy office. All sales of church property were pronounced void, and 1,800 monasteries and 600 nunneries were reclaimed. In A.D. 1815 the pope formally protested against the decision of the Vienna Congress, especially against the overthrow of the spiritual principalities in the German empire (§ 192, 1). Equally fruitless was his demand for the restoration of Avignon (§ 165, 15). In A.D. 1816 he condemned the Bible societies as a plague to Christendom, and renewed the prohibition of Bible translations. His diplomatic schemes were determined by his able secretary Cardinal Consalvi, who not only at the Vienna Congress, but also subsequently by several concordats secured the fullest possible expression to the interests and claims of the curia.—His successor was Leo XII., A.D. 1823-1829, who, more strict in his civil administration than his predecessor, condemned Bible societies, renewed the Inquisition prosecutions, for the sake of gain celebrated the jubilee in A.D. 1825, ordered prayers for uprooting of heresy, rebuilt the Ghetto wall of Rome, overturned during the French rule (§ 95, 3), which marked off the Jews’ quarter, till Pius IX. again threw it down in A.D. 1846. After the eight months’ reign of Pius VIII., A.D. 1829-1830, Gregory XVI., A.D. 1831-1846, ascended the papal throne, and sought amid troubles at home and abroad to exalt to its utmost pitch the hierarchical idea. In A.D. 1832 he issued an encyclical, in which he declared irreconcilable war against modern science as well as against freedom of conscience and the press, and his whole pontificate was a consistent carrying out of this principle. He encountered incessant opposition from liberal and revolutionary movements in his own territory, restrained only by Austrian and French military interference, A.D. 1832-1838, and from the rejection of his hierarchical schemes by Spain, Portugal, Prussia, and Russia.[541]

§ 185.2. Pius IX., A.D. 1846-1878.—Count Mastai Feretti in his fifty-fourth year succeeded Gregory on 16th June, and took the name of Pius IX. While in ecclesiastical matters he seemed willing to hold by the old paths and distinctly declared against Bible societies, he favoured reform in civil administration and encouraged the hopes of the liberals who longed for the independence and unity of Italy. But this only awakened the thunder storm which soon burst upon his own head. The far resounding cry of the jubilee days, “Evviva Pio Nono!” ended in the pope’s flight to Gaeta in November, 1848; and in February, 1849, the Roman Republic was proclaimed. The French Republic, however, owing to the threatening attitude of Austria, hastened to take Rome and restore the temporal power of the pope. Amid the convulsions of Italy, Pius could not return to Rome till April, 1850, where he was maintained by French and Austrian bayonets. Abandoning his liberal views, the pope now put himself more and more under the influence of the Jesuits, and his absolutist and reactionary politics were directed by Card. Antonelli. From his exile at Gaeta he had asked the opinion of the bishops of the whole church regarding the immaculate conception of the blessed Virgin, to whose protection he believed that he owed his safety. The opinions of 576 were favourable, resting on Bible proofs: Genesis iii. 15, Song of Sol. iv. 7, 12, and Luke i. 28; but some French and German bishops were strongly opposed. The question was now submitted for further consideration to various congregations, and finally the consenting bishops were invited to Rome to settle the terms of the doctrinal definition of the new dogma. After four secret sessions it was acknowledged by acclamation, and on 8th December, 1854 (§ 104, 7), the pope read in the Sixtine chapel the bull Ineffabilis and placed a brilliant diadem on the head of the image of the queen of heaven. The disciples of St. Thomas listened in silence to this aspersion of their master’s orthodoxy; no heed was paid to two isolated individual voices that protested; the bishops of all Catholic lands proclaimed the new dogma, the theologians vindicated it, and the spectacle-loving people rejoiced in the pompous Mary-festival. The pope’s next great performance was the encyclical, Quanta cura, of December 8th, 1864, and the accompanying syllabus cataloguing in eighty-four propositions all the errors of the day, by which not only the antichristian and anti-ecclesiastical tendencies, but also claims for freedom of belief and worship, liberty of the press and science, the state’s independence of the church, the equality of the laity and clergy in civil matters, in short all the principles of modern political and social life, were condemned as heretical. Three years later the centenary of Peter (§ 16, 1) brought five hundred bishops to Rome, with other clergy and laymen from all lands. The enthusiasm for the papal chair was such that the pope was encouraged to convoke an œcumenical council. The jubilee of his consecration as priest in A.D. 1869 brought him congratulatory addresses signed by one and a half millions, filled the papal coffers, attracted an immense number of visitors to Rome, and secured to all the votaries gathered there a complete indulgence. On the Vatican Council which met during that same year, see § 189.[542]

§ 185.3. The Overthrow of the Papal States.—In the Peace of Villafranca of 1859, which put an end to the short Austro-French war in Italy, a confederation was arranged of all the Italian princes under the honorary presidency of the pope for drawing up the future constitution of Italy. During the war the Austrians had vacated Bologna, but the French remained in Rome to protect the pope. The revolution now broke out in Romagna. Victor Emanuel, king of Sardinia, was proclaimed dictator for the time over that part of the Papal States and a provisional government was set up. In vain did the pope remind Christendom in an encyclical of the necessity of maintaining his temporal power, in vain did he thunder his excommunicatio major against all who would contribute to its overthrow. A pamphlet war against the temporal power now began, and About’s letters in the Moniteur described with bitter scorn the incapacity of the papal government. In his pamphlet, “Le Pope et le Congrès,” Laguéronnière proposed to restrict the pope’s sovereignty to Rome and its neighbourhood, levy a tax for the support of the papal court on all Catholic nations, and leave Rome undisturbed by political troubles. On December 31st, 1859, Napoleon III. exhorted the pope to yield to the logic of facts and to surrender the provinces that refused any longer to be his. The pope then issued a rescript in which he declared that he could never give up what belonged not to him but to the church. The popular vote in Romagna went almost unanimously for annexation to Sardinia, and this, in spite of the papal ban, was done. A revolution broke out in Umbria and the March of Ancona, and Victor Emanuel without more ado attached these states also to his dominion in A.D. 1860, so that only Rome and the Campagna were retained by the pope, and even these only by means of French support. At the September convention of A.D. 1864 Italy undertook to maintain the papal domain intact, to permit the organization of an independent papal army, and to contribute to the papal treasury; while France was to quit Roman territory within at the latest two years. The pope submitted to what he could not prevent, but still insisted upon his most extreme claims, answered every attempt at conciliation with his stereotyped non possumus, and in A.D. 1866 proclaimed St. Catherine of Siena (§ 112, 4) patron of the “city.” When the last of the French troops took ship in A.D. 1866 the radical party thought the time had come for freeing Italy from papal rule, and roused the whole land by public proclamation. Garibaldi again put himself at the head of the movement. The Papal State was soon encircled by bands of volunteers, and insurrections broke out even within Rome itself. Napoleon pronounced this a breach of the September convention, and in A.D. 1867 the volunteers were utterly routed by the French at Mentana. The French guarded Civita Vecchia and fortified Rome. But in August, 1870, their own national exigencies demanded the withdrawal of the French troops, and after the battle of Sedan the Italians to a man insisted on having Rome as their capital, and Victor Emanuel acquiesced. The pope sought help far and near from Catholic and non-Catholic powers, but he received only the echo of his own words, non possumus. After a four hours’ cannonade a breach was made in the walls of the eternal city, the white flag appeared on St. Angelo, and amid the shouts of the populace the Italian troops entered on September 20th, 1870. A plebiscite in the papal dominions gave 133,681 votes in favour of annexation and 1,507 against; in Rome alone there were 40,785 for and only 46 against. The king now issued the decree of incorporation; Rome became capital of united Italy and the Quirinal the royal residence.

§ 185.4. The Prisoner of the Vatican, A.D. 1870-1878.—The dethroned papal king could only protest and utter denunciations. No result followed from the adoption of St. Joseph as guardian and patron of the church, nor from the solemn consecration of the whole world to the most sacred heart of Jesus, at the jubilee of June 16th, A.D. 1875. The measures of A.D. 1871, by which Cavour sought to realize his ideal of a “free church in a free state,” were pronounced absurd, cunning, deceitful, and an outrage on the apostles Peter and Paul. By these measures the rights and privileges of a sovereign for all time had been conferred on the pope: the holiness and inviolability of his person, a body-guard, a post and telegraph bureau, free ambassadorial communication with foreign powers, the ex-territoriality of his palace of the Vatican, embracing fifteen large saloons, 11,500 rooms, 236 stairs, 218 corridors, two chapels, several museums, archives, libraries, large beautiful gardens, etc., as also of the Lateran and the summer palace of Castle Gandolpho, with all appurtenances, also an annual income, free from all burdens and taxes, of three and a quarter million francs, equal to the former amount of his revenue, together with unrestricted liberty in the exercise of all ecclesiastical rights of sovereignty and primacy, and the renunciation of all state interference in the disposal of bishoprics and benefices. The right of the inferior clergy to exercise the appellatio ab abusu to a civil tribunal was set aside, and of all civil rights only that of the royal exequatur in the election of bishops, i.e. the mere right of investing the nominee of the curia in the possession of the revenues of his office, was retained.—To the end of his life Pius every year returned the dotation as an insult and injury, and “the starving holy father in prison, who has not where to lay his head,” received three or four times more in Peter’s pence contributed by all Catholic Christendom. Playing the rôle of a prisoner he never passed beyond the precincts of the Vatican. He reached the semi-jubilee of his papal coronation in A.D. 1871, being the first pope who falsified the old saying, Annos Petri non videbit. He rejected the offer of a golden throne and the title of “the great,” but he accepted a Parisian lady’s gift of a golden crown of thorns. In support of the prison myth, straws from the papal cell were sold in Belgium for half a franc per stalk, and for the same price photographs of the pope behind an iron grating. As once on a time the legend arose about the disciple whom Jesus loved that he would not die, so was it once said about the pope; and on his eighty-third birthday, in A.D. 1874, a Roman Jesuit paper, eulogising the moral purity of his life, put the words in his mouth, “Which of you convinceth me of sin?” But he himself by constantly renewed rescripts, encyclicals, briefs, allocutions to the cardinals and to numerous deputations from far and near, unweariedly fanned the flame of enthusiasm and fanaticism throughout papal Christendom, and thundered threatening prophecies not only against the Italian, but also against foreign states, for with most of them he lived in open war. A collection of his “Speeches delivered at the Vatican” was published in 1874, commented on by Gladstone in the Contemporary Review for January, 1875, who gives abundant quotations showing papal assumptions, maledictions, abuse and misunderstanding of the Scriptures with which they abound. On the fiftieth anniversary of the pope’s episcopal consecration, in June, 1877, crowds from all lands assembled to offer their congratulations, with costly presents and Peter’s pence amounting to sixteen and a half million francs. He died February 8th, 1878, in the eighty-sixth year of his age and thirty-second of his pontificate. His heirs claimed the unpaid dotations of twenty million lire, but were refused by the courts of law.[543]—His secretary Antonelli, descended from an old brigand family, who from the time of his stay at Gaeta was his evil demon, predeceased him in A.D. 1876. Though the son of a poor herdsman and woodcutter, he left more than a hundred million lire. His natural daughter, to the great annoyance of the Vatican, sought, but without success, in the courts of justice to make good her claims against her father’s greedy brothers.

§ 185.5. Leo XIII.—After only two days’ conclave the Cardinal-archbishop of Perugia, Joachim Pecci, born in A.D. 1810, was proclaimed on February 20th, 1878, as Leo XIII. In autograph letters he intimated his accession to the German and Russian emperors, but not to the king of Italy, and expressed his wish for a good mutual understanding. To the government of the Swiss Cantons he declared his hope that their ancient friendly relations might be restored. At Easter, 1878, he issued an encyclical to all patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and bishops, in which he required of them that they should earnestly entreat the mediation of the “immaculate queen of heaven” and the intercession of St. Joseph, “the heavenly shield of the church,” and also failed not to make prominent the infallibility of the apostolic chair, and to condemn all the errors condemned by his predecessors, emphasizing the necessity of restoring the temporal power of the pope, and confirming and renewing all the protests of his predecessor Pius IX., of sacred memory, against the overthrow of the Papal States. On the first anniversary of his elevation he proclaimed a universal jubilee, with the promise of a complete indulgence. He still persisted in the prison myth of his predecessor, and like him sent back the profferred contribution of his “jailor.” In the conflicts with foreign powers inherited from Pius, as well as in his own, he has employed generally moderate and conciliatory language.—He has not hesitated to take the first step toward a good understanding with his opponents, for which, while persistently maintaining the ancient principles of the papal chair, he makes certain concessions in regard to subordinate matters, always with the design and expectation of seeing them outweighed on the other side by the conservation of all the other hierarchical pretensions of the curial system. It was, however, only in the middle of A.D. 1885 that it became evident that the pope had determined, without allowing any misunderstanding to arise between himself and his cardinals, to break through the trammels of the irreconcilable zealots in the college. And indeed after the conclusion of the German Kulturkampf (§ 197, 13, 15), brought about by these means, in an allocution with reference thereto addressed to the cardinals in May, 1887, he gave an unexpected expression to his wish and longing in regard to an understanding with the government on the Italian question, which involved an utter renunciation of his predecessor’s dogged Non possumus, the attitude hitherto unfalteringly maintained. “Would that peaceful counsels,” says he, “embracing all our peoples should prevail in Italy also, and that at last once that unhappy difference might be overcome without loss of privilege to the holy see!” Such harmony, indeed, is only possible when the pope “is subjected to no authority and enjoys perfect freedom,” which would cause no loss to Italy, “but would only secure its lasting peace and safety.” That he counts upon the good offices of the German emperor for the effecting of this longed-for restoration of such a modus vivendi with the Italian government, he has clearly indicated in his preliminary communications to the Prussian centre exhorting to peace (§ 197, 14). The Moniteur de Rome (§ 188, 1), however, interpreted the words of the pope thus: “Italy would lose nothing materially or politically, if it gave a small corner of its territory to the pope, where he might enjoy actual sovereignty as a guarantee of his spiritual independence.”—On Leo’s contributions to theological science see § 191, 12; on his attitude to Protestantism and the Eastern Church, see § 175, 2, 4. He expressed himself against the freemasons in an encyclical of A.D. 1884 with even greater severity than Pius. Consequently the Roman Inquisition issued an instruction to all bishops throughout the Catholic world requiring them to enjoin their clergy in the pulpit and the confessional to make it known that all freemasons are eo ipso excommunicated, and by Catholic associations of every sort, especially by the spread of the third order of St. Francis (§ 186, 2), the injunction was carried out. At the same time a year’s reprieve was given to the freemasons, during which the Roman heresy laws, which required their children, wives, and relatives to denounce them to all clergy and laymen, were to be suspended. Should the guilty, however, allow this day of grace to pass, these laws were to be again fully enforced, and then it would be only for the pope to absolve them from their terrible sin.

§ 186. VARIOUS ORDERS AND ASSOCIATIONS.

The order of the Jesuits restored in A.D. 1814 by Pius VII. impregnated all other orders with its spirit, gained commanding influence over Pius IX., made the bishops its agents, and turned the whole Catholic church into a Jesuit institution. An immense number of societies arose aiming at the accomplishment of home mission work, inspired by the Jesuit spirit and carrying out unquestioningly the ultramontane ideas of their leaders. Also zeal for foreign missions on old Jesuit lines revived, and the enthusiasm for martyrdom was due mainly to the same cause.

§ 186.1. The Society of Jesus and Related Orders.—After the suppression of their order by Clement XIV. the Jesuits found refuge mainly among the Redemptorists (§ 165, 2), whose headquarters were at Vienna, from which they spread through Austria and Bavaria, finding entrance also into Switzerland, France, Belgium, and Holland, and after 1848 into Catholic Prussia, as well as into Hesse and Nassau. The Congregation of the Sacred Heart was founded by ex-Jesuits in Belgium in A.D. 1794, and soon spread in Austria and Bavaria.—The restored Jesuit order was met with a storm of opposition from the liberals. The July revolution of A.D. 1830 drove the Jesuits from France, and when they sought to re-establish themselves, Gregory XVI., under pressure of the government, insisted that their general should abolish the French institutions in A.D. 1845. An important branch of the order had settled in Catholic Switzerland, but the unfavourable issue of the Separated Cantons’ War of 1847 drove its members out of that refuge. The revolution of 1848 threatened the order with extinction, but the papal restoration of A.D. 1850 re-introduced it into most Catholic countries. Since then the sons of Loyola have renewed their youth like the eagle. They have forced their way into all lands, even in those on both sides of the ocean that had by legislative enactments been closed against them, spreading ultramontane views among Catholics, converting Protestants, and disseminating their principles in schools and colleges. Even Pius IX., under whose auspices Aug. Theiner had been allowed, in A.D. 1853, in his “History of the Pontificate of Clement XIV.” to bring against them the heavy artillery drawn from “the secret archives of the Vatican,” again handed over to them the management of public instruction, and surrendered himself even more and more to their influence, so that at last he saw only by their eyes, heard only with their ears, and resolved only according to their will.[544] The founding of the Italian kingdom under the Prince of Sardinia in A.D. 1860 led to their expulsion from all Italy, with the exception of Venice and the remnants of the Papal States. When, in A.D. 1866, Venice also became an Italian province, they migrated thence into the Tyrol and other Austrian provinces, where they enjoyed the blessings of the concordat (§ 198, 2). Spain, too, on the expulsion of Queen Isabella in A.D. 1868, and even Mexico and several of the States of Central and Southern America, drove out the disciples of Loyola. On the other hand, they made brilliant progress in Germany, especially in Rhenish Hesse and the Catholic provinces of Prussia. But under the new German empire the Reichstag, in A.D. 1872, passed a law suppressing the Jesuits and all similar orders throughout the empire (§ 197, 4). They were also formally expelled from France in A.D. 1880 (§ 203, 6). Still, however, in A.D. 1881 the order numbered 11,000 members in five provinces, and according to Bismarck’s calculation in A.D. 1872 their property amounted to 280 million thalers. In A.D. 1853 John Beckx of Belgium was made general. He retired in A.D. 1884 at the age of ninety, Anderlady, a Swiss, having been appointed in A.D. 1883 his colleague and successor.—The hope which was at first widely entertained that Leo XIII. would emancipate himself from the domination of the order seems more and more to be proved a vain delusion. In July, 1886, he issued, on the occasion of a new edition of the institutions of the order, a letter to Anderlady, in which he, in the most extravagant manner, speaks of the order as having performed the most signal services “to the church and society,” and confirms anew everything that his predecessors had said and done in its favour, while expressly and formally he recalls anew anything that any of them had said and done against it.

§ 186.2. Other Orders and Congregations.—After the storms of the revolution religious orders rapidly recovered lost ground. France decreed, on November 2nd, 1789, the abolition of all orders, and cloisters and in 1802, under Napoleon’s auspices, they were also suppressed in the German empire and the friendly princes indemnified with their goods. Yet on grounds of utility Napoleon restored the Lazarists, as well as the Sisters of Mercy, whose scattered remnants he collected in A.D. 1807 in Paris into a general chapter, under the presidency of the empress-mother. But new cloisters in great numbers were erected specially in Belgium and France (in opposition to the law of 1789, which was unrepealed), in Austria, Bavaria, Prussia, Rhenish Hesse, etc., as also in England and America. In 1849 there were in Prussia fifty monastic institutes; in 1872 there were 967. In Cologne one in every 215, in Aachen one in every 110, in Münster one in every sixty-one, in Paderborn one in every thirty-three, was a Catholic priest or member of an order. In Bavaria, between 1831 and 1873 the number of cloisters rose from 43 to 628, all, with the exception of some old Benedictine monasteries, inspired and dominated by the Jesuits. Even the Dominicans, originally such determined opponents, are now pervaded by the Jesuit spirit. The restoration of the Trappist order (§ 156, 8) deserves special mention. On their expulsion from La Trappe in A.D. 1791 the brothers found an asylum in the Canton Freiburg, and when driven thence by the French invasion of A.D. 1798, Paul I. obtained from the czar permission for them to settle in White Russia, Poland, and Lithuania. But expelled from these regions again in A.D. 1800 they wandered through Europe and America, till after Napoleon’s defeat they purchased back the monastery of La Trappe, and made it the centre of a group of new settlements throughout France and beyond it.—Besides regular orders there were also numerous congregations or religious societies with communal life according to a definite but not perpetually binding rule, and without the obligation of seclusion, as well as brotherhoods and sisterhoods without any such rule, which after the restoration of A.D. 1814 in France and after A.D. 1848 in Germany, were formed for the purposes of prayer, charity, education, and such like. From France many of these spread into the Rhine Provinces and Westphalia.—In Spain and Portugal (§ 205, 1, 5) all orders were repeatedly abolished, subsequently also in Sardinia and even in all Italy (§ 204, 1, 2), and also in several Romish American states (§ 209, 1, 2), as also in Prussia and Hesse (§ 197, 8, 15). Finally the third French Republic has enforced existing laws against all orders and congregations not authorized by the State (§ 203, 6).—On the 700th anniversary of the birth of St. Francis, in September, 1882, Leo XIII. issued an encyclical declaring the institute of the Franciscan Tertiaries (§ 98, 11) alone capable of saving human society from all the political and social dangers of the present and future, which had some success at least in Italy.

Of what inhuman barbarity the superiors of cloisters are still capable is shown instar omnium in the horrible treatment of the nun Barbara Ubryk, who, avowedly on account of a breach of her vow of chastity, was confined since A.D. 1848 in the cloister of the Carmelite nuns at Cracow in a dark, narrow cell beside the sewer of the convent, without fire, bed, chair, or table. It was only in A.D. 1869, in consequence of an anonymous communication to the law officers, that she was freed from her prison in a semi-animal condition, quite naked, starved, and covered with filth, and consigned to an asylum. The populace of Cracow, infuriated at such conduct, could be restrained from demolishing all the cloisters only by the aid of the military.

§ 186.3. The Pius Verein.—A society under the name of the Pius Verein was started at Mainz in October, 1848, to further Catholic interests, advocating the church’s independence of the State, the right of the clergy to direct education, etc. At the annual meetings its leading members boasted in grossly exaggerated terms of what had been accomplished and recklessly prophesied of what would yet be achieved. At the twenty-eighth general assembly at Bonn in A.D. 1881, with an attendance of 1,100, the same confident tone was maintained. Windhorst reminded the Prussian government of the purchase of the Sibylline books, and declared that each case of breaking off negotiations raised the price of the peace. Not a tittle of the ultramontane claims would be surrendered. The watchword is the complete restoration of the status quo ante. Baron von Loë, president of the Canisius Verein, concluded his triumphant speech with the summons to raise the membership of the union from 80,000 to 800,000, yea to 8,000,000; then would the time be near when Germany should become again a Catholic land and the church again the leader of the people. At the assembly at Düsseldorf in A.D. 1883, Windhorst declared, amid the enthusiastic applause of all present, that after the absolute abrogation of the May laws the centre would not rest till education was again committed unreservedly to the church. In the assembly at Münster in A.D. 1885, he extolled the pope (notwithstanding all confiscation and imprisoning for the time being) as the governor and lord of the whole world. The thirty-third assembly at Breslau in A.D. 1886, with special emphasis, demanded the recall of all orders, including that of the Jesuits.

§ 186.4. The various German unions gradually fell under ultramontane influences. The Borromeo Society circulated Catholic books inculcating ultramontane views in politics and religion. The Boniface Union, founded by Martin, Bishop of Paderborn, aided needy Catholic congregations in Protestant districts. Other unions were devoted to foreign missions, to work among Germans in foreign lands, etc. In all the universities such societies were formed. In Bavaria patriot peasant associations were set on foot, as a standing army in the conflict of the ultramontane hierarchy with the new German empire. For the same purpose Bishop Ketteler founded in A.D. 1871 the Mainz Catholic Union, which in A.D. 1814 had 90,000 members. The Görres Society of 1876 (§ 188, 1) and the Canisius Society of 1879 (§ 151, 1) were meant to promote education on ultramontane lines.—In Italy such societies have striven for the restoration of the temporal power and the supremacy of the church over the State. The unions of France were confederated in A.D. 1870, and this general association holds an annual congress. The several unions were called “œuvres.” The Œuvre du Vœu National, e.g., had the task of restoring penitent France to the “sacred heart of Jesus” (§ 188, 12); the Œuvre Pontifical made collections of Peter’s pence and for persecuted priests; the Œuvre de Jesus-Ouvrier had to do with the working classes, etc.

§ 186.5. The knowledge of the omnipotence of capital in these days led to various proposals for turning it to account in the interests of Catholicism. The Catholic Bank schemes of the Belgian Langrand-Dumonceau in 1872 and the Munich bank were pure swindles; and that of Adele Spitzeder 1869-1872, pronounced “holy” by the clergy and ultramontane press, collapsed with a deficit of eight and a quarter million florins.—Archbishop Purcell of Cincinnati invited church members to avoid risk to bank with him. He invested in land, advanced money for building churches, cloisters, schools, etc., and in A.D. 1878 found himself bankrupt with liabilities amounting to five million dollars. He then offered to resign his office, but the pope refused and gave him a coadjutor, whereupon the archbishop retired into a cloister where he died in his eighty-third year. In the Union Générale of Paris, founded in 1876, which came to a crash in 1882, the French aristocracy, the higher clergy and members of orders lost hundreds of millions of francs.

§ 186.6. The Catholic Missions.—The impulse given to Catholic interests after 1848 was seen in the zeal with which missions in Catholic lands, like the Protestant Methodist revival and camp-meetings (§ 208, 1), began to be prosecuted. An attempt was thus made to gather in the masses, who had been estranged from the church during the storms of the revolution. The Jesuits and Redemptorists were prominent in this work. In bands of six they visited stations, staying for three weeks, hearing confessions, addressing meetings three times a day, and concluding by a general communion.

§ 186.7. Besides the Propaganda (§ 156, 9), fourteen societies in Rome, three in Paris, thirty in the whole of Catholic Christendom, are devoted to the dissemination of Catholicism among Heretics and Heathens. The Lyons Association for the spread of the faith, instituted in 1822, has a revenue of from four to six million francs. Specially famous is the Picpus Society, so called from the street in Paris where it has its headquarters. Its founder was the deacon Coudrin, a pupil of the seminary for priests at Poictiers [Poitiers] broken up in A.D. 1789. Amid the evils done to the church and the priests by the Revolution, in his hiding-place he heard a divine call to found a society for the purpose of training the youth in Catholic principles, educating priests, and bringing the gospel to the heathen “by atoning for excesses, crimes, and sins of all kinds by an unceasing day and night devotion of the most holy sacrament of the altar.” Such a society he actually founded in A.D. 1805, and Pius VII. confirmed it in A.D. 1817. The founder died in A.D. 1837, after his society had spread over all the five continents. Its chief aim henceforth was missions to the heathen. While the Picpus society, as well as the other seminaries and monkish orders, sent forth crowds of missionaries, other societies devoted themselves to collecting money and engaging in prayer. The most important of these is the Lyonese Society for the spread of the faith of A.D. 1822. The member’s weekly contribution is 5 cents, the daily prayer-demand a paternoster, an angel greeting, and a “St. Francis Xavier, pray for us.” The fanatical journal of the society had a yearly circulation of almost 250,000 copies, in ten European languages. The popes had showered upon its members rich indulgences.—After Protestant missions had received such a powerful impulse in the nineteenth century, the Catholic societies were thereby impelled to force in wherever success had been won and seemed likely to be secured, and wrought with all conceivable jesuitical arts and devices, for the most part under the political protection of France. The Catholic missions have been most zealously and successfully prosecuted in North America, China, India, Japan, and among the schismatic churches of the Levant. Since 1837 they have been advanced by aid of the French navy in the South Seas (§ 184, 7) and in North Africa by the French occupation of Algiers, and most recently in Madagascar. In South Africa they have made no progress.—In A.D. 1837-1839 a bloody persecution raged in Tonquin and Cochin China; in A.D. 1866 Christianity was rooted out of Corea, and over 2,000 Christians slain; two years later persecution was renewed in Japan. In China, through the oppressions of the French, the people rose against the Catholics resident there. This movement reached a climax in the rebellion of 1870 at Tientsin, when all French officials, missionaries, and sisters of mercy were put to death, and the French consulate, Catholic churches and mission houses were levelled to the ground. Also in Further India since the French war of A.D. 1883 with Tonquin, over which China claimed rights of suzerainty, the Catholic missions have again suffered, and many missionaries have been martyred.

§ 187. LIBERAL CATHOLIC MOVEMENTS.

Alongside of the steady growth of ultramontanism from the time of the restoration of the papacy in A.D. 1814, there arose also a reactionary movement, partly of a mystical-irenical, evangelical-revival and liberal-scientific, and partly of a radical-liberalistic, character. But all the leaders in such movements sooner or later succumbed before the strictly administered discipline of the hierarchy. The Old Catholic reaction (§ 190), on the other hand, in spite of various disadvantages, still maintains a vigorous existence.

§ 187.1. Mystical-Irenical Tendencies.—J. M. Sailer, deprived in A.D. 1794 of his office at Dillingen (§ 165, 12), was appointed in A.D. 1799 professor of moral and pastoral theology at Ingolstadt, and was transferred to Landshut in A.D. 1800. There for twenty years his mild and conciliatory as well as profoundly pious mysticism powerfully influenced crowds of students from South Germany and Switzerland. Though the pope refused to confirm his nomination by Maximilian as Bishop of Augsburg in A.D. 1820, he so far cleared himself of the suspicion of mysticism, separatism, and crypto-calvinism, that in A.D. 1829 no opposition was made to his appointment as Bishop of Regensburg. Sailer continued faithful to the Catholic dogmatic, and none of his numerous writings have been put in the Index. Yet he lay under suspicion till his death in A.D. 1832, and this seemed to be justified by the intercourse which he and his disciples had with Protestant pietists. His likeminded scholar, friend, and vicar-general, the Suffragan-bishop Wittmann, was designated his successor in Regensburg, but he died before receiving papal confirmation. Of all his pupils the most distinguished was the Westphalian Baron von Diepenbrock, over whose wild, intractable, youthful nature Sailer exercised a magic influence. In A.D. 1823 he was ordained priest, became Sailer’s secretary, remaining his confidential companion till his death, was made vicar-general to Sailer’s successor in A.D. 1842, and in A.D. 1845 was raised to the archiepiscopal chair of Breslau, where he joined the ultramontanes, and entered with all his heart into the ecclesiastico-political conflicts of the Würzburg episcopal congress (§ 192, 4). His services were rewarded by a cardinal’s hat from Pius IX. in A.D. 1850. His pastoral letters, however, as well as his sermons and private correspondence, show that he never altogether forgot the teaching of his spiritual father. He delighted in the study of the mediæval mystics, and was specially drawn to the writings of Suso.

§ 187.2. Evangelical-Revival Tendencies.—A movement much more evangelical than that of Sailer, having the doctrine of justification by faith alone as its centre, was originated by a simple Bavarian priest, Martin Boos, and soon embraced sixty priests in the diocese of Augsburg. The spiritual experiences of Boos were similar to those of Luther. The words of a poor old sick woman brought peace to his soul in A.D. 1790, and led him to the study of Scripture. His preaching among the people and his conversations with the surrounding clergy produced a widespread revival. Amid manifold persecutions, removed from one parish to another, and flying from Bavaria to Austria and thence into Rhenish Prussia, where he died in A.D. 1825 as priest of Sayn, he lighted wherever he went the torch of truth. Even after his conversion Boos believed that he still maintained the Catholic position, but was at last to his own astonishment convinced of the contrary through intercourse with Protestant pietists and the study of Luther’s works. But so long as the mother church would keep him he wished not to forsake her.[545] So too felt his like-minded companions Gossner and Lindl, who were expelled from Bavaria in A.D. 1829 and settled in St. Petersburg. Lindl, as Provost of South Russia, went to reside in Odessa, where he exercised a powerful influence over Catholics and Protestants and among the higher classes of the Russians. The machinations of the Roman Catholic and Greek churches caused both Gossner and Lindl to leave Russia in A.D. 1824. They then joined the evangelical church, Lindl in Barmen and Gossner in Berlin. Lindl drifted more and more into mystico-apocalyptic fanaticism; but Gossner, from A.D. 1829 till his death in A.D. 1858 as pastor of the Bohemian church in Berlin, proved a sincere evangelical and a most successful worker.—The Bavarian priest Lutz of Carlshuld, influenced by Boos, devoted himself to the temporal and spiritual well-being of his people, preached Christ as the saviour of sinners, and exhorted to diligent reading of the Bible. In A.D. 1831, with 600 of his congregation, he joined the Protestant church; but to avoid separation from his beloved people, he returned again after ten months, and most of his flock with him, still retaining his evangelical convictions. He was not, however, restored to office, and subsequently in A.D. 1857, with three Catholic priests of the diocese, he attached himself to the Irvingites, and was with them excommunicated.

§ 187.3. Liberal-Scientific Tendencies.—Von Wessenberg, as vicar-general of the diocese of Constance introduced such drastic administrative reforms as proved most distasteful to the nuncio of Lucerne and the Romish curia. He also endeavoured unsuccessfully to restore a German national Catholic church. In the retirement of his later years he wrote a history of the church synods of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which gave great offence to the ultramontanes.—Fr. von Baader of Munich expressed himself so strongly against the absolutism of the papal system that the ultramontane minister, Von Abel, suspended his lectures on the philosophy of religion in A.D. 1838. He gave still greater offence by his work on Eastern and Western Catholicism, in which he preferred the former to the latter.[546] The talented Hirscher of Freiburg more interested in what is Christian than what is Roman Catholic, could not be won over to yield party service to the ultramontanes. They persecuted unrelentingly Leop. Schmid, whose theosophical speculation had done so much to restore the prestige of theology at Giessen, and had utterly discredited their pretensions. When his enemies successfully opposed his consecration as Bishop of Mainz in A.D. 1849, he resigned his professorship and joined the philosophical faculty. Goaded on by the venomous attacks of his opponents he advanced to a more extreme position, and finally declared “that he was compelled to renounce the specifically Roman Catholic church so long as she refused to acknowledge the true worth of the gospel.”

§ 187.4. Radical-Liberalistic Tendencies.—The brothers Theiner of Breslau wrote in A.D. 1828 against the celibacy of the clergy; but subsequently John attached himself to the German-Catholics, and in A.D. 1833 Augustine returned to his allegiance to Rome (§ 191, 7).—During the July Revolution in Paris, the priest Lamennais, formerly a zealous supporter of absolutism, became the enthusiastic apostle of liberalism. His journal L’Avenir, A.D. 1830-1832, was the organ of the party, and his Paroles d’un Croyant, A.D. 1834, denounced by the pope as unutterably wicked, made an unprecedented sensation. The endeavour, however, to unite elements thoroughly incongruous led to the gradual breaking up of the school, and Lamennais himself approximated more and more to the principles of modern socialism. He died in A.D. 1854. One of his most talented associates on the staff of the Avenir was the celebrated pulpit orator Lacordaire, A.D. 1802-1861. Upon Gregory’s denunciation of the journal in A.D. 1832 Lacordaire submitted to Rome, entered the Dominican order in A.D. 1840, and wrote a life of Dominic in which he eulogised the Inquisition; but his eloquence still attracted crowds to Notre Dame. Ultimately he fell completely under the influence of the Jesuits.

§ 187.5. Attempts at Reform in Church Government.—In A.D. 1861 Liverani, pope’s chaplain and apostolic notary, exposed the scandalous mismanagement of Antonelli, the corruption of the sacred college, the demoralization of the Roman clergy, and the ambitious schemes of the Jesuits, recommended the restoration of the holy Roman empire, not indeed to the Germans, but to the Italians: the pope should confer on the king of Italy by divine authority the title and privileges of Roman emperor, who, on his part, should undertake as papal mandatory the political administration of the States of the Church. But in A.D. 1873 he sought and obtained papal forgiveness for his errors. The Jesuit Passaglia expressed enthusiastic approval of the movements of Victor Emanuel and of Cavour’s ideal of a “free church in a free state.” He was expelled from his order, his book was put into the Index, but the Italian Government appointed him professor of moral philosophy in Turin. At last he retracted all that he had said and written. In the preface to his popular exposition of the gospels of 1874, the Jesuit father Curci urged the advisability of a reconciliation between the Holy See and the Italian government, and expressed his conviction that the Church States would never be restored. That year he addressed the pope in similar terms, and refusing to retract, was expelled his order in A.D. 1877. Leo XIII. by friendly measures sought to move him to recant, but without success. The condemnation of his books led to their wider circulation. In A.D. 1883 he charged the Holy See with the guilt of the unholy schism between church and state; but in the following year he retracted whatever in his writings the pope regarded as opposed to the faith, morals, and discipline of the Catholic church.

§ 187.6. Attempts to Found National Catholic Churches.—After the July Revolution of A.D. 1830 the Abbé Chatel of Paris had himself consecrated bishop of a new sect by a new-templar dignitary (§ 210, 1) and became primate of the French Catholic Church, whose creed recognised only the law of nature and viewed Christ as a mere man. After various congregations had been formed, it was suppressed by the police in A.D. 1842. The Abbé Helsen of Brussels made a much more earnest endeavour to lead the church of his fatherland from the antichrist to the true Christ. His Apostolic Catholic Church was dissolved in A.D. 1857 and its remnants joined the Protestants. The founding of the German Catholic Church in A.D. 1844 promised to be more enduring. In August of that year, Arnoldi, Bishop of Treves, exhibited the holy coat preserved there, and attracted one and a half millions of pilgrims to Treves (§ 188, 2). A suspended priest, Ronge, in a letter to the bishop denounced the worship of relics, seeking to pose as the Luther of the nineteenth century. Czerski of Posen had in August, 1844, seceded from the Catholic church, and in October founded the “Christian Catholic Apostolic Church,” whose creed embodied the negations without the positive beliefs of the Protestant confessions, maintaining in other respects the fundamental articles of the Christian faith. Ronge meanwhile formed congregations in all parts of Germany, excepting Bavaria and Austria. A General Assembly held at Leipzig in March, 1845, brought to light the deplorable religious nihilism of the leaders of the party. Czerski, who refused to abandon the doctrine of Christ’s divinity, withdrew from the conference, but Ronge held a triumphal procession through Germany. His hollowness, however, became so apparent that his adherents grew ashamed of their enthusiasm for the new reformer. His congregations began to break up; many withdrew, several of the leaders threw off the mask of religion and adopted the rôle of political revolutionists. After the settlement that followed the disturbances of A.D. 1848 the remnants of this party disappeared.[547]

§ 187.7. The inferior clergy of Italy, after the political emancipation of Naples from the Bourbon domination in A.D. 1860, longed for deliverance from clerical tyranny, and founded in A.D. 1862 a society with the object of establishing a national Italian church independent of the Romish curia. Four Neapolitan churches were put at the disposal of the society by the minister Ricasoli, but in 1865, an agreement having been come to between the curia and the government, the bishops were recalled and the churches restored. Thousands, to save themselves from starvation, gave in their submission, but a small party still remained faithful. Encouraged by the events of 1870 (§§ 135, 3; 189, 3), they were able in 1875 to draw up a “dogmatic statement” for the “Church of Italy independent of the Roman hierarchy,” which indeed besides the Holy Scriptures admitted the authority of the universal church as infallible custodian and interpreter of revealed truth, but accepted only the first seven œcumenical councils as binding. In the same year Bishop Turano of Girgenti excommunicated five priests of the Silician town Grotta as opponents of the syllabus and the dogma of infallibility. The whole clergy of the town, numbering twenty-five, then renounced their obedience to the bishop, and with the approval of the inhabitants declared themselves in favour of the “statement.” North of Rome this movement made little progress; but in 1875 three villages of the Mantuan diocese claimed the ancient privilege of choosing their own priest, and the bishop and other authorities were obliged to yield. The Neapolitan movement, however, as a whole seems to be losing itself in the sand.

§ 187.8. The Frenchman, Charles Loyson, known by his Carmelite monkish name of Père Hyacinthe, was protected from the Jesuits by Archbishop Darboy when he inveighed against the corruptions of the church, and even Pius IX. on his visit to Rome in 1868 treated him with favour. The general of his order having imposed silence on him, he publicly announced his secession from the order and appeared as a “preacher of the gospel,” claiming from a future General Council a sweeping reform of the church, protesting against the falsifying of the gospel of the Son of God by the Jesuits and the papal syllabus. He was then excommunicated. In A.D. 1871 he joined the German Old Catholics (§ 190, 1); and though he gave offence to them by his marriage, this did not prevent the Old Catholics of Geneva from choosing him as their pastor. But after ten months, because “he sought not the overthrow but the reform of the Catholic church, and reprobated the despotism of the mob as well as that of the clergy, the infallibility of the state as well as that of the pope,” he withdrew and returned to Paris, where he endeavoured to establish a French National Church free of Rome and the Pope. The clerical minister Broglie, however, compelled him to restrict himself to moral-religious lectures. In February, 1879, he built a chapel in which he preaches on Sundays and celebrates mass in the French language. He sought alliance with the Swiss Christian Catholics, whose bishop, Herzog, heartily reciprocated his wishes, and with the Anglican church, which gave a friendly response. But that this “seed corn” of a “Catholic Gallican Church” will ever grow into a fully developed plant was from the very outset rendered more than doubtful by the peculiar nature of the sower, as well as of the seed and the soil.

§ 188. CATHOLIC ULTRAMONTANISM.

The restoration of the Jesuit order led, during the long pontificate of Pius IX., to the revival and hitherto unapproached prosperity of ultramontanism, especially in France, whose bishops cast the Gallican Liberties overboard (§§ 156, 3; 203, 1), and in Germany, where with strange infatuation even Protestant princes gave it all manner of encouragement. Even the lower clergy were trained from their youth in hierarchical ideas, and under the despotic rule of their bishops, and a reign of terror carried on by spies and secret courts, were constrained to continue the profession of the strictest absolutism.

§ 188.1. The Ultramontane Propaganda.—In France ultramontanism revived with the restoration. Its first and ablest prophet was Count de Maistre, A.D. 1754-1821, long Sardinian ambassador at St. Petersburg. He wrote against the modern views of the relations of church and state, supporting the infallibility, absolutism, and inviolability of the pope. He was supported by Bonald, Chateaubriand, Lamartine, Lamennais, Lacordaire, and Montalembert. Only Bonald maintained this attitude. Between him and Chateaubriand a dispute arose over the freedom of the press; Lamennais and Lacordaire began to blend political radicalism with their ultramontanism; Lamartine involved himself in the February revolution of 1848 as the apostle of humanity; and Montalembert took up a half-way position. In 1840 Louis Veuillot started the Univers Religieux in place of the Avenir, in which, till his death in 1883, he vindicated the extremest ultramontanism.—In Germany ultramontane views were disseminated by romancing historians and poets mostly converts from Protestantism. Görres, professor of history in Munich, represented the Reformation as a second fall, and set forth the legends of ascetics in his “History of Mysticism” as sound history. The German bishops set themselves to train the clergy in hierarchical views, and by a rule of terror prevented any departure from that theory. The ultramontanising of the masses was carried on by missions, and by the establishment of brotherhoods and sisterhoods. In the beginning of A.D. 1860 there were only thirteen ultramontane journals with very few subscribers, while in January, 1875, there were three hundred. The most important was Germania, founded at Berlin in 1871.—The Civiltà Cattolica of Rome was always revised before publication by Pius IX., and under Leo XIII. a similar position is held by the Moniteur de Rome, while the Osservatore Romano and the Voce della verità have also an official character.

§ 188.2. Miracles.—Prince Hohenlohe went through many parts of Germany, Austria, and Hungary, performing miraculous cures; but his day of favour soon passed, and he settled down as a writer of ascetical works.—Pilgrimages to wonder-working shrines were encouraged by reports of cures wrought on the grand-niece of the Bishop of Cologne (§ 193, 1), cured of knee-joint disease before the holy coat of Treves (§ 187, 6). Subjected to examination, the pretended seamless coat was found to be a bit of the gray woollen wrapping of a costly silk Byzantine garment 1½ feet broad and 1 foot long.

§ 188.3. Stigmatizations.—In many cases these marks were found to have been fraudulently made, but in other cases it was questionable whether we had not here a pathological problem, or whether hysteria created a desire to deceive or pre-disposed the subject to being duped under clerical influence. Anna Cath. Emmerich, a nun of Dülmen in Westphalia, in 1812, professed to have on her body bloody wound-marks of the Saviour. For five years down to her death in 1824, the poet Brentano sat at her feet, venerating her as a saint and listening to her ecstatic revelations on the death and sufferings of the Redeemer and his mother. Overberg, Sailer, and Von Stolberg were also satisfied of the genuineness of her revelations and of the miraculous marking of her body. The physician Von Drussel examined the wound-prints and certified them as miraculous; but Bodde, professor of chemistry at Münster, pronounced the blood marks spots produced by dragon’s-blood. Competent physicians declared her a hysterical woman incapable of distinguishing between dream and reality, truth and lies, honesty and deceit. Others famous in the same line were Maria von Wörl, Dominica Lazzari, and Crescentia Stinklutsch; also Dorothea Visser of Holland and Juliana Weiskircher from near Vienna.

§ 188.4. Of a very doubtful kind were the miraculous marks on Louise Lateau, daughter of a Belgian miner. On 24th April, 1868, it is said she was marked with the print of the Saviour’s wounds on hands, feet, side, brow, and shoulders. In July, A.D. 1868, she fell into an ecstasy, from which she could be awakened only by her bishop or one authorized by him. Trustworthy physicians, after a careful medical examination, reported that she laboured under a disease which they proposed to call “stigmatic neuropathy.” Chemical analysis proved the presence of food which had been regularly taken, probably in a somnambulistic trance. In the summer of 1875 her sister for a time put an end to the affair by refusing the clergy entrance into the house, and she was then obliged to eat, drink, and sleep like other Christians, so that the Friday bloody marks disappeared. But now, say ultramontane journals, Louise became dangerously ill, and clergy were called in to her help, and the marks were again visible. Her patron Bishop Dumont of Tournay being deposed by the pope in 1879, she took part against his successor, and was threatened with excommunication (§ 200, 7). She was now deserted by the ultramontanes and Belgian clergy, and treated as a poor, weak-minded invalid. She died neglected and in obscurity in A.D. 1883.

§ 188.5. Of pseudo-stigmatizations there has been no lack even in the most recent times. In 1845 Caroline Beller, a girl of fifteen years, in Westphalia, was examined by a skilful physician. On Thursday he laid a linen cloth over the wound-prints, and sure enough on Friday it was marked with blood stains; but also strips of paper laid under, without her knowledge, were pricked with needles. The delinquent now confessed her deceit, which she had been tempted to perpetrate from reading the works of Francis of Assisi, Catherine of Siena, and Emmerich. Theresa Städele in 1849, Rosa Tamisier in 1851, and Angela Hupe in 1863, were convicted of fraudulently pretending to have stigmata. The latter was proved to have feigned deafness and lameness for a whole year, to have diligently read the writings of Emmerich in 1861, to have shown the physician fresh bleeding wounds on hands, feet, and side, and to have affirmed that she had neither eaten nor drunk for a year. Four sisters of mercy were sent to attend her, and they soon discovered the fraud. In 1876 the father confessor of Ernestine Hauser was prosecuted for damages, having injured the girl’s health by the severe treatment to which she was subjected in order to induce ecstasy and obtain an opportunity for impressing the stigmata. Sabina Schäfer of Baden, in her eighteenth year, had for two years borne the reputation of a wonder-working saint, who every Friday showed the five wound prints, and in ecstasy told who were in hell and who in purgatory. She professed to live without food, though often she betook herself to the kitchen to pray alone, and even carried food with her to give to her guardian angel to carry to the distant poor. When under surveillance in 1880 she sought to bribe her guardian to bring her meat and drink, fragments of food were found among her clothes, and also a flask with blood and an instrument for puncturing the skin. She confessed her guilt, and was sentenced by the criminal court of Baden to ten weeks’ imprisonment. The ultramontane Pfälzer Bote complained that so-called liberals should ruthlessly encroach on the rights of the church and the family.

§ 188.6. Manifestations of the Mother of God in France.—The most celebrated of these manifestations occurred in 1858 at Lourdes, where in a grotto the Virgin repeatedly appeared to a peasant girl of fourteen years, almost imbecile, named Bernadette Soubirous, saying “Je suis l’Immaculée Conception,” and urging the erection of a chapel on that spot. A miracle-working well sprang up there. Since 1872 the pilgrimages under sanction of the hierarchy have been on a scale of unexampled magnificence, and the cures in number and significance far excelling anything heard of before.—At the village of La Salette in the department of Isère, in 1846 two poor children, a boy of fifteen and a girl of eleven years, saw a fair white-dressed lady sitting on a stone and shedding tears, and, lo, from the spot where her foot rested sprang up a well, at which innumerable cures have been wrought. The epidemic of visions of the Virgin reached a climax in Alsace Lorraine in 1872. In a wood near the village of Gereuth crowds of women and children gathered, professing to see visions of the mother of God; but when the police appeared to protect the forest, the manifestation craze spread over the whole land, and at thirty-five stations almost daily visions were enjoyed. The epidemic reached its crisis in Mary’s month, May, 1874, and continued with intervals down to the end of the year. In some cases deceit was proved; but generally it seemed to be the result of a diseased imagination and self-deception fostered by speculative purveyors and the ultramontane press and clergy.

§ 188.7. Manifestations of the Mother of God in Germany.—In the summer of 1876 three girls of eight years old in the village of Marpingen, in the department of Treves, saw by a well a white-robed lady, with the halo over her head and with a child in her arms, who made herself known as the immaculate Virgin, and called for the erection of a chapel. A voice from heaven said, This is my beloved Son, etc. There were also processions and choirs of angels, etc. The devil, too, appeared and ordered them to fall down and worship him. Thousands crowded from far and near, and the water of the fountain wrought miraculous cures. The surrounding clergy made a profitable business of sending the water to America, and the Germania of Berlin unweariedly sounded forth its praises. Before the court of justice the children confessed the fraud, and were sentenced to the house of correction; and though on technical grounds this judgment was set aside, the supreme court of appeal in 1879 pronounced the whole thing a scandalous and disgraceful swindle.—Weichsel, priest of Dittrichswald in Ermland, who gained great reputation as an exorcist, made a pilgrimage to Marpingen in the summer of 1877, and on his return gave such an account of what he had seen to his communicants’ class that first one and then another saw the mother of God at a maple tree, which also became a favourite resort for pilgrims.

§ 188.8. Canonizations.—When in 1825 Leo XII. canonized a Spanish monk Julianus, who among other miracles had made roasted birds fly away off the spit, the Roman wits remarked that they would prefer a saint who would put birds on the spit for them. St. Liguori was canonized by Gregory XVI. in 1839. Pius IX. canonized fifty-two and beatified twenty-six of the martyrs of Japan. The Franciscans had sought from Urban VIII. in 1627 canonization for six missionaries and seventeen Japanese converts martyred in 1596 (§ 150, 2), but were refused because they would not pay 52,000 Roman thalers for the privilege. Pius IX. granted this, and included three Jesuit missionaries. At Pentecost, 1862, the celebration took place, amid acclamations, firing of cannons, and ringing of bells. In 1868 the infamous president of the heretic tribunal Arbúes [Arbires] (§ 117, 2) received the distinction. The number of doctores ecclesiæ was increased by Pius IX. by the addition of Hilary of Poitiers in 1851, Liguori in 1870, and Francis de Sales in 1877. And Leo XIII. canonized four new saints, the most distinguished of whom was the French mendicant, Bened. Jos. Labre, who after having been dismissed by Carthusians, Cistercians, and Trappists as unteachable, made a pilgrimage to Rome, where he stayed fifteen years in abject poverty, and died in 1783 in his thirty-sixth year.

§ 188.9. Discoveries of Relics.—The Roman catacombs continued still to supply the demand for relics of the saints for newly erected altars. Toward the end of A.D. 1870 the Archbishop of St. Iago de Compostella (§ 88, 4) made excavations in the crypt of his cathedral, in consequence of an old tradition that the bones of the Apostle James the Elder, the supposed founder of the church, had been deposited there, and he succeeded in discovering a stone coffin with remains of a skeleton. The report of this made to Pius IX. gave occasion to the appointment of a commission of seven cardinals, who, after years of minute examination of all confirmatory historical, archæological, anatomical, and local questions, submitted their report to Leo XIII., whereupon, in November, 1884, he issued an “Apostolic Brief,” by which he (without publishing the report) declared the unmistakable genuineness of the discovered bones as ex constanti et pervulgato apud omnes sermone jam ab Apostolorum ætate memoriæ prodita, pronounced the relics generally perennes fontes, from which the dona cælestia flow forth like brooks among the Christian nations, and calls attention to the fact that it is just in this century, in which the power of darkness has risen up in conflict against the Lord and his Christ, these and also many other relics “divinitus” have been discovered, as e.g. the bones of St. Francis, of St. Clara, of Bishop Ambrose, of the martyrs Gervasius and Protasius, of the Apostles Philip and James the Less, the genuineness of which had been avouched by his predecessors Pius VII. and Pius IX.

§ 188.10. The blood of St. Januarius, a martyr of the age of Diocletian, liquefies thrice a year for eight days, and on occasion of earthquakes and such-like calamities in Naples, the blood is brought in two vials by a matron near to the head of the saint; if it liquefies the sign is favourable to the Neapolitans, if it remains thick unfavourable; but in either case it forms a powerful means of agitation in the hands of the clergy. Unbelievers venture to suggest that this precioso sangue del taumaturgo S. Gennaro is not blood, but a mixture that becomes liquid by the warmth of the hand and the heat of the air in the crowded room, some sort of cetaceous product coloured red.

§ 188.11. About 100 clergy, twenty colour-bearers, 150 musicians, 10,000 leapers, 3,000 beggars, and 2,000 singers take part in the Leaping Procession at Echternach in Luxemburg, which is celebrated yearly on Whit-Tuesday. It was spoken of in the sixteenth century as an ancient custom. After an “exciting” sermon, the procession is formed in rows of from four to six persons bound together by pocket-handkerchiefs held in their hands; Wilibrord’s dance is played, and all jump in time to the music, five steps forward and two backward, or two backward and three forward, varied by three or four leaps to the right and then as many to the left. Thus continually leaping the procession goes through the streets of the city to the parish church, up the sixty-two steps of the church stair and along the church aisles to the tomb of Wilibrord (§ 78, 3). The dance is kept up incessantly for two hours. The performers do so generally because of a vow, or as penance for some fault, or to secure the saint’s intercession for the cure of epilepsy and convulsive fits, common in that region, mainly no doubt owing to such senseless proceedings. The origin of the custom is obscure. Tradition relates that soon after the death of Wilibrord a disease appeared among the cattle which jumped incessantly in the stalls, till the people went leaping in procession to Wilibrord’s tomb, and the plague was stayed! But the custom is probably a Christian adaptation of an old spring festival dance of pagan times (§ 75, 3; comp. 2 Sam. vi. 14).

§ 188.12. The Devotion of the Sacred Heart.—Even after the suppression of the Jesuit order the devotion of the Sacred Heart (§ 156, 6) was zealously practised by the ex-Jesuits and their friends. On the restoration of the order numerous brotherhoods and sisterhoods, especially in France, devoted themselves to this exercise, and the revanche movement of A.D. 1870 used this as one of its most powerful instruments. Crowds of pilgrims flocked to Paray le Monial, and there, kneeling before the cradle of Bethlehem, they besought the sacred heart of Jesus to save France and Rome, and the refrain of all the pilgrim songs, “Dieu, de la clemence ... sauvez Rome et la France au nom du sacré-cœur,” became the spiritual Marseillaise of France returning to the Catholic fold. From the money collected over the whole land a beautiful church du Sacré-Cœur has been erected on Montmartre in Paris. The gratifying news was then brought from Rome that the holy father had resolved on July 16th, 1875, the twenty-ninth anniversary of his ascending the papal throne and the two hundredth anniversary of the great occurrences at Paray le Monial, that the whole world should give adoration to the sacred heart. In France this day was fixed upon for the laying of the foundation stone of the church at Montmartre, and the Archbishop of Cologne, Paul Melchers, commanded Catholic Germany to show greater zeal in the adoration of the sacred heart, “ordained by divine revelation” two hundred years before.

§ 188.13. Ultramontane Amulets.—The Carmelites adopted a brown, the Trinitarians a white, the Theatines a blue, the Servites a black, and the Lazarites a red, scapular, assured by divine visions that the wearing of them was a means of salvation. A tract, entitled “Gnaden und Ablässe des fünffachen Skapuliers,” published by episcopal authority at Münster in 1872, declared that any layman who wore the five scapulars would participate in all the graces and indulgences belonging to them severally. The most useful of all was the Carmelite scapular, impenetrable by bullets, impervious to daggers, rendering falls harmless, stilling stormy seas, quenching fires, healing the possessed, the sick, the wounded, etc.—The Benedictines had no scapulars, but they had Benedict-medals, from which they drew a rich revenue. This amulet first made its appearance in the Bavarian Abbey of Metten. The tract, entitled, “St. Benediktusbüchlein oder die Medaille d. h. Benediktus,” published at Münster in 1876, tells how it cures sicknesses, relieves toothache, stops bleeding at the nose, heals burns, overcomes the craving for drink, protects from attacks of evil spirits, restrains skittish horses, cures sick cattle, clears vineyards of blight, secures the conversion of heretics and godless persons, etc.—In A.D. 1878 there appeared at Mainz, with approval of the bishop, a book in its third edition, entitled, “Der Seraphische Gürtel und dessen wunderbare Reichtümer nach d. Franz. d. päpstl. Hausprälaten Abbé v. Segur,” according to which Sixtus V. in 1585 founded the Archbrotherhood of the Girdle of St. Francis. It also affirms that whoever wears this girdle day and night and repeats the six enjoined paternosters, participates in all the indulgences of the holy land and of all the basilicas and sanctuaries of Rome and Assisi, and is entitled to liberate 1,000 souls a day from purgatory.—Great miracles of healing and preservation from all injuries to body and soul, property and goods, are attributed by the Jesuits to the “holy water of St. Ignatius” (§ 149, 11), the sale of which in Belgium, France, and Switzerland has proved to them a lucrative business. But the mother of God has herself favoured them with a still more powerful miracle-working water in the fountains of Lourdes and Marpingen.

§ 188.14. We give in conclusion a specimen of Ultramontane pulpit eloquence. A Bavarian priest, Kinzelmann, said in a sermon in 1872: “We priests stand as far above the emperor, kings, and princes as the heaven is above the earth.... Angels and archangels stand beneath us, for we can in God’s stead forgive sins. We occupy a position superior to that of the mother of God, who only once bare Christ, whereas we create and beget him every day. Yea, in a sense, we stand above God, who must always and everywhere serve us, and at the consecration must descend from heaven upon the mass,” etc.—An apotheosis of the priesthood worthy of the Middle Ages.

§ 189. THE VATICAN COUNCIL.[548]

Immediately after Pius IX. had, at the centenary of St. Peter in 1867, given a hint that a general council might be summoned at an early date, the Civiltà Cattolica of Rome made distinct statements to the effect that the most prominent questions for discussion would be the confirming of the syllabus (§ 185, 2), the sanctioning of the doctrine of papal absolutism in the spirit of the bull Unam sanctam of Boniface VIII. (§ 110, 1), and the proclamation of papal infallibility. The Civiltà had already taught that “when the pope thinks, it is God who thinks in him.” When the council opened on the day of the immaculate conception, December 8th, 1869, all conceivable devices of skilful diplomacy were used by the Jesuit Camarilla, and friendly cajoling and violent threatening on the part of the pope, in order to silence or win over, and, in case this could not be done, to stifle and suppress the opposition which even already was not inconsiderable in point of numbers, but far more important in point of moral, theological, and hierarchical influence. The result aimed at was secured. Of the 150 original opponents only fifty dared maintain their opposition to the end, and even they cowardly shrank from a decisive conflict, and wrote from their respective dioceses, as their Catholic faith obliged them to do, notifying their most complete acquiescence.

§ 189.1. Preliminary History of the Council.—When Pius IX. on the centenary of St. Peter made known to the assembled bishops his intention to summon a general council, they expressed their conviction that by the blessing of the immaculate Virgin it would be a powerful means of securing unity, peace, and holiness. The formal summons was issued on the day of St. Peter and St. Paul of the following year, June 29th, 1868. The end for which the council was convened was stated generally as follows: The saving of the church and civil society from all evils threatening them, the thwarting of the endeavours of all who seek the overthrow of church and state, the uprooting of all modern errors and the downfall of all godless enemies of the apostolical chair. In Germany the Catholic General Assembly which met at Bamberg soon after this declared that from this day a new epoch in the world’s history would begin, for “either the salvation of the world would result from this council, or the world is beyond the reach of help.” This hopefulness prevailed throughout the whole Catholic world. Fostered by the utterances of the Civiltà Cattolica, the excitement grew from day to day. The learned bishop in partibus Maret, dean of the theological faculty of Paris, now came forward as an eloquent exponent of the Gallican liberties; even the hitherto so strict Catholic, the Count Montalembert, to the astonishment of everybody, assumed a bold and independent attitude in regard to the council, and energetically protested in a publication of March 7th, 1870, six days before his death, against the intrigues of the Jesuits and the infallibility dogma which it was proposed to authorize. But the greatest excitement was occasioned by the work “Der Papst und das Konzil,” published in Leipzig, 1869, under the pseudonym Janus, of which the real authors were Döllinger, Friedrich, and Huber of Munich, who brought up the heavy artillery of the most comprehensive historical scholarship against the evident intentions of the curia. The German bishops gathered at the tomb of St. Boniface at Fulda in September, 1869, and issued from thence a general pastoral letter to their disturbed flocks, declaring that it was impossible that the council should decide otherwise than in accordance with holy Scripture and the apostolic traditions and what was already written upon the hearts of all believing Catholics. Also the papal secretary, Card. Antonelli, quieted the anxiety of the ambassadors of foreign powers at Rome by the assurance that the Holy See had in view neither the confirming of the syllabus nor the affirming of the dogma of infallibility. In vain did the Bavarian premier, Prince Hohenlohe, insist that the heads of other governments should combine in taking measures to prevent any encroachment of the council upon the rights of the state. The great powers resolved to maintain simply a watchful attitude, and only too late addressed earnest expostulations and threats.

§ 189.2. The Organization of the Council.—Of 1,044 prelates entitled to take part in the council 767 made their appearance, of whom 276 were Italians and 119 bishops in partibus, all pliable satellites of the curia, as were also the greater number of the missionary bishops, who, with their assistants in the propaganda, were supported at the cost of the holy father. The sixty-two bishops of the Papal States were doubly subject to the pope, and of the eighty Spanish and South American bishops it was affirmed in Rome that they would be ready at the bidding of the holy father to define the Trinity as consisting of four persons. Forty Italian cardinals and thirty generals of orders were equally dependable. The Romance races were represented by no less than 600, the German by no more than fourteen. For the first time since general councils were held was the laity entirely excluded from all influence in the proceedings, even the ambassadors of Catholic and tolerant powers. The order of business drawn up by the pope was arranged in all its details so as to cripple the opposition. The right of all fathers of the council to make proposals was indeed conceded, but a committee chosen by the pope decided as to their admissibility. From the special commissions, whose presidents were nominated by the pope, the drafts of decrees were issued to the general congregation, where the president could at will interrupt any speaker and require him to retract. Instead of the unanimity required by the canon law in matters of faith, a simple majority of votes was declared sufficient. A formal protest of the minority against these and similar unconstitutional proposals was left quite unheeded. The proceedings were indeed taken down by shorthand reporters, but not even members of council were allowed to see these reports. The conclusions of the general congregation were sent back for final revision to the special commissions, and when at last brought up again in the public sessions, they were not discussed, but simply voted on with a placet or a non-placet. The right transept of St. Peter’s was the meeting place of the council, the acoustics of which were as bad as possible, but the pope refused every request for more suitable accommodation. Besides, the various members spoke with diverse accents, and many had but a defective knowledge of Latin. Although absolute secresy was enjoined on pain of falling into mortal sin, under the excitement of the day so much trickled out and was in certain Romish circles so carefully gathered and sifted, that a tolerably complete insight was reached into the inner movements of the council. From such sources the author of the “Römischen Briefe,” supposed to have been Lord Acton, a friend and scholar of Döllinger, drew the material for his account, which, carried by trusty messengers beyond the bounds of the Papal State, reached Munich, and there, after careful revision by Döllinger and his friends, were published in the Augsburg Allg. Zeitung. Also Prof. Friedrich of Munich, who had accompanied Card. Hohenlohe to Rome as theological adviser, collected what he could learn in episcopal and theological circles in a journal which was published at a later date.

§ 189.3. The Proceedings of the Council.—The first public session of December 8th, 1869, was occupied with opening ceremonies; the second, of January 6th, with the subscription of the confession of faith on the part of each member. The first preliminary was the schema of the faith, the second that on church discipline. Then followed the schema on the church and the primacy of the pope in three articles: the legal position of the church in reference to the state, the absolute supremacy of the pope over the whole church on the principles of the Pseudo-Isidore (§ 87, 2) and the assumptions of Gregory VII., Innocent III. and Boniface VIII., reproduced in the principal propositions of the syllabus (§ 184, 2), and the outlines of a catechism to be enforced as a manual for the instruction of youth throughout the church. On March 6th there was added by way of supplement to the schema of the church a fourth article in the form of a sketch of the decree of infallibility. Soon after the opening of the council an agitation in this direction had been started. An address to the pope emanating from the Jesuit college petitioning for this was speedily signed by 400 subscribers. A counter address with 137 signatures besought the pope not to make any such proposal. At the head of the agitation in favour of infallibility stood archbishops Manning of Westminster, Deschamps of Mechlin, Spalding of Baltimore, and bishops Fessler of St. Pölten, secretary of the council, Senestrey of Regensburg, the “overthrower of thrones” (§ 197, 1), Martin of Paderborn, and, as bishop in partibus, Mermillod of Geneva. Among the leaders of the opposition the most prominent were cardinals Rauscher of Vienna, Prince Schwarzenberg of Prague and Matthieu of Besançon, Prince-bishop Förster of Breslau, archbishops Scherr of Munich, Melchers of Cologne, Darboy of Paris, and Kenrick of St. Louis, the bishops Ketteler of Mainz, Dinkel of Augsburg, Hefele of Rottenburg, Strossmayer of Sirmium, Dupanloup of Orleans, etc.—Owing to the discussions on the Schema of the Faith there occurred on March 22nd a stormy scene, which in its wild uproar reminds one of the disgraceful Robber Synod of Ephesus (§ 52, 4). When Bishop Strossmayer objected to the statement made in the preamble, that the indifferentism, pantheism, atheism, and materialism prevailing in these days are chargeable upon Protestantism, as contrary to truth, the furious fathers of the majority amid shouts and roars, shaking of their fists, rushed upon the platform, and the president was obliged to adjourn the sitting. At the next session the objectionable statement was withdrawn and the entire schema of the faith was unanimously adopted at the third public sitting of the council on April 24th. The Schema of the Church came up for a consideration on May 10th. The discussion turned first and mainly on the fourth article about the infallibility of the pope. Its biblical foundation was sought in Luke xxii. 32, its traditional basis chiefly in the well-known passage of Irenæus (§ 34, 8) and on its supposed endorsement by the general councils of Lyons and Florence (§ 67, 4, 6), but the main stress was laid on its necessarily following from the position of the pope as the representative of Christ. The opposition party had from the outset their position weakened by the conduct of many of their adherents who, partly to avoid giving excessive annoyance to the pope, and partly to leave a door open for their retreat, did not contest the correctness of the doctrine in question, but all the more decidedly urged the inopportuneness of its formal definition as threatening the church with a schism and provocative of dangerous conflicts with the civil power. The longer the decision was deferred by passionate debates, the more determinedly did the pope throw the whole weight of his influence into the scales. By bewitching kindliness he won some, by sharp, angry words he terrified others. He denounced opponents as sectarian enemies of the church and the apostolic chair, and styled them ignoramuses, slaves of princes, and cowards. He trusted the aid of the blessed Virgin to ward off threatened division. To the question whether he himself regarded the formulating of the dogma as opportune, he answered: “No, but as necessary.” Urged by the Jesuits, he confidently declared that it was notorious that the whole church at all times taught the absolute infallibility of the pope; and on another occasion he silenced a modest doubt as to a sure tradition with the dictatorial words, La tradizione sono io, adding the assurance, “As Abbáte Mastai I believe in infallibility, as pope I have experienced it.” On July 13th the final vote was called for in the general congregation. There were 371 who voted simply placet, sixty-one placet juxta modum, i.e. with certain modifications, and eighty-eight non placet. After a last hopeless attempt by a deputation to obtain the pope’s consent to a milder formulating of the decree, Bishop Ketteler vainly entreating on his knees, to save the unity and peace of the church by some small concession, the fifty hitherto steadfast members of the minority returned home, after emitting a written declaration that they after as well as before must continue to adhere to their negative vote, but from reverence and respect for the person of the pope they declined to give effect to it at a public session. On the following day, July 18th, the fourth and last public sitting was held: 547 fathers voted placet and only two, Riccio of Cajazzo and Fitzgerald of Little Rock, non placet. A violent storm had broken out during the session and amid thunder and lightning, Pius IX., like “a second Moses” (Exod. xix. 16), proclaimed in the Pastor æternus the absolute plenipotence and infallibility of himself and all his predecessors and successors.—It was on the evening preceding the proclamation of this new dogma that Napoleon III. proclaimed war with Prussia, in consequence of which the pope lost the last remnants of temporal sovereignty and every chance of its restoration. Under the influence of the fever-fraught July sun, the council now dwindled down to 150 members, and, after the whole glory of the papal kingdom had gone down (§ 185, 3), on October 20th, its sittings were suspended until better times. The schema of discipline and the preliminary sketch of a catechism were not concluded; a subsequently introduced schema on apostolic missions was left in the same state; and a petition equally pressed by the Jesuits for the defining of the corporeal ascension of Mary had not even reached the initial stage.

§ 189.4. Acceptance of the Decrees of the Council.—All protests which during the council the minority had made against the order of business determined on and against all irregularities resulting from it, because not persisted in, were regarded as invalid. Equally devoid of legal force was their final written protest which they left behind, in which they expressly declined to exercise their right of voting. And the assent which they ultimately without exception gave to the objective standpoint of the law and the faith of the Catholic church, was not in the least necessary in order to make it appear that the decisions of the council, drawn up with such unanimity as had scarcely ever before been seen, were equally valid with any of the decrees of the older councils. Thus the bishops of the minority, if they did not wish to occasion a split of unexampled dimensions and incalculable complications, quarrels, and contentions in the church that boasted of a unity which had hitherto been its strength and stay, could do nothing else than yield at the twelfth hour to the pope’s demand that “sacrificio dell’intelletto” which at the eleventh hour they had refused. The German bishops, who had proved most steadfast at the council, were now in the greatest haste to make their submission. Even by the end of August, at Fulda, they joined their infallibilist neighbours in addressing a pastoral letter, in which they most solemnly declared that all true Catholics, as they valued their soul’s salvation, must unconditionally accept the conclusions of the council unanimously arrived at which are in no way prejudiced by the “differences of opinion” elicited during the discussion. At the same time they demanded of theological professors, teachers of religion, and clergymen throughout the dioceses a formal acceptance of these decrees as the inviolable standpoint of their doctrinal teaching; they also took measures against those who refused to yield, and excommunicated them. Even Bishop Hefele, who did not sign this pastoral and was at first determined not to yield nor swerve, at last gave way. In his pastoral proclaiming the new dogma he gave it a quite inadmissible interpretation: As the infallibility of the church, so also that of the pope as a teacher, extends only to the revealed doctrines of faith and morals, and even with reference to them only the definitions proper and not the introductory statements, grounds, and applications, belong to the infallible department. But subsequently he cast himself unreservedly into the arms of his colleagues assembled once again at Fulda in September, 1872, where he also found his like-minded friend, Bishop Haneberg of Spires. Yet he forbore demanding an express assent from his former colleagues at Tübingen and his clergy, and thus saved Württemberg from a threatened schism. Strossmayer held out longest, but even he at last threw down his weapons. But many of the most cultured and scholarly of the theological professors, disgusted with the course events were taking, withdrew from the field and continued silently to hold their own opinions. The inferior clergy, for the most part trained by ultramontane bigots, and held in the iron grasp of strict hierarchical discipline, passed all bounds in their extravagant glorification of the new dogma. And while among the liberal circles of the Catholic laity it was laughed at and ridiculed, the bigoted nobles and the masses who had long been used to the incensed atmosphere of an enthusiastic adoration of the pope, bowed the knee in stupid devotion to the papal god. But the brave heart of one noble German lady broke with sorrow over the indignity done by the Vatican decree and the characterlessness of the German bishops to the church of which to her latest breath she remained in spirit a devoted member. Amalie von Lasaulx, sister of the Munich scholar Ernst von Lasaulx (§ 174, 4), from 1849 superioress of the Sisters of Mercy in St. John’s Hospital at Bonn, lay beyond hope of recovery on a sick-bed to which she had been brought by her self-sacrificing and faithful discharge of the duties of her calling, when there came to her from the lady superior of the order at Nancy the peremptory demand to give in her adhesion to the infallibility dogma. As she persistently and courageously withstood all entreaties and threats, all adjurations and cruelly tormenting importunings, she was deposed from office and driven from the scene of her labours, and when, soon thereafter, in 1872, she died, the habit of her order was stripped from her body. The Old Catholics of Bonn, whose proceedings she had not countenanced, charged themselves with securing for her a Christian burial.—No state as such has recognised the council. Austria answered it by abolishing the concordat and forbidding the proclamation of the decrees. Bavaria and Saxony refused their placet; Hesse, Baden, and Württemberg declared that the conclusions of the council had not binding authority in law. Prussia indeed held to its principle of not interfering in the internal affairs of the Catholic church, but, partly for itself, partly as the leading power of the new German empire, passed a series of laws in order to resume its too readily abandoned rights of sovereignty over the affairs of the Catholic church, and to insure itself against further encroachments of ultramontanism upon the domain of civil life (§ 197). The Romance states, on the other hand, pre-eminently France, were prevented by internal troubles and conflicts from taking any very decisive steps.

§ 190. THE OLD CATHOLICS.

A most promising reaction, mainly in Germany, led by men highly respected and eminent for their learning, set in against the Vatican Council and its decrees, in the so-called Old Catholic movement of the liberal circles of the Catholic people, which went the length, even in 1873, of establishing an independent and well organized episcopal church. Since then, indeed, it has fallen far short of the all too sanguine hopes and expectations at first entertained; but still within narrower limits it continues steadily to spread and to rear for itself a solid structure, while carefully, even nervously, shrinking from anything revolutionary. More in touch with the demands of the Zeitgeist in its reformatory concessions, yet holding firmly in every particular to the positive doctrines of orthodoxy, the Old Catholic movement has made progress in Switzerland, while in other Catholic countries its success has been relatively small.

§ 190.1. Formation and Development of the Old Catholic Church in the German Empire.—In the beginning of August, 1870, the hitherto exemplary Catholic professor Michelis of Braunsberg (§ 191, 6), issued a public charge against Pius IX. as a heretic and devourer of the church, and by the end of August several distinguished theologians (Döllinger and Friedrich of Munich, Reinkens, Weber, and Baltzer of Breslau, Knoodt of Bonn, and the canonist Von Schulte of Prague) joined him at Nuremberg in making a public declaration that the Vatican Council could not be regarded as œcumenical, nor its new dogma as a Catholic doctrine. This statement was subscribed to by forty-four Catholic professors of the university of Munich with the rector at their head, but without the theologians. Similarly, too, several Catholic teachers in Breslau, Freiburg, Würzburg, and Bonn protested, and still more energetically a gathering of Catholic laymen at Königswinter. Besides the Breslau professors already named, the Bonn professors Reusch, Langen, Hilgers, and Knoodt refused to subscribe the council decrees at the call of their bishop; whereas the Munich professors, with the exception of Döllinger and Friedrich, yielded. A repeated injunction of his archbishop in January, 1871, drew from Döllinger the statement that he as a Christian, a theologian, a historian, and a citizen, was obliged to reject the infallibility dogma, while at the same time he was prepared before an assembly of bishops and theologians to prove that it was opposed to Scripture, the Fathers, tradition, and history. He was now literally overwhelmed with complimentary addresses from Vienna, Würzburg, Munich, and almost all other cities of Bavaria; and an address to government on the dangers to the state threatened by the Vatican decrees that lay at the Munich Museum, was quickly filled with 12,000 signatures. On April 14th, Döllinger was excommunicated, and Professor Huber sent an exceedingly sharp reply to the archbishop. After several preliminary meetings, the first congress of the Old Catholics was held in Munich in September, 1871, attended by 500 deputies from all parts of Germany. A programme was unanimously adopted which, with protestation of firm adherence to the faith, worship, and constitution of the ancient Catholic church, maintained the invalidity of the Vatican decrees and the excommunication occasioned by them, and, besides recognising the Old Catholic church of Utrecht (§ 165, 8), expressed a hope of reunion with the Greek church, as well as of a gradual progress towards an understanding with the Protestant church. But when at the second session the president, Dr. von Schulte, proposed the setting up of independent public services with regular pastors, and the establishing as soon as possible of an episcopal government of their own, Döllinger contested the proposal as a forsaking of the safe path of lawful opposition, taking the baneful course of the Protestant Reformation, and tending toward the formation of a sect. As, however, the proposal was carried by an overwhelming majority, he declined to take further part in their public assemblies and retired more into the background, without otherwise opposing the prevailing current or detaching himself from it. The second congress was held at Cologne in the autumn of 1872. From the episcopal churches of England and America, from the orthodox church of Russia, from France, Italy, and Spain, were sent deputies and hearty friendly greetings. Archbishop Loos of Utrecht, by the part which he took in the congress, cemented more closely the union with the Old Catholics of Holland. Even the German “Protestantenverein” was not unrepresented. A committee chosen for the purpose drew up an outline of a synodal and congregational order, which provides for the election of bishops at an annual meeting at Pentecost of a synod, of which all the clergy are members and to which the congregations send deputies, one for every 200 members. Alongside of the bishop stands a permanent synodal board of five priests and seven laymen. The bishop and synodal board have the right of vetoing doubtful decrees of synod. The choice of pastors lies with the congregation; its confirmation belongs to the bishop. In July, 1873, a bishop was elected in the Pantaleon church of Cologne by an assembly of delegates, embracing twenty-two priests and fifty-five laymen. The choice fell upon Professor Reinkens, who, as meanwhile Bishop Loos of Utrecht had died, was consecrated on August 11th, at Rotterdam, by Bishop Heykamp of Deventer, and selected Bonn as his episcopal residence.

§ 190.2. The first synod of the German Old Catholics, consisting of thirty clerical and fifty-nine lay members, met at Bonn in May, 1874. It was agreed to continue the practice of auricular confession, but without any pressure being put upon the conscience or its observance being insisted upon at set times. Similarly the moral value of fasting was recognised, but all compulsory abstinence, and all distinctions of food as allowable and unallowable, were abolished. The second synod, with reference to the marriage law, took the position that civil regular marriages ought also to have the blessing of the church; only in the case of marriages with non-Christians and divorced parties should this be refused. The third synod introduced a German ritual in which the exorcism was omitted, while the Latin mass was provisionally retained. The fourth synod allowed to such congregations as might wish it the use of the vernacular in several parts of the service of the mass. At all these synods the lay members had persistently repeated the proposal to abolish the obligatory celibacy of the clergy. But now the agitation, especially on the part of the Baden representatives, had become so keen, that at the fifth synod of 1878, in spite of the warning read by Bishop Reinkens from the Dutch Old Catholics, who threatened to withdraw from the communion, the proposal was carried by seventy-five votes against twenty-two. The Bonn professors, Langen and Menzel, foreseeing this result, had absented themselves from the synod, Reusch immediately withdrew and resigned his office as episcopal vicar-general, Friedrich protested in the name of the Bavarian Old Catholics. Reinkens, too, had vigorously opposed the movement; whereas Knoodt, Michelis, and Von Schulte had favoured it. The synod of 1883 resolved to dispense the supper in both kinds to members of the Anglican church residing in Germany, but among their own members to follow meanwhile the usual practice of communio sub una. The number of Old Catholic congregations in the German empire is now 107, with 38,507 adherents and 56 priests.—Even at their first congress the German Old Catholics, in opposition to the unpatriotic and law-defying attitude of German ultramontanism, had insisted upon love of country and obedience to the laws of the state as an absolute Christian duty. Their newly chosen bishop Reinkens, too, gave expression to this sentiment in his first pastoral letter, and had the oath of allegiance administered him by the Prussian, Baden, and Hessian governments. But Bavaria felt obliged, on account of the terms of its concordat, to refuse. At first the Old Catholics had advanced the claim to be the only true representatives of the Catholic church as it had existed before July 18th, 1870. At the Cologne congress they let this assumption drop, and restricted their claims upon the state to equal recognition with “the New Catholics,” equal endowments for their bishop, and a fair proportion of the churches and their revenues. Prussia responded with a yearly episcopal grant of 16,000 thalers; Baden added about 6,000. It proved more difficult to enforce their claim to church property. A law was passed in Baden in 1874, which not only guaranteed to the Old Catholic clergy their present benefices and incomes, freed them from the jurisdiction of the Romish hierarchy, and gave them permission to found independent congregations, but also granted them a mutual right of possessing and using churches and church furniture as well as sharing in church property according to the numerical proportion of the two parties in the district. A similar measure was introduced into the Prussian parliament, and obtained the royal assent in July, 1875. Since then, however, the interest of the government in the Old Catholic movement has visibly cooled. In Baden, in 1886 the endowment had risen to 24,000 marks.

§ 190.3. The Old Catholics in other Lands.—In Switzerland the Old, or rather, as it has there been called, the Christian, Catholic movement, had its origin in 1871 in the diocese of Basel-Solothurn, whence it soon spread through the whole country. The national synod held at Olten in 1876 introduced the vernacular into the church services, abolished the compulsory celibacy of the clergy and obligatory confession of communicants, and elected Professor Herzog bishop, Reinkens giving him episcopal consecration. In 1879 the number of Christian Catholics in German Switzerland amounted to about 70,000, with seventy-two pastors. But since then, in consequence of the submission of the Roman Catholics to the church laws condemned by Pius IX. they have lost the majority in no fewer than thirty-nine out of the forty-three congregations of Canton Bern, and therewith the privileges attached. A proposal made in the grand council of the canton in 1883 for the suppression of the Christian Catholic theological faculty in the University of Bern, which has existed since 1874, was rejected by one hundred and fifty votes against thirteen.—In Austria, too, strong opposition was shown to the infallibility dogma. At Vienna the first Old Catholic congregation was formed in February, 1872, under the priest Anton; and soon after others were established in Bohemia and Upper Austria. But it was not till October, 1877, that they obtained civil recognition on the ground that their doctrine is that which the Catholic church professed before 1870. In June, 1880, they held their first legally sanctioned synod. The provisional synodical and congregational order was now definitely adopted, and the use of the vernacular in the church services, the abolition of compulsory fasting, confession, and celibacy, as well as of surplice fees, and the abandoning of all but the high festivals, were announced on the following Sunday. The bitter hatred shown by the Czechs and the ultramontane clergy to everything German has given to the Old Catholic movement for some years past a new impulse and decided advantage.—In France the Abbé Michaud of Paris lashed the characterlessness of the episcopate and was excommunicated, and the Abbés Mouls and Junqua of Bordeaux were ordered by the police to give up wearing the clerical dress. Junqua, refusing to obey this order, was accused by Cardinal Donnet, Bishop of Bordeaux, before the civil court, and was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. Not till 1879 did the ex-Carmelite Loyson of Paris lay the foundation of a Catholic Gallican church, affiliated with the Swiss Old Catholics (§ 187, 8).—In Italy since 1862, independently of the German movement, yet on essentially the same grounds, a national Italian church was started with very promising beginnings, which were not, however, realized (§ 187, 7). Rare excitement was caused throughout Italy by the procedure of Count Campello, canon of St. Peter’s in Rome, who in 1881 publicly proclaimed his creed in the Methodist Episcopal chapel, there renouncing the papacy, and in a published manifesto addressed to the cathedral chapter justified this step and made severe charges against the papal curia; but soon after, in a letter to Loyson, he declared that he, remaining faithful to the true Catholic church, did not contemplate joining any Protestant sect severed from Catholic unity, and in a communication to the Old Catholic Rieks of Heidelberg professed to be in all points at one with the German Old Catholics. Accordingly he sought to form in Rome a Catholic reform party, whose interests he advocated in the journal Il Labaro. The pope’s domestic chaplain, Monsignor Savarese, has adopted a similar attitude. In December, 1883, he was received by the pastor of the American Episcopal church at Rome into the Old Catholic church on subscribing the Nicene Creed. In 1886 they were joined by another domestic chaplain of the pope, Monsignor Renier, formerly an intimate friend of Pius IX., who publicly separated himself from the papal church, and with them took his place at the head of a Catholic “Congregation of St. Paul” in Rome.—Also the Episcopal Iglesia Española in Spain (§ 205, 4), and the Mexican Iglesia de Jesus (§ 209, 1), must be regarded as essentially of similar tendencies to the Old Catholics.

§ 191. CATHOLIC THEOLOGY, ESPECIALLY IN GERMANY.

Catholic theology in Germany, influenced by the scientific spirit prevailing in Protestantism, received a considerable impulse. From latitudinarian Josephinism it gradually rose toward a strictly ecclesiastical attitude. Most important were its contributions in the department of dogmatic and speculative theology. Besides and after the schools of Hermes, Baader, and Günther, condemned by the papal chair, appeared a whole series of speculative dogmatists who kept their speculations within the limits of the church confession. Also in the domain of church history, Catholic theology, after the epoch-making productions of Möhler and Döllinger, has aided in reaching important results, which, however, owing to the “tendency” character of their researches, demand careful sifting. Least important are their contributions to biblical criticism and exegesis. In general, however, the theological docents at the German universities give a scientific character to their researches and lectures in respect of form and also of matter, so far as the Tridentine limits will allow. But the more the Jesuits obtained influence in Germany, the more was that scholasticism, which repudiated the German university theology and opposed it with perfidious suspicions and denunciations, naturalized, especially in the episcopal seminaries, while it was recommended by Rome as the official theology. The attempt, however, at the Munich Congress of Scholars in 1863 to come to an understanding between the two tendencies failed, owing to the contrariety of their principles and the opposition of the Jesuits.—Outside of Germany, French theology, especially in the department of history, manifested a praiseworthy activity. In Spain theology has never outgrown the period of the Middle Ages. In Italy, on the other hand, the study of Christian antiquities flourished, stimulated by recent discoveries of treasures in catacombs, museums, archives, and libraries.

§ 191.1. Hermes and his School.—The Bonn professor, George Hermes, influenced in youth by the critical philosophy, passed the Catholic dogma of Trent, assured it would stand the test, through the fire of doubt and the scrutiny of reason, because only what survives such examination could be scientifically vindicated. He died in A.D. 1831, and left a school named after him, mainly in Treves, Bonn, and Breslau. Gregory XVI. in 1835 condemned his writings, and the new Archbishop of Cologne, Droste-Vischering, forbad students at Bonn attending the lectures of Hermesians. These made every effort to secure the recall of the papal censure. Braun and Elvenich went to Rome, but their declaration that Hermes had not taught what the pope condemned profited them as little as a similar statement had the Jansenists. There now arose on both sides a bitter controversy, which received new fuel from the Prusso-Cologne ecclesiastical strife (§ 193, 1). Finally in 1844 professors Braun and Achterfeld of Bonn were deprived of office by the coadjutor-Archbishop Geissel, and the Prussian government acquiesced. The professors of the Treves seminary and Baltzer of Breslau, the latter influenced by Günther’s theology, retracted.—A year before Hermes’ condemnation the same pope had condemned the opposite theory of Abbé Bautain of Strassburg, that the Christian dogmas cannot be proved but only believed, and that therefore all use of reason in the appropriation of the truths of salvation is excluded. Bautain, as an obedient son of the church, immediately retracted, “laudabiliter se subjecit.”

§ 191.2. Baader and his School.—Catholic theology for a long time paid no regard to the development of German philosophy. Only after Schelling, whose philosophy had many points of contact with the Catholic doctrine, a general interest in such studies was awakened as forming a speculative basis for Catholicism. To the theosophy of Schelling based on that of the Görlitz shoemaker (§ 160, 2), Francis von Baader, professor of speculative dogmatics at Munich, though not a professional theologian, but a physician and a mineralogist, attached himself. In his later years he went over completely to ultramontanism. His scholar Franz Hoffmann of Würzburg has given an exposition of Baader’s speculative system. At Giessen this system was represented by Leop. Schmid (§ 187, 3). All the Catholic adherents of this school are distinguished by their friendly attitude toward Protestantism.

§ 191.3. Günther and his School.—A theology of at least equal speculative power and of more decidedly Catholic contents than that of Baader, was set forth by the secular priest Anton Günther of Vienna, a profound and original thinker of combative humour, sprightly wit, and a roughness of expression sometimes verging upon the burlesque. He recognised the necessity of going up in philosophical and theological speculation to Descartes, who held by the scholastic dualism of God and the creature, the Absolute and the finite, spirit and nature, while all philosophy, according to him, had been ever plunging deeper into pantheistic monism. Thence he sought to solve the two problems of Christian speculation, creation and incarnation, and undertook a war of extermination against “all monism and semimonism, idealistic and realistic pantheism, disguised and avowed semipantheism,” among Catholics and Protestants. His first great work, “Vorschule zur Spekul. Theologie,” published in 1828, treating of the theory of creation and the theory of incarnation, was followed by a long series of similar works. His most eminent scholars were Pabst, doctor of medicine in Vienna, who gave clear expositions of his master’s dark and aphoristic sayings, and Veith, who popularized his teachings in sermons and practical treatises. Some of the Hermesians, such as Baltzer of Breslau, entered the rank of his scholars. The historico-political papers, however, charged him with denying the mysteries of Christianity, rejecting the traditional theology, etc., and Clemens, a privatdocent of philosophy in Bonn, became the mouthpiece of this party. Thus arose a passionate controversy, which called forth the attention of Rome. We might have expected Günther to meet the fate of Hermes twenty years before; but the matter was kept long under consideration, for strong influence from Vienna was brought to bear on his behalf. At last in January, 1857, the formal reprobation of the Güntherian philosophy was announced, and all his works put in the Index. Günther humbly submitted to the sentence of the church. So too did Baltzer. But being suspected at Rome, he was asked voluntarily to resign. This Baltzer refused to do. Then Prince-Bishop Förster called upon the government to deprive him; and when this failed, he withdrew from him the missio canonica and a third of his canonical revenues, and in 1870, on his opposing the infallibility dogma, he withheld the other two-thirds. His salary from the State continued to be paid in full till his death in A.D. 1871.

§ 191.4. John Adam Möhler.—None of all the Catholic theologians of recent times attained the importance and influence of Möhler in his short life of forty-two years. Stimulated to seek higher scientific culture by the study mainly of Schleiermacher’s works and those of other Protestants, and putting all his rich endowments at the service of the church, he won for himself among Catholics a position like that of Schleiermacher among Protestants. His first treatise of 1825, on the unity of the church, was followed by his “Athanasius the Great,” and the work of his life, the “Symbolics” of 1832, in its ninth edition in 1884, which with the apparatus of Protestant science combats the Protestant church doctrine and presented the Catholic doctrine in such an ennobled and sublimated form, that Rome at first seriously thought of placing it in the Index. Hitherto Protestants had utterly ignored the productions of Catholic theology, but to overlook a scientific masterpiece like this would be a confession of their own weakness. And in fact, during the whole course of the controversy between the two churches, no writing from the Catholic camp ever caused such commotion among the Protestants as this. The ablest Protestant replies are those of Nitsch [Nitzsch] and Baur. In 1835 Möhler left Tübingen for Munich; but sickness hindered his scientific labours, and, in 1838, in the full bloom of manhood, the Catholic church and Catholic science had to mourn his death. He can scarcely be said to have formed a school; but by writings, addresses, and conversation he produced a scientific ferment in the Catholic theology of Germany, which continued to work until at last completely displaced by the scholasticism reintroduced into favour by the Jesuits.

§ 191.5. John Jos. Ignat. von Döllinger.—Of all Catholic theologians in Germany, alongside of and after Möhler, by far the most famous on either side of the Alps was the church historian Döllinger, professor at Munich since 1826. His first important work issued in that same year was on the “Doctrine of the Eucharist in the First Three Centuries.” His comprehensive work, “The History of the Christian Church,” of 1833 (4 vols., London, 1840), was not carried beyond the second volume; and his “Text-book of Church History” of 1836, was only carried down to the Reformation. The tone of his writings was strictly ecclesiastical, yet without condoning the moral faults of the popes and hierarchy. Great excitement was produced by his treatise on “The Reformation,” in which he gathered everything that could be found unfavourable to the Reformers and their work, and thus gained the summit of renown as a miracle of erudition and a master of Catholic orthodoxy. Meanwhile in 1838 he had taken part in controversies about mixed marriages (§ 193, 1), and in 1843 over the genuflection question (§ 195, 2), with severely hierarchical pamphlets. As delegate of the university since 1845 he defended with brilliant eloquence in the Bavarian chamber the measures of the ultramontane government and the hierarchy, became in 1847 Provost of St. Cajetan, but was also in the same year involved in the overthrow of the Abel ministry, and was deprived of his professorship. In the following year he was one of the most distinguished of the Catholic section in the Frankfort parliament, where he fought successfully in the hierarchical interest for the unconditional freedom and independence of the church. King Maximilian II. restored him to his professorship in 1849. From this time his views of confessional matters became milder and more moderate. He first caused great offence to his ultramontane admirers at Easter, 1861, when he in a series of public lectures delivered one on the Papal States then threatened, in which he declared that the temporal power of the pope, the abuses of which he had witnessed during a journey to Rome in 1857, was by no means necessary for the Catholic church, but was rather hurtful. The papal nuncio, who was present, ostentatiously left the meeting, and the ultramontanes were beside themselves with astonishment, horror, and wrath. Döllinger gave some modifying explanations at the autumn assembly of the Catholic Union at Munich in 1861. But soon thereafter appeared his work, “The Church and the Churches” (London, 1862), which gave the lecture slightly modified as an appendix. The “Fables respecting the Popes of the Middle Ages” (London, 1871), was as little to the taste of the ultramontanes. Indeed in these writings, especially in the first named, the polemic against the Protestant Church had all its old bitterness; but he is at least more just toward Luther, whom he characterizes as “the most powerful man of the people, the most popular character, which Germany ever possessed.” And while he delivers a glowing panegyric on the person of the pope, he lashes unrelentingly the misgovernment of the Papal States. At the Congress of Scholars at Munich he contended for the freedom of science. Döllinger as president of the congress sent the pope a telegram which satisfied his holiness. But the Jesuits looked deeper, and immediately “il povero Döllinger” was loaded by the Civiltà Cattolica with every conceivable reproach. In A.D. 1868 nominated to the life office of imperial councillor, he voted with the bishops against the liberal education scheme of the government. But his battle against the council and infallibility made the rent incurable, and his angry archbishop hurled against him the great excommunication. Then Vienna made him doctor of philosophy, Marburg, Oxford, and Edinburgh gave him LL.D., and the senate of his university unanimously elected him rector in 1871. But his tabooed lecture room became more and more deserted. He took no prominent part in the organizing of the Old Catholic church (§ 190, 1), but all the more eagerly did he seek to promote its union negotiations (§ 175, 6).

§ 191.6. The Chief Representatives of Systematic Theology.—Klee, A.D. 1800-1840, of Bonn and Munich, was a positivist of the old school, and during the Hermesian controversy a supporter of the theology of the curia. Hirscher, 1788-1865, of Freiburg, numbered by the liberals as one of their ornaments and by the fanatical ultramontanes as a heretic, did much to promote a conciliatory and moderate Catholicism, equally free from ultramontane and rationalistic tendencies, abandoning nothing essential in the Catholic doctrine. Hilgers, the Hermesian, afterwards joined the Old Catholics of Bonn. Staudenmaier and Sengler of Freiburg and Berlage of Münster held a distinguished rank as speculative theologians. In the same department, Kuhn and Drey of Tübingen, Ehrlich of Prague, Deutinger of Dillingen, a disciple of Schelling and Baader, and as such persecuted, though a pious believing Catholic, Oischinger of Munich, who in despair at the proclamation of the Vatican decree suddenly stopped his fruitful literary activity, Dieringer of Bonn, who for the same reason not only ceased to write but also in 1871 resigned his professorship and retired to a small country pastorate, and finally, Hettinger of Würzburg, best known by his “Apologie d. Christenthums.”—While the above-named, though suspected and opposed by the scholastic party, strove to preserve intact their ecclesiastical Catholic character, other representatives of this tendency by their struggles against scholasticism and then against the Vatican Council, were driven away from their orthodox position. Thus Frohschammer of Munich, when his treatise on “The Origin of the Soul,” in which he supported the theory of Generationism in opposition to the Catholic doctrine of creationism, and other works were placed in the Index, asked for a revision on the ground that he taught nothing contrary to Catholic doctrine. He was stripped of all his clerical functions, and students were prohibited attending his lectures. He protested, and his rooms were more crowded than ever. Subsequently, however, repudiated even by the Old Catholics, he drifted more and more, not only from the church, but even from belief in revelation. Against Strauss’ last work he wrote a tract in which he sought to prove that “the old faith is indeed untenable,” but that also “the new science” cannot take its place, that a “new faith” must be introduced by going back to the Christianity of Christ. Michelis, a man of wide culture in the department of natural science and philology, as well as theology and philosophy, had in his earlier position as professor in Paderborn, Münster, and Braunsberg, supported by word and pen a strictly ecclesiastical tendency; but the Vatican Council made him one of the first and most zealous leaders of the Old Catholic movement. His most important work is his “Catholic Dogmatics,” of 1881, in which the Old Catholic conception of Christianity is represented as the purified higher unity of the Protestant and Vatican systems of doctrine.

§ 191.7. The Chief Representatives of Historical Theology.—The first place after Möhler and Döllinger belongs to Möhler’s scholar Hefele, from 1840 professor at Tübingen and from 1869 Bishop of Rottenburg, distinguished by the liberal spirit of his researches. His treatises on the Honorius controversy made him one of the most dangerous opponents of the infallibility dogma, to which, however, he at last submitted (§ 189, 4). His most important work is the “History of the Councils.” Hase criticised the second edition of the work, severely but not without sufficient grounds, by saying that in it “the bishop chokes the scholar.” Werner of Vienna is a prolific writer in the department of the history of theological literature; while Bach of Munich and the Dominican Denifle have written on the mediæval mystics, the latter also on the universities of the Middle Ages. Hergenröther of Würzburg, by his monograph on “Photius and the Greek Schism,” written in the interests of his party, and by his polemic against the anti-Vatican movement, and specially by his “Handbook of Church History,” rendered such service to the papacy and the papal church, that Leo XIII. in 1879 made him a cardinal and librarian of the Vatican, with the task of reorganizing the library.—Among the Old Catholics, Friedrich of Munich, besides his historical account of the Vatican Council, had written on Wessel, Huss, and the church history of Germany. Huber of Munich, whose “Philosophy of the Church Fathers” of 1859 was put in the Index, while his much more liberal work on Erigena of 1861 passed without censure, in later years wrote an exhaustive account of the Jesuit order and a critical reply to Strauss’ “Old and New Faith.” Pichler of Munich, by his conscientious research and criticism, drew down upon him the papal censure, and his book on the “History of the Division of the Eastern and Western Churches” had the honour of being placed in the Index. His later studies and writings estranged him more and more from Romanism, inspired him with the idea of a national German church, and fostered in him a love for the Protestantenverein movement; but his unbridled bibliomania while assistant in the Royal Library of St. Petersburg in 1871, brought his public career to a sad and shameful end. The Old Catholic Professor Langen of Bonn, wrote a four-volume work against the Vatican dogma, discussed the “Trinitarian Doctrinal Differences between the Eastern and Western Churches,” in the interests of a union with the Greek church, and published an able monograph on “John of Damascus,” as well as a thorough and impartial “History of the Roman Church down to Nicholas I.,” two vols., 1881, 1885.—In Rome the Oratorian Aug. Theiner atoned for the literary errors of his youth (§ 187, 4) by his zealous vindication of papal privileges. His chief works were the continuation of the “Annales Ecclesiastici” of Baronius, and the editing of the historical documents of the various Christian nations. The Jesuits charged him with giving the anti-Vaticanists aid from the library and sought to influence the pope against him so as to deprive him of his office of prefect of the Vatican archives. He was suspended from his duties, and though he still retained his title and occupied his official residence in the Vatican, the doors from it into the library were built up. His edition of the “Acts of the Council of Trent,” which was commenced, was also prohibited. But he succeeded in making a transcript at Agram in Croatia, where in 1874 a portion of it, the official protocol of the secretary of the Council, Massarelli, was printed by the help of Bishop Strossmayer in an elegant style but abbreviated, and therefore unsatisfactory. Cardinal Angelo Mai, as principal Vatican librarian, distinguished himself by his palimpsest studies in old classical as well as patristic literature. And quite worthy of ranking with either in carefulness, diligence, and patience was De Rossi, who has laboured in the department of Christian archæology, and is well known by his great work, “Roma sotteranea cristiana,” published in 1864 ff.—Xavier Kraus, when his “Handbook” had been adversely criticised, hastened to Rome, submitted all his utterances to the judgment of the pope, and proclaimed on his return that in the next edition he would explain what had been misunderstood and withdraw what was objected to. The question now rises, whether the more recent work of Xav. Funk can escape a similar censure.

Among Catholic writers on canon lay the most notable are Walters of Bonn, Phillips of Vienna, Von Schulte of Prague and Bonn, who till the Vatican Council was one of the most zealous advocates of the strict Catholic tendency, since then openly on the side of the opposition, a keen supporter, and by word and pen a vigorous promoter, of the Old Catholic movement, and Vering of Prague, who occupies the ultramontane Vatican standpoint.

§ 191.8. The Chief Representatives of Exegetical Theology.—Hug of Freiburg, in his “Introduction,” occupies the biblical but ecclesiastically latitudinarian attitude of Jahn. Leaving dogma unattacked and so himself unattacked, Mövers of Breslau, best known by his work on the Phœnicians, a Richard Simon of his age, developed a subtlety of destructive criticism of the canon and history of the Old Testament which astonished even the father of Protestant criticism, De Wette. Kaulen of Bonn wrote an “Introduction to the Old and New Testament,” in a fairly scientific spirit from the Vatican standpoint; while Maier of Freiburg, wrote an introduction to the New Testament and commentaries on some New Testament books.—The Old Catholic Reusch of Bonn wrote “Introduction to the Old Testament,” and “Nature and the Bible” (2 vols., Edin., 1886). Sepp of Munich, silent since 1867, began his literary career with a “Life of Christ,” a “History of the Apostles,” etc., in the spirit of the romantic mystical school of Görres. His “Sketch of Church Reform, beginning with a Revision of the Bible Canon,” caused considerable excitement. With humble submission to the judgment of his church, he demanded a correction of the Tridentine decrees on Scripture in accordance with the results of modern science, but the only response was the inclusion of his book in the Index.

§ 191.9. The Chief Representatives of the New Scholasticism.—The official and most masterly representative of this school for the whole Catholic world was the Jesuit Perrone, 1794-1876, professor of dogmatics of the Collegium Romanum, the most widely read of the Catholic polemical writers, but not worthy to tie the shoes of Bellarmin [Bellarmine], Bossuet, and Möhler. In his “Prælectiones Theologicæ,” nine vols., which has run through thirty-six editions, without knowing a word of German, he displayed the grossest ignorance along with unparalleled arrogance in his treatment of Protestant doctrine, history, and personalities (§ 175, 2). The German Jesuit Kleutgen who, under Pius IX., was the oracle of the Vatican in reference to German affairs, introduced the new Roman scholasticism by his work “Die Theologie der Vorzeit,” into the German episcopal seminaries, whose teachers were mostly trained in the Collegium Germanicum at Rome. Alongside of Perrone and Kleutgen, in the domain of morals, the Jesuit Gury holds the first place, reproducing in his works the whole abomination of probabilism, reservatio mentalis, and the old Jesuit casuistry (§ 149, 10), with the usual lasciviousness in questions affecting the sexes. Among theologians of this tendency in German universities we mention next Denzinger of Würzburg, who seeks in his works “to lead dogmatics back from the aberrations of modern philosophic speculations into the paths of the old schools.” His zealous opposition to Güntherism did much to secure its emphatic condemnation.

§ 191.10. The Munich Congress of Catholic Scholars, 1863.—In order if possible to heal the daily widening cleft between the scientific university theologians and the scholastic theologians of the seminaries, and bring about a mutual understanding and friendly co-operation between all the theological faculties, Döllinger and his colleague Haneberg summoned a congress at Munich, which was attended by about a hundred Catholic scholars, mostly theologians. After high mass, accompanied with the recitation of the Tridentine creed, the four days’ conference began with a brilliant presidential address by Döllinger “On the Past and Present of Catholic Theology.” The liberal views therein enunciated occasioned violent and animated debates, to which, however, it was readily admitted as a religious duty that all scientific discussions and investigations should yield to the dogmatic claims of the infallible authority of the church, as thereby the true freedom of science can in no way be prejudiced. A telegraphic report to the pope drawn up in this spirit by Döllinger was responded to in a similar manner on the same day with the apostolic blessing. But after the proceedings in extenso had become known, a papal brief was issued which burdened the permission to hold further yearly assemblies with such conditions as must have made them utterly fruitless. They were indeed acquiesced in with a bad grace at the second and last congress at Würzburg in 1864, but the whole scheme was thus brought to an end.

§ 191.11. Theological Journals.—The most severely scientific journal of this century is the Tübingen Theol. Quartalschrift, which, however, since the Vatican Council has been struggling to maintain a neutral position between the extremes of the Old and the New Catholicism. In order if possible to displace it the Jesuits Wieser and Stenstrup of Innsbruck [Innsbrück] started in 1877 their Zeitschrift für Kath. Theologie. The ably conducted Theol. Litteraturblatt, started in 1866 by Prof. Reusch of Bonn, had to be abandoned in 1878, after raising the standard of Old Catholicism.

§ 191.12. The Popes and Theological Science.—What kind of theology Pius IX. wished to have taught is shown by his proclaiming St. Liguori (§ 165, 2) and St. Francis de Sales (§ 157, 1) doctores ecclesiæ. Leo XIII., on the other hand, in 1879 recommended in the encyclical Æterni patris, in the most urgent way, all Catholic schools to make the philosophy of the angelical Aquinas (§ 103, 6) their foundation, founded in 1880 an “Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas,” three out of its thirty members being Germans, Kleutgen, Stöckl, and Morgott, and gave 300,000 lire out of Peter’s pence for an edition of Aquinas’ works with the commentaries of “the most eminent expositors,” setting aside “all those books which, while professing to be derived from St. Thomas are really drawn from foreign and unholy sources;” i.e., in accordance with the desires of the Jesuits, omitting the strictly Thomist expositors (§ 149, 13), and giving currency only to Jesuit interpretations. No wonder that the Jesuit General Beckx in such circumstances submitted himself “humbly,” being praised for this by the pope as a saint. But a much greater, indeed a really great, service to the documentary examination of the history of the Christian church and state has been rendered by the same pope, undoubtedly at the instigation of Cardinal Hergenröther, by the access granted not only to Catholic but also to Protestant investigators to the exceedingly rich treasures of the Vatican archives. Though still hedged round with considerable limitations, the concession seems liberality itself as compared with the stubborn refusal of Pius IX. to facilitate the studies of any inquirer. With honest pride the pope could inscribe on his bust placed in the library: “Leo XIII. Pont. Max. historiæ studiis consulens tabularii arcana reclusit a 1880.”—But what the ends were which he had in view and what the hopes that he cherished is seen from the rescript of August, 1883, in which he calls upon the cardinals De Luca, Pitra, and Hergenröther, as prefects of the committee of studies, of the library and archives, while proclaiming the great benefits which the papacy has secured to Italy, to do their utmost to overthrow “the lies uttered by the sects” on the history of the church, especially in reference to the papacy, for, he adds, “we desire that at last once more the truth should prevail.” Therefore archives and library are to be opened to pious and learned students “for the service of religion and science in order that the historical untruths of the enemies of the church which have found entrance even into the schoolbooks should be displaced by the composition of good writings.” The firstfruits of the zeal thus stimulated were the “Monunenta ref. Lutheranæ ex tabulariis S. Sedis,” Ratisbon, 1883, published by the assistant keeper of the archives P. Balan as an extinguisher to the Luther Jubilee of that year. But this performance came so far short of the wishes and expectations of the Roman zealots that by their influence the editor was removed from his official position. The next attempt of this sort was the edition by Hergenröther of the papal Regesta down to Leo X.

IV. Relation of Church to the Empire and to the States.

§ 192. THE GERMAN CONFEDERATION.

The Peace of Luneville of 1801 gave the deathblow to the old German empire, by the formal cession of the left bank of the Rhine to France, indemnifying the secular princes who were losers by this arrangement with estates and possessions on the right of the Rhine, taken from the neutral free cities of the empire and the secularized ecclesiastical principalities, institutions, monasteries, and orders. An imperial commission sitting at Regensburg arranged the details of these indemnifications. They were given expression to by means of the imperial commission’s decree or recess of 1803. The dissolution of the constitution of the German empire thus effected was still further carried out by the Peace of Presburg of 1805, which conferred upon the princes of Bavaria, Württemberg, and Baden, in league with Napoleon, full sovereignty, and to the two first named the rank of kings, and was completed by the founding of the Confederation of the Rhine of 1806, in which sixteen German princes formally severed themselves from the emperor and empire and ranked themselves as vassals of France under the protectorate of Napoleon. Francis II., who already in 1804 had assumed the title of Emperor of Austria as Francis I., now that the German empire had actually ceased to exist, renounced also the name of German emperor. The unhappy proceedings of the Vienna Congress of the German Confederation and its permanent representation in the Frankfort parliament during 1814 and 1815, after Napoleon’s twice repeated defeat, led finally to the Austro-Prussian war of 1866.

§ 192.1. The Imperial Commission’s Decree, 1803.—The significance of this for church history consists not merely in the secularization of the ecclesiastical principalities and corporations, but even still more in the alteration caused thereby in the ecclesiastical polity of the territorial governments. With the ecclesiastical principalities the most powerful props of the Catholic church in Germany were lost, and Protestantism obtained a decided ascendency in the council of the German princes. The Catholic prelates were now simply paid servants of the state, and thus their double connexion with the curia and the state brought with it in later times endless entanglements and complications. On the other hand, in states hitherto almost exclusively Protestant, e.g. Württemberg, Baden, Hesse, there was a great increase of Catholic subjects, which attracted but little serious attention when the confessional particularism in the consciousness of the age was more unassuming and tolerant than ever it has been before or since.

§ 192.2. The Prince-Primate of the Confederation of the Rhine.—Baron Carl Theod. von Dalberg, distinguished for his literary culture and his liberal patronage of art and science, was made in 1802 Elector of Mainz and Lord High Chancellor of the German empire. When by the recess of 1803 the territories of the electorate on the left of the Rhine were given over to France and those on the right secularized, the electoral rank was abolished. The same happened with respect to the lord high chancellorship through the creation of the Rhenish Confederation. Dalberg was indemnified for the former by the favour of Napoleon by the gift of a small territory on the right of the Rhine, and for the latter by the renewal of the prince-primacy of the Confederation of the Rhine with a seat in the Federal council. He still retained his episcopal office and fixed its seat at Regensburg. The founding of a metropolitan chapter at Regensburg embracing the whole domain of the Rhenish Confederation he did not succeed in carrying out, and in 1813 he felt compelled to surrender also his territorial possessions. His spiritual functions, however, as Archbishop of Regensburg, he continued to discharge until his death in 1817.

§ 192.3. The Vienna Congress and the Concordat.—The Vienna Congress of 1814, 1815, had assigned it the difficult task of righting the sorely disturbed political affairs of Europe and giving a new shape to the territorial and dynastic relations. But never had an indispensably necessary redistribution of territory been made more difficult or more complicated by diplomatic intrigues than in Germany. Instead of the earlier federation of states, the restoration of which proved impossible, the federal constitution of June 8th, 1815, created under the name of the German Confederation a union of states in which all members of the confederation as such exercised equal sovereign rights. Their number then amounted to thirty-eight, but in the course of time by death or withdrawal were reduced to thirty-four. The new distribution of territory, just as little as the Luneville Peace, took into account confessional homogeneity of princes and territories, so that the combination of Catholic and Protestant districts with the above referred to consequences, occurred in a yet larger measure. But the federal constitution secured in Article XVI. full toleration for all Christian confessions in the countries of the confederation. The claims of the Romish curia, which advanced from the demand for the restoration of all ecclesiastical principalities and the return of all impropriated churches and monasteries to their original purposes, to the demand for the restoration of the holy Roman-German empire in the mediæval and hierarchical sense, as well as the solemn protest against its conclusions laid upon the table of the congress by the papal legate Consalvi, were left quite unheeded. But also a proposal urgently pressed by the vicar-general of the diocese of Constance, Baron von Wessenberg (§ 187, 3), to found a German Catholic national church under a German primate found no favour with the congress; and an article recommended by Austria and Prussia to be incorporated in the acts of the confederation by which the Catholic church in Germany endeavoured to secure a common constitution under guarantee of the confederation, was rejected through the opposition of Bavaria. And since in the Frankfort parliament neither Wessenberg with his primacy and national church idea nor Consalvi with a comprehensive concordat answering to the wishes of the curia, was able to carry through a measure, it was left to the separate states interested to make separate concordats with the pope. Bavaria concluded a concordat in 1817 (§ 195, 1); Prussia in 1821 (§ 193, 1). Negotiations with the other German states fell through owing to the excessiveness of the demands of the hierarchy, or led to very unsatisfactory results, as in Hanover in 1824 (§ 194, 1) and the states belonging to the ecclesiastical province of the Upper Rhine in 1837 (§ 196, 1). In the time of reaction against the revolutionary excesses of 1848 the curia first secured any real advance. Hesse-Darmstadt opened the list in 1854 with a secret convention (§ 196, 4); then Austria followed in 1855 with a model concordat (§ 198, 2) which served as the pattern for the concordats with Württemberg in 1857 (§ 196, 6), and with Baden in 1859 (§ 196, 2), as well as for the episcopal convention with Nassau in 1861 (§ 196, 4). But the revived liberal current of 1860 swept away the South German concordats; the Vatican Council by its infallibility dogma gave the deathblow to that of Austria, and the German “Kulturkampf” sent the Prussian concordat to the winds, and only that of Bavaria remained in full force.

§ 192.4. The Frankfort Parliament and the Würzburg Bishops’ Congress of 1848.—As in the March diets of 1848 the magic word “freedom” roused through Germany a feverish excitement, it found a ready response among the Catholics, whose church was favoured in the highest degree by the movement. In the Frankfort parliament the ablest leaders of Catholic Germany had seats. Among the Catholic population there were numerous religio-political societies formed (§ 186, 3), and the German bishops, avowedly for the celebration of the 600th anniversary of the building of Cologne cathedral, set alongside of the Frankfort people’s parliament a German bishops’ council. After they had at Frankfort declared themselves in favour of unconditional liberty of faith, conscience, and worship, the complete independence of all religious societies in the ordering and administering of their affairs, but also of freeing the schools from all ecclesiastical control and oversight, as well as of the introduction of obligatory civil marriage, the bishops’ council met in October at Würzburg under the presidency of Archbishop Geissel of Cologne with nineteen episcopal assistants and several able theological advisers. In thirty-six sessions they reached the conclusion that complete separation between church and state is not to be desired so long as the state does not refuse to the church the place of authority belonging to it. On the other hand, by all means in their power they are to seek the abrogation of the placet of the sovereign, the full independence of ecclesiastical legislation, administration and jurisdiction, with the abolition of the appellatio tanquam ab abusu, the direction and oversight of the public schools as well as the control of religious instruction in higher schools to be given only by teachers licensed for the purpose by the bishops, and finally to demand permission to erect educational institutions of their own of every kind, etc., and to forward a copy of these decisions to all German governments. The main object of the Würzburg assembly to secure currency for their resolutions in the new Germany sketched out at the Frankfort parliament, was indeed frustrated by that parliament’s speedy overthrow. Nevertheless in the several states concerned it proved of great and lasting importance in determining the subsequent unanimous proceedings of the bishops.

§ 193. PRUSSIA.

To the pious king Frederick William III. (1797-1840) it was a matter of heart and conscience to turn to account the religious consciousness of his people, re-awakened by God’s gracious help during the war of independence, for the healing of the three hundred years’ rent in the evangelical church by a union of the two evangelical confessions. The jubilee festival of the Reformation in 1817 seemed to him to offer the most favourable occasion. The king also desired to see the Catholic church in his dominions restored to an orderly and thriving condition, and for this end concluded a concordat with Rome in 1821. But it was broken up in 1836 over a strife between canon and civil law in reference to mixed marriages. Frederick William IV. was dominated by romantic ideas, and his reign (1840-1858), notwithstanding all his evangelical Christian decidedness, was wanting in the necessary firmness and energetic consistency. In the Catholic church the Jesuits were allowed unhindered to foster ultramontane hierarchical principles, and in the evangelical church the troubles about constitution, union, and confession could not be surmounted either by its own proper guardian, the episcopate, or by the superior church councils created in 1850. And although the notifications of William I. on his entrance upon the sole government in 1858 were hailed by the liberals as giving assurance that a new era had dawned in the development of the evangelical national church, this hope proved to be premature. With the exaltation of the victory-crowned royal house of Prussia to the throne of the newly erected German Empire on January 18th, 1871, a new era was actually opened for ecclesiastical developments and modifications throughout the land.

§ 193.1. The Catholic Church to the Close of the Cologne Conflict.—The government of Frederick William III. entered into negotiations with the papal curia, not so much for the old provinces in which everything was going well, but rather in the interests of the Rhine provinces annexed in 1814, whose bishops’ sees were vacant or in need of circumscription. The first Prussian ambassador to the Roman curia (1816-1823) was the famous historian Niebuhr. Although a true Protestant and keen critic and restorer of the history of old pagan Rome he was no match for the subtle and skilful diplomacy of Consalvi. In presence of the claims of the curia he manifested to an almost incredible extent trustful sympathy and acquiescence, even taking to do with matters that lay outside of Prussian affairs, eagerly silencing and opposing any considerations suggested from the other side. A complete concordat, however, defining in detail all the relations between church and state was not secured, but in 1821 an agreement was come to, with thankful acknowledgment of the “great magnanimity and goodness” shown by the king, by the bull De salute animarum, sanctioned by the king through a cabinet order (“in the exercise of his royal prerogative and without detriment to these rights”), according to which two archbishoprics, Cologne and Posen, and six bishoprics, Treves, Münster, Paderborn, Breslau, Kulm, and Ermeland, with a clerical seminary, were erected in Prussia and furnished with rich endowments. The cathedral chapter was to have the free choice of the bishop; but by an annexed note it was recommended to make sure in every such election that the one so chosen would be a grata persona to the king. The union thus effected between church and state was of but short duration. The decree of Trent forbade Catholics to enter into mixed marriages with non-Catholics. A later papal bull of 1741, however, permitted it on condition of an only passive assistance of the clergy at the wedding and an engagement by the parents to train up the children as Catholics. The law of Prussia, on the other hand, in contested cases made all the children follow the religion of their fathers. As this was held in 1825 to apply to the Rhine provinces, and as the bishops there had, in 1828, appealed to the pope, Pius VIII. when negotiations with the Prussian ambassador Bunsen (1824-1838) proved fruitless, issued in 1830 a brief which permitted Catholic priests to give the ecclesiastical sanction to mixed marriages only when a promise was given that the children should be educated as Catholics, but otherwise to give only passive assistance. When all remonstrances failed to overcome the obstinacy of the curia, the government turned to the Archbishop of Cologne, Count Spiegel, a zealous friend and promoter of the Hermesian theology (§ 191, 1), and arranged in 1834 a secret convention with him, which by his influence all his suffragans joined. In it they promised to give such an interpretation to the brief that its observance would be limited to teaching and exhortation, but would by no means extend to the obligation of submitting the children to Catholic baptism, and that the mere assistentia passiva would be resorted to as rarely as possible, and only in cases where absolutely required. Spiegel died in November, 1835. In 1836 the Westphalian Baron Clement Droste von Vischering was chosen as his successor. Although before his elevation he had unhesitatingly agreed to the convention, soon after his enthronization he strictly forbad all the clergy celebrating any marriage except in accordance with the brief, and blamed himself for having believed the agreement between convention and brief affirmed by the government, and having only subsequently on closer examination discovered the disagreement between the two. At the same time, in order to give effect to the condemnation that had been meanwhile passed on the Hermesian theology, he gave orders that at the confessional the Bonn students should be forbidden to attend the lectures of Hermesians. When the archbishop could not be prevailed on to yield, he was condemned in 1837 as having broken his word and having incited to rebellion, and sent to the fortress of Minden. Gregory XIV. addressed to the consistory a fulminating allocution, and a flood of controversial tracts on either side swept over Germany. Görres designated the archbishop “the Athanasius of the nineteenth century.” The government issued a state paper justifying its procedure, and the courts of law sentenced certain refractory priests to several years’ confinement in fortresses or prisons. The moderate peaceful tone of the cathedral chapter did much to quell the disturbance, supporting as it did the state rather than the archbishop. The example of Cologne encouraged also Dunin, Archbishop of Gnesen and Posen, to issue in 1838 a pastoral in which he threatened with suspension any priest in his diocese who would not yield unconditional obedience to the papal brief. For this he was deposed by the civil courts and sentenced to half a year’s imprisonment in a fortress, but the king prevented the execution of the sentence. But Dunin fled from Berlin, whither he had been ordered by the king, to Posen, and was then brought in 1839 to the fortress of Kolberg. While matters were in this state Frederick William IV. came to the throne in 1840. Dunin was immediately restored, after promising to maintain the peace. Droste also was released from his confinement with public marks of respect, but received in 1841, with his own and the pope’s approval, in the former Bishop of Spires, Geissel, a coadjutor, who in his name and with the right of succession administered the diocese. The government gave no aid to the Hermesians. The law in regard to mixed marriages continued indeed in force, but was exercised so as to put no constraint of conscience upon the Catholic clergy. Of his own accord the king declined further exercise of the royal prerogative, allowing the bishops direct intercourse with the papal see, whereas previously all correspondence had to pass through royal committees, with this proviso by the minister Eichhorn, “that this display of generous confidence be not abused,” and with the expectation that the bishops would not only communicate to the government the contents of their correspondence with the pope, but also the papal replies which did not deal exclusively with doctrine, and would not speak and act against the wish and will of the government. But Geissel, recommended by Louis of Bavaria to his son-in-law Frederick William IV. instead of Baron von Diepenbrock (§ 187, 1) who was first thought of, by his skilful and energetic manœuvring, going on from victory to victory, raised ultramontanism in Prussia to the very summit of its influence and glory.

§ 193.2. The Golden Age of Prussian Ultramontanism, 1841-1871.—In the Cologne-Posen conflict Rome had won an almost complete victory, and with all its satellites now thought only of how it might in the best possible manner turn this victory to account, in which the all too trustful government sought to aid it to the utmost. This movement received a further impulse in the revolution of 1848 (§ 192, 4). In Prussia as well as in other German lands, and there in a special degree, the Catholic church managed to derive from the revolutionary movements of those times, and from the subsequent reaction, substantial advantage. The constitution of 1850 declared in Article xv.: “The evangelical and the Roman Catholic Church as well as every other religious society regulates and administers its affairs independently;” in Article xvi.: “The correspondence of religious societies with their superiors is unrestricted, the publication of ecclesiastical ordinances is subject only to those limitations which apply to all other documents;” in Article xviii.: “The right of nomination, proposal, election, and institution to spiritual office, so far as it belongs to the state, is abolished;” and in Article xxiv.: “The respective religious societies direct religious instruction in the public schools.” Under the screen of these fundamental privileges the Catholic episcopate now claimed one civil prerogative after another, emancipated itself wholly from the laws of the state, and, on the plea that God must be obeyed rather than man, made the canon law, not only in purely ecclesiastical but also in mixed matters, the only standard, and the decision of the pope the final appeal. At last nothing was left to the state but the obligation of conferring splendid endowments upon the bishops, cathedral chapters, and seminaries for priests, and the honour of being at home the executioner of episcopal tyranny, and abroad the avenger of every utterance unfavourable in the doctrine and worship, customs and enactments of the Catholic church. With almost incredible infatuation the Catholic hierarchy was now regarded as a main support of the throne against the revolutionary tendencies of the age and as the surest guarantee for the loyalty of subjects in provinces predominantly Catholic. Under protection of the law allowing the formation of societies and the right of assembling, the order of Jesuits set up one establishment after another, and made up for defects or insufficient energy of ultramontane pastoral work, agitation and endeavour at conversion on the part of other peaceably disposed parish priests, by numerous missions conducted in the most ostentatious manner (§ 186, 6). Although according to Article xiii. of the constitution religious societies could obtain corporative rights only by special enactments, the bishops, on their own authority, without regarding this provision, established religious orders and congregations wherever they chose. As these were generally placed under foreign superiors male or female, to whom in Jesuit fashion unconditional obedience was rendered, each member being “like a corpse,” without any individual will, they spread without hindrance, so that continually new cloisters and houses of the orders sprang up like mushrooms over the Protestant metropolis (§ 186, 2). Education in Catholic districts fell more and more into the hands of religious corporations, and even the higher state educational institutions, so far as they dealt with the training of the Catholic youth (theological faculties, gymnasia, and Training schools), were wholly under the control of the bishops. From the boys’ convents and priests’ seminaries, erected at all episcopal residences, went forth a new generation of clergy reared in the severest school of intolerance, who, first of all acting as chaplains, by espionage, the arousing of suspicion and talebearing, were the dread of the old parish priests, and, as “chaplains at large,” stirred up fanaticism among the people, and secured the Catholic press to themselves as a monopoly. For the purposes of Catholic worship and education the government had placed state aid most liberally at their disposal, without requiring any account from the bishops as to their disposal of the money. Although the number of Catholics in the whole country was only about half that of the Protestants, the endowment of the Catholic was almost double that of the evangelical church. The civil authority readily helped the bishops to enforce any spiritual penalties, and thus the inferior clergy were brought into absolute dependence upon their spiritual superiors. In the government department of Public Worship, from 1840 to 1848 under the direction of Eichhorn, there was since 1841 a subsection for dealing with the affairs of the Catholic church which, although restricted to the guarding of the rights of the king over against the curia and that of the state over against the hierarchy, came to be in an entirely opposite sense “the civil department of the pope in Prussia.” Under Von Mühler’s ministry, 1862-1872, it obtained absolute authority which it seems to have exercised in removing unfavourable acts and documents from the imperial archives. And thus the Catholic church, or rather the ultramontane party dominant in it since 1848, grew up into a power that threatened the whole commonwealth in its very foundations.—By the annexation of Hanover, Hesse, and Nassau in 1866, four new bishoprics, those of Hildesheim, Osnabrück, Fulda and Limburg were added to the previous eight.—Continuation § 197.

§ 193.3. The Evangelical Church in Old Prussia down to 1848.—On the accomplishment of the union by Frederick William III. and the confusions arising therefrom, see § 177. Frederick William IV. on his accession declared his wish in reference to the national evangelical church, that the supreme control of the church should be exercised only in order to secure for it in an orderly and legal way the independent administration of its own affairs. The realization of this idea, after a church conference of the ordinary clergy from almost all German states had been held in Berlin without result, was attempted at Berlin by a general synod, opened on Whitsunday, 1846. The synod at its eighteenth session entered upon the consideration of the difficult question of doctrine and the confession. The result of this was the approval of an ordination formula drawn up by Dr. Nitzsch (§ 182, 10), according to which the candidate for ordination was to make profession of the great fundamental and saving truths instead of the church confession hitherto enforced. And since among these fundamental truths the doctrines of creation, original sin, the supernatural conception, the descent into hell and the ascension of Christ, the resurrection of the body, the last judgment, everlasting life and everlasting punishment were not included, and therefore were not to be enforced, since further by this ordination formula the special confessions of Lutheran and Reformed were really set aside, and therewith the existence of a Lutheran as well as a Reformed church within the union seemed to be abolished, a small number of decided Lutherans in the synod protested; still more decided and vigorous protests arose from outside the synod, to which the Evang. Kirchenzeitung opened its columns. The government gave no further countenance to the decisions of the synod, and opponents exercised their wit upon the unfortunate Nicænum of the nineteenth century, which as a Nitzschenum had fallen into the water. In March, 1847, the king issued a patent of toleration, by which protection was assured anew to existing churches, but the formation of new religious societies was allowed to all who found not in these the expression of their belief.

§ 193.4. The Evangelical Church in Old Prussia, 1848-1872.—When the storms of revolution broke out in 1848, the new minister of worship, Count Schwerin, willingly aided in reorganizing the church according to the mind of the masses of the people by a constitutional synod. But before it had met the reaction had already set in. The transition ministry of Ladenberg was assured by consistories and faculties of the danger of convoking such a synod of representatives of the people. Instead of the synod therefore a Supreme Church Council was assembled at Berlin in 1850, which, independent of the ministry, and only under the king as præcipuum membrum ecclesiæ, should represent the freedom of the church from the state as something already realized. On March 6th, 1852, the king issued a cabinet order, in consequence of which the Supreme Church Council administered not only the affairs of the evangelical national church as a whole, but also was charged with the interests of the Lutheran as well as the Reformed church in particular, and was to be composed of members from both of those confessions, who should alone have to decide on questions referring to their own confession. On the Itio in partes thus required in this board, only Dr. Nitzsch remained over, as he declared that he could find expression for his religious convictions in neither of the two confessions, but only in a consensus of both. The difficulty was overcome by reckoning him a representative equally of both denominations. Encouraged by such connivance in high places to entertain still bolder hopes, the Lutheran societies in 1853 presented to the king a petition signed by one hundred and sixty one clergymen, for restoring Lutheran faculties and the Lutheran church property. But this called forth a rather unfavourable cabinet order, in which the king expressed his disapproval of such a misconception of the ordinances of the former year, and made the express declaration that it never was his intention to break up or weaken the union effected by his father, that he only wished to give the confession within the union the protection to which it was undoubtedly entitled. After this the separate Lutheran interest so long highly favoured fell into manifest and growing disfavour. Still the ministerial department of worship under Von Raumer, 1850-1858, continued to conduct the affairs of schools and universities in the spirit of the ecclesiastical orthodox reaction, and issued the endless school regulations conceived in this spirit of the privy councillor Stiehl. The Supreme Church Council also exhibited a rare activity and passed many wholesome ordinances. The evangelical church won great credit by the care it took of its members scattered over distant lands, in supplying them with clergy and teachers. The evident favour with which Frederick William IV. furthered the efforts of the Evangelical Alliance of 1857 (§ 178, 3) was the last proof of decided aversion from the confessional movement which he was to be allowed to give. A long and hopeless illness, of which he died in 1861, obliged him to resign the government to his brother William I. When this monarch in October, 1855, began to rule in his own name, he declared to his newly appointed ministers that it was his firm resolve that the evangelical union, whose beneficent development had been obstructive to an orthodoxy incompatible with the character of the evangelical church, and which had thus almost caused its ruin, should be maintained and further advanced. But in order that the task might be accomplished, the organs for its administration must be carefully chosen and to some extent changed. All hypocrisy and formalism, which that orthodoxy had fostered, is wherever possible to be removed. The “new era,” however, marked by the appearance of liberal journals, by no means answered to the expectations which those words excited. The ministry of Von Bethmann-Hollweg, 1858-1862, filled some theological and spiritual offices in this liberal spirit; Stahl withdrew from the Supreme Church Council; the proceedings against the free churches, as well as the severe measures against the re-marriage of divorced parties, were relaxed. But the marriage law laid down by the ministry with permission of civil marriage was rejected by the House of Peers, and the hated school regulations had to be undertaken by the minister himself. The ecclesiastically conservative ministry of Von Mühler, 1862-1872, which, however, wanted a fixed principle as well as self-determined energy of will, and was therefore often vacillating and losing the respect of all parties, was utterly unfit to realize these expectations. The Supreme Church Council published in 1867 the outlines of a provincial synodal constitution for the six East Provinces which were still without this institution, which the Rhine Provinces and Westphalia had enjoyed since 1835. For this purpose he convened in autumn, 1869, an extraordinary provincial synod, which essentially approved the sketch submitted, whereupon it was provisionally enacted.

§ 193.5. The Evangelical Church in Old Prussia, 1872-1880.—After the removal of Von Mühler, the minister of worship, in January, 1872, his place was taken by Dr. Falk, 1872-1879. The hated school regulations were now at last set aside and replaced by new moderate prescriptions, conceived in an almost unexpectedly temperate spirit. On September 10th, 1873, the king issued a congregational and synodal constitution for the eastern provinces, with the express statement that the position of the confession and the union should thereby be in no way affected. It prescribed that in every congregation presided over by a pastor, elected by the ecclesiastically qualified church members, i.e. those of honourable life who had taken part in public worship and received the sacraments, there should be a church council of from four to twelve persons, and for more important matters, e.g. the election of a pastor, a congregational committee of three times the size, half of which should be reappointed every third year. To the district synod, presided over by the superintendent, each congregation sends as delegates besides the pastor a lay representative chosen by the church council from among its members or from the congregational committee. According to the same principle the District Synods choose from their members a clerical and a lay representative to the provincial synod, to which also the evangelical theological faculty of the university within the bounds sends a deputy, and the territorial lord nominates a number of members not exceeding a sixth part of the whole. The general synod, in which also the two western provinces, the Rhenish and Westphalian, take part, consists of one hundred and fifty delegates from the provincial synods, and thirty nominated by the territorial lords, to which the faculties of theology and law of the six universities within the bounds send each one of their members. Although this royal decree had proclaimed itself final, and only remitted to an Extraordinary General Synod to be called forthwith the task of arranging for future ordinary general synods, yet at the meeting of this extraordinary synod in Berlin, on November 24th, 1875, a draft was submitted of a constitution modified in various important points. Of the three demands of the liberal party now violently insisted upon—

1. Substitution of the “filter” system in the election of provincial and general synod members for that of the community electorate.

2. Strengthening of the lay element in all synods; and

3. Abolition of the equality of small village communities with large town communities

the first was by far the most important and serious in its consequences, but the other two bore fruit through the decree that two-thirds of the members of the district and provincial synods should be laymen, and the other one-third should be freely elected to the district synod from the populous town communities, for the provincial synods from the larger district synods. Also in reference to the rights belonging to the several grades of synods, considerable modifications were made, whereby the privileges of communities were variously increased (e.g. to them was given the right of refusing to introduce the catechisms and hymn-books sanctioned by the provincial synods), while those of the district and provincial synods were lessened in favour of the general synod, and those of the latter again in favour of the high church council and the minister of public worship. After nearly four weeks’ discussion the bill without any serious amendments was passed by the assembly, and on January 20th, 1876, received the royal assent and became an ecclesiastical law. But in order to give it also the rank of a law of the state, a decision of the States’ Parliament on the relation of church and state was necessary. The parliament had already in 1874, when the original congregational and synodal constitution was submitted to it, in order to advance the movement, approved only the congregational constitution with provisional refusal of everything going beyond that. In May, 1876, the bill already raised by the king into an ecclesiastical law, passed both houses of parliament, and had here also some amendments introduced with the effect of increasing and strengthening the prerogative of the state. The main points in the law as then passed are these: The general synod, whose members undertake to fulfil their duties agreeably to the word of God and the ordinances of the evangelical national church, has the task of maintaining and advancing the state church on the basis of the evangelical confession. The laws of the state church must receive its assent, but any measure agreed upon by it cannot be laid before the king for his sanction without the approval of the minister of public worship. It meets every sixth year; in the interval it, as well as the provincial synods, is represented by a synodal committee chosen from its members. The head of the church government is the Supreme Church Council, whose president countersigns the ecclesiastical laws approved by the king. The right of appointing to this office lies with the minister of public worship; in the nomination of other members the president makes proposals with consent of the minister. Taxation of the general synod for parliamentary purposes needs the assent of the minister of state, and must, if it exceeds four per cent. of the class and income tax, be agreed to by the Lower House, which also annually has to determine the expenditure on ecclesiastical administration.

§ 193.6. When preparations were being made for the extraordinary general synod, the king had repeatedly given vigorous expression to his positive religious standpoint, and from the proposed lists of members for that synod submitted by the minister of public worship all names belonging to the Protestantenverein were struck out. Still more decidedly in 1877 did he show his disapproval in the Rhode-Hossbach troubles (§ 180, 4), by declaring his firm belief in the divinity of Christ, and when the then president of the Brandenburg consistory, Hegel, tendered his resignation, owing to differences with the liberal president of the Supreme Church Council, Hermann, the king refused to accept it, because he could not then spare any such men as held by the apostolic faith. In May, 1878, Hermann was at last, after repeated solicitations, allowed to retire, Dr. Hermes, member of the Supreme Church Council, was nominated his successor, and the positive tendency of the Supreme Church Council was strengthened by the admission of the court preachers, Kögel and Baur. His proposals again disagreeing with the royal nominations for the provincial synod and for the First Ordinary General Synod of autumn, 1879, led the minister of public worship, Dr. Falk, at last, after repeated solicitation, to accept his resignation. It was granted him in July, 1879, and the chief president of the province of Silesia, Von Puttkamer, a more decided adherent of the positive union party, was named as his successor; but in June, 1881, he was made minister of the interior, and the undersecretary of the department of public worship, Von Gossler, was made minister. The general synod, October 10th till November 3rd, consisted of fifty-two confessionalists, seventy-six positive-unionists, fifty-six of the middle party or evangelical unionist, and nine from the ranks of the left, the Protestantenverein; three confessionalists, twelve positive-unionists, and fifteen of the middle party were nominated by the king. The measures proposed by the Supreme Church Council:

1. A marriage service without reference to the preceding civil marriage, with two marriage formulæ, the first a joint promise, the second a benediction;

2. A disciplinary law against despisers of baptism and marriage, which threatened such with the loss of all ecclesiastical electoral rights, and eventually with exclusion from the Lord’s supper and sponsor rights; and

3. A law dealing with Emeriti,

were adopted by the synod and then approved by the king. On the other hand a series of independent proposals conceived in the interests of the high-church party remained in suspense. The last effected elections for the general synod committee resulted in the appointment of three positive-unionist members, including the president, two confessionalists, and two of the middle party.[549]

§ 193.7. The Evangelical Church in the Annexed Provinces.—In 1866 the provinces of Hanover, Hesse and Schleswig-Holstein were incorporated with the kingdom of Prussia. In these political particularism, combined with confessional Lutheranism, suspicion of every organized system of church government as intended to introduce Prussian unionism, even to the extreme of open rebellion, led to violent conflicts. The king, indeed, personally gave assurance in Cassel, Hanover and Kiel that the position of the church confession should in no way be endangered. “He will indeed support the union where it already existed as a sacred legacy to him from his forefathers; he also hopes that it may always make further progress as a witness to the grand unity of the evangelical church; but compulsion is to be applied to no man.” The consistories of these provinces were still to continue independent of the Supreme Church Council. But the ministerial order for the restoration of representative synodal constitution increasingly prevailed, although the wide-spread suspicion and individual protests against the system of church government, such as the temporary prohibition of the Marburg consistory of the mission festival, as avowedly used for agitation against the intended synodal constitution, helped to intensify the bitterness of feeling. But on the other hand many preachers by their unbecoming pulpit harangues, and their refusal to take the oath of allegiance or service, to pray in church for their new sovereign, and to observe the general holiday appointed to be held in 1869 on November 10th (Luther’s birthday), etc., compelled the ecclesiastical authorities to impose fines, suspension, penal transportation, and deposition. In the Lutheran Schleswig-Holstein a new congregational constitution was introduced in 1869 by the minister Von Mühler, as the basis of a future synodal constitution, which was adopted by the Vorsynode of Rendsburg in 1871, preserving the confessional status laid down, without discussion. In 1878 an advance was made by the institution of district or provostship synods, and in February, 1880, the first General Synod was held at Rendsburg. As in Old Prussia so also here the conservative movement proved victorious. The laity obtained majorities in all synods, and the supremacy of the state was secured by the subordination of the church government under the minister of public worship.

§ 193.8. In Hanover, where especially Lichtenberg, president of the upper consistory, and Uhlhorn, member of the upper consistory (since 1878 abbot of Loccum), although many Lutheran extremists long remained dissatisfied, temperately and worthily maintained the independence and privileges of the Lutheran church, the first national synod could be convened and could bring to a generally peaceful conclusion the question of the constitution only in the end of 1869, after the preliminary labour of the national synod committee. In 1882 the Reformed communities of 120,000 souls, hitherto subject to Lutheran consistories, obtained an independent congregational and synodal constitution. Against the new marriage ordinance enacted in consequence of the civil marriage law (§ 197, 5), Theod. Harms (brother, and from 1865 successor of L. Harms, § 184, 1), pastor and director of Hermannsburg missionary seminary, rebelled from the conviction that civil marriage did not deserve to be recognised as marriage. He was first suspended, then in 1877 deposed from office, and with the most of his congregation retired and founded a separate Lutheran community, to which subsequently fifteen other small congregations of 4,000 souls were attached. As teacher and pupils of the seminary made it a zealous propaganda for the secession, the missionary journals and missionary festivals were misused for the same purpose, and as Harms answered the questions of the consistory in reference thereto, partly by denying, partly by excusing, that court, in December, 1878, forbad the missionary collections hitherto made throughout the churches at Epiphany for Hermannsburg, and so completely broke off the connection between the state church and the institution which had hitherto been regarded as “its pride and its preserving salt.” A reaction has since set in in favour of the seminary and its friends on the assurance that the interests of the separation would not be furthered by the seminary, and that several other objectionable features, e.g. the frequent employment in the mission service of artisans without theological training, the sending of them out in too great numbers without sufficient endowment and salary, so that missionaries were obliged to engage in trade speculations, should be removed as far as possible; but since the seminary life was always still carried on upon the basis of ecclesiastical secession, it could lead to no permanent reconciliation with the state church. Harms died in 1885. His son Egmont was chosen his successor, and as the consistory refused ordination, he accepted consecration at the hands of five members of the Immanuel Synod at Magdeburg.

§ 193.9. In Hesse the ministry of Von Mühler sought to bring about a combination of the three consistories of Hanau, Cassel, and Marburg, as a necessary vehicle for the introduction of a new synodal constitution. In the province itself an agitation was persistently carried on for and against the constitutional scheme submitted by the ministers, which wholly ignored the old church order (§ 127, 2), which, though in the beginning of the seventeenth century through the ecclesiastical disturbances of the time (§ 154, 1), it had passed out of use, had never been abrogated and so was still legally valid. A Vorsynode convened in 1870 approved of it in all essential points, but conventions of superintendents, pastoral conferences and lay addresses protested, and the Prussian parliament, for which it was not yet liberal enough, refused the necessary supplies. As these after Von Mühler’s overthrow were granted, his successor, Dr. Falk, immediately proceeded in 1873 to set up in Cassel the court that had been objected to so long. It was constituted after the pattern of the Supreme Church Council, of Lutheran, Reformed, and United members with Itio in partes on specifically confessional questions. The clergy of Upper Hesse comforted themselves with saying that the new courts in which the confessions were combined, if not better, were at least no worse than the earlier consistories in which the confessions were confounded; and they felt obliged to yield obedience to them, so long as they did not demand anything contradictory the Lutheran confession. On the other hand, many of the clergy of Lower Hesse saw in the advance from a merely eventual to an actual blending of the confessional status in church government an intolerable deterioration. And so forty-five clergyman of Lower and one of Upper Hesse laid before the king a protest against the innovation as destructive of the confessional rights of the Hessian church contrary to the will of the supreme majesty of Jesus Christ. They were dismissed with sharp rebuke, and, with the exception of four who submitted, were deposed from office for obstinate refusal to obey. There were about sixteen congregations which to a greater or less extent kept aloof from the new pastors appointed by the consistories, and without breaking away from the state church wished to remain true to the old pastor “appointed by Jesus Christ himself.”—In autumn, 1884, the movement on behalf of the restoration of a presbyterial and synodal constitution of the Hessian evangelical church, which had been delayed for fourteen years, was resumed. A sketch of a constitution, which placed it under three general superintendents (Lutheran, Reformed, United) and thirteen superintendents, and, for the fair co-operation of the lay element in the administration of church affairs (the confession status, however, being beyond discussion), provided suitable organs in the shape of presbyteries and synods, with a predominance of the lay element, was submitted to a Vorsynode that met on November 12th, consisting of two divisions, like a Lower and Upper House, sitting together. The first division, as representative of the then existing church order, embraced, in accordance with the practice of the old Hessian synods, all the members of the consistory, i.e. the nine superintendents and thirteen pastors elected by the clergy; the second, consisting at least of as many lay as clerical members, was chosen by the free election of the congregation. The royal assent was given to the decrees of the Vorsynode in the end of December, 1885, and the confessional status was thereby expressly guaranteed.

§ 194. THE NORTH GERMAN SMALLER STATES.

In most of the smaller North German states, owing to the very slight representation of the Reformed church, which was considerable only in Bremen, Lippe-Detmold, and a part of Hesse and East Friesland, the union met with little favour. Yet only in a few of those provinces did a sharply marked confessional Lutheranism gain wide and general acceptance. This was so especially and most decidedly in Mecklenburg, but also in Hanover, Hesse, and Saxony. On the other hand, since the close of 1860, in almost all those smaller states a determined demand was made for a representative synodal constitution, securing the due co-operation of the lay element.—The Catholic church was strongest in Hanover, and next come some parts of Hesse, which had been added to the ecclesiastical province of the Upper Rhine (§ 196, 1), but in the other North German smaller states it was only represented here and there.

§ 194.1. The Kingdom of Saxony.—The present kingdom of Saxony, formerly an electoral principality, has had Catholic princes since 1679 (§ 153, 1), but the Catholic church could strike its roots again only in the immediate neighbourhood of the court. Indeed those belonging to it did not enjoy civil and religious equality until 1807, when this distinction was set aside. The erection of cloisters and the introduction of monkish orders, however, continued even then forbidden, and all official publications of the Catholic clergy required the placet of the government. The administration of the evangelical church, so long as the king is Catholic, lies, according to agreement, in the hands of the ministers commissioned in evangelicis. Although several of these have proved defenders of ecclesiastical orthodoxy, the rationalistic Illumination became almost universally prevalent not only among the clergy but also among the general populace. Meanwhile a pietistic reaction set in, especially powerful in Muldenthal, where Rudelbach’s labours impressed on it a Lutheran ecclesiastical character. The religious movement, on the other hand, directed by Martin Stephan, pastor of the Bohemian church in Dresden, came to a sad and shameful end. As representative and restorer of strict Lutheran views he had wrought successfully in Dresden from 1810, but, through the adulation of his followers, approaching even to worship, he fell more and more deeply into hierarchical assumption and neglect of self-vigilance. When the police in 1837 restricted his nightly assemblies, without, however, having discovered anything immoral, and suspended him from his official duties, he called upon his followers to emigrate to America. Many of them, lay and clerical, blindly obeyed, and founded in 1835, in Missouri, a Lutheran church communion (§ 208, 2). Stephan’s despotic hierarchical assumptions here reached their fullest height; he also gave his lusts free scope. Women oppressed or actually abused by him at length openly proclaimed his shame in 1839, and the community excommunicated him. He died in A.D. 1846. Taught by such experiences, and purged of the Donatist-separatist element, a church reaction against advancing rationalism made considerable progress under a form of church that favoured it, and secured also influential representatives in members of the theological faculty of the university of Leipzig distinguished for their scientific attainments. After repeated debates in the chamber over a scheme of a new ecclesiastical and synodal order submitted by the ministry, the first evangelical Lutheran state synod met in Dresden, in May, 1871. On the motion of the government, the law of patronage was here modified so that the patron had to submit three candidates to the choice of the ecclesiastical board. It was also decided to form an upper or state consistory, to which all ecclesiastical matters hitherto administered by the minister of public worship should be given over; the control of education was to remain with the ministry, and the state consistory was to charge itself with the oversight only of religious instruction and ethico-religious training. The most lively debates were those excited by the proposal to abolish the obligation resting upon all church teachers to seem to adhere to the confession of the Lutheran church, led by Dr. Zarncke, the rector of the state university. The commission of inquiry sent down, under the presidency of Professor Luthardt, demanded the absolute withdrawal of this proposal, which aimed at perfect doctrinal freedom. On the other hand, Professor G. Baur made the mediate proposal to substitute for the declaration on oath, the promise to teach simply and purely to the best of his knowledge and according to conscience the gospel of Christ as it is contained in Scripture, and witnessed in the confessions of the Lutheran church. And as even now Luthardt, inspired by the wish not to rend the first State Synod at its final sitting by an incurable schism, agreed to this suggestion, it was carried by a large majority. In consequence of this decision, a number of “Lutherans faithful to the confession,” withdrew from the State church, and on the anniversary of the Reformation in 1871, constituted themselves into an Evangelical Lutheran Free Church, associated with the Missouri synod (§ 208, 2), from which, on the suggestion of some of the members of the community who had returned from America, they chose for themselves a pastor called Ruhland. There were five such congregations in Saxony: at Dresden, Planitz, Chemnitz, Frankenberg, and Krimmitschau, to which some South German dissenters at Stenden, Wiesbaden, Frankfort, and Anspach attached themselves.

§ 194.2. The Saxon Duchies.—The Stephan emigration had also decoyed a number of inhabitants from Saxe-Altenburg. In a rescript to the Ephorus Ronneburg, in 1838, the consistory traced back this separatist movement to the fact that the religious needs of the congregations found no satisfaction in the rationalistic preaching, and urged a more earnest presentation from the pulpit of the fundamental and central doctrines of evangelical Christianity. This rescript was the subject of violent denunciation. The government took the opinion of four theological faculties on the procedure of the consistory and its opponents, who published it simply with the praise and blame contained therein, and thus prevented any investigation. Also in Weimar and Gotha the rationalism of Röhr and Bretschneider, which had dominated almost all pulpits down to the middle of the century, began gradually to disappear, and the more recent parties of Confessional, Mediation, and Free Protestant theology to take its place. The last named party found vigorous support in the university of Jena. A petition addressed to it in 1882 from the Thuringian Church Conference of Eisenach, to call to Jena also a representative of the positive Lutheran theology, was decidedly refused, and, in a controversial pamphlet by Superintendent Braasch, condemned as “the Eisenach outrage” (Attentat). In Meiningen the Vorsynode convened there in 1870 sanctioned the sketch of a moderately liberal synodal constitution submitted to it, which placed the confession indeed beyond the reach of legislative interference, but also secured its rights to free inquiry. The first State Synod, however, did not meet before 1878. In Weimar the first synod was held in 1873, the second in 1879.

§ 194.3. The Kingdom of Hanover.—Although the union found no acceptance in Hanover, after the overthrow of the rationalism of the ancien régime, the union theology became dominant in the university. The clergy, however, were in great part carried along by the confessional Lutheran current of the age. The Preachers’ Conference at Stade in 1854 took occasion to call the attention of the government to the “manifest divergence” between the union theology of the university and the legal and actual Lutheran confession of the state church, and urged the appointment of Lutheran teachers. The faculty, on the other hand, issued a memorial in favour of liberty of public teaching, and the curators filled the vacancies again with union theologians. When in April, 1862, it was proposed to displace the state catechism introduced in 1790, which neither theologically nor catechetically satisfied the needs of the church, by a carefully sifted revision of the Walther catechism in use before 1790, approved of by the Göttingen faculty, the agitation of the liberal party called forth an opposition, especially in city populations, which expressed itself in insults to members of consistories and pastors, and in almost daily repeated bloody street fights with the military, and obliged the government at last to give way.—The negotiations about a concordat with Rome reached up further in 1824 than obtaining the circumscription bull Impensa Romanorum, by which the Catholic church obtained two bishoprics, those of Hildesheim and Osnabrück.—In 1886, Hanover was incorporated with the kingdom of Prussia (§ 193, 8).

§ 194.4. Hesse.—Landgrave Maurice, 1592-1627, had forced upon his territories a modified Melanchthonian Calvinism (§ 154, 1), but a Lutheran basis with Lutheran modes of viewing things and Lutheran institutions still remained, and the Lutheran reaction had never been completely overcome, not even in Lower Hesse, although there the name of the Reformed Church with Reformed modes of worship had been gradually introduced in most of the congregations. The communities of Upper Hesse and Schmalcald, however, by continuous opposition saved for the most part their Lutheranism, which in 1648 was guaranteed to them anew by the Darmstadt Recess, and secured an independent form of church government in the Definitorium at Marburg. The union movement, which issued from Prussia in 1817, met with favour also in Hesse, but only in the province of Hanau in 1818 got the length of a formal constituting of a church on the basis of the union. In 1821, however, the elector issued the so-called Reorganization edict, by which the entire evangelical church of the electorate, without any reference to the confession status, but simply in accordance with the political divisions of the state, was put under the newly instituted consistories of Cassel, Marburg, and Hanau, in the formation of which the confession of the inhabitants had not been considered. The Marburg Definitorium indeed protested, but in vain, against this despotic act, which was felt a grievance, less on account of the wiping out of the confession than on account of the loss of independent church government which it occasioned. The government appointed pastors, teachers and professors without enquiring much about their confession. In 1838 the hitherto required subscription of the clergy to the confessional writings, the Augsburg Confession and its Apology, was modified into a formula declaring conscientious regard for them. But in this Bickell, professor of law at Marburg, saw a loss to the church in legal status, an endangering of the evangelical church; the theological professor, Hupfeld, also in the further course of the controversy took his side, while the advocate, Henkel, in Cassel, as a popular agitator opposed him and demanded a State Synod for the formal abolishing of all symbolical books. The government ignored both demands, and the vehement conflict was quieted by degrees. With 1850 a new era began in the keen controversy over the question, which confession, whether Lutheran or Reformed, was legally and actually that of the state. The ministry of Hassenpflug from 1850, which suppressed the revolution, considered it as legally the Lutheran, and determined the ecclesiastical arrangements in this sense, and in this course Dr. Vilmar, member of the Consistory, was the minister’s right hand. But the elector was from the beginning personally opposed to this procedure, and on the overthrow of the ministry in 1855, Vilmar (died 1868) was also transferred to a theological professorship at Marburg. This, however, only gave a new impulse to the confessional Lutheran movement in the state, for the spirit and tendency of the highly revered theological teacher powerfully influenced the younger generation of the Hessian clergy. In consequence of the German war, Hesse was annexed to Prussia in 1866 (§ 193, 9).—On the Catholic church in this state, compare § 196, 1.

§ 194.5. Brunswick, Oldenburg, Anhalt, and Lippe-Detmold.—Much ado was made also in Brunswick over the introduction of a new constitution for the Lutheran state church in 1869, and at last in 1871 a synodal ordinance was passed by which the State Synod, consisting of fourteen clerical and eighteen lay members, was to meet every four years, so as not to be a too offensive factor in the ecclesiastical administration and legislation, which therefore has left untouched the content of the confession. The first synod of 1872 began by rejecting the injunction to open the sessions with prayer and reading of scripture. Oldenburg, which in 1849, by a synod whose membership had been chosen by the original electorate, had been favoured with a democratic church constitution wholly separate from the state, accepted in 1854 without opposition a new constitution which restored the headship of the church to the territorial lords, the administration of the church to a Supreme Church Council and ecclesiastical legislation to a State Synod consisting of clerical and lay members.—The prince in the exercise of his sovereign rights gave a charter in 1878 to the evangelical church of the Duchy of Anhalt to a synodal ordinance which, though approved by the Vorsynode of 1876, had been rejected by parliament, and afterwards it gained the assent of the national representatives.—In the Reformed Lippe-Detmold there were in 1844 still five preachers who, wearied of the illuminationist catechism of the state church, had gone back to the Heidelberg catechism and protested against the abolition of acceptance on oath of the symbols, as destructive of the peace of the church. The democratic church constitution of 1851, however, was abrogated in 1854, and instead of it, the old Reformed church order of 1684 was again made law. At the same time, religious pardon and equality were guaranteed to Catholics and Lutherans. The first Reformed State Synod was constituted in 1878.

§ 194.6. Mecklenburg.—Mecklenburg-Schwerin from 1848 was in possession of a strictly Lutheran church government under the direction of Kliefoth, and its university at Rostock had decidedly Lutheran theologians. When the chamberlain Von Kettenburg, on going over to the Catholic church, appointed a Catholic priest on his estate, the government in 1852, on the ground that the laws of the state did not allow Catholic services which extended beyond simple family worship, held that he had overstepped the limits. A complaint, in reference thereto, presented to the parliament and then to the German Bund, was in both cases thrown out. Even in 1863 the Rostock magistrates refused to allow tower and bells in the building of a Catholic church.—An extraordinary excitement was caused by the removal from office in January, 1858, of Professor M. Baumgarten of Rostock. An examination paper set by him on 2 Kings xi. by which the endeavour was made to win scripture sanction for a violent revolution, obliged the government even in 1856 to remove him from the theological examination board. At the same time his polemic addressed to a pastoral conference at Parchim, against the doctrine of the Mecklenburg state catechism on the ceremonial law, especially in reference to the sanctification of the Sabbath, increased the distrust which the clergy of the state, on account of his writings, had entertained against his theological position as one which, from a fanatical basis, diverged on all sides into fundamental antagonism to the confession and the ordinances of the Lutheran state church. The government finally deposed him in 1858 (leaving him, however, in possession of his whole salary, also of the right of public teaching), on the ground and after the publication of a judgment of the consistory which found him guilty of heretical alteration of all the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith and the Lutheran confession, and sought to prove this verdict from his writings. As might have been foreseen, this step was followed by a loud outcry by all journals; but even Lutherans, like Von Hofmann, Von Scheurl [Scheuerl], and Luthardt, objected to the proceedings of the government as exceeding the law laid down by the ecclesiastical ordinance and the opinion of the consistory as resting upon misunderstanding, arbitrary supposition and inconsequent conclusion.

§ 195. BAVARIA.

Catholic Bavaria, originally an electorate, but raised in 1806, by Napoleon’s favour, into a royal sovereignty, to which had been adjudged by the Vienna Congress considerable territories in Franconia and the Palatine of the Rhine with a mainly Protestant population, attempted under Maximilian Joseph (IV.) I., after the manner of Napoleon, despotically to pass a liberal system of church polity, but found itself obliged again to yield, and under Louis I. became again the chief retreat of Roman Catholic ecclesiasticism of the most pronounced ultramontane pattern. It was under the noble and upright king, Maximilian II., that the evangelical church of the two divisions of the kingdom, numbering two-thirds of the population, first succeeded in securing the unrestricted use of their rights. Nevertheless, Catholic Bavaria remained, or became, the unhappy scene of the wildest demagogic agitation of the Catholic clergy and of the Bavarian “Patriots” who played their game, whose patriotism consisted only in mad hatred of Prussia and fanatical ultramontanism. Yet King Louis II., after the brilliant successes of the Franco-German war, could not object to the proposal of November 30th, 1870, to found a new German empire under a Prussian and therefore a Protestant head.

§ 195.1. The Bavarian Ecclesiastical Polity under Maximilian I., 1799-1825.—Bavaria boasted with the most unfeigned delight after the uprooting of Protestantism in its borders as then defined (§ 151, 1), that it was the most Catholic, i.e. the most ultramontane and most bigoted, of German-speaking lands, and, after a short break in this tradition by Maximilian Joseph III. (§ 165, 10), went forth again with full sail, under Charles Theodore, 1777-1779, on the old course. But the thoroughly new aspect which this state assumed on the overthrow of the old German empire, demanded an adapting territorially of the civil and ecclesiastical life in accordance with the relations which it owed to its present political position. The new elector Maximilian Joseph IV., who as king styled himself Maximilian I., transferred the execution of this task to his liberal, energetic, and thoroughly fearless minister, Count Montgelas, 1799-1817. In January, 1802, it was enacted that all cloisters should be suppressed, and that all cathedral foundations should be secularized; and these enactments were immediately carried out in an uncompromising manner. Even in 1801 the qualification of Protestants to exercise the rights of Bavarian citizens was admitted, and a religious edict of 1803 guaranteed to all Christian confessions full equality of civil and political privileges. To the clergy was given the control of education, and to the gymnasia and universities a considerable number of foreigners and Protestants received appointments. In all respects the sovereignty of the state over the church and the clergy was very decidedly expressed, the episcopate at all points restricted in its jurisdiction, the training of the clergy regulated and supervised on behalf of the state, the patronage of all pastorates and benefices usurped by the government, even public worship subjected to state control by the prohibition of superstitious practices, etc. But amid many other infelicities of this autocratic procedure was specially the gradual dying out of the old race of bishops, which obliged the government to seek again an understanding with Rome; and so it actually happened in June, 1817, after Montgelas’ dismissal, that a concordat was drawn up. By this the Roman Catholic apostolic religion secured throughout the whole kingdom those rights and prerogatives which were due to it according to divine appointment and canonical ordinances, which, strictly taken, meant supremacy throughout the land. In addition, two archbishoprics and seven bishoprics were instituted, the restoration of several cloisters was agreed to, and the unlimited administration of theological seminaries, the censorship of books, the superintendance of public schools and free correspondence with the holy see were allowed to the bishops. On the other hand, the king was given the choice of bishops (to be confirmed by the pope), the nomination of a great part of the priests and canons, and the placet for all hierarchical publications. After many vain endeavours to obtain amendments, the king at last, on October 17th, ratified this concordat; but, to mollify his highly incensed Protestant subjects, he delayed the publication of it till the proclamation of the new civil constitution on May 18th following. The concordat was then adopted, as an appendage to an edict setting forth the ecclesiastical supremacy of the state, securing perfect freedom of conscience to all subjects, as well as equal civil rights to members of the three Christian confessions, and demanding from them equal mutual respect. The irreconcilableness of this edict with the concordat was evident, and the newly appointed bishops as well as the clerical parliamentary deputies, declared by papal instruction that they could not take the oath to the constitution without reservation, until the royal statement of Tegernsee, September 21st, that the oath taken by Catholic subjects simply referred to civil relations, and that the concordat had also the validity of a law of the state, induced the curia to agree to it. But the government nevertheless continued to insist as before upon the supremacy of the state over the church, enlarged the claims of the royal placet, put the free intercourse with Rome again under state control, arbitrarily disposed of church property and supervised the theological examinations of the seminarists, made the appointment of all clergy dependent on its approbation, and refused to be misled in anything by the complaints and objections of the bishops.

§ 195.2. The Bavarian Ecclesiastical Polity under Louis I., 1825-1848.—Zealous Catholic as the new king was, he still held with unabated tenacity to the sovereign rights of the crown, and the extreme ultramontane ministry of Von Abel from 1837 was the first to wring from him any relaxations, e.g. the reintroduction of free intercourse between the bishops and the holy see without any state control. But it could not obtain the abolition of the placet, and just as little the eagerly sought permission of the return of the Jesuits. On the other hand the allied order of Redemptorists was allowed, whose missions among the Bavarian people, however, the king soon made dependent on a permission to be from time to time renewed. His tolerant disposition toward the Protestants was shown in 1830, by his refusing the demand of the Catholic clergy for a Reverse in mixed marriages, and recognising Protestant sponsors at Catholic baptisms. But yet his honourable desire to be just even to the Protestants of his realm was often paralysed, partly by his own ultramontane sympathies, partly and mainly by the immense influence of the Abel ministry, and the religious freedom guaranteed them by law in 1818 was reduced and restricted. Among other things the Protestant press was on all sides gagged by the minister, while the Catholic press and preaching enjoyed unbridled liberty. Great as the need was in southern Bavaria the government had strictly forbidden the taking of any aid from the Gustavus Adolphus Verein. Louis saw even in the name of this society a slight thrown on the German name, and was specially offended at its vague, nearly negative attitude towards the confession. Yet he had no hesitation in affording an asylum in Catholic Bavaria to the Lutheran confessor Scheibel (§ 177, 2) whom Prussian diplomacy had driven out of Lutheran Saxony, and did not prevent the university of Erlangen, after its dead orthodoxy had been reawakened by the able Reformed preacher Krafft (died 1845), becoming the centre of a strict Lutheran church consciousness in life as well as science for all Germany. The adoration order of 1838, which required even the Protestant soldiers to kneel before the host as a military salute, occasioned great discontent among the Protestant population, and many controversial pamphlets appeared on both sides. When finally the parliament in 1845 took up the complaint of the Protestants, a royal proclamation followed by which the usually purely military salute formerly in use was restored. In 1847 the ultramontane party, with Abel at its head, fell into disfavour with the king, on account of its honourable attitude in the scandal which the notorious Lola Montez caused in the circle of the Bavarian nobility; but in 1848 Louis was obliged, through the revolutionary storm that burst over Bavaria, to resign the crown.

§ 195.3. The Bavarian Ecclesiastical Polity under Maximilian II., 1848-1864, and Louis II. (died 1886).—Much more thoroughly than his father did Maximilian II. strive to act justly toward the Protestant as well as the Catholic church, without however abating any of the claims of constitutional supremacy on the part of the state. In consequence of the Würzburg negotiations (§ 192, 4), the Bavarian bishops assembled at Freysing, in November, 1850, presented a memorial, in which they demanded the withdrawal of the religious edict included in the constitution of 1818, as in all respects prejudicial to the rights of the church granted by the concordat, and set forth in particular those points which were most restrictive to the free and proper development of the catholic church. The result was the publication in April, 1852, of a rescript which, while maintaining all the principles of state administration hitherto followed, introduced in detail various modifications, which, on the renewal of the complaints in 1854, were somewhat further increased as the fullest and final measure of surrender.—The change brought about  1866 in the relation of Bavaria to North Germany led the government under Louis II. to introduce liberal reforms, and the offensive and defensive alliance which the government concluded with the heretical Prussia, the failure of all attempts on the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war to force it in violation of treaty to maintain neutrality, and then to prevent Bavaria becoming part of the new German empire founded in 1871 at the suggestion of her own king, roused to the utmost the wrath of the Bavarian clerical patriots. In the conflicts of the German government, in 1872, against the intolerable assumptions, claims and popular tumults of the ultramontane clergy, the department of public worship, led by Lutz, inclined to take an energetic part. But this was practically limited to the passing of the so-called Kanzelparagraphen (§ 197, 4) in the Reichstag. Comp. § 197, 14.

§ 195.4. Attempts at Reorganization of the Lutheran Church.—Since 1852, Dr. von Harless (§ 182, 13), as president of the upper consistory at Munich, stood at the head of the Lutheran church of Bavaria. Under his presidency the general synod at Baireuth in 1853 showed a vigorous activity in the reorganization of the church. On the basis of its proceedings the upper consistory ordered the introduction of an admirable new hymnbook. This occasioned considerable disagreement. But when, in 1856, the upper consistory issued a series of enactments on worship and discipline, a storm, originating in Nuremberg, burst forth in the autumn of that same year, which raged over the whole kingdom and attacked even the state church itself. The king was assailed with petitions, and the spiritual courts went so far in faint-heartedness as to put the acceptance and non-acceptance of its ordinances to the vote of the congregations. Meanwhile the time had come for calling another general synod (1857). An order of the king as head of the church abolished the union of the two state synods in a general synod which had existed since 1849, and forbad all discussion of matters of discipline. Hence instead of one, two synods assembled, the one in October at Anspach, the other in November at Baireuth. Both, consisting of equal numbers of lay and clerical members, maintained a moderate attitude, relinquishing none of the privileges of the church or the prerogatives of the upper consistory, and yet contributed greatly to the assuaging of the prevalent excitement. Also the lay and clerical members of the subsequent reunited general synods held every fourth year for the most part co-operated successfully on moderate church lines. The synod held at Baireuth in 1873 unanimously rejected an address sent from Augsburg inspired by “Protestant Union” sympathies, as to their mind “for the most part indistinct and where distinct unevangelical.”

§ 195.5. The Church of the Union in the Palatine of the Rhine.—In the Bavarian Palatine of the Rhine the union had been carried out in 1818 on the understanding that the symbolical books of both confessions should be treated with due respect, but no other standard recognised than holy scripture. When therefore the Erlangen professor, Dr. Rust, in 1832 appeared in the consistory at Spires and the court for that time had endeavoured to fill up the Palatine union with positive Christian contents, 204 clerical and lay members of the Diocesan Synod presented to the assembly of the states of the realm, opportunely meeting in 1837, a complaint against the majority of the consistory. As this memorial yielded practically no result, the opposition wrought all the more determinedly for the severance of the Palatine church from the Munich Upper Consistory. This was first accomplished in the revolutionary year 1848. An extraordinary general synod brought about the separation, and gave to the country a new democratic church constitution. But the reaction of the blow did not stop there. The now independent consistory at Spires, from 1853 under the leadership of Ebrard, convened in the autumn of that year a general synod, which made the Augustana Variata of 1540 as representing the consensus between the Augustana of 1530 and the Heidelberg as well as the Lutheran catechism, the confessional standard of the Palatine church, and set aside the democratic election law of 1848. When now the consistory, purely at the instance of the general synod of 1853, submitted to the diocesan synod in 1856 the proofs of a new hymnbook, the liberal party poured out its bitter indignation upon the system of doctrine which it was supposed to favour. But the diocesan synods admitted the necessity of introducing a new hymnbook and the suitability of the sketch submitted, recommending, however, its further revision so that the recension of the text might be brought up to date and that an appendix of 150 new hymns might be added. The hymnbook thus modified was published in 1859, and its introduction into church use left to the judgment of presbyteries, while its use in schools and in confirmation instruction was insisted upon forthwith. This called forth protest after protest. The government wished from the first to support the synodal decree, but in presence of growing disturbance, changed its attitude, recommended the consistory to observe decided moderation so as to restore peace, and in February, 1861, called a general synod which, however, in consequence of the prevailingly strict ecclesiastical tendencies of its members, again expressed itself in favour of the new hymnbook. Its conclusions were meanwhile very unfavourably received by the government. Ebrard sought and obtained liberty to resign, and even at the next synod, in 1869, the consistory went hand in hand with the liberal majority.

§ 196. THE SOUTH GERMAN SMALLER STATES AND RHENISH ALSACE AND LORRAINE.

The Protestant princely houses of South Germany had by the Lüneville [Luneville] Peace obtained such an important increase of Catholic subjects, that they had to make it their first care to arrange their delicate relations by concluding a concordat with the papal curia in a manner satisfactory to state and church. But all negotiations broke down before the exorbitant claims of Rome, until the political restoration movements of 1850 led to modifications of them hitherto undreamed of. The concordats concluded during this period were not able to secure enforcement over against the liberal current that had set in with redoubled power in 1860, and so one thing after another was thrown overboard. Even in the Protestant state churches this current made itself felt in the persistent efforts, which also proved successful, to secure the restoration of a representative synodal constitution which would give to the lay element in the congregations a decided influence.

§ 196.1. The Upper Rhenish Church Province.—The governments of the South German States gathered in 1818 at Frankfort, to draw up a common concordat with Rome. But owing to the utterly extravagant pretensions nothing further was reached than a new delimitation in the bull “Provida sollersque,” 1821, of the bishoprics in the so-called Upper Rhenish Church Province: the archbishopric of Freiburg for Baden and the two Hohenzollern principalities, the bishoprics of Mainz for Hesse-Darmstadt, Fulda for Hesse-Cassel, Rottenburg for Württemberg, Limburg for Nassau and Frankfort; and even this was given effect to only in 1827, after long discussions, with the provision (bull Ad dominicæ gregis custodiam) that the choice of the bishops should issue indeed from the chapter, but that the territorial lord might strike out objectionable names in the list of candidates previously submitted to him. The actual equality of Protestants and Catholics which the pope had not been able to allow in the concordat, was now in 1880 proclaimed by the princes as the law of the land. Papal and episcopal indulgences had to receive approval before their publication; provincial and diocesan synods could be held only with approval of the government and in presence of the commissioners of the prince; taxes could not be imposed by any ecclesiastical court; appeal could be made to the civil court against abuse of spiritual power; those preparing for the priesthood should receive scientific training at the universities, practical training in the seminaries for priests, etc. The pope issued a brief in which he characterized these conditions as scandalous novelties, and reminded the bishops of Acts v. 29. But only the Bishop of Fulda followed this advice, with the result that the Catholic theological faculty at Marburg was after a short career closed again, and the education of the priests given over to the seminary at Fulda. Hesse-Darmstadt founded a theological faculty at Giessen in 1830; Baden had one already in Freiburg, and Würtemberg [Württemberg] had in 1817 affiliated the faculty at Ellwanger with the university of Tübingen, and endowed it with the revenues of a rich convent. In all these faculties alongside of rigorous scientific exactness there prevailed a noble liberalism without the surrender of the fundamental Catholic faith. The revolutionary year, 1848, first gave the bishops the hope of a successful struggle for the unconditional freedom of the church. In order to enforce the Würzburg decrees (§ 192, 4), the five bishops issued in 1851 a joint memorial. As the governments delayed their answer, they declared in 1852 that they would immediately act as if all had been granted them; and when at last the answer came, on most points unfavourable, they said in 1853, that, obeying God rather than man, they would proceed wholly in accordance with canon law.

§ 196.2. The Catholic Troubles in Baden down to 1873.—The Grand Duchy of Baden, with two-thirds of its population Catholic, where in 1848 the revolution had shattered all the foundations of the state, and where besides a young ruler had taken the reins of government in his hands only in 1852, seemed in spite of the widely prevalent liberality of its clergy, the place best fitted for such an attempt. The Archbishop of Freiburg, Herm. von Vicari, in 1852, now in his eighty-first year, began by arbitrarily stopping, on the evening of May 9th, the obsequies of the deceased grand-duke appointed by the Catholic Supreme Church Council for May 10th, prohibiting at the same time the saying of mass for the dead (pro omnibus defunctis) usual at Catholic burials, but in Baden and Bavaria hitherto not refused even to Protestant princes. More than one hundred priests, who disobeyed the injunction, were sentenced to perform penances. In the following year he openly declared that he would forthwith carry out the demands of the episcopal memorial, and did so immediately by appointing priests in the exercise of absolute authority; and by holding entrance examinations to the seminary without the presence of royal commissioners as required by law. As a warning remained unheeded, the government issued the order that all episcopal indulgences must before publication be subscribed by a grand-ducal special commissioner appointed for the purpose. Against him, as well as against all the members of the Supreme Church Council, the archbishop proclaimed the ban, issued a fulminating pastoral letter, which was to have been read with the excommunication in all churches, and ordered preaching for four weeks for the instruction of the people on these matters. At the same time he solemnly protested against all supremacy of the state over the church. The government drove the Jesuits out of the country, forbad the reading of the pastoral, and punished disobedient priests with fines and imprisonment. But the archbishop, spurred on by Ketteler, Bishop of Mainz, advanced more boldly and recklessly than ever. In May, 1854, the government introduced a criminal process against him, during the course of which he was kept prisoner in his own house. The attempts of his party to arouse the Catholic population by demonstrations had no serious result. At the close of the investigation the archbishop was released from his confinement and continued the work as before. The government, however, still remained firm, and punished every offence. In June, 1855, however, a provisional agreement was published, and finally in June, 1859, a formal concordat, the bull Æterni patris, was concluded with Rome, its concessions to the archbishop almost exceeding even those of Austria (§ 198, 2). In spite of ministerial opposition the second chamber in March, 1860, brought up the matter before its tribunal, repudiated the right of the government to conclude a convention with Rome without the approbation of the states of the realm, and forbad the grand-duke to enforce it. He complied with this demand, dismissed the ministry, insisted, in answer to the papal protest, on his obligation to respect the rights of the constitution, and on October 9th, 1860, sanctioned jointly with the chambers a law on the legal position of the Catholic and Protestant churches in the state. The archbishop indeed declared that the concordat could not be abolished on one side, and still retain the force of law, but in presence of the firm attitude of the government he desisted, and satisfied himself with giving in 1861 a grudging acquiescence, by which he secured to himself greater independence than before in regard to imposing of dues and administration of the church property. Conflicts with the archbishop, however, and with the clerical minority in the chamber, still continued. The archbishop died in 1868. His see remained vacant, as the chapter and the government could not agree about the list of candidates; the interim administration was carried on by the vicar-general, Von Kübel (died 1881), as administrator of the archdiocese, quite in the spirit of his predecessor. The law of October 9th, 1860, had prescribed evidence of general scientific culture as a condition of appointment to an ecclesiastical office in the Protestant as well as the Catholic church. Later ordinances required in addition: Possession of Baden citizenship, having passed a favourable examination on leaving the university, a university course of at least two and half years, attendance upon at least three courses of lectures in the philosophical faculty, and finally also an examination before a state examining board, within one and half years of the close of the university curriculum, in the Latin and Greek languages, history of philosophy, general history, and the history of German literature (later also the so called Kulturexamen). The Freiburg curia, however, protested, and in 1867 forbad clergy and candidates to submit to this examination or to seek a dispensation from it. The result was, that forthwith no clergymen could be definitely appointed, but up to 1874 no legal objection was made to interim appointments of parochial administrators. The educational law of 1868 abolished the confessional character of the public schools. In 1869 state recognition was withdrawn from the festivals of Corpus Christi, the holy apostles, and Mary, as also, on the other hand, from the festivals of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. In 1870 obligatory civil marriage was introduced, while all compulsion to observe the baptismal, confirmational, and funeral rites of the church was abolished, and a law on the legal position of benevolent institutions was passed to withdraw these as much as possible from the administration of the ecclesiastical authorities. On the subsequent course of events in Baden, see § 197, 14.

§ 196.3. The Protestant Troubles in Baden.—The union of the Lutheran and Reformed churches was carried out in the Grand Duchy of Baden in 1821. It recognised the normative significance of the Augustana, as well as the Lutheran and Heidelberg catechisms, in so far as by it the free examination of scripture as the only source of Christian faith, is again expressly demanded and applied. A synod of 1834 provided this state church with union-rationalistic agenda, hymnbook, and catechism. When there also a confessional Lutheran sentiment began again in the beginning of 1850 to prevail, the church of the union opposed this movement by gensdarmes, imprisonment and fines. The pastor Eichhorn, and later also the pastor Ludwig, with a portion of their congregations left the state church and attached themselves to the Breslau Upper Church Conference, but amid police interference could minister to their flocks only under cloud of night. After long refusal the grand-duke at last in 1854 permitted the separatists the choice of a Lutheran pastor, but persistently refused to recognise Eichhorn as such. Pastor Haag, who would not give up the Lutheran distribution formula at the Lord’s supper, was after solemn warning deposed in 1855. On the other hand the positive churchly feeling became more and more pronounced in the state church itself. In 1854 the old rationalist members of the Supreme Church Council were silenced, and Ullmann of Heidelberg was made president. Under his auspices a general synod of 1855 presented a sketch of new church and school books on the lines of the union consensus, with an endeavour also to be just to the Lutheran views. The grand-duke confirmed the decision and the country was silent. But when in 1858 the Supreme Church Council, on the ground of the Synodal decision of 1855, promulgated the general introduction of a new church book, a violent storm broke out through the country against the liturgical novelties contained therein (extension of the liturgy by confession of sin and faith, collects, responses, Scripture reading, kneeling at the supper, the making a confession of their faith by sponsors), the Heidelberg faculty, with Dr. Schenkel at its head, leading the opposition in the Supreme Church Council. Yet Hundeshagen, who in the synod had opposed the introduction of a new agenda, entered the lists against Schenkel and others as the apologist of the abused church book. The grand-duke then decided that no congregation should be obliged to adopt the new agenda, while the introduction of the shorter and simpler form of it was recommended. The agitations these awakened caused its rejection by most of the congregations. Meanwhile in consequence of the concordat revolution in 1860, a new liberal ministry had come into power, and the government now presented to the chambers a series of thoroughly liberal schemes for regulating the affairs of the evangelical church, which were passed by large majorities. Toward the end of the year the government, by deposing the Supreme Church Councillor Heintz, began to assume the patronage of the supreme ecclesiastical court. Ullmann and Bähr tendered their resignations, which were accepted. The new liberal Supreme Church Council, including Holtzmann, Rothe, etc., now published a sketch of a church constitution on the lines of ecclesiastical constitutionalism, which with slight modifications the synod of July, 1861, adopted and the grand-duke confirmed. It provided for annual diocesan synods of lay and clerical members, and a general synod every five years. The latter consists of twenty-four clerical and twenty-four lay members, and six chosen by the grand-duke, besides the prelate, and is represented in the interval by a standing committee of four members, who have also a seat and vote in the Supreme Church Council.—Dr. Schenkel’s “Leben Jesu” of 1864 led the still considerable party among the evangelical clergy who adhered to the doctrine of the church to agitate for his removal from his position as director of the Evangelical Pastors’ Seminary at Heidelberg; but it resulted only in this, that no one was obliged to attend his lectures. The second synod, held almost a year behind time in 1867, passed a liberal ordination formula. At the next synod in 1871, the orthodox pietistic party had evidently become stronger, but was still overborne by the liberal party, whose strength was in the lay element. Meanwhile a praiseworthy moderation prevailed on both sides, and an effort was made to work together as peaceably as possible.—In Heidelberg a considerable number attached to the old faith, dissatisfied with the preaching of the four “Free Protestant” city pastors, after having been in 1868 refused their request for the joint use of a city church for private services in accordance with their religious convictions (§ 180, 1), had built for this purpose a chapel of their own, in which numerously attended services were held under the direction of Professor Frommel of the gymnasium. When a vacancy occurred in one of the pastorates in 1880, this believing minority, anxious for the restoration of unity and peace, as well as the avoidance of the separation, asked to have Professor Frommel appointed to the charge. At a preliminary assembly of twenty-one liberal church members this proposal was warmly supported by the president, Professor Bluntschli, by all the theological professors, with the exception of Schenkel and eighteen other liberal voters, and agreed to by the majority of the two hundred liberals constituting the assembly. But when the formal election came round the proposal was lost by twenty-seven to fifty-one votes.

§ 196.4. Hesse-Darmstadt and Nassau.—In 1819 the government of the Grand Duchy of Hesse recommended the union of all Protestant communities under one confession. Rhenish Hesse readily agreed to this, and there in 1822 the union was accomplished. In the other provinces, however, it did not take effect, although by the rationalism fostered at Giessen among the clergy and by the popular current of thought in the communities, the Lutheran as well as the Reformed confession had been robbed of all significance. But since 1850 even there a powerful Lutheran reaction among the younger clergy, zealously furthered by a section of the aristocracy of the state, set in, especially in the district on the right bank of the Rhine, which has eagerly opposed the equally eager struggles of the liberal party to introduce a liberal synodal representative constitution for the evangelical church of the whole state. These endeavours, however, were frustrated, and at an extraordinary state synod of 1873, on all controverted questions, the middle party gave their vote in favour of the absorptive union. The state church was declared to be the united church. The clause that had been added to the government proposal: “Without prejudice to the status of the confessions of the several communities,” was dropped; the place of residence and not the confession was that which determined qualifications in the community; the ordination now expressed obligation to the Reformation confessions generally, etc. The members of the minority broke off their connection with the synod, and seventy-seven pastors presented to the synod a protest against its decisions. The grand-duke then, on the basis of these deliberations, gave forthwith a charter to the church constitution, in which indeed the Lutheran, Reformed, and United churches were embraced in one evangelical state church with a common church government; but still also, by restoring the phrase struck out by the synod from § 1, the then existing confessional status of the several communities was preserved and the confession itself declared beyond the range of legislation. Yet fifteen Lutheran pastors represented that they could not conscientiously accept this, and the upper consistory hastened to remove them from office shortly before the shutting of the gates, i.e., before July 1st, 1875, when by the new law (§ 197, 15) depositions of clergy would belong only to the supreme civil court. The opposing congregations now declared, in 1877, their withdrawal from the state church, and constituted themselves as a “free Lutheran church in Hesse.”—The Catholic church in the Grand Duchy of Hesse, had under the peaceful bishops of Mainz, Burg (died 1833) and Kaiser (died 1849), caused the government no trouble. But it was otherwise after Kaiser’s death. Rome rejected Professor Leopold Schmid of Giessen, favoured at Darmstadt and regularly elected by the chapter (§ 187, 3), and the government yielded to the appointment of the violent ultramontane Westphalian, Baron von Ketteler. His first aim was the extinction of the Catholic faculty at Giessen (§ 191, 2); he rested not until the last student had been transferred from it to the newly erected seminary at Mainz (1851). No less energetic and successful were his endeavours to free the Catholic church from the supremacy of the state in accordance with the Upper Rhenish episcopal memorial. The Dalwigk ministry, in 1854, concluded a “provisional agreement” with the bishop, which secured to him unlimited autonomy and sovereignty in all ecclesiastical matters, and, to satisfy the pope with his desiderata, these privileges were still further extended in 1856. To this convention, first made publicly known in 1860, the ministry, in spite of all addresses and protests, adhered with unfaltering tenacity, although long convinced of its consequences. The political events of 1886, however, led the grand-duke in September of that year to abrogate the hateful convention. But the minister as well as the bishop considered this merely to refer to the episcopal convention of 1850, and treated the agreement with the pope of 1856 as always still valid. So everything went on in the old way, even after Ketteler’s supreme influence in the state had been broken by the overthrow of Dalwigk in 1871. Comp. § 197, 15.—The Protestant church in the Duchy of Nassau attached itself to the union in 1817. The conflict in the Upper Rhenish church overflowed even into this little province. The Bishop of Limburg, in opposition to law and custom, appointed Catholic clergy on his own authority, and excommunicated the Catholic officers who supported the government, while the government arrested the temporalities and instituted criminal proceedings against bishop and chapter. After the conclusion of the Württemberg and Baden concordats, the government showed itself disposed to adopt a similar way out of the conflict, and in spite of all opposition from the States concluded in 1861 a convention with the bishop, by which almost all his hierarchical claims were admitted. Thus it remained until the incorporation of Nassau in the Prussian kingdom in 1866.

§ 196.5. In Protestant Württemberg a religious movement among the people reached a height such as it attained nowhere else. Pietism, chiliasm, separatism, the holding of conventicles, etc., assumed formidable dimensions; solid science, philosophical culture, and then also philosophical and destructive critical tendencies issuing from Tübingen affected the clergy of this state. Dissatisfaction with various novelties in the liturgy, the hymnbook, etc., led many formally to separate from the state church. After attempts at compulsion had proved fruitless, the government allowed the malcontents under the organizing leadership of the burgomaster, G. W. Hoffman (died 1846), to form in 1818 the community of Kornthal, with an ecclesiastical and civil constitution of its own after the apostolic type. Others emigrated to South Russia and to North America (§ 211, 6, 7). Out of the pastoral work of pastor Blumhardt at Möttlingen, who earnestly preached repentance, there was developed, in connection with the healing of a demoniac, which had been accompanied with a great awakening in the community, the “gift” of healing the sick by absolution and laying on of hands with contrite believing prayer. Blumhardt, in order to afford this gift undisturbed exercise, bought the Bad Boll near Göppingen, and officiated there as pastor and miraculous healer in the way described. He died in 1880.—After the way to a synodal representation of the whole evangelical state church had been opened up in 1851 by the introduction, according to a royal ordinance, of parochial councils and diocesan synods, the consistory having also in 1858 published a scheme referring thereto, the whole business was brought to a standstill, until at last in 1867, by means of a royal edict, the calling of a State Synod consisting of twenty-five clerical and as many lay members was ordered, and consequently in February, 1869, such a synod met for the first time. Co-operation in ecclesiastical legislation was assigned to it as its main task, while it had also the right to advise in regard to proposals about church government, also to make suggestions and complaints on such matters, but the confession of the evangelical church was not to be touched, and lay entirely outside of its province. A liberal enactment with regard to dissenters was sanctioned by the chamber in 1870.

§ 196.6. The Catholic Church in Württemberg.—Even after the founding of the bishopric of Rottenberg [Rottenburg] the government maintained strictly the previously exercised rights of sovereignty over the Catholic church, to which almost one-third of the population belonged, and the almost universally prevalent liberalism of the Catholic clergy found in this scarcely any offence. A new order of divine service in 1837, which, with the approval of the episcopal council, recommended the introduction of German hymns in the services, dispensing the sacraments in the German language, restriction of the festivals, masses, and private masses, processions, etc., did indeed cause riots in several places, in which, however, the clergy took no part. But when in 1837, in consequence of the excitement caused throughout Catholic Germany by the Cologne conflict (§ 193, 1), the hitherto only isolated cases of lawless refusal to consecrate mixed marriages had increased, the government proceeded severely to punish offending clergymen, and transported to a village curacy a Tübingen professor, Mack, who had declared the compulsory celebration unlawful. Called to account by the nuncio of Munich for his indolence in all these affairs and severely threatened, old Bishop Keller at last resolved, in 1841, to lay before the chamber a formal complaint against the injury done to the Catholic church, and to demand the freeing of the church from the sovereignty of the state. In the second chamber this motion was simply laid ad acta, but in the first it was recommended that the king should consider it. The bishop, however, and the liberal chapter could not agree as to the terms of the demand, contradictory opinions were expressed, and things remained as they were. But Bishop Keller fell into melancholy and died in 1845. His successor took his stand upon the memorial and declaration of the Upper Rhenish bishops, and immediately in 1853 began the conflict by forbidding his clergy, under threats of severe censure, to submit as law required to civil examinations. The government that had hitherto so firmly maintained its sovereign rights, under pressure of the influence which a lady very nearly related to the king exercised over him, gave in without more ado, quieted the bishop first of all by a convention in 1854, and then entered into negotiations with the Roman curia, out of which came in 1857 a concordat proclaimed by the bull Cum in sublimi, which, in surrender of a sovereign right of the state over the affairs of the church, far exceeds that of Austria (§ 198, 2). The government left unheeded all protests and petitions from the chambers for its abolition. But the example of Baden and the more and more decided tone of the opposition obliged the government at last to yield. The second chamber in 1861 decreed the abrogation of the concordat, and a royal rescript declared it abolished. In the beginning of 1862 a bill was submitted by the new ministry and passed into law by both chambers for determining the relations of the Catholic church to the state. The royal placet or right of permitting or refusing, is required for all clerical enactments which are not purely inter-ecclesiastical but refer to mixed matters; the theological endowments are subject to state control and joint administration; boys’ seminaries are not allowed; clergymen appointed to office must submit to state examination; according to consuetudinary rights, about two-thirds of the benefices are filled by the king, one-third by the bishops on reporting to the civil court, which has the right of protest; clergy who break the law are removable by the civil court, etc. The curia indeed lodged a protest, but the for the most part peace-loving clergy reared, not in the narrowing atmosphere of the seminaries but amid the scientific culture of the university, in the halls of Tübingen, submitted all the more easily as they found that in all inter-ecclesiastical matters they had greater freedom and independence under the concordat than before.

§ 196.7. The Imperial Territory of Alsace and Lorraine since 1871.—After Alsace with German Lorraine had again, in consequence of the Franco-Prussian war, been united to Germany and as an imperial territory had been placed under the rule of the new German emperor, the secretary of the Papal States, Cardinal Antonelli, in the confident hope of being able to secure in return the far more favourable conditions, rights and claims of the Catholic church in Prussia with the autocracy of the bishops unrestricted by the state, declared in a letter to the Bishop of Strassburg, that the concordat of 1801 (§ 203, 1) was annulled. But when the imperial government showed itself ready to accept the renunciation, and to make profit out of it in the opposite way from that intended, the cardinal hasted in another letter to explain how by the incorporation with Germany a new arrangement had become necessary, but that clearly the old must remain in force until the new one has been promulgated. Also a petition of the Catholic clergy brought to Berlin by the bishop himself, which laid claim to this unlimited dominion over all Catholic educational and benevolent institutions, failed of its purpose. The clergy therefore wrought for this all the more zealously by fanaticizing the Catholic people in favour of French and against German interests. On the epidemic about the appearance of the mother of God called forth in this way, see § 188, 7. In 1874 the government found itself obliged to close the so-called “little seminaries,” or boys’ colleges, on account of their fostering sentiments hostile to the empire. Yet in 1880 the newly appointed imperial governor, Field-marshal von Manteuffel (died 1885), at the request of the States-Committee, allowed Bishop Räss of Strassburg to reopen the seminary at Zillisheim, with the proviso that his teachers should be approved by the government, and that instruction in the German language should be introduced. Manteuffel has endeavoured since, by yielding favours to the France-loving Alsatians and Lorrainers, and to their ultramontane clergy, to win them over to the idea of the German empire, even to the evident sacrifice of the interests of resident Germans and of the Protestant church. But such fondling has wrought the very opposite result to that intended.

§ 197. THE SO-CALLED KULTURKAMPF IN THE GERMAN EMPIRE.[550]

Ultramontanism had for the time being granted to the Prussian state, which had not only allowed it absolutely free scope but readily aided its growth throughout the realm (§ 193, 2), an indulgence for that offence which is in itself unatoneable, having a Protestant dynasty. Pius IX. had himself repeatedly expressed his satisfaction at the conduct of the government. But the league which Prussia made in 1866 with the “church-robbing Sub-alpine,” i.e. Italian, government, was not at all to the taste of the curia. The day of Sadowa, 3rd July, 1866, called from Antonelli the mournful cry, Il mondo cessa, “The world has gone to ruin,” and the still more glorious day of Sedan, 2nd September, 1870, completely put the bottom out of the Danaid’s vessel of ultramontane forbearance and endurance. This day, 18th January, 1871, had as its result the overthrow of the temporal power of the papacy as well the establishment of a new and hereditary German empire under the Protestant dynasty of the Prussian Hohenzollerns. German ultramontanism felt itself all the more under obligation to demand from the new emperor as the first expiation for such uncanonical usurpation, the reinstatement of the pope in his lost temporal power. But when he did not respond to this demand, the ultramontane party, by means of the press favourable to its claims, formally declared war against the German empire and its governments, and applied itself systematically to the mobilization of its entire forces. But the empire and its governments, with Prussia in the van, with unceasing determination, supported by the majority of the States’ representatives, during the years 1871-1875 proceeded against the ultramontanes by legislative measures. The execution of these by the police and the courts of law, owing to the stubborn refusal to obey on the part of the higher and lower clergy, led to the formation of an opposition, commonly designated after a phrase of the Prussian deputy, Professor Virchow, “Kulturkampf,” which was in some degree modified first in 1887. The imperial chancellor, Prince Bismarck, uttered at the outset the confident, self-assertive statement, “We go not to Canossa,”—and even in 1880, when it seemed as if a certain measure of submission was coming from the side of the papacy, and the Prussian government also showed itself prepared to make important concessions, he declared, “We shall not buy peace with Canossa medals; such are not minted in Germany.” Since 1880, however, the Prussian government with increasing compliance from year to year set aside and modified the most oppressive enactments of the May laws, so as actually to redress distresses and inconveniences occasioned by clerical opposition to these laws, without being able thereby to obtain any important concession on the part of the papal curia, until at last in 1887, after the government had carried concession to the utmost limit, the pope put his seal to definitive terms of peace by admitting the right of giving information on the part of the bishops regarding appointments to vacant pastorates, as well as the right of protest on the part of the government against those thus nominated.

§ 197.1. The Aggression of Ultramontanism.—Even in the revolution year, 1848, German ultramontanism, in order to obtain what it called the freedom of the church, had zealously seconded many of the efforts of democratic radicalism. Nevertheless, in the years of reaction that followed, it succeeded in catching most of the influential statesmen on the limed twig of the assurance that the episcopal hierarchy, with its unlimited sway over the clergy and through them over the feelings of the people, constituted the only certain and dependable bulwark against the revolutionary movements of the age, and this idea prevailed down to 1860, and in Prussia down to 1871. But the overthrow of the concordat in Baden, Württemberg and Darmstadt by the states of the realm after a hard conflict, the humiliation of Austria in 1866, and the growth in so threatening a manner since of the still heretical Prussia, produced in the whole German episcopate a terrible apprehension that its hitherto untouched supremacy in the state would be at an end, and in order to ward off this danger it was driven into agitations and demonstrations partly secret and partly open. On 8th October, 1868, the papal nuncio in Munich, Monsignor Meglia, uttered his inmost conviction regarding the Württemberg resident thus: “Only in America, England, and Belgium does the Catholic church receive its rights; elsewhere nothing can help us but the revolution.” And on 22nd April, 1869, Bishop Senestray [Senestrey] of Regensburg declared plainly in a speech delivered at Schwandorff: “If kings will no longer be of God’s grace, I shall be the first to overthrow the throne.... Only a war or revolution can help us in the end.” And war at last came, but it helped only their opponents. Although at its outbreak in 1870 the ultramontane party in South Germany, especially in Bavaria, for the most part with unexampled insolence expressed their sympathy with France, and after the brilliant and victorious close of the war did everything to prevent the attachment of Bavaria to the new German empire, their North German brethren, accustomed to the boundless compliance of the Prussian government, indulged the hope of prosecuting their own ends all the more successfully under the new regime. Even in November, 1870, Archbishop Ledochowski of Posen visited the victorious king of Prussia at Versailles, in order to interest him personally in the restoration of the Papal States. In February, 1871, in the same place, fifty-six Catholic deputies of the Prussian parliament presented to the king, who had meanwhile been proclaimed Emperor of Germany, a formal petition for the restoration of the temporal power of the pope, and soon afterwards a deputation of distinguished laymen waited upon him “in name of all the Catholics of Germany,” with an address directed to the same end. The Bavarian Fatherland (Dr. Sigl) indeed treated it with scorn as a “belly-crawling-deputation, which crawled before the magnanimous hero-emperor, beseeching him graciously to use said deputation as his spittoon.” And the Steckenberger Bote, inspired by Dr. Ketteler, declared: “We Catholics do not entreat it as a favour, but demand it as our right.... Either you must restore the Catholic church to all its privileges or not one of all your existing governments will endure.” At the same time as the insinuation was spread that the new German empire threatened the existence of the Catholic church in Germany, a powerful ultramontane election agitation in view of the next Reichstag was set on foot, out of which grew the party of the “Centre,” so called from sitting in the centre of the hall, with Von Ketteler, Windthorst, Mallinkrodt (died 1874), and the two Reichenspergers, as its most eloquent leaders. Even in the debate on the address in answer to the speech from the throne this party demanded intervention, at first indeed only diplomatic, in favour of the Papal States. In the discussion on the new imperial constitution A. Reichensperger sought to borrow from the abortive German landowners’ bill of 1848, condemned indeed as godless by the syllabus (§ 185, 2), principles that might serve the turn of ultramontanism regarding the unrestricted liberty of the press, societies, meetings, and religion, with the most perfect independence of all religious communities of the State. Mallinkrodt insisted upon the need of enlarged privileges for the Catholic church owing to the great growth of the empire in Catholic territory and population. All these motions were rejected by the Reichstag, and the Prussian government answered them by abolishing in July, 1871, the Catholic department of the Ministry of Public Worship, which had existed since 1841 (§ 193, 2). The Genfer Korrespondenz, shortly before highly praised by the pope, declared: If kings do not help the papacy to regain its rights, the papacy must also withdraw from them and appeal directly to the hearts of the people. “Understand ye the terrible range of this change? Your hours, O ye princes, are numbered!” The Berlin Germania pointed threateningly to the approaching revanche war in France, on the outbreak of which the German empire would no longer be able to reckon on the sympathy of its Catholic subjects; and the Ellwanger kath. Wochenblatt proclaimed openly that only France is able to guard and save the Catholic church from the annihilating projects of Prussia. And in this way the Catholic people throughout all Germany were roused and incited by the Catholic press, as well as from the pulpit and confessional, in home and school, in Catholic monasteries and nunneries, in mechanics’ clubs and peasants’ unions, in casinos and assemblies of nobles. Bishop Ketteler founded expressly for purposes of such agitations the Mainz Catholic Union, in September, 1871, which by its itinerant meetings spread far and wide the flame of religious fanaticism; and a Bavarian priest, Lechner, preached from the pulpit that one does not know whether the German princes are by God’s or by the devil’s grace.

§ 197.2. Conflicts Occasioned by Protection of the Old Catholics, 1871-1872.—That the Prussian government refused to assist the bishops in persecuting the Old Catholics, and even retained these in their positions after excommunication had been hurled against them, was regarded by those bishops as itself an act of persecution of the Catholic church. To this opinion they gave official expression, under solemn protest against all encroachments of the state upon the domain of Catholic faith and law, in a memorial addressed to the German emperor from Fulda, on September 7th, 1871, but were told firmly and decidedly to keep within their own boundaries. Even before this Bishop Krementz of Ermeland had refused the missio canonica to Dr. Wollmann, teacher of religion at the Gymnasium of Braunsberg, on account of his refusing to acknowledge the dogma of infallibility, and had forbidden Catholic scholars to attend his instructions. The minister of public worship, Von Mühler, decided, because religious instruction was obligatory in the Prussian gymnasia, that all Catholic scholars must attend or be expelled from the institution. The Bavarian government followed a more correct course in a similar case that arose about the same time; for it recognised and protected the religious instructions of the anti-infallibilist priest, Renftle in Mering, as legitimate, but still allowed parents who objected to withhold their children from it. And in this way the new Prussian minister, Falk, corrected his predecessor’s mistake. But all the more decidedly did the government proceed against Bishop Krementz, when he publicly proclaimed the excommunication uttered against Dr. Wollmann and Professor Michelis, which had been forbidden by Prussian civil law on account of the infringement of civil rights connected therewith according to canon law. As the bishop could not be brought to an explicit acknowledgment of his obligation to obey the laws of the land, the minister of public worship on October 1st, 1872, stripped him of his temporalities. But meanwhile a second conflict had broken out. The Catholic field-provost of the Prussian army and bishop in partibus, Namszanowski, had under papal direction commanded the Catholic divisional chaplain, Lünnemann of Cologne, on pain of excommunication, to discontinue the military worship in the garrison chapel, which, by leave of the military court, was jointly used by the Old Catholics, and so was desecrated. He was therefore brought before a court of discipline, suspended from his office in May, 1872, and finally, by royal ordinance in 1873, the office of field-provost was wholly abolished.

§ 197.3. Struggles over Educational Questions, 1872-1873.—In the formerly Polish provinces of the Prussian kingdom the Polonization of resident Catholic Germans had recently assumed threatening proportions. The archbishop of Posen and Gnesen, Count Ledochowski, whom the pope during the Vatican Council appointed primate of Poland, was the main centre of this agitation. In the Posen priest seminary he formed for himself, in a fanatically Polish clergy, the tools for carrying it out, and in the neighbouring Schrimm he founded a Jesuit establishment that managed the whole movement. Where previously Polish and German had been preached alternately, German was now banished, and in the public schools, the oversight of which, as throughout all Prussia, lay officially in the hands of the clergy, all means were used to discourage the study of the German language, and to stamp out the German national sentiment. But even in the two western provinces the Catholic public schools were made by the clerical school inspectors wholly subservient to the designs of ultramontanism. In order to stem such disorder the government, in February, 1872, sanctioned the School Inspection Law passed by the parliament, by which the right and duty of school inspection was transferred from the church to the state, so that for the sake of the state the clerical inspectors hostile to the government were set aside, and where necessary might be replaced by laymen. A pastoral letter of the Prussian bishops assembled at Fulda in April of that year complained bitterly of persecution of the church and unchristianizing of the schools, but advised the Catholic clergy under no circumstances voluntarily to resign school inspection where it was not taken from them. By a rescript of the minister of public worship in June, the exclusion of all members of spiritual orders and congregations from teaching in public schools was soon followed by the suppression of the Marian congregations in all schools, and it was enjoined in March, 1873, that in Polish districts, where other subjects had been taught in the higher educational institutions in the German language, this also would be obligatory in religious instruction. Ledochowski indeed directed all religious teachers in his diocese to use the Polish language after as they had done before, but the government suspended all teachers who followed his direction, and gave over the religious instruction to lay teachers. The archbishop now erected private schools for the religious instruction of gymnasial teachers, and the government forbad attendance at them.

§ 197.4. The Kanzelparagraph and the Jesuit law, 1871-1872.—While thus the Prussian government took more and more decided measures against the ultramontanism that had become so rampant in its domains, on the other hand, its mobile band of warriors in cassock, dress coat, and blouse did not cease to labour, and the imperial government passed some drastic measures of defence applicable to the whole empire. At the instance of the Bavarian government, which could not defend itself from the violence of its “patriots,” the Federal Council asked the Reichstag to add a new article to the penal code of the empire, threatening any misuse of the pulpit for political agitation with imprisonment for two years. The Bavarian minister of public worship, Lutz, undertook himself to support this bill before the Reichstag. “For several decades,” he said, “the clergy in Germany have assumed a new character; they are become the simple reflection of Jesuitism.” The Reichstag sanctioned the bill in December, 1871. Far more deeply than this so-called Kanzelparagraph, the operation of which the agitation of the clergy by a little circumspection could easily elude, did the Jesuit Law, published on July 4th, 1872, cut into the flesh of German ultramontanism. Already in April of that year had a petition from Cologne demanding the expulsion of the Jesuits been presented to the Reichstag. Similar addresses flowed in from other places. The Centre party, on the other hand, organized a regular flood of petitions in favour of the Jesuits. The Reichstag referred both to the imperial chancellor, with the request to introduce a law against the movements of the Jesuits as dangerous to the State. The Federal Council complied with this request, and so the law was passed which ordained the removal of the Jesuits and related orders and congregations, the closing of their institutions within six months, and prohibited the formation of any other orders by their individual members, and the government authorised the banishment of foreign members and the interning of natives at appointed places. A later ordinance of the Federal Council declared the Redemptorists, Lazarists, Priests of the Holy Ghost, and the Society of the Heart of Jesus to be orders related to the Society of Jesus. Those affected by this law anticipated the threatened interning by voluntarily removing to Belgium, Holland, France, Turkey, and America.

§ 197.5. The Prussian Ecclesiastical Laws, 1873-1875.—In order to be able to check ultramontanism, even in its pædagogical breeding places, the episcopal colleges and seminaries, and at the same time to restrict by law the despotic absolutism of the bishops in disciplinary and beneficiary matters, the Prussian government brought in other four ecclesiastical bills, which in spite of violent opposition on the part of the Centre and the Old Conservatives, were successively passed by both houses of parliament, and approved by the king on May 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th, 1873. Their most important provisions are: As a condition for admission to a spiritual office the state requires citizenship of the German empire, three years’ study at a German university, and, besides an exit gymnasial examination preceding the university course, a state examination in general knowledge (in philosophy, history, and German literature), in addition to the theological examination. The episcopal boys’ seminaries and colleges are abolished. The priest seminaries, if the minister of worship regards them as fit for the purpose, may take the place of the university course, but must be under regular state inspection. The candidates for spiritual offices, which must never be left vacant more than a year, are to be named to the chief president of the province, and he can for cogent reasons lodge a protest against them. Secession from the church is freely allowed, and releases from all personal obligations to pay ecclesiastical dues and perform ecclesiastical duties. Excommunication is permissible, but can be proclaimed only in the congregation concerned, and not publicly. The power of church discipline over the clergy can be exercised only by German superiors and in accordance with fixed processional procedure. Corporal punishment is not permissible, fines are allowed to a limited extent, and restraint by interning in so-called Demeriti houses, but only at furthest of three months, and when the party concerned willingly consents. Church servants, whose remaining in office is incompatible with the public order, can be deposed by civil sentence. And as final court of appeal in all cases of complaint between ecclesiastical and civil authorities as well as within the ecclesiastical domain, a royal court of justice for ecclesiastical affairs is constituted, whose proceedings are open and its decision final.—But even the May Laws soon proved inadequate for checking the insolence of the bishops and the disorders among the Catholic population occasioned thereby. In December, 1873, therefore, by sovereign authority there was prescribed a new formula of the episcopal Oath of Allegiance, recognising more distinctly and decisively the duty of obedience to the laws of the state. Then next a bill was presented to the parliament, which had been kept in view in the original constitution, demanding obligatory civil marriage and abolition of compulsory baptism, as well as the conducting of civil registration by state officials. In February, 1874, it was passed into law. On the 20th and 21st May, 1874, two other bills brought in for extending the May Laws of the previous year, in consequence of which a bishop’s see vacated by death, a judicial sentence, or any other cause, must be filled within the space of a year, and the chapter must elect within ten days an episcopal administrator, who has to be presented to the chief president, and to undertake an oath to obey the laws of the state. If the chapter does not fulfil these requirements, a lay commissioner will be appointed to administer the affairs of the diocese. During the episcopal vacancy, all vacant pastorates, as well as all not legally filled, can be at once validly supplied by the act of the patron, and, where no such right exists, by congregational election. Parochial property, on the illegal appointment of a pastor, is given over to be administered by a lay commissioner.—The empire also came to the help of the May Laws by an imperial enactment of May 4th, 1874, sanctioned by the emperor, which empowers the competent state government to intern all church officers discharged from their office and not yielding submission thereto, as well as all punished on account of incompetence in their official duties, and, if this does not help, to condemn them to loss of their civil rights and to expulsion from the German federal territory.—Also in its next session the imperial house of representatives again gave legislative sanction to the Kulturkampf; for in January, 1875, it passed a bill presented by the Federal Council on the deposition on oath as to personal rank, and on divorce with obligatory civil marriage, which, going far beyond the Prussian civil law of the previous year, and especially ridding Bavaria of its strait-jacket canon marriage law enforced by the concordat, abolished the spiritual jurisdiction in favour of that of the civil courts, and gave it to the state to determine the qualifications for, as well as the hindrances to, divorce, without, however, touching the domain of conscience, or entrenching in any way upon the canon law and the demands of the church.

§ 197.6. Opposition in the States to the Prussian May Laws.—Bishop Martin of Paderborn had even beforehand refused obedience to the May Laws of 1873. After their promulgation, all the Prussian bishops collectively declared to the ministry that “they were not in a position to carry out these laws,” with the further statement that they could not comply even with those demands in them which in other states, by agreement with the pope, are acknowledged by the church, because they are administered in a one-sided way by the state in Prussia. On these lines also they proceeded to take action. First of all, the refractoriness of several of the seminaries drew down upon them the loss of endowment and of the right of representation; and in the next place, the refusal of the bishops to notify their appointment of clergymen led to their being frequently fined, while the church books and seals were taken away from clergymen so appointed, all the official acts performed by them were pronounced invalid in civil law, and those who performed them were subjected to fines. But here, too, again Bishop Martin, well skilled in church history (he had been previously professor of theology in Bonn), had beforehand in a pastoral instructed his clergy that “since the days of Diocletian there had not been seen so violent a persecution of the name of Jesus Christ.” Soon after this Archbishop Ledochowski, in an official document addressed to the Chief President of Poland, compared the demand to give notification of clerical appointments with the demand of ancient Rome upon Christian soldiers to sacrifice to the heathen gods. And by order of the pope prayers were offered in all churches for the church so harshly and cruelly persecuted. And yet the whole “persecution” then consisted in nothing more than this, that a newly issued law of the state, under threat of fine in case of disobedience, demanded again of the bishops paid by the state what had been accepted for centuries as unobjectionable in the originally Catholic Bavaria, and also for a long while in France, Portugal, and other Romish countries, what all Prussian bishops down to 1850 (§ 193, 2) had done without scruple, what the bishops of Paderborn and Münster even had never refused to do in the extra-Prussian portion of these dioceses (Oldenburg and Waldeck), as also the Prince-Bishop of Breslau, since the issuing of the similar Austrian May Laws (§ 198, 4) in the Austro-Silesian part of his diocese, what the episcopal courts of Württemberg and Baden had yielded to, although in almost all these states the demand referred to broke up the union with the papal curia. Yet before a year had passed the cases of punishment for these offences had so increased that the only very inadequate fines that could be exacted by the seizure of property had to be changed into equivalent sentences of imprisonment. The first prelate who suffered this fate was Archbishop Ledochowski, in February, 1874. Then followed in succession: Eberhard of Treves, Melchers of Cologne, Martin of Paderborn, and Brinkmann of Münster. The ecclesiastical court of justice expressly pronounced deposition against Ledochowski in April, 1874; against Martin in January, 1875, and against the Prince-Bishop Förster of Breslau in October, 1875, who alone had dared to proclaim in his diocese the encyclical Quod nunquam (§ 197, 7). But the latter had even beforehand withdrawn the diocesan property to the value of 900,000 marks to his episcopal castle, Johannisberg, in Austro-Silesia, where with a truly princely income from Austrian funds he could easily get over the loss of the Prussian part of his revenues. Martin, who had been interned at Wesel, fled in August, 1875, under cloud of night, to Holland, from whence he transferred his agitations into Belgium, and finally to London (died 1879). Ledochowski found a residence in the Vatican. Brinkmann was deposed in March, and Melchers in June, 1876, after both had beforehand proved their enjoyment of martyrdom by escaping to Holland. Eberhard of Treves anticipated his deposition from office by his death in May, 1876. Blum of Limburg was deposed in June, 1877, and Beckmann of Osnabrück died in 1878.—In the Prussian parliament and German Reichstag the Centre party, supported by Guelphs, Poles, and the Social Democrats, had meanwhile with anger, scorn, and vituperation, with and without wit, fought not only against all ecclesiastical, but also against all other legislative proposals, whose acceptance was specially desired by the government. And all the representatives of the ultramontane press within and without Europe vied with one another in violent denunciation of the ecclesiastical laws, and in unmeasured abuse of the emperor and the empire. But almost without exception the Roman Catholic officials in Prussia, as well as the Protestants and Old Catholics, carried out “the Diocletian persecution of Christians” in the judicial and police measures introduced by the church laws. A number of Catholic notables of the eastern provinces of their own accord, in a dutiful address to the emperor, expressly accepted the condemned laws, and won thereby the nickname of “State Catholics.” The great mass of the Catholic people, high and low, remained unflinchingly faithful to the resisting clergy in, for the most part, only a passive opposition, although even, as the Berlin Germania expressed it, “the Catholic rage at the Bismarckian ecclesiastical polity could condense itself into one Catholic head” in a murderous attempt on the chancellor in quest of health at Kissingen, on July 13th, 1874. It was the cooper, Kullmann, who, fanaticised by exciting speeches and writings in the Catholic society of Salzwedel, sought to take vengeance, as he himself said, upon the chancellor for the May Laws and “the insult offered to his party of the Centre.”—In the further course of the Prussian Kulturkampf, however, fostered by the aid of the confessional, the insinuating assiduity of the clerical press, and the all-prevailing influence of the thoroughly disciplined Catholic clergy over the popish masses, the Centre grew in number and importance at the elections from session to session, so that from the beginning of 1880, by the unhappy division of the other parties in the Reichstag as well as Chamber, it united sometimes with the Conservatives, sometimes and most frequently with the Progressionists and Democrats renouncing the Kulturkampf, and was supported on all questions by Poles, Danes, Guelphs, and Alsatian-Lorrainers, as clerical interest and ultramontane tactics required, in accordance with the plan of campaign of the commander-in-chief, especially of the quondam Hanoverian minister, Windthorst, dominated far more by Guelphic than by ultramontane tendencies. The Centre was thus able to turn the scale, until, at least in the Reichstag, after the dissolution and new election of 1887, its dominatory power was broken by the closer combination of the conservative and national liberal parties.

§ 197.7. Share in the Conflict taken by the Pope.—Pius IX. had congratulated the new emperor in 1871, trusting, as he wrote, that his efforts directed to the common weal “might bring blessing not only to Germany, but also to all Europe, and might contribute not a little to the protection of the liberty and rights of the Catholic religion.” And when first of all the Centre party, called forth by the election agitation of German ultramontanism, opened its politico-clerical campaign in the Reichstag, he expressed his disapproval of its proceedings upon Bismarck’s complaining to the papal secretary Antonelli. Yet a deputation of the Centre sent to Rome succeeded in winning over both. In order to build a bridge for the securing an understanding with the curia, now that the conflict had grown in extent and bitterness, the imperial government in May, 1872, appointed the Bavarian Cardinal Prince Hohenlohe to the vacant post of ambassador to the Vatican. But the pope, with offensive recklessness, rejected the well-meant proposal, and forbade the cardinal to accept the imperial appointment. From that time he gave free and public expression on every occasion to his senseless bitterness against the German empire and its government. In an address to the German Reading Society at Rome in July, 1872, he allowed himself to use the most violent expressions against the German chancellor, and closed with the prophetic threatening: “Who knows but the little stone shall soon loose itself from the mountain (Dan. ii. 34), which shall break in pieces the foot of the colossus?” But even this diatribe was cast in the shade by the Christmas allocution of that year, in which he was not ashamed to characterize the procedure of the German statesmen and their imperial sovereign as “impudentia.” And after the publication of the first May Laws he addressed a letter to the emperor, in which, founding upon the fact that even the emperor like all baptized persons belonged to him, the pope, he cast in his teeth that “all the measures of his government for some time aimed more and more at the annihilation of Catholicism,” and added the threatening announcement that “these measures against the religion of Jesus Christ can have no other result than the overthrow of his own throne.” The emperor in his answer made expressly prominent his divinely appointed call as well as his own evangelical standpoint, and with becoming dignity and earnestness decidedly repudiated the unmeasured assumptions of the papacy, and published both letters. In the same style of immoderate pretension the pope again, in November, 1875, in one encyclical after another, gave vent to his anger against emperor and empire, especially its military institutions. In place of the deposed and at that time imprisoned archbishop, Ledochowski, he appointed in 1874 a native apostolic legate, who was at last ascertained to be the Canon Kurowski, when he was in October, 1875, condemned to two years’ imprisonment. But the pope took the most decided and successful step by the Encyclical Quod nunquam, of 5th February, 1875, addressed to the Prussian episcopate, in which he characterized the Prussian May Laws as “not given to free citizens to demand a reasonable obedience, but as laid upon slaves, in order to force obedience by fears of violence,” and, “in order to fulfil the duties of his office,” declared quite openly to all whom it concerns and to the Catholics throughout the world: “Leges illas irritas esse, utpote quæ divinæ Ecclesiæ constitutioni prorsus adversantur;” but upon those “godless” men who make themselves guilty of the sin of assuming spiritual office without a divine call, falls eo ipso the great excommunication. On the other hand he rewarded, in March, 1875, Archbishop Ledochowski, then still in prison, but afterwards, in February, 1876, settled in Rome, for his sturdy resistance of those laws, with a cardinal’s hat, and to the not less persistent Prince-Bishop Förster of Breslau he presented on his jubilee as priest the archiepiscopal pall. In the next Christmas allocution he romanced about a second Nero, who, while in one place with a lyre in his hand he enchanted the world by lying words, in other places appeared with iron in his hand, and, if he did not make the streets run with blood, he fills the prisons, sends multitudes into exile, seizes upon and with violence assumes all authority to himself. Also to the German pilgrims who went in May, 1877, to his episcopal jubilee at Rome, he had still much that was terrible to tell about this “modern Attila,” leaving it uncertain whether he intended Prince Bismarck or the mild, pious German emperor himself.

§ 197.8. The Conflict about the Encyclical Quod nunquam of 1875.—By this encyclical the pope had completely broken up the union between the Prussian state and the curia, resting upon the bull De salute animarum (§ 193, 1); for he, bluntly repudiating the sovereign rights of the civil authority therein expressly allowed, by pronouncing the laws of the Prussian state invalid, authorized and promoted the rebellion of all Catholic subjects against them. The Prussian government now issued three new laws quickly after one another, cutting more deeply than all that went before, which without difficulty received the sanction of all the legislative bodies.

1. The so called Arrestment Act (Sperrgesetz) of April 22nd, 1875, which ordered the immediate suspension of all state payments to the Roman Catholic bishoprics and pastorates until those who were entitled to them had in writing or by statement declared themselves ready to yield willing obedience to the existing laws of the state.

2. A law of May 31st, 1875, ordering the Expulsion of all Orders and such like Congregations within eight months, the minister of public worship, however, being authorized to extend this truce to four years in the case of institutions devoted to the education of the young, while those which were exclusively hospital and nursing societies were allowed to remain, but were subject to state inspection and might at any time be suppressed by royal order.

3. A law of June 12th, 1875, declaring the formal Abrogation of the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Eighteenth Articles of the Constitution (§ 193, 2).

And finally in addition there came the enforcement during this session of the Chamber of laws previously introduced on the rights of the Old Catholics (§ 190, 2), and, on June 20th, 1875, on the administration of church property in Catholic parishes. The latter measures aimed at withdrawing the administration referred to from the autocratic absolutism of the clergy, and transferring it to a lay commission elected by the community itself, of which the parish priest was to be a member, but not the president. Although the Archbishop of Cologne in name of all the bishops before its issue had solemnly protested against this law, because by it “essential and inalienable rights of the Catholic church were lost,” and although the recognition of it actually involved recognition of the May Laws and the ecclesiastical court of justice, yet all the bishops declared themselves ready to co-operate in carrying out the arrangements for surrendering the church property to the administration of a civil commission. They thus indeed secured thoroughly ultramontane elections, but at the same time put themselves into a position of self-contradiction, and admitted that the one ground of their opposition to the May Laws, that they were one-sidedly wrought by the state, was null and void.

§ 197.9. Papal Overtures for Peace.—Leo XIII., since 1878, intimated his accession to the Emperor William, and expressed his regret at finding that the good relations did not continue which formerly existed between Prussia and the holy see. The Emperor’s answer expressed the hope that by the aid of his Holiness the Prussian bishops might be induced to obey the laws of the land, as the people under their pastoral care actually did; and afterwards while in consequence of the attempt on his life of June 2nd, 1873, he lay upon a sickbed, the crown prince on June 10th answered other papal communications by saying, that no Prussian monarch could entertain the wish to change the constitution and laws of his country in accordance with the ideas of the Romish church; but that, even though a thorough understanding upon the radical controversy of a thousand years could not be reached, yet the endeavour to preserve a conciliatory disposition on both sides would also for Prussia open a way to peace which had never been closed in other states. Three weeks later the Munich nuntio Masella was at Kissingen and conferred with the chancellor, Prince Bismarck, who was residing there, about the possibility of a basis of reconciliation. Subsequently negotiations were continued at Gastein, and then in Vienna with the there resident nuntio Jacobini, but were suspended owing to demands by the curia to which the state could not submit. Still the pope attempted indirectly to open the way for renewed consultation, for he issued a brief dated February 24th, 1880, to “Archbishop Melchers of Cologne” (deposed by the royal court of justice), in which he declared his readiness to allow to the respective government boards notification of new elected priests before their canonical institution. Thereupon a communication was sent to Cardinal Jacobini that the state ministry had resolved, so soon as the pope had actually implemented this declaration of his readiness, to make every effort to obtain from the state representatives authority to set aside or modify those enactments of the May Laws which were regarded by the Romish church as harsh. But the pope received this compromise of the government very ungraciously and showed his dissatisfaction by withdrawing his concession, which besides referred only to the unremovable priests, therefore not to Hetzkaplane and succursal or assistant priests, and presupposed the obtaining the “agrément,” i.e. the willingly accorded consent, of the state, without by any means allowing the setting aside of the party elected.

§ 197.10. Proof of the Prussian Government’s willingness to be Reconciled, 1880-1881.—Notwithstanding this brusque refusal on the part of the papal curia, the government, at the instance of the minister of public worship, Von Puttkamer (§ 193, 6), resolved in May, 1880, to introduce a bill which gave a wide discretionary power for moderating the unhappy state of matters that had prevailed since the passing of the May Laws, throughout Catholic districts, where 601 pastorates stood wholly vacant and 584 partly so, and nine bishoprics, some by death and others by deposition. Although the need of peace was readily admitted on both sides, the Liberals opposed these “Canossa proposals” as far too great; the Centre, Poles, and Guelphs as far too small. Yet it obtained at last in a form considerably modified, through a compromise of the conservatives with a great part of the national liberals the consent of both chambers. This law, sanctioned on July 14th, 1880, embraced these provisions:

1.

The royal court shall no longer depose from office any church officers, but simply pronounce incapable of administering the office;

2-4.

The ministry of the state is authorized to give the episcopal administrator charged by the church with the interim administration of a vacant bishopric a dispensation from the taking of the prescribed oath; further, an administration by commission of ecclesiastical property may be revoked as well as appointed; also state endowments that had been withdrawn are to be restored for the benefit of the whole extent of the diocese;

5.

Spiritual official acts of a duly appointed clergyman by way merely of assistance in another vacant parish are to be allowed;

6.

The minister of the interior and of public worship are empowered to approve of the erection of new institutions of religious societies which are devoted wholly to the care of the sick, as to allow revocably to them the care and nurture of children not yet of school age; and more recently added were

7.

The particular, according to which Articles 2, 3, and 4 cease to operate after January 1st, 1882.

The government was particularly careful to carry out the provisions temporarily recognised in Article 3, for the restoration of orderly episcopal administration by regularly elected episcopal administrators in bishoprics made vacant by death. Fulda, which was longest vacant, from October, 1873, had to be left out of account, since in that case there was only one member of the chapter left and so a canonical election was impossible. But without difficulty in March, 1881, the Vicar-General Dr. Höting for Osnabrück and Canon Drobe for Paderborn, without taking the oath of allegiance, succeeded in obtaining independent administration of the property as well as the restoration of state pay for the entire dioceses, though they did not give the notification required by the May Laws for the interim administration. In October, 1881, the deposed Prince Bishop Förster of Breslau died, and the suffragan bishop, Gleich, elected by the chapter, undertook with consent of the government the office of episcopal administrator.—Meanwhile the pope, by a hearty letter of congratulation to the emperor on his birthday, March 22nd, had given new life to the suspended peace negotiations. And now also, when the respective chapters transferred their right of election to the pope, the orderly appointments of the Canon Dr. Korum of Metz, a pupil of the Jesuit faculty of Innspruck [Innsbrück], very warmly recommended by Von Manteuffel, governor of Alsace and Lorraine, to the episcopal see of Treves, in August, 1881, of Vicar-General Kopp of Hildesheim to Fulda in December, 1881, of the episcopal administrators Höting and Drobe, in March and May, 1882, respectively to Osnabrück and Paderborn, were duly carried into effect. For Breslau the chapter drew up a list of seven candidates, but the government pointed out the Berlin provost, Rob. Herzog, as a mild and conciliatory person. The chapter now laid its right of election in the hands of the pope, and in May, 1882, Herzog was raised to the dignity of prince-bishop. There now remained vacant only the sees of Cologne, Posen, Limburg and Münster, which had been emptied by the depositions of the civil courts.—Meanwhile, too, the negotiations carried on at the instance of the government by privy councillor Von Schlözer, with the curia at Rome for the restoration of the embassy to the Vatican had been brought to a close. The chamber voted for this purpose an annual sum of 90,000 marks, and Schlözer himself was appointed to the post in March, 1882.

§ 197.11. Conciliatory Negotiations, 1882-1884.—With January 1st, 1882, the three enactments of the July law of 1880, which might be enforced at the discretion of the government, ceased to operate. Von Gossler, minister of public worship since June, 1881, on behalf of government, introduced a new bill into the Chamber on January 16th, 1882, for their re-enactment and extension, which by a compromise between the Conservatives and the Centre, after various modifications secured a majority in both houses. This second revised law embraced the following points:

1. Renewal of the three above-named enactments till April 1st, 1884;

2. Restoration of the “Bishop’s Paragraph,” lost in 1880, in this new form: If the king has pardoned a bishop set aside by the ecclesiastical court, he becomes again the bishop of his diocese recognised by the state;

3. The setting aside of the examination in general knowledge (Kulturexamen) for those who bring a certificate of having passed the Gymnasium exit examination, or have attended with diligence lectures on philosophy, history and German literature during a three years’ course at a German university, or at a Prussian seminary of equal rank, and have given proof of this by presenting evidence to the chief president;

4. The setting aside of the rights of the patron and congregation of themselves filling the vacant pastorates during a vacancy in the episcopal see.

The new law obtained royal sanction on May 31st, 1882. But its two most important articles, 2 and 3, remained for a long time a dead letter, and even Article 1 was only carried out by the resumption of the state emoluments for the Hohenzollerns and the five newly instituted bishoprics (§ 197, 10), but not for the other seven. But the ill humour of the ultramontane Hotspurs was raised to the boiling point by the fate of the bill introduced by the Centre into the Reichstag to set aside the Expatriation Law of May 4th, 1874, which seemed to the government indispensable on account of its applicability to the agitations against the empire of the Polish clergy. This bill, after violent debates, was carried on January 18th, 1882, by a two-thirds majority; but it was cast out by the Federal Council on June 6th, almost unanimously, only Bavaria and Reuss jüngere Linie voting in its favour. This was the result mainly of the failure of all the attempts of Von Schlözer to render the government’s concessions acceptable to the papal curia.—On the other hand, the government of its own accord brought in a third revision scheme in June, 1883, by which it sought to relieve as far as possible the troubles of the Catholic church. By adopting this law:

1. The obligation of notification on the part of the bishops and the right of the state to protest on the change of temporary assistants and substitutes into regular spiritual officers, were abolished; as also

2. the competence of the court for ecclesiastical affairs in appeals against the protest of the chief president, which now therefore, according to the generally prevailing rule, are referred to the minister of worship, the whole ministry, the parliament, the king;

3. the immunity from punishment in the execution of their office guaranteed in Article 5 of the July law of 1880 (§ 197, 10) was extended to all spiritual offices whether vacant or not;

4. the ordaining of individual candidates in vacant dioceses by bishops recognised by the state was declared to be legal.

In spite of repeated declarations of the curia that it could and would agree to the notification only after a previous sufficient guarantee of perfectly free training of the clergy and free administration of the spiritual office, the king while residing at the Castle of Mainau on Lake Constance, on July 11th, 1883, sanctioned the so-called Mainau Law that had passed both houses, and on the 14th, the minister of public worship demanded that the Prussian bishops, without making notification, should fill up vacancies in pastorates by appointing assistants, and should name those candidates who were eligible for such appointment under the conditions of the May Law of the previous year (§ 197, 3). The pope at last, in September, 1883, allowed the dispensation required, but for that time only and without prejudice for the future. By the end of May, 1,884 applications had been made to the senior of the Prussian episcopate appointed to receive such, Marnitz of Kulm, by 1,443 clergymen, of whom the government rejected only 178 who had studied at the Jesuit institutions of Rome, Louvain, and Innsbrück.—In December, 1883, Bishop Blum of Limburg, and in January, 1884, Brinkmann of Münster were restored by royal grace, and for both dioceses, as well as for Ermeland, Kulm and Hildesheim, and at last also on March 31st, shortly before the closing of the door, even for Cologne, in this case, however, revocably, the arrest of salaries ceased, so that only the two archiepiscopal sees of Cologne and Posen remained vacant, and only Posen continued bereft of its endowments. On the other hand the government allowed the three discretionary enactments that were in operation till April 1st, 1884, to lapse without providing for their renewal. Also the proposal for abolishing the Expatriation Law of November, 1884, introduced anew by the Centre and again adopted by the Reichstag by a great majority, was thrown out by the Federal Council; but in the beginning of December, on the opening of the new Reichstag, it was again brought in by the Centre and passed, but was left quite unnoticed by the Federal Council. The repeated motions of the Centre for payment of the bishops’ salaries from the state exchequer, as well as for immunity to those who read mass and dispensed the sacraments, were again thrown out by the House of Deputies in April, 1885.

§ 197.12. Resumption on both sides of Conciliatory Measures, 1885-1886.—The next subject of negotiation with the curia was the re-institution of the archiepiscopal see of Posen-Gnesen. In March, 1884, the pope had nominated Cardinal Ledochowski secretary of the committee on petitions, in which capacity he had to remain in Rome. He now declared himself willing to accept Ledochowski’s resignation of the archbishopric if the Prussian government would allow a successor who would possess the confidence of the holy see as well as of the Polish inhabitants of the diocese. But of the three noble Polish chauvinists submitted by the Vatican the government could accept none. Since further no agreement could be reached on the question of the bishop’s obligation to make notification and the state’s right to protest, the negotiations were for a long time at a standstill, and were repeatedly on the point of being broken off. But from the middle of 1885, a conciliatory movement gained power, through the counsels of the more moderate party among the cardinals. Archbishop Melchers, who lived as an exile in Maestricht, was called to Rome, and as a reward for his assistance was made cardinal, and the pope consecrated as his successor in the archbishopric of Cologne, Bishop Krementz of Ermeland (§ 197, 2), who also was acknowledged by the Prussian government and introduced to Cologne on December 15th, 1885, with great pomp, with 20,000 torches and twenty bands of music. After a long list of candidates had been set aside by one side and the other, some here, some there, the pope at last fell from his demand for one of Polish nationality, and in March, 1886, appointed to the vacant see Julius Dinder, dean of Königsberg, a German by nation but speaking the Polish language.—Meanwhile at other points advance was made in the peaceful, yea, even friendly, relations between the pope and the Prussian government. The diplomatist Leo showed his admiring regard for the diplomatist Bismarck by sending him a valuable oil-painting of himself by a Münich [Munich] master, and the latter astonished the world by making the pope umpire in a threatening conflict with Spain on the possession of the Caroline islands. His decision on the main question was indeed in favour of Spain, but not unimportant concessions were also made to Germany. The pope sent the prince two Latin poems as pretium affectionis, and conferred upon him, the first Protestant that had ever been so honoured, at the close of 1885 or beginning of 1886, the highest papal order, the insignia of the Order of Christ, with brilliants, after the cardinal secretary of state Jacobini as president of the papal court of arbitration had been rewarded with the Prussian order of the Black Eagle, and the other members of the court with other high Prussian orders; and at the end of April, 1886, the German emperor sent the pope himself thanks for his mediation, with an artistic and costly Pectoral (§ 59, 7) worth 10,000 marks.—The government had, meanwhile, on February 15th, 1886, brought in a new proposal of revision of church polity, the fourth, and in order to secure the advice of a distinguished representative of the Prussian episcopate, called Bishop Kopp of Fulda to the House of Peers. But as his demands for concessions, suggested to him, not by the pope, but by the Centre, went far beyond what was proposed, they were for the most part decidedly opposed by the minister of worship and rejected by the house. The law confirmed by the king on May 24th, 1886, made the following changes: Complete abolition of the examination in general culture; freeing of the seminaries recognised by the minister as suitable for clerical training, as well as faculties established in universities, seminaries and gymnasia from any special state inspection (as laid down in the May Laws), and subjecting such to the common laws affecting all similar educational institutions. Removal of restrictions requiring ecclesiastical disciplinary procedure to be only before German ecclesiastical courts; Abolition of the Court for Ecclesiastical Affairs and transference of its functions partly to the ministry of worship, which now as court of appeal in matters of church discipline dealt only with those cases which entailed a loss or reduction of official income, partly to the Berlin supreme court, which has jurisdiction in case of a breach of the law of the state by a church officer as well as in case of a refusal to fulfil the oath of obedience; The discretionary enactments of the government of 1880 (§ 197, 10) are again enforced and the modifications of these in Article 6 of that law are extended to all other institutions engaged on the home propaganda; All reading of private masses and dispensing of sacraments are no longer subjected to the infliction of penalties.—Some weeks before royal sanction was given to this law, Cardinal Jacobini had, at the instance of the pope, expressed his profound satisfaction with the success of the advice in the House of Peers, as also particularly at the prospect of other concessions promised by the government. In an official communication to the president of the House of Deputies, he proposed the addition that the notification of new appointments to vacant pastorates should begin from that date. In August there followed, on the part of the government, the hitherto refused dispensation for those trained by the Jesuits in Rome and Innsbrück, and in November, with consent of the minister of public worship, the re-opening of the episcopal seminaries at Fulda and Treves.

§ 197.13. Definitive Conclusion of Peace, 1887.—In February, 1887, the state journal published a new form of oath for the bishops, sanctioned by royal ordinance, in which the obligation hitherto enforced “to conscientiously observe the laws of the state,” was omitted, and the asseveration added, “that I have not, by the oath, taken to his Holiness the pope and the church, undertaken any obligation which can be in conflict with the oath of fidelity as a subject of his Royal Majesty.”—The promised fifth revision, meanwhile accepted by the pope in its several particulars and acknowledged by him as sufficient basis for a definitive peace, was on February 13th, 1887, contrary to precedent, first laid before the House of Peers. Bishop Kopp proposed a great number of changes and additions, of which several of a very important nature were accepted. The most important provisions of this law, which was passed on April 29th, 1887, are the following: The obligation on bishops to make notification applies only to the conferring of a spiritual office for life, and the right of protest by the state must rely upon a basis named and belonging to the civil domain; All state compulsion to lifelong reinstatement in a vacant office is unlawful; The previously insured immunity for reading mass and dispensing the sacraments is now applied to members of all spiritual orders again allowed in the kingdom; The duty of ecclesiastical superiors to communicate disciplinary decisions to the Chief President is given up. Those orders and congregations which devote themselves to aiding in pastoral work, the administering of Christian benevolence, and, on Bishop Kopp’s motion, those which engage in educational work in girl’s high schools and similar institutions, as well as those which lead a private life, are to be allowed and are to be also restored to the enjoyment of their original possessions; The training of missionaries for foreign work and the erection of institutions for this purpose are to be permitted to the privileged orders and congregations.—Bishop Kopp, and also the pope, with lively gratitude, accepted these ordinances as making the reconciliation an accomplished fact; but they also expressed the hope that the success of this peaceful arrangement will be such as shall lead to further important concessions to the rightful claims of the Catholic church. After this conclusive revision, besides the extremely contracted obligation of notification by the bishops and the almost completely insignificant right of civil protest, there remain of the Kulturkampf laws only: the Kanzelparagraph, the Jesuit and the exile enactments (all of them imperial and not Prussian laws), and the abrogation of the three articles of the Prussian constitution (§ 197, 8). Insignificant as the concessions of the papal curia may seem in comparison to the almost complete surrender of the Prussian government, it can hardly be said that Bismarck has been untrue to his promise not to go to Canossa. With him the main thing ever was to restore within the German empire the peace that was threatened by thunderclouds gathering from day to day in the political horizon in east and west, and thus, as also by nurturing and developing the military forces, to set aside the danger of war from without. But for this end, the sovereignty of the Centre, which hampered him on every side, allying itself with all elements in the Chamber and Reichstag hostile to the government and the empire, must be broken. But this was possible only if he succeeded in breaking up the unhallowed artificial amalgamation of Catholic church interests for which the Centre contended with the political tendencies of the party hostile to the empire, by recognising those interests in a manner satisfactory to the pope and to all right-minded loyal German Catholics, and so estranging them from the political schemes of the leader of the Centre. This indeed would have scarcely been possible with Pius IX., but with the much clearer and sharper Leo XIII. there was hope of success. And the statesmanlike insight and self-denial of the prince succeeded, though at first only in a limited measure, and this was a much more important gain for the state than the papal concessions of episcopal notification and the state’s right of protest.—When in the beginning of 1887, at the same time that the fear was greatest of a war with France and Russia, the renewal and enlargement of the military budget, hitherto for seven years, was necessary, and its refusal by the Centre and its adherents was regarded as certain, Bismarck prevailed on the pope to intervene in his favour. The pope did it in a confidential communication to the president of the Centre, in which he urged acceptance of the septennial act in the Reichstag for the security of the Fatherland and the conserving of peace on the continent, expressly referring to the friendly and promising attitude of the imperial government to the papacy and the Catholic church. But the president kept the communication secret from the members of his party, and they continued strenuously and unanimously opposed to the Septennate. The Reichstag was consequently dissolved. The pope now published this correspondence with the leaders of the Centre, thirty-seven Rhenish nobles separated from the party, and the new elections to the Reichstag were mainly favourable to the government. Although the Deputy Windthorst as chief leader of the Prussian Ecclesia militans had on every occasion protested his and his party’s profoundest reverence for and conditional submission to every expression of the papal will, and shortly before (§ 186, 3) had styled the pope “Lord of the whole world,” he opposed himself, as he had done on the Septennate question, on the fifth revision of the ecclesiastical laws, to the will of the infallible pope by publishing a memorial proving the absolute impossibility of accepting this proposed law, which, however, this time also he failed to carry out.

§ 197.14. Independent Procedure of the other German Governments.

1. Bavaria’s energy in the struggle against ultramontanism (§ 197, 4) soon cooled. Yet in 1873 the Redemptorists were instructed to discontinue their missionary work (§ 186, 6), and all theological students were forbidden to attend the Jesuit German College at Rome (§ 151, 1). Also in 1875, the jubilee processions organized by the episcopate without obtaining the royal Placet were inhibited.

2. Württemberg, which since 1862 possessed more civil jurisdiction over Catholic church affairs and exercised it more freely (§ 196, 6) than Prussia laid claim to in 1873, could all the more easily maintain ecclesiastical peace, since its peaceful Bishop Hefele (§ 189, 3, 4; 191, 7) avoided all occasion of conflict and strife.

3. In Baden the Kulturkampf that had here previously broken out (§ 196, 2) was continued all the more keenly. In 1873 public teaching, holding of missions and assisting in pastoral work, had been refused to all religious orders and fraternities. But the main blow, followed by the comprehensive church legislation of February 19th, 1874, which closed all boys’ seminaries and episcopal institutions, allowed none to hold a clerical office or discharge any ecclesiastical function without a three years’ course at a German university and a state examination in general culture (§ 196, 2), strictly forbad all influencing of public elections by the clergy, and made deposition follow the second conviction of a church officer. The expedient hitherto resorted to of appointing mere deputy priests so as to avoid the examination, was consequently frustrated. The rapid increase of vacant pastorates, after five years’ opposition, at last moved the episcopal curia to sue for peace at the hands of the government, and when the latter showed an exceedingly conciliatory spirit, the curia with consent of the pope in February, 1880, withdrew its prohibition of the request for dispensation from the state examination, and the government now on its part with the Chambers passed a law, by which the obligation to undergo this examination was abolished, and the certificate of the exit examination, three years’ attendance at a German university, and diligent attention to at least three courses of the philosophical faculty, was held as sufficient evidence of general culture. The Baden Kulturkampf seems to have been definitely concluded by the election and recognition of Dr. Orbin to the see of Freiburg, vacant for fourteen years, when he without scruple took the oath of allegiance. This, however, did not check, far less put an end to the tumults of the fanatical ultramontane Irredenta.

§ 197.15.

1. Hesse-Darmstadt in 1874 followed the example of Prussia and Baden in excluding all spiritual orders from teaching in public schools, and on April 23rd, 1875, issued five ecclesiastical laws which were directed to restoring under penal sanctions the state of the law, which before 1850 (§ 196, 4) had been unquestioned. Essentially in harmony with the Prussian May Laws of 1873 and 1874, they go beyond these in several particulars. All clergymen receiving appointments, e.g., must have gone through a full university course; all religious orders and congregations were to be allowed to die out; public roads and squares could be used for ecclesiastical festivals only by permission of the government to be renewed on each occasion. The “contentious” Bishop Ketteler of Mainz, who stirred up the fire to the utmost with the Prussian brand, and had kindled also a similar flame in Hesse over the proposal of this law, held still that to view martyrdom at a distance was the better part, and carefully avoided any overt act of disobedience. But he immediately refused to co-operate in restoring the Catholic theological faculty at Giessen, and the government consequently abandoned the idea. The Mainz see after Ketteler’s death in 1877 remained long vacant, as the government felt obliged to reject the electoral list submitted by the chapter. A candidate satisfactory to the Vatican and the government was only found in May, 1886, in the person of Dr. Haffner, a member of the chapter. After Prussia had concluded its definitive peace with Rome, the Hessian government, in May, 1887, laid before the house of representatives a revision of ecclesiastical legislation of 1875, like that of Prussia, only not going so far, for which meanwhile the approval of the papal curia had been obtained. It agrees to the erection of a Catholic clerical seminary, and Catholic students’ residences in this seminary and in the state-gymnasia; erection of independent boys’ institutions preparatory to the seminary for priests is, however, still refused; the existing duty of bishops to make notification, and the right of the state to protest in regard to appointments to vacant pastorates are also retained. There is no word of rehabilitating religious orders and congregations, nor of any limitation of the law about the exercise of ecclesiastical punishment and means of discipline.

2. Last of all among the German states affected by the Kulturkampf, the kingdom of Saxony, with only 73,000 Catholic inhabitants, at the instance of the second Chamber in 1876, came forward with a Catholic church law modelled upon the Prussian May Laws, with its several provisions modified, in spite of the contention of the talented heir to the throne, Prince George, that the power of the state in relation to the Catholic church could only be determined by a concordat with the Roman curia.

§ 198. AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.

To the emperor of Austria there was left, after the re-organization of affairs by the Vienna Congress, of the Roman empire, only the name of defender of the papal see, and the Catholic church, and the presidency of the German Federal Council. The remnants of the Josephine ecclesiastical constitution were gradually set aside and Catholicism firmly established as the state religion; yet the government asserted its independence against all hierarchical claims, and granted, though only in a very limited degree, toleration to Protestantism. The revolution year 1848 removed indeed some of these limits, but the period of reaction that followed gave, by means of a concordat concluded with the curia in 1855, to the ultramontane hierarchy of the country an unprecedented power in almost all departments of civil life, and prejudicial also to the interests of the Protestant church. After the disastrous issue of the Italian war in 1859, and still more that of the German war in 1866, the government was obliged to make an honest effort to introduce and develop liberal institutions. And after an imperial patent of 1861 had secured religious liberty, self-administration, and equal rights to the Protestant church, the constitutional legislation of 1868 freed Catholic as well as Protestant civil, educational, and ecclesiastical matters from the provisions of the concordat that most seriously threatened them, and by the declaration of papal infallibility in 1870 the government felt justified in regarding the entire concordat as antiquated and declaring it abolished. In its place a Catholic church act was passed by the state in 1874. But the Kulturkampf struggle which was thus made imminent also for Austria was avoided by pliancy on both sides.

§ 198.1. The Zillerthal Emigration.—In the Tyrolese Zillerthal the knowledge of evangelical truth had spread among several families by means of Protestant books and Bibles. When the Catholic clergy from 1826 had pushed to its utmost the clerical guardianship by means of auricular confession, an opposition arose which soon from the refusal to confess passed on to the rejection of saint worship, masses for the dead, purgatory, indulgences, etc., and ended in the formal secession of many to the evangelical church in 1830, with a reference to the Josephine edict of toleration. The emperor Francis I., to whom on the occasion of his visit to Innsbrück in 1832 they presented their petition, promised them toleration. But the Tyrolese nobles protested, and the official decision, given at last in 1834, ordered removal to Transylvania or return to the Catholic church. The petitioners now applied, as those of Salzburg had previously done (§ 165, 4), by a deputation to the king of Prussia, who, after by diplomatic communications securing the emperor’s consent to emigration, assigned them his estate of Erdmannsdorf in Silesia for colonization. There now the exiles, 399 in number, settled in 1837, and, largely aided by the royal munificence, founded a new Zillerthal.

§ 198.2. The Concordat.—After the revolution year 1848, the government were far more yielding toward the claims of the hierarchy than under the old Metternich régime. In April, 1850, an imperial patent relieved the papal and episcopal decrees of the necessity of imperial approval, and on August 18th, 1855, a concordat with the pope was agreed to, by which unprecedented power and independence was granted to the hierarchy in Austria for all time to come. The first article secured to the Roman Catholic religion throughout the empire all rights and privileges which they claimed by divine institution and the canon law. The others gave to the bishops the right of unrestricted correspondence with Rome, declared that no papal ordinance required any longer the royal placet, that prelates are unfettered in the discharge of their hierarchical obligations, that religious instruction in all schools is under their supervision, that no one can teach religion or theology without their approval, that in catholic schools there can be only catholic teachers, that they have the right of forbidding all books which may be injurious to the faithful, that all cases of ecclesiastical law, especially marriage matters, belong to their jurisdiction, yet the apostolic see grants that purely secular law matters of the clergy are to be decided before a civil tribunal, and the emperor’s right of nomination to vacant episcopal sees is to continue, etc. The inferior clergy, who were now without legal protection against the prelates, only reluctantly bowed their necks to this hard yoke; the liberal Catholic laity murmured, sneered, and raged, and the native press incessantly urged a revision of the concordat, the necessity of which became ever more apparent from concessions made meanwhile willingly or grudgingly to the “Non-Catholics.” But only after Austria, by the issue of the German war of 1866, was restricted to her own domain, and finally freed from the drag of its ultramontane Italian interests, found herself obliged to make every effort to reconcile the opposing parties within her own territories, could these views prove successful. But since the government nevertheless held firmly by the principle that the concordat, as a state contract regularly concluded between two sovereigns, could be changed only by mutual consent, the liberal majority of the house of deputies resolved to make it as harmless as possible by means of domestic legislation, and on June 11th, 1867, the deputy Herbst moved the appointment of a committee for drawing up three bills for restoring civil marriage, emancipation of schools from the church, and equality of all confessions in the eye of the law. The motion was carried by a hundred and thirty-four votes against twenty-two. The Cisleithan (i.e. Austrian excluding Hungary) episcopate, with Cardinal Rauscher of Vienna at their head, presented an address to his apostolic majesty demanding the most rigid preservation of the concordat, denouncing civil marriage as concubinage, and the emancipation of schools as their dechristianizing. An imperial autograph letter to Rauscher rebuked with earnest words the inflammatory proceedings of the bishops, and at the same time the ultramontane ambassador to Rome, Baron Hübner, was recalled. After the arrangement with Hungary was completed, the first Cisleithan, the so-called Burger, ministry was constituted under the presidency of Prince Auersperg, composed of the most distinguished leaders of the parliamentary majority. All the three bills were passed by a large majority, and obtained imperial sanction on May 25th, 1868. The papal nuncio of Vienna protested, the pope in an allocution denounced the new Austrian constitution as nefanda sane and the three confessional laws as abominabiles leges. “We repudiate and condemn these laws,” he says, “by apostolic authority, as well as everything done by the Austrian government in matters of church policy, and determine in the exercise of the same authority that these decrees with all their consequences are and shall be null and void.” But all Vienna, all Austria held jubilee, and the Chancellor von Beust rejected with energy the assumptions of the curia over the civil domain. The bishops indeed issued protests and inflammatory pastorals, and forbad the publication of the marriage act, but submitted to the threats of compulsion by the supreme court, and Bishop Rudigier of Linz, who went furthest in inciting to opposition, was in 1869 taken into court by the police, and sentenced to twelve days’ imprisonment, but pardoned by the emperor. Toward the Vatican Council Austria assumed at first a waiting policy, then in vain remonstrated, warned, threatened, and finally, on July 30th, 1870, after the proclamation of infallibility, declared that the concordat was antiquated and abolished, because by this dogma the position of one of the contracting parties had undergone a complete change.

§ 198.3. The Protestant Church in Cisleithan Austria.—Down to 1848 Protestantism of both confessions in Austria enjoyed only a very limited toleration. The storms of this year first set aside the hated official name of “Non-Catholics,” and won permission for Protestant places of worship to have bells and towers. But the repeated petitions for permission to found branches of the Gustavus Adolphus Union, the persistently maintained law that Catholic clergymen, even after they had formally become Protestants, could not marry, because the character indelibilis of priestly consecration attached itself even to apostates, and many such facts, prove that the government was far from intending to grant to the Protestants civil equality with the Catholics. But the unfortunate result of the Sardinian-French war of 1859, and the fear thereby increased of the falling asunder of the whole Austrian federation, induced the government to address itself earnestly to the introduction of liberal institutions, and also to do justice to the Protestant church. The presidency of the two Protestant consistories in Vienna, hitherto given to a Catholic, was now assigned to a Protestant; meetings of the Gustavus Adolphus Union were now allowed, and a share was given to the Protestant party in the ministry of public worship by the appointment of three evangelical councillors. After the entrance on office of the liberal minister Von Schmerling, an imperial patent was issued on April 8th, 1864, by which unrestricted liberty of faith, independent administration of all ecclesiastical, educational, and charitable matters, free election of pastors, even from abroad, full exercise of civil and political rights, and complete equality with Catholics was given to the Protestants of the German and Slavonian crown territories. Also in 1868, under the reactionary ministry of Belcredi, on the expiry of the legal term of the Evangelical Supreme Church Council, it was reorganized, two evangelical school councillorships were created, and the pecuniary position of the evangelical clergy considerably improved. But in spite of all privileges legally granted to the evangelical church, it continued in many cases, in presence of the concordat, which down to 1870 still remained in force, exposed to the whims and caprice, sometimes of the imperial courts, sometimes of the Catholic clergy.

§ 198.4. The Clerical Landtag Opposition in the Tyrol.—In the Tyrol, after the publication of the imperial patent of April, 1861, a violent movement was set on foot by clerical agitation. The Landtag, by a great majority, pronounced the issuing of it the most serious calamity which the country, hitherto honest, true, and happy in its undivided attachment to the Catholic faith, could have suffered, and concluded that Non-Catholics in the Tyrol should only by way of dispensation be allowed, but that publicity of Protestant worship and formation of Protestant congregations should be still forbidden. The Schmerling ministry, indeed, refused to confirm these resolutions. The agitation of the clergy, however, which fanned in all possible ways the fanaticism of the people, grew from year to year, until at last the Belcredi ministry of 1866 came to an agreement with the Landtag, sanctioned by the emperor, according to which the creation of an evangelical landed proprietary in the Tyrol was not indeed formally forbidden, but permission for an evangelical to possess land had in each case to be obtained from the Landtag. The ecclesiastical laws of 1868 next called forth new conflicts. Twice was the Landtag closed because of the opposition thus awakened, until finally in September, 1870, the estates took the oath to the new constitution with reservation of conscience. But now, when in December, 1875, the ministry of worship gave approval to the formal constituting of two evangelical congregations in the Tyrol, at Innsbrück and Meran, the clerical press was filled with burning denunciations, and the majority of the Landtag meeting in the following March thought to give emphasis to their protest by leaving the chamber, and so bringing the assembly to a sudden close. In June, 1880, the three bishops of the Tyrol uttered in the Landtag a fanatical protest against the continuance of the meanwhile established congregations, which the Landtag majority renewed in July, 1883.

§ 198.5. The Austrian Universities.—Stremayr, minister of public worship, introduced in 1872 a scheme of university reorganization, by which the exclusively Catholic character which had hitherto belonged to the Austrian universities, especially those of Vienna and Prague, should be removed. Up to this time a Non-Catholic could there obtain no sort of academical degree, but this was now to be obtainable apart from any question of confession. The office of chancellor, held by the archbishops of Prague and Vienna, was restricted to the theological faculty, to the state was assigned the right of nominating all professors, even in the theological faculty, and the German language was recommended as the medium of instruction. Candidates of theology have to pass through a full and comprehensive course of theological science in a three years’ university curriculum, before they can be admitted into an episcopal seminary for practical training. In spite of the opposition of the superior clergy, the bill passed even in the House of Peers, and became law in 1873.—In Innsbrück, where according to ancient custom the rector was chosen from the four faculties in succession, the other faculties protested against the election when, in 1872, the turn came to the theological (Jesuit) faculty, and they carried their point. The new organization law gave the choice of rector to the whole professoriate, and a subsequent imperial order withdrew from the general of the Jesuits the right of nominating all theological professors.—Much was done, too, for the elevation of the evangelical theological faculty in Vienna by bringing able scholars from Germany, by giving a right to the promotion to the degree of doctor of theology, etc. But its incorporation in the university, though often moved for, was hindered by the continued opposition of the Catholic theologians as well as philosophers, and in 1873 it did not meet with sufficient support in the House of Peers. Even the use of certain halls in the university buildings, promised by the minister, could not yet be obtained.

§ 198.6. The Austrian Ecclesiastical Laws, 1874-1876.—At last the government in January, 1874, introduced the long-promised Catholic church legislation into the Reichstag, intended to supply blanks occasioned by the setting aside of the concordat. Its main contents are these:

1. The concordat, hitherto only diplomatically dealt with, is now legislatively annulled; the bishops have to present all their manifestoes not before but upon publication to the state government for its cognisance; every vacancy of an ecclesiastical office, as well as every new appointment to such, is to be notified to the civil court, which can raise objections against such appointment within thirty days; the minister of worship then decides on the admissibility or inadmissibility of the candidate; legal deposition of a church officer involves withdrawal of the emoluments; the performance of unusual practices in public worship of a demonstrative character can be prohibited by the civil court; any misuse of ecclesiastical authority in restraining any one from obeying the laws of the land or from exercising his civil rights is strictly interdicted.

2. The ecclesiastical revenues and the income of the cloisters are subjected to a progressive taxation on behalf of a religious fund, mainly for improving the condition of the lower clergy, for which the episcopate hitherto, in spite of all entreaties, had done practically nothing.

3. Newly formed religious societies received state recognition if their denomination and principles contain nothing contrary to law and morality or offensive to those of another faith.

4. The state grants or refuses its approval of the establishment of spiritual orders, congregations, and ecclesiastical societies; institutions and legacies for them amounting to over three thousand gulden require state sanction; any member is free to quit any order; all orders must report annually on the personal changes and disciplinary punishments that have taken place; at any time when occasion calls for it they may be subjected to a visitation by the civil court.[551]

In vain did the pope by an encyclical seek to rouse the episcopate to violent opposition, in vain did he adjure the emperor in a letter in his own hand not to suffer the church to be put into such disgraceful bondage; the House of Deputies approved the four bills, and the emperor in May, 1874, confirmed at least the first three, while the fourth was being debated in the House of Peers. The bishops now issued a joint declaration that they could obey these laws only in so far as they “were in harmony with the demands of justice as stated in the concordat.” But it did not go to the length of actual conflict. Neither to the pope and episcopate, nor to the government was such a thing convenient at the time. Hence the attitude of reserve on both sides, which kept everything as it had been. And when notwithstanding Bishop Rudigier of Linz, threatened with fines on account of his refusal to notify the newly appointed priests, appealed to the pope, he obtained through the Vienna nuncio permission to yield on this point, “non dissentit tolerari posse.” But all the more urgently did the nuncio strive to prevent the passing of the sweeping cloister law. In January, 1876, it was passed in the House of Peers with modifications, to which, however, the emperor refused his assent. Also the revised marriage law of the same date, which removed the hindrances to marriage incorporated even in the book of civil law, and no longer recognised differences of religion, Christians and non-Christians, the remarriage of separated parties of whom at the time of the first marriage only one party belonged to the Catholic church, higher consecration and the vows of orders, did not pass the House of Peers.

§ 198.7. The Protestant Church in the Transleithan Provinces.—In Hungary since 1833 the Reichstag had by bold action won for the Protestants full equality with the Catholics, but in consequence of the revolution, the military lordship of the Protestant Haynau in 1850 again put in fetters all independent life in both Protestant churches. The Haynau decree was, indeed, again abrogated in 1854, but full return to the earlier autonomy of the church, in spite of all petitions and deputations, could never be regained, all the less as Hungary in all too decided a manner rejected the constitutional proposals submitted by the Government in 1856. The liberal imperial patent of September 1st, 1859, which secured independent administration and development to the Protestant church in the crown possessions of Hungary, got no better reception. In the German-Slavonian districts of North Hungary, as well as in Croatia, Slavonia, and Austrian Servia, it was greeted with jubilation and gratitude, but the Magyar Hungarians declined on many, for the most part frivolous, grounds, mainly because it emanated from the emperor, and did not originate in an autonomous synod. When the government showed its intention of going forward with it, the opposition was carried to the utmost extreme, so that the emperor was obliged temporarily to suspend proceedings in May, 1860. Still the ecclesiastical joined with the political movement continued to increase until in 1867 the imperial chancellor, Von Beust, succeeded in quieting both for a time by the Hungarian Agreement. On June 8th of that year, the emperor, Francis Joseph, on ratifying the agreement, was solemnly crowned King of Hungary. The hated patent had been shortly before revoked by an imperial edict, with the direction to order church matters in a constitutional way. After a complete reconciliation, at a General Protestant Convention in December, 1867, with the Patent congregations, hitherto denounced as unpatriotic, it was concluded that to the state belonged only a right of protection and oversight of the church, which is autonomous in all its internal affairs, but to all confessions perfect freedom in law, and that there should be not a separate religious legislation for each, but a common one for all confessions. A committee first appointed in 1873 for this purpose, with the motto, “A Free Church in a Free State,” constituted, and then adjourned ad kalendas Græcas.

§ 199. SWITZERLAND.

The Catholic church of Switzerland, after long continued troubles, obtained again a regular hierarchical organization in 1828. Since that time the Jesuits settled there in crowds, and assumed to themselves in most of the Catholic cantons the whole direction of church and schools. The unfortunate issue of the cantonal war of 1847 led indeed to their banishment by law, but, favoured by the bishops, they knew how still to re-enter by back doors and secretly to regain their earlier influence. The city of Calvin was the centre of their plots, not only for Switzerland, but also for all Cisalpine Europe, until at last the overstrained bow broke, and the Swiss governments became the most decided and uncompromising opponents of the ultramontane claims. In 1873 the papal nuncio, in consequence of a papal encyclical insulting the government, was banished.—In Protestant Switzerland, besides the destructive influence of the Illumination, antagonistic to the church, and radical liberalism, there appeared a soil receptive of pietism, separatism, and fanaticism, whose first cultivation has been ascribed to Madame Krüdener (§ 176, 2). In the Protestant church of German Switzerland the religious and theological developments stood regularly in lively connexion with similar movements in Germany, while those in the French cantons received their impulse and support from France and England. From France, to which they were allied by a common language, they learned the unbelief of the encyclopædists (§ 165, 14), while travelling Englishmen and those residing in the country for a longer period introduced the fervour and superstition of Methodism and other sects.

§ 199.1. The Catholic Church in Switzerland till 1870.—The ecclesiastical superintendence of Catholic Switzerland was previously subject to the neighbouring foreign bishoprics. But for immediate preservation of its interests the curia had appointed a nunciature at Lucerne in 1588. When now, in 1814, the liberal Wessenberg (§ 187, 3), already long suspected of heresy, was called as coadjutor to Constance, the nuncio manœuvred with the Catholic confederates till these petitioned the pope for the establishment of an independent and national bishopric. But when each of the cantons interested claimed to be made the episcopal residence negotiations were at last suspended, and in 1828 six small bishoprics were erected under immediate control of Rome. At the end of 1833 the diocesan representatives of Basel and St. Gall assembled in Baden to consult about the restoration of a national Swiss Metropolitan Union and a common state church constitution for securing church and state against the encroachments of the Romish hierarchy. But Gregory XIV. condemned the articles of conference here agreed upon, which would have given to Switzerland only what other states had long possessed, as false, audacious, and erroneous, destructive of the church, heretical, and schismatic, and among the Catholic people a revolt was stirred up by ultramontane fanaticism, under the influence of which the whole action was soon frustrated. On the occasion of a revision of the constitution of the canton of Aargau, a revolt, led by the cloisters, broke out in 1841. But the rebels were defeated, and the grand council resolved upon the closing of all cloisters, eight in number. Complaint made against this at the diet was regarded as satisfied by the Aargau Agreement of 1843 restoring three nunneries. An opposition was organized against the revision of the constitution of Canton Lucerne in 1841. The liberal government was overthrown, and the new constitution, in which the state insisted on its placet in ecclesiastical matters and the granting of cantonal civil rights to those only who professed attachment to the Roman Catholic church, was submitted to the pope for approval. At last, in 1844, the academy of Lucerne was given over to the Jesuits, for which Joseph Leu, the popular agitator, as member of the grand council, had wrought unweariedly since 1839. In Canton Vaud the parties of old or clerical and young Switzerland contended with one another for the mastery. The latter suffered an utter defeat in 1844, and the constitution which was then carried allowed the right of public worship only to the Catholic church. In consequence of this victory of the clerical party Catholic Switzerland with Lucerne at its head became a main centre of ultramontanism and Jesuitism. At the diet of 1844, indeed, Aargau, supported by numerous petitions from the people, moved for the banishment of all Jesuits from all Switzerland, but the majority did not consent. The Jesuit opponents expelled from Lucerne now organized twice over a free volunteer corps to overthrow the ultramontane government and force the expulsion of the Jesuits, but on both occasions, in 1844 and 1845, it suffered a sore defeat. In face of the threateningly growing increase of the excitement, which made them fear a decisive intervention of the diet, the Catholic cantons formed in 1845 a separate league (Sonderbund) for the preservation of their faith and their sovereign rights. This proceeding, irreconcilable with the Act of Federation, led to a civil war. The members of the Sonderbund were defeated, the ultramontane governments had to resign, and the Jesuits departed in 1847. The new Federal constitution which Switzerland adopted in 1848, secured unconditional liberty of conscience and equality of all confessions, and the expulsion of the Jesuits in terms of the law. But since that time ultramontanism has gained the supremacy in Catholic Switzerland, and in spite of the existing law against the Jesuits all the threads of the ultramontane clerical movements in Switzerland were in the Jesuits’ hands. These were never more successful than in Canton Geneva, where the radical democratic agitator Fazy leagued himself closely with ultramontanism to compass the destruction of the old Calvinistic aristocracy, and by bringing in large numbers the lower class Catholics from the neighbouring France and Savoy he obtained a considerable Catholic majority in the canton, and in the capital itself made Catholics and Protestants nearly equal.

§ 199.2. The Geneva Conflict, 1870-1883.—The Catholic church of Canton Geneva, on the founding of the six Swiss bishoprics by a papal bull, had been incorporated “for all time to come,” after the style of the concordat, with the bishopric of Freiburg-Lausanne. But the government made no objection when the newly elected priest of Geneva, Mermillod, a Jesuit of the purest water, assumed the title and rank of an episcopal vicar-general for the whole canton. But when in 1864 the pope nominated him bishop of Hebron in partibus and auxiliary bishop of Geneva, it made a protest. Nevertheless, when, in the following year, Bishop Marilley of Freiburg by papal orders transferred to him absolute power for the canton with personal responsibility, and in 1870 formally renounced all episcopal rights over it, so that the pope now appointed the auxiliary bishop independent bishop of Geneva, it was evident a step had been taken that could not be recalled. The government renewed its protest and made it more vehement, in consequence of which, in January, 1873, by a papal brief which was first officially communicated to the government after it had already been proclaimed from all Catholic pulpits, Mermillod was appointed apostolic vicar-general with unlimited authority for Canton Geneva, and the district was thus practically made a Catholic mission field. A demand made of him by the state to resign this office and title and divest himself of every episcopal function, was answered by the declaration that he would obey God rather than man. The Bund then expelled him from Federal territory until he would yield to that demand. From Ferney, where he settled, he unceasingly stirred up the fire of opposition among the Genevan clergy and people, but the government decidedly rejected all protests, and by a popular vote obtained sanction for a Catholic church law which restricted the rights of the diocesan bishop who might reside in Switzerland, but not in Canton Geneva, and without consent of the government could not appoint there any episcopal vicar, and transferred the election of priests and priests’ vicars to the congregations. The next elections returned Old Catholics, since the Roman Catholic population did not acknowledge the law condemned by the pope and took no part in the voting. By decision of the grand council of 1875 the abolition of all religious corporations was next enacted, and all religious ceremonies and processions in public streets and squares forbidden. Leo XIII. made an attempt to still the conflict, for in 1879 he gave Bishop Marilley the asked for discharge, and confirmed his elected successor, Cosandry, as bishop of Freiburg, Lausanne, and Geneva, without however removing Mermillod from his office of vicar apostolic of Geneva. But this actually took place after the death of Cosandry in 1882 by the appointment of Mermillod as his successor in 1883. As he now ceased to style himself a vicar apostolic, the Federal council removed the decree of banishment as the occasion of it had ceased, but left each canton free as to whether or not it should accept him as bishop. Freiburg, Neuenburg, and Vaud accepted him, and Mermillod had a brilliant entry into Freiburg, which he made his episcopal residence. But Geneva refused to recognise him, because it had already officially attached itself to the Old Catholic Bishop Herzog of Berne, and Mermillod went so far in his ostentatious love of peace as to declare that he would not in future enter Genevan territory.

§ 199.3. Conflict in the Diocese of Basel-Soleure, 1870-1880.—Bishop Lachat of Soleure, whose diocese comprised the Cantons Bern, Soleure, Aargau, Basel, Thurgau, Lucerne, and Zug, had been previously in conflict with the diocesan conference, i.e. the delegates of the seven cantons entrusted with the oversight of the ecclesiastical administration, on account of introducing the prohibited handbook on morals of the Jesuit Gury (§ 191, 9), which ended in the closing of the seminary aided by the government, and the erection of a new seminary at his own cost. Although the diocesan conference next forbad the proclamation of the new Vatican dogma, the bishop threatened excommunicated Egli in Lucerne in 1871, and Geschwind in Starrkirch in 1872, who refused. The conference ordered the withdrawal of this unlawful act, and on the bishop’s refusal, deposed him in January, 1873. The dissenting cantons, Lucerne and Zug, indeed declared that after as well as before they would only recognise Lachat as lawful bishop, the chapter refused to make the required election of administrator of the diocese, the clergy in Soleure and in Bernese Jura without exception took the side of the bishop, as also by means of a popular vote the great majority of Catholics in Thurgau. But amid all this the conference did not yield in the least. Lachat was compelled by the police to quit his episcopal residence, and withdrew to a village in Canton Lucerne. The council of the Bernese government resolved to recall the refractory clergy of the Jura, took their names off the civil register and forbad them to exercise any clerical functions. The outbreaks incited by rebel clergy in the Jura were put down by the military, sixty-nine clergymen were exiled, and, so far as the means allowed, replaced by liberal successors introduced by the Old Catholic priest Herzog (§ 190, 3) in Olten. In November, 1875, permission to return home was granted to the exiles in consequence of the revised Federal constitution of 1874, according to which the banishment of Swiss burghers was no longer allowed. The Bernese government felt all the more disposed to carry out this enactment of the National Council, as it believed that it had obtained the legal means for checking further rebellion and obstinacy among those who should return. On January, 1874, by popular vote a law was sanctioned reorganizing the whole ecclesiastical affairs of the Canton Bern. By it all clergy, Catholic as well as Protestant, are ranked as civil officers, the choice of whom rests with the congregations, the tenure of office lasting for six years. All purely ecclesiastical affairs for the canton rest in the last instance with a synod of the particular denomination, for the several congregations with a church committee, both composed of freely elected lay and clerical members. But if a dispute in a particular congregation should arise about a synodal decree, the congregational assembly decides on its validity or non-validity for the particular congregation. All decrees of higher church courts and pastorals must have state approval, which must never be refused on dogmatic grounds. If a congregation splits over any question, the majority claims the church property and pastor’s emoluments, etc. And this law was next extended in October 31st, 1875, in the matter of penal law by the so-called Police Worship Law. It imposes heavy fines up to 1000 francs or a year’s imprisonment for any clerical agitation against the law, institutions or enactments of the civil courts, as well as for every outbreak of hostilities against members of other religious bodies, refuses to allow any interference of foreign spiritual superiors without leave granted by government in each particular case, forbids all processions and religious ceremonies outside of the fixed church locality, etc. In the same year the first Catholic Cantonal Synod declared its attachment to the Christian or Old Catholic church of Switzerland. But it was otherwise after the newly elected Grand Council of the canton of its own accord, on September 12th, 1878, granted the returned Jura clergy complete amnesty for all the past, and on the assumption of future submission to existing laws of state, recognised them again eligible for election to spiritual offices which had previously been denied them. Not only did the Roman Catholic people regularly take part in elections of priests, church councils, and synods, undoubtedly with the approval of the new pope Leo XIII., who had in February addressed a conciliatory letter to the members of the Federal Council, but also the extremest of the Jura now submitted without scruple to the new election required by the law, and won therein for the most part the majority of votes. In the Catholic Cantonal Synod convened in Bern, in January, 1880, were found seventy-five Roman Catholics and only twenty-five Old Catholic deputies. The latter were naturally defeated in all controversies. The synod declared that the connexion with the Christian Catholic national bishopric was annulled, that auricular confession was obligatory, that marriages of priests were forbidden, etc. Since now the law assigns the state pay of the priest as well as all the church property in the case of a split to the majority for the time being, the inevitable consequence was that Old Catholics of the Jura district were deprived of all share in these privileges, and had to make provision for their own support. Also in Canton Soleure, the law that all pastors must be re-elected after the expiry of six years, came in force in 1872, and then the thirty-two Roman Catholic clergymen concerned were with only two exceptions re-elected, while, on the other hand, the Old Catholic priest Geschwind of Starrkirch was rejected.—But all efforts to restore the bishopric of Basel-Soleure came to grief over the person of Bishop Lachat, whom the curia would not give up and the Federal Council would not again allow, until at last a way out of the difficulty was found. The canton Tessin, which previously in church matters belonged to the Italian dioceses of Milan and Como, was, in 1859, by decree of the Federal Council, detached from these. But Tessin insisted on the founding of a bishopric of its own, while the Federal Council wished to join it to the bishopric of Chur. Thus the matter remained undecided, till in September, 1884, the papal curia came to an understanding with the Federal Council that Lachat should be appointed vicar-apostolic for the newly founded bishopric of Tessin, and that to the vacated bishopric of Basel-Soleure the “learned as well as mild” Provost Fiala of Soleure should be called. In this way all the cantons referred to, with the exception of Bern, were won.[552]

§ 199.4. The Protestant Church in German Switzerland.—Among all the German cantons, Basel (§ 172, 5), which unweariedly prosecuted the work of home and foreign missions, fell most completely under the influence of rationalism and then of the liberal Protestant theology. While pietism obtained powerful support and encouragement in its missionary institutions and movements, and there, though developing itself on Reformed soil, assumed, in consequence of its manifold connection with Germany, a colour almost more Lutheran than Reformed, the university by eminent theological teachers of scientific ability represented the Mediation school in theology of a predominantly Reformed type. In the Canton Zürich, on the other hand, the advanced theology, theoretical and practical, obtained an increasing and finally an almost exclusive mastery in the university and church. But yet, when in 1839 the Grand Council called Dr. David Strauss to a theological professorship, the Zürich people rose to a man against the proposal, the appointment was not enforced, the Grand Council was overthrown, and Strauss pensioned. The victory and ascendency of this reaction, however, was not of long continuance. Theological and ecclesiastical radicalism again won the upper hand and maintained it unchecked. In the other German cantons the most diverse theological schools were represented alongside of one another, yet with steadily increasing advantage to liberal and radical tendencies. The theological faculty at Bern favoured mainly a liberal mediation theology, and an attempt of the orthodox party in 1847, to set aside the appointment of Professor E. Zeller by means of a popular tumult, miscarried. From 1860 ecclesiastical liberalism prevailed in German Protestant Switzerland, frequently going the length of the extremest radicalism and showing its influence even in the cantonal and synodal legislation. The starting of the “Zeitstimmen für d. ref. Schweiz,” in 1859, by Henry Lang, who had fled in 1848 from Württemberg to Switzerland, and died in 1876 as pastor in Zürich, marked an epoch in the history of the radical liberal movement in Swiss theology. In Fred. Langhans, since 1876 professor at Bern, he had a zealous comrade in the fight. During 1864-1866, Langhans published a series of violent controversial tracts against the pietistic orthodox party in Switzerland, which zealously prosecuted foreign missions, and in 1866 he founded the Swiss Reform Union, while Alb. Bitzius, son of the writer known as Jer. Gotthelf (§ 174, 8) started as its organ the “Reformblätter aus d. bernischen Kirche,” which was subsequently amalgamated with the Zeitstimmem.—After more or less violent conflicts with pietistic orthodoxy, still always pretty strongly represented, especially in the aristocracy, the emancipation of the schools from the church and the introduction of obligatory civil marriage were accomplished in most cantons, even before the revised Federal constitution of 1874 and the marriage law of 1875 gave to these principles legal sanction throughout the whole of Switzerland. In almost all Protestant cantons the re-election or new election to all spiritual offices every six years was ordained by law, in many the freeing of the clergy from any creed subscription with the setting aside of confessional writings as well as of the orthodox liturgy, hymnbooks and catechisms was also carried, and the withdrawing of the Apostles’ Creed from public worship and from the baptismal formula was enjoined. The Basel synod in 1883, by thirty-six to twenty-seven votes, carried the motion to make baptism no longer a condition of confirmation; and although the Zürich synod in 1882 still held baptism obligatory for membership in the national church, the Cantonal Council in 1883, on consulting the law of the church, overturned this decision by 140 against 19 votes.

§ 199.5. The Protestant Church in French Switzerland.—The French philosophy of the eighteenth century had given to the Reformed church of Geneva a prevailingly rationalistic tendency. Notwithstanding, or just because of this, Madame Krüdener, in 1814, with her conventicle pietism, found an entrance there, and won in the young theologian Empaytaz a zealous supporter and an apostle of conversion preaching. In the next year a wealthy Englishman, Haldane, appeared there as the apostle of methodistic piety, and inspired the young pastor Malan with enthusiasm for the revival mission. Empaytaz and Malan now by speech and writing charged the national church with defection from the Christian faith, and won many zealous believers as adherents, especially among students of theology. The Vénérable Compagnie of the Geneva clergy, hitherto resting on its lees in rationalistic quiet, now in 1817 thought it might still the rising storm by demanding of theological candidates at ordination the vow not to preach on the two natures in Christ, original sin, predestination, etc., but thereby they only poured oil on the fire. The adherents of the daily increasing evangelical movement withdrew from the national church, founded free independent communities and Réunions under the banner of the restoration of Calvinistic orthodoxy, and were by their enemies nicknamed Momiers, i.e. mummery traders or hypocrites. The government imprisoned and banished their leaders, while the mob, unchecked, heaped upon them all manner of abuse. The persecution came to an end in 1830. Thereafter settling down in quiet moderation, it founded in 1831 the Société évangélique, which, in 1832, established an Ecole de Théologie, and became the centre of the Free church evangelical movement. From that time the Eglise libre of Geneva has existed unmolested alongside of the Eglise Nationale, and the opposition at first so violent has been moderated on both sides by the growth of conciliatory and mediating tendencies. Since 1850, two divergent parties have arisen within the bosom of the free church itself, which without any serious conflict continued alongside of one another, until in May, 1883, the majority of the presbytery resolved to make a peaceful separation, the stricter forming the congregation of the Pelisserie, and the more liberal that of the Oratoire. At the same time a committee was appointed to draw up a confession upon which both could unite in lasting fellowship. But when this failed, a formal and complete separation was agreed upon at the new year.—From Geneva the Methodist revival spread to Vaud. The religious movement got a footing, especially in Lausanne. The Grand Council, however, did not allow the contemplated formation of an independent congregation, and in 1824 forbad all “sectarian” assemblies, while the mob raged even more wildly than at Geneva against the “Momiers.” The excitement increased when, in 1839, by decision of the Grand Council, the Helvetic Confession was abrogated. When in 1845 a revolutionary radical government came into office at Lausanne, the refusal of many clergymen to read from the pulpit a political proclamation, caused a thorough division in the church, for the preachers referred to were in a body driven out of the national church. A Free church of Vaud now developed itself alongside of the national church, sorely oppressed and persecuted by the radical government, and spread into other Swiss cantons. It owed its freedom from sectarian narrowness mainly to the influence of the talented and thoroughly independent Alex. Vinet, who devoted his whole energies and brilliant eloquence to the interests of religious freedom and liberty of conscience and to the struggle for the separation of church and state. Vinet was from 1817 teacher of the French language and literature in Basel, then from 1837 to 1845 professor of practical theology at Lausanne, but on the reconstruction of the university he was not re-elected. He died in 1847.[553]—In the canton Neuchatel the State Council in 1873 introduced a law, which granted unconditional liberty of conscience, freedom in teaching and worship without any sort of restriction on clergy, teachers and congregations. The Grand Council by forty-seven votes to forty-six gave it its sanction, notwithstanding the almost unanimous protest of the evangelical synod, and refused to appeal to a popular vote. When an appeal to the Federal Council proved fruitless, somewhere about one half of the pastors, including the theological professors and all the students, left the state church, and formed an Eglise libre; while the other half regarded it as their duty to remain in the national church so long as they were not hindered from preaching God’s word in purity and simplicity. Both parties had a common meeting point in the Union évangélique, and a law originally passed in favour of the Old Catholics, which secured to all seceders a right to the joint use of their respective churches, proved also of advantage to the Free church.—The canton Geneva issued, in 1874, a Protestant law of worship, which with dogma and liturgy also threw overboard ordination, and maintained that the clergy are answerable only to their conscience and their electors. Yet at the new election of the consistory in 1879, at the close of the legal term of four years, the evangelical and moderate party again obtained the supremacy, and a law introduced by the radical party in the Grand Council, demanding the withdrawal of the budget of worship and the separation of church and state, was, on July 4th, 1880, thrown out by universal popular vote, by a majority of 9,000 to 4,000.

§ 200. HOLLAND AND BELGIUM.

Among the most serious mistakes in the new partition of states at the Vienna Congress was the combining in one kingdom of the United Netherlands the provinces of Holland and Belgium, diverse in race, language, character, and religion. The contagion of French Revolution of July, 1830, however, caused an outbreak in Brussels, which ended in the separation of Catholic Belgium from the predominantly Protestant Holland. Belgium has since then been the scene of unceasing and changeful conflicts between the liberal and ultramontane parties, whose previous combination was now completely shattered. And while, on the other hand, in the Reformed state church of Holland, theological studies, leaning upon German science, have taken a liberal and even radical destructive course, the not inconsiderable Roman Catholic population has fallen, under Jesuit leading, more and more into bigoted obscurantism.

§ 200.1. The United Netherlands.—The constitution of the new kingdom created in 1814 guaranteed unlimited freedom to all forms of worship and complete equality of all citizens without distinction of religious confession. Against this the Belgian episcopate protested with bishop Maurice von Broglie, of Ghent, at their head, who refused, in 1817, the prayers of the church for the heretical crown princess and the Te Deum for the newborn heir to the throne. As he went so far as to excite the Catholic people on all occasions against the Protestant government, the angry king, William I., summoned him to answer for his conduct before the court of justice. But he eluded inquiry by flight to France, and as guilty of high treason was sentenced to death, which did not prevent him from his exile unweariedly fanning the flames of rebellion. The number of cloisters grew from day to day and also the multitude of clerical schools and seminaries, in which the Catholic youth was trained up in the principles of the most violent fanaticism. The government in 1825 closed the seminaries, expelled Jesuit teachers, forbad attendance at Jesuit schools abroad, and founded a college at Louvain, in which all studying for the church were obliged to pass through a philosophical curriculum. The common struggle for maintaining the liberty of instruction promised by the constitution made political radicalism and ultramontanism confederates, and the government, intimidated by this combination, agreed, in a concordat with the pope in 1827, to modify the obligatory into a facultative attendance at Louvain College. The inevitable consequence of this was the speedy and complete decay of the college. But the confederacy of the radicals and ultramontanes continued, directing itself against other misdeeds of the government, and was not broken up until in 1830 it attained its object by the disjunction of Belgium and Holland.

§ 200.2. The Kingdom of Holland.—In the prevailingly Reformed national church rationalism and latitudinarian supernaturalism had to such an extent blotted out the ecclesiastical distinctions between Reformed, Remonstrants, Mennonites, and Lutherans, that the clergy of one party would unhesitatingly preach in the churches of the others. Then rose the poet Bilderdijk, driven from political into religious patriotism, to denounce with glowing fury the general declension from the orthodoxy of Dort. Two Jewish converts of his, the poet and apologist Isaac da Costa, and the physician Cappadose, gave him powerful support. A zealous young clergyman, Henry de Cock, was theological mouthpiece of the party. Because he offended church order, especially by ministering in other congregations, he was suspended and finally deposed in 1834. The greater part of his congregation and four other pastors with him formally declared their secession from the unfaithful church, as a return to the orthodox Reformed church. As separatists and disturbers of public worship, they were fined and imprisoned, and were at last satisfied with the recognition granted them of royal grace in 1839, as a separate or Christian Reformed Church. It consists now of 364 congregations, embracing about 140,000 souls, with a flourishing seminary at Kampen. The Reformed State Church, with three-fourths of all the Protestant population, persevered in and developed its liberalistic tendencies. The State Synod of 1883 expressly declared that the Netherland Reformed Church demands from its teachers not agreement with all the statements of the confessional writings, but only with their spirit, gist, and essence; and the synod of 1877, by the vote of a majority, stated that no sort of formulated confession should be required even of candidates for confirmation. Yet even amid such proceedings from various sides, a churchly and evangelical reaction of considerable importance set in. Three great parties within the state church carried on a life and death struggle with one another:

1. The Strict Calvinists, whose leader is Dr. Kuyper, formerly pastor in Amsterdam;

2. The so-called Middle Party, which falls into two divisions: the, just about expiring, Ethical Irenical Party, with the Utrecht professor Van Oosterzee (died 1882), and the Evangelical Party with the Gröningen professor Hofstede de Groot, since 1872 Emeritus, as leaders, of which the former, subordinating the confession, regards the Christian life as the main thing in Christianity, and the latter declares itself prepared to take the gospel alone for its creed and confession; and

3. The so-called Modern Party, which, with Professors Scholten and Kuenen as leaders, has its centre at Leyden, and in theology carries out with reckless energy the destructive critical principles of the school of Baur and Wellhausen (§ 182, 7, 18).

The “Moderns” are also the founders and leaders of the “Protestant Federation” after the German model (§ 180), with its annual assemblies since 1873, in opposition to which a “Confessional Union” holds its annual meetings at Utrecht, and operates by means of evangelists and lay preachers in places where there are only “Modern” pastors. The higher and cultured classes in the congregations mostly favour the Gröningen and some also the Leyden school, but the great majority of the middle and lower classes are adherents of Kuyper, and have frequently secured majorities in the Congregational Church Council.—The Dutch school law of 1856 banished every sort of confessional religious education from public schools supported by the state, and so called forth the erection of numerous denominational schools independent of the state, and the founding of a “Union for Christian Popular Education,” which has spread through the whole country. The university law sanctioned, after violent debates in the chamber, in 1876, establishes in place of the old theological faculties, professorships for the science of religion generally, with the exception of dogmatics and practical theology, and left it with the Reformed State Synod to care for these two subjects, either in a theological seminary or by founding for itself the two theological professorships in the universities and supporting them from the sums voted for the state church. The synod decided on the latter course, and appointed to the new chairs men of moderate liberal views. The adherents of the strict Calvinistic party, however, founded a Free Reformed University at Amsterdam, which was opened in autumn, 1880. Its first rector was Kuyper.—The Lutheran Church of fifty congregations and sixty-two pastors, with about 60,000 souls, has also had since 1816 a theological seminary. In it neological tendencies prevail.

§ 200.3. The founding of the Free University at Amsterdam, referred to above, led to a series of violent conflicts which threatened to break up the whole Reformed church of the Netherlands by a wild schism. The Reformed State Synod, consisting mainly of Gröningen theologians, but also numbering many members belonging to the Modern or Leyden school, and constituting the supreme ecclesiastical court, had, in spite of its eleventh rule, which makes “the maintenance of the doctrine” a main task of all church government, for a long time admitted the principle of unfettered freedom of teaching, and ordained that even evidence of orthodoxy on the part of candidates for confirmation would no longer be regarded as a condition of their acceptance, their examination referring only to their knowledge, the examining clergy and not the assisting elders being judges in this matter. When now the Free University had been founded in direct opposition to the synod, the latter resolved to reject all its pupils at the examination of candidates, and when, in the summer of 1885, its first student presented himself, actually carried out this resolution. Thereupon the university transferred the examination to a committee, elected by itself, consisting of orthodox Reformed pastors and elders, and a small village congregation agreed to elect the candidate for its poorly endowed, and so for seventeen years vacant, pastorate. But the synod refused him ordination. Therefore the director of a strict Calvinistic Gymnasium, formerly a pastor, performed the ceremony, and the congregation announced its secession from the synodal union. At the same time in Amsterdam a second conflict arose over the question of candidates for confirmation. Three pastors of the “modern” school demanded the elders subject to them, among them Dr. Kuyper, to take part as required in the examining of their candidates; but these refused to give their assistance, because the previous training had not been according to Scripture and the confession, and also the majority of the church council approved of this refusal, as the parents had complained, and declared that the certificate of morality demanded by other pastors could be made out only if candidates for confirmation had previously formally and solemnly confessed their genuine and hearty faith in Jesus Christ as the only and all-sufficient Saviour, which these, however, in accordance with the Dutch practice of the eighteenth century, declined to do. The controversy was carried by appeal through all the church courts, and finally the State Synod ordered the church council to make delivery of the certificates within six weeks on pain of suspension. But this was brought about before the expiry of that period by the outbreak of a far more serious conflict over matters of administration. In Amsterdam the administration of church property lay with a special commission, responsible to the church council, consisting of members, one half from the church council and the other half from the congregations. If in the beginning of January, 1886, the threatened suspension and deposition of the church council should be carried out, in accordance with proper order until the appointment of a new council all the rights of the same, therefore also that of supervising that commission, would fall to the “classical board” (§ 143, 1) as the next highest court. In order to avoid this, the fateful resolution was passed on December 14th, 1885, to alter § 41 of the regulations, so that, if the church council in the discharge of its duty to govern the community in accordance with God’s word and the legalized church confession, it would be so hindered therein that it might feel in conscience obliged to obey God rather than man and accept suspension and deposition, and a church council should be appointed, the administrative commission would be obliged to remain subject, not to this, but to the original commission. The “classical board” annulled this resolution, suspended on January 4th, 1886, for continued obstinacy the previous church council, and constituted itself, pending decision on the part of discipline, interim administrator of all its rights and duties. The suspended majority, however, called a meeting for the same day, and when it found the doors of its meeting place closed, sent for a locksmith to break them open. They were prevented by the police, who then, by putting on a safety lock, strengthening the boards of the door by mailed plates, and setting a watch, greatly reduced the chances of an entrance. But the opposition sent to the watchers a letter by a policeman demanding that the representatives of the church council should be allowed to pass; upon which these, regarding it as an order of the police, withdrew. They then had the mailed plates sawn, took possession of the hall and the archives and treasure box lying there, and refused admission to the classical board. While then the question of law and possession was referred to the courts of law, and there the final decision would not be given before the lapse of a year, the disciplinary procedure took its course through all the ecclesiastical courts and ended in the deposition of all resisting elders and pastors. The latter preached now to great crowds in hired halls. From the capital the excitement increased by means of violent publications on both sides, spread over the whole land and produced discord in many other communities. Wild and uproarious tumults first broke out in Leidendorf, a suburb of Leyden. The pastor and the majority of the church council refused to enter on their congregational list two girls who had been confirmed by liberal churchmen elsewhere, and with by far the greater part of the congregation seceded from the synodal union. The classical board now, in July, 1886, declared the pastorate vacant, and ordered that a regular interim service should be conducted on Sundays by the pastors of the circuit. The uproar among the people, however, was thereby only greatly increased, so that the civil authorities were obliged to protect the deputed preachers, by a large military escort, from rude maltreatment, and to secure quiet during public worship by a company of police in church. And similar conflicts soon broke out on like occasions and with similar consequences in many other places throughout all parts of the land. In December, 1886, the Amsterdam church council also declared its secession from the state church, and a numerously attended “Reformed Church Congress” at Amsterdam, in January, 1887, summoned by Kuyper in the interests of the crowd of seceders, resolved to accept the decision of the law in regard to church property.[554]

§ 200.4. Even after the separation of Belgium there was still left a considerable number of Catholics, about three-eighths of the population, most numerous in Brabant, Limburg, and Luxemburg, and these were, as of old, inclined to the most bigoted ultramontanism. This tendency was greatly enhanced when the new constitutional law of 1848 announced the principle of absolute liberty of belief, in consequence of which the Jesuits crowded in vast numbers, and the pope in 1853 organized a new Catholic hierarchy in the land, with four bishops and an archbishop at Utrecht, under the control of the propaganda. The Protestant population went into great excitement over this. The liberal ministry of Thorbecke was obliged to resign, but the chambers at length sanctioned the papal ordinance, only securing the Protestant population against its misapplication and abuse.—On the withdrawal of the French in 1814 there were only eight cloisters remaining; but in 1861 there were thirty-nine for monks and 137 for nuns, and since then the number has considerably increased.—The Dutch Old Catholics (§ 165, 8), on account of their protest against the dogma of the Immaculate Conception (§ 185, 2), enjoined upon the Catholic church by the pope, were anew excommunicated, and joined the German Old Catholics in rejecting the decrees of the Vatican Council (§ 190, 1).

§ 200.5. The Kingdom of Belgium.—Catholic Belgium obtained after its separation from Holland a constitution by which unlimited freedom of religious worship and education, and the right of confessing opinion and of associating, were guaranteed, and to the state was allowed no interference with the affairs of the church beyond the duty of paying the clergy. Also in Leopold I., 1830-1865, of the house of Saxe-Coburg, it had a king who though himself a Protestant was faithful to the constitution, and, according to agreement, had his children trained up in the Roman Catholic church. The confederacy of radicalism and ultramontanism, however, was broken by the irreconciliable enmity and violent conflict in daily life and in the chambers among clerical and liberal ministers. The ultramontanes founded at Louvain in 1834 a strictly Catholic university, which was under the oversight of the bishops and the patronage of the Virgin; while the liberals promoted the erection of an opposition university for free science at Brussels. That the Jesuits used to the utmost for their own ends the liberty granted them by the constitution by means of missions and the confessional, schools, cloisters, and brotherhoods of every kind is what might have been expected. But liberalism also knew how to conduct a propaganda and to bring the clergy into discredit with the educated classes by unveiling their intrigues, legacy-hunting, etc., while these exercised a great influence chiefly upon bigoted females. The number of cloisters, which on the separation from Holland amounted only to 280, had risen in 1880 in that small territory to 1,559, with 24,672 inmates, of whom 20,645 were nuns.

§ 200.6. After the ultramontane party had enjoyed eight years of almost unchallenged supremacy, the Malou ministry favourable to it was overthrown in June, 1878, and a liberal government, under the presidency of Frère-Orban, took its place. Then began the Kulturkampf in Belgium. The charge of public education was taken from the ministry of the interior, and a special minister appointed in the person of Van Humbeeck. He began by changing all girls’ schools under the management of sisters of spiritual orders into communal schools, and in January, 1879, brought in a bill for reorganizing elementary education, which completely secularized the schools; deprived the clergy of all official influence over them, and relegated religious instruction to the care of the family and the church, the latter, however, having the necessary accommodation allowed in the school buildings. The chambers approved the bill, and the king confirmed it, in spite of all protests and agitation by the clergy. The clerical journals put a black border on their issue which published it; the provincial councils under clerical influence nullified as far as possible all money bequests for the public schools, and the bishops assembled in August at Mechlin resolved to found free schools in all communities, and to refuse absolution to all parents who entrusted their children to state schools and all teachers in them, in order thus to cause a complete decay of the public schools, which indeed happened to this extent that within a few months 1,167 communal schools had not a single Catholic scholar. On complaint being made by the government to Leo XIII., he expressed through the Brussels nuncio his regret and disapproval of the proceedings of the bishops; but, on the other hand, he not only privately praised them on account of their former zeal in opposing the school law, but also incited them to continued opposition. When this double dealing of the curia was discovered, the government in June, 1880, broke off all diplomatic relations with the Vatican by recalling their ambassador and giving the nuncio his passports. The ministerial president publicly in the chamber of deputies characterized the action of the Holy See as “fourberie.” Whereupon the pope at the next consistory called princes and peoples as witnesses of this insult. In May, 1882, the results of the inquiry into clerical incitements against the public was read in the chamber, where such startling revelations were made as these: Priests taught the children that they should no longer pray for the king when he had committed the mortal sin of confirming the school law; the ministers are worse than murderers and true Herods; a priest even taught children to pray that God might cause their “liberal” parents to die, etc. Amid such conflicts the Catholic party in parliament split into the parties of the Politici, who were willing to submit to the constitution, and that of the Intransigenti, who, under the direction of the bishops and the university of Louvain, held high above everything the standard of the syllabus. The latter fought with such passionateness, that the pope felt obliged in 1881 to enjoin upon the episcopate “that prudent attitude” which the church in such cases always maintains in “enduring many evils” which for the time cannot be overcome. But undeterred, the government continued to restrict the claims of the clergy, so far as these were not expressly guaranteed by the constitution.—In June, 1884, as the result of the elections for the chamber of deputies, the clerical party again were in power. Malou was once more at the head of a ministry in favour of the clericals, caused the king to dissolve the senate, and in the new elections won there also a majority for his party. No sooner were they in power than the clerical ministry, in conjunction with the majority in the chambers, proceeded with inconsiderate haste, amid the most violent, almost daily repeated explosions from the now intensely embittered liberal and radical section of the population, which only seemed to increase their zeal, to employ their absolute power to the utmost in the interest of clericalism. The restoration of diplomatic relations with the papal curia in the spirit of absolute acquiescence in its schemes was the grand aim of the reaction, as well as a new school law by which the schools were completely given over again to the clergy and the orders. But when at the next communal elections a liberal majority was returned, and protests of the new communal councils poured in against the school law on behalf of the vast number of state certificated teachers reduced by it to hunger and destitution, the Malou ministry found itself obliged to resign in October, 1884. Its place was taken by the moderate ultramontane Beernaert ministry, which sought indeed to quiet the excitement by mild measures, but held firmly in all essential points to the principles of its predecessor.

§ 200.7. An exciting episode in the Belgium Kulturkampf is presented by the appearance of Bishop Dumont of Tournay, who, previously an enthusiastic admirer of Pius IX. and a vigorous defender of the infallibility dogma, also a zealous patron of stigmatization miracles at Bois d’Haine (§ 188, 4), now suddenly turned round on the school question and refused to obey the papal injunction. For this he was first suspended, and then in 1880 formally deposed by the pope. He afterwards wrote letters in the most advanced liberal journals with violent denunciations of the pope, whom he would not recognise as pope, but only as Bishop of Rome, and so styled him not Leo, but only Pecci. In these letters Dumont makes the interesting communication that the virgin Louise Lateau, favoured of God, has threatened with excommunication the “intruder” Durousseaux, nominated by the pope as his successor, because she continues to reverence Dumont as the only legitimate Bishop of Tournay. The Vatican pronounced him insane, and the chapter appealed to the civil authorities to have him declared incapable in the sight of the law, which, however, they refused, because they could not regard Dumont’s insanity as proved. On the other hand, Dumont refused to renounce his episcopal office, and accused Durousseaux of having by night, with the help of a locksmith, obtained entrance to his episcopal palace, and having taken forcible possession of a casket lying there, which, besides the diocesan property to the value of five millions, contained also about one and a half millions of his own private means. Pending the issue of the conflict, as to which of the two should be regarded as the true bishop, the palace was now officially sealed up. The attempt to arrest the robbed casket had to be abandoned, because meanwhile the canon Bernard, as keeper of the treasures of the diocese, had fled with its contents to America. He was, however, on legal warrant imprisoned in Havanna and brought back to Belgium in 1882. In April, 1884, the dispute of the bishops was definitively closed by the judgment of the supreme tribunal, according to which Dumont, having been legitimately deposed, has no more claim to the title and revenues of his earlier office; and in 1886 the supreme court of appeal at Brussels condemned Bernard “on account of serious breach of trust” to three years’ imprisonment.

§ 200.8. The Protestant Church was represented in Belgium only by small congregations in the chief cities and some Reformed Walloon village congregations. But for several decades, by the zealous exertions of the Evangelical Society at Brussels with thirty-four pastors and evangelists, the work of evangelization not only among Catholic Walloons, but also among the Flemish population, has made considerable progress, notwithstanding all agitation and incitement of the people by the Catholic clergy, so that several new evangelical congregations, consisting mostly of converts, have been formed. In two small places indeed the whole communities, roused by episcopal arbitrariness, have gone over.—The pastor Byse employed by the Evangelical Society at Brussels has taken up the idea that all men by the fall have lost their immortality, and that it could be restored again by faith in Christ, while all the unreconciled are given over to annihilation, the second death of Revelation ii. 11, xx. 15. So long as he maintained this theory merely as a private opinion the society took no offence at it, but when he began to proclaim it in his preaching and in his instruction of the young, and declined to yield to all advice on the matter, the synod of 1882 resolved upon his dismissal. But a great part of his congregation still remain faithful to him.

§ 201. THE SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES.

Notwithstanding the common Scandinavian-national and Lutheran-ecclesiastical basis on which the civil and religious life is developed, it assumed in the three Scandinavian countries a completely diversified course. While in Denmark the civil life bore manifold traces of democratic tendencies and thereby the relations between church and state were loosened, Sweden, with a tenacity almost unparalleled in Protestant countries, has for a long period held fast in exclusive attachment to the idea of a state church. On the other hand Denmark was far more open to influences from without hostile to the church, on the one side those of rationalism, on the other, those of the anti-ecclesiastical sects, especially of the Baptists and Mormons, than Sweden, which in its certainly barren, if not altogether dead orthodoxy till after the middle of the century was almost hermetically sealed against all heterogeneous influences, but yet could not altogether over-master the pietistically or methodistically coloured movements of religious yearning that arose among her own people. Norway, again, although politically united with Sweden, has, both in national character and in religious development, shown its more intimate relationship with Denmark.

§ 201.1. Denmark.—From the close of last century rationalism has had a home in Denmark. In 1825 Professor Clausen, a moderate adherent of the neological school, published a learned work on the opposition of “Catholicism and Protestantism,” identifying the latter with rationalism. First of all in that same year Pastor Grundtvig (died 1872), “a man of poetic genius, and skilled in the ancient history of the land,” inspired with equal enthusiasm for the old Lutheranism of his fathers and for patriotic Danism, entered the lists and replied with powerful eloquence, lamenting the decay of Christianity and the church. He was condemned by the court of justice as injurious, after he had during the process resigned his pastoral office. A like fate befell the orientalist Lindberg, who charged Clausen with the breach of his ordination vow. The adherents of Grundtvig met for mutual edification in conventicles, until at last in 1832 he obtained permission again to hold public services. Not less influential was the work of Sören Kierkegaard (died 1855), who, largely in sympathy with Grundtvig, without ecclesiastical office, in his writings earnestly pled for a living subjective piety and unweariedly maintained an uncompromising struggle against the official Christianity of the secularized clergy. The wild, unmeasured Danomania of 1848-1849, during the military conflict with Germany, drew opponents together and made them friends. Grundtvig declaimed against everything German, and of the two factors, which he had formerly regarded as the pivots on which universal history turned, Danism and Lutheranism, he now let go Lutheranism as of German origin. He therefore proposed the abrogation of the distinctive German-Lutheran confessions, placed the Apostles’ Creed before and above the Bible and, pressing in a one-sided manner the doctrine of baptismal grace, demanded a “joyous Christianity,” denied the necessity of continued preaching and exercise of repentance, and wished especially to introduce into the schools the Norse mythology as introductory to the study of Christianity. His adherents wrought with the anti-church party for the abolition of the union of church and state. The Danish constitutional law of 1849 abolished the confessional churches of the state church, and Catholics, Reformed, Moravians, and Jews were granted equal civil rights with the Lutherans. Since then the Catholic church has made slow but steady progress in the country, and the increasing Baptist movement was also favoured by a law of the Volkthing of 1857, which abolished compulsory baptism, and only required the enrolment of all children in the church books of their respective districts within the period of one year. Civil marriage had also been granted to dissenters in 1851, and in 1868 the peculiar institution of “electing communities” was founded, by means of which twenty families from one or more parishes which declare themselves dissatisfied with the pastors appointed them, may, without leaving the national church, form an independent congregation under pastors chosen by themselves and maintained at their own cost. The Schleswig-Holstein revolution in 1848, occasioned enormous confusion and disturbance in the ecclesiastical conditions of the district. Over a hundred German pastors were expelled and forty-six Schleswig parishes deprived of the use of the German language in church and school. In 1864 both provinces were at last by the Austrian and Prussian alliance rent from the Danish government, and in consequence of the German war of 1866 were incorporated with Prussia.

§ 201.2. Sweden.—In Sweden there was formed in 1803, in opposition to the barren orthodoxy of the state church, a religious association which, if not altogether free of pietistic narrowness, was yet without any heretical doctrinal tendency, and exercised a quiet and wholesome influence. From the diligent reading of Scripture and the works of Luther that prevailed among its members it obtained the name of Läsare. The state proceeded against its members with fines and imprisonment, according to the old conventicle law of 1726, and the mob treated them with insults and violence. But in 1842 a fanatical tendency began to show itself under the leadership of a peasant, Erich Jansen, who induced many “Readers” to quit the church and to cast into the fire even Luther’s Postils and Catechism as quite superfluous alongside of Holy Scripture. They mostly emigrated to America in 1846. The law of the land since 1686 threatened every Swede who seceded from the Lutheran state church with imprisonment and exile, loss of civil privileges and the right of inheritance. As might therefore be supposed the French Marshal Bernadotte, who in 1818, under the name of Charles XIV., ascended the throne of Sweden, had been previously in 1810 obliged to repudiate the Catholic confession. Even in 1857 the Reichstag rejected a royal proposal to set aside the Secession as well as the Conventicle Act. But in the very next year, the holding of conventicles under clerical supervision, and in 1860, the secession to other ecclesiastical denominations, were allowed by law. The constitution of 1865 still indeed made adherence to the Lutheran confession a condition of qualification for a seat in either of the chambers. The Reichstag of 1870 at last sanctioned the admission of all Christian dissenters and also of Jews to all offices of state as well as to the membership of the Reichstag. On behalf of dissenters, especially of the numerous Baptists and Methodists, the right of civil marriage was granted in 1879. In 1877, Waldenström, head-master of the Latin school at Gefle, without ecclesiastical ordination, began zealously and successfully by speech and writings (to secure the widest possible circulation of which a joint stock company with large capital was formed) to work for the revival of the Christian life in the Lutheran national church. He vigorously contended against the church doctrine of atonement and justification, repudiating the idea of vicarious penal suffering, and broke through all church order by allowing the sacrament of the Lord’s supper to be dispensed by laymen. He thus put himself, with his numerous following, directed by lay preachers in their own prayer meetings and mission halls, into direct opposition to the church, but by the wise forbearance of the ecclesiastical authorities he has not yet been formally ejected.[555]

§ 201.3. Norway.—In Norway, toward the end of last century, rationalism was dominant in almost all the pulpits, and only a few remnants of Moravian revivalism raised a voice against it. But in 1796, a simple unlearned peasant Hans Nielsen Hauge, then in his twenty-fifth year, made his appearance as a revival preacher, creating a mighty spiritual movement that spread among the masses throughout the whole land. He had obtained his own religious knowledge from the study of old Lutheran practical theology, and arising at a period of extraordinary spiritual excitement, “his call,” as Hase says, “to be a prophet was like that of the herdsman of Tekoa.” From 1799 he continued itinerating for five years, persecuted, reproached, and calumniated by the rationalistic clergy, ten times cast into prison, under a law of 1741, which forbad laymen to preach, and then set free, until he had gone over all Norway even to its farthest and remotest corners, preaching unweariedly everywhere in houses and in the open air often three or four times a day, and nourishing besides the flame which he had kindled by voluminous writings and an extensive correspondence. He directed his preaching not only against the rationalism of the state clergy, but also against the antinomian religion of feeling, of “Blood and Wounds” theology introduced in earlier days by the Moravians, with a one-sided emphasis and exaggeration indeed, but still in all essentials maintaining the basis and keeping within the lines of Lutheran orthodoxy. In 1804 he was charged with tendencies dangerous to church and state, obtaining money from peasants on false pretences, inciting the people against the clergy, etc., and again cast into prison. The trial this time was carried on for ten years, until at last in 1814 the supreme court sentenced him on account of his invectives against the clergy to pay a fine, but pronounced him not guilty on the other charges. Broken down in spirit and body by his long imprisonment, he could not think of engaging again in his former work. He died in 1824. Numerous peasant preachers, however, issuing from his school were ready to go forth in his footsteps, and till this day the salutary effects of his and their activity are seen in wide circles. The law of 1741 which had been made to tell against them was at last abrogated by the Storthing in 1842. In 1845 the right of forming Christian sects was recognised, and in 1851 even the Jews were allowed the right of settlement previously refused them, and the security of all civil privileges. Since that time even in Norway the Catholic church has made considerable progress; in June, 1878, it had eleven churches and fourteen priests.

§ 202. GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

During the course of the century a breach from without was made upon the stronghold of the Anglican established church and its legal standing throughout the United Kingdom. The strong coherence of the Anglican episcopal church had already been weakened internally by the rise within its own bosom of High, Low, and Broad tendencies. The advance of the first-named party to tractarianism and ritualism opened the door to Romish sympathies, while in the last-named school German rationalism and criticism found favour, and the low church party was not ashamed to go hand-in-hand with the evangelical pietistic and methodistic tendencies of the dissenters. There followed numerous conversions to Rome, especially from the aristocratic ranks of the upper ten thousand. The Emancipation Act of 1829 opened the door to both Houses of Parliament to the Catholics, and in 1858 the same privileges were extended to the Jews. Also the bulwarks which the state church had in the old universities of Oxford and Cambridge were undermined, and in 1871 were completely overthrown by the legal abolition of all confessional tests. Down to 1869 the hierarchy of the episcopal state church, though clearly alien to the country, maintained its legal position in Catholic Ireland, till at last the Irish Church Bill brought it there to an end. Repeatedly have bills been introduced in the House of Commons, though hitherto without success, by members of the incessantly agitating Liberation Society, to disestablish the churches of England, Scotland, and Wales.[556]

§ 202.1. The Episcopal State Church.—The two opposing parties of the state church corresponded to the two political parties of Tories and Whigs. The high church party, which has its most powerful representatives in the aristocracy, holds aloof from the dissenters, seeks to maintain the closest connexion between church and state, and eagerly contends for the retention of all old ecclesiastical forms and ordinances in constitution, worship, and doctrine. On the other hand the evangelical or low church party, which is more or less methodistically inclined, holds free intercourse with dissenters, associating with them in home and foreign mission work, etc., and with various shades of differences advocates the claims of progress against those of immobility, the independence of the church against its identification with the state, the evangelical freedom and general priesthood of believers against orthodoxy and hierarchism. From their midst arose a movement in 1871, occasioned by the Oxford “Essays and Reviews” and the works of Bishop Colenso, which resulted in the publication, under the authority of the bishops, of the “Speaker’s Commentary,” so-called because suggested by Denison, who had long been speaker of the House of Commons. It is a learned, thoroughly conservative commentary on the whole Bible by the ablest theologians of England. On the revision of the English translation of the Bible see § 181, 4. Besides these two parties, however, there has arisen a third, the broad church party. It originated with the distinguished poet and philosopher, Coleridge (died 1834), and includes many of the most excellent and scholarly of the clergy, especially those most eminent for their acquaintance with German theology and philosophy. They do not form an organized ecclesiastical party like the evangelicals and high church men, but endeavour not only to overcome the narrowness and severity of the former, but also to secure a broader basis and a wider horizon for theology as well as for the church.[557]—The struggle for the legalizing of marriage with a deceased wife’s sister has been energetically pressed since 1850, but though the House of Commons has repeatedly passed the bill, it has been hitherto by small majorities, under the influence of the bishops, rejected by the House of Lords.—A non-official Pan-Anglican Council of English bishops from all parts of the world, excluding the laity and inferior clergy, with pre-eminently anti-Romish and anti-ritualistic tendencies, was held in London in 1867 (cf. § 175, 5). When it met the second time in 1878, it was attended by nearly one hundred bishops, one of them a negro. Of the three weeks’ debates and their results, however, no detailed account has been published.

§ 202.2. The Tractarians and Ritualists.—The activity of the dissenters and the episcopal evangelical party’s attachment to them stirred up the adherents of the high church party to vigorous guarding of their interests, and drove them into a one-sided exaggerated accentuation of the Catholic element. The centre of this movement since 1833 was the university of Oxford. Its leaders were Professors Pusey and Newman, its literary organ the Tracts for the Times, from which the party received the name of Tractarians. This was a series of ninety treatises, published 1833-1841, on the basis of Anglo-Catholicism, which sought, while holding by the Thirty-nine Articles, to affirm with equal decidedness the genuine Protestantism over against the Roman papacy, and, in the importance which it attached to the apostolical succession of the episcopate and priesthood and the apostolical tradition for the interpretation of Scripture, the genuine Catholicism over against every form of ultra-Protestantism. In this way, too, their dogmatics in all the several doctrines, as far as the Thirty-nine Articles would by any means allow, was approximated to the Roman Catholic doctrine, and indeed by-and-by passed over entirely to that type of doctrine. Newman’s Tract 90 caused most offence, in which, with thoroughly jesuitical sophistry, it was argued that the Thirty-nine Articles were capable of an explanation on the basis of which they might be subscribed even by one who occupied in regard to the church doctrine and practice an essentially Roman Catholic standpoint. The university authorities now felt obliged to declare publicly that the tracts were by no means sanctioned by them, and that especially the application of the principles of Tract 90 to the conduct of students in the matter of subscription of the Thirty-nine Articles is not allowable. Bishop Bagot of Oxford, hitherto favourable to the tractarians, refused to permit the continued issue of the tracts. The other bishops also for the most part spoke against them in their pastorals, and a flood of controversial pamphlets roused the wrath of the non-Catholic populace. But on the other hand tractarianism still found favour among the higher clergy and the aristocracy. In 1845 Newman went over to the Catholic church, and has since led a retired life devoted to theological study. Pius IX. paid him no attention, but in 1879 Leo XIII. acknowledged and rewarded his services to the Catholic church by elevating him to the rank of cardinal. The majority of the tractarians disapproved of Newman’s step and remained in the Anglican church. Thus acted Pusey (died 1882), the recognised leader of the party, after whom they were now called Puseyites. Many, however, followed Newman’s example, so that by the end of 1846 no less than one hundred and fifty clergymen and prominent laymen were received into the widely opened door of the Catholic church.[558]—The following twelve years, 1846-1858, were occupied by two dogmatico-ecclesiastical conflicts vitally affecting the interests of the tractarians.

1. The Gorham Case. The Thirty-nine Articles took essentially Lutheran ground in treating of baptism, recognising it as a vehicle of regeneration and divine sonship, and the tractarians laid uncommonly great stress upon this article. So also the Bishop of Exeter, Dr. Philpotts, refused to institute the Rev. Cornelius Gorham because of his views on this subject. Gorham accused him before the Archbishop of Canterbury, but the Court of Arches decided in favour of the bishop. The Court of Appeal, however, the judicial committee of the Privy Council, annulled the episcopal judgment, and ordered that Gorham should be installed in his office. In vain did Philpotts, by a protest before the Court of Queen’s Bench, and then before the Court of Common Pleas, against the jurisdiction of the Privy Council in this case, in vain, too, did Blomfield, Bishop of London, insist upon the revival of Convocation, which for one and a half centuries had been inoperative as a spiritual parliament with upper and lower houses, and in vain did a tractarian assembly of more than 1,500 distinguished clergymen and laymen lodge a solemn protest. The judgment of the Privy Council stood, and Gorham was inducted to his office in 1850. Many of the protesters now went over to the Catholic church, and about 600 others, like the Puritan Pilgrim Fathers 230 years before (§ 143, 4), under ecclesiastical oppression, emigrated to New Zealand.

2. The Denison Eucharist Case.—The Puseyite Archdeacon Denison of Taunton, in the diocese of Bath and Wells, had in 1851 in open defiance of the Thirty-nine Articles, which represent Calvin’s views of the Lord’s Supper, affirmed in preaching and writing that unbelievers as well as believers eat and drink the body and blood of the Lord. Over this he was involved in a sharp discussion with a neighbouring clergyman called Ditcher. In 1854 Ditcher accused Denison before his bishop, who, after vain efforts to reconcile the parties, referred the matter to the Court of Arches, which sought, but in vain, to end the strife by compromise. Ditcher now in 1856 brought his complaint before the Queen’s Bench, which obliged the archbishop to take up the matter again. A commission appointed by him declared that the complaint was quite justifiable, and threatened Denison, when he refused any sort of retraction, with deposition. But the Court of Appeal in 1858 stayed the judgment on the ground of a technical error in procedure, and Denison remained in office.

§ 202.3. From the middle of 1850 the tractarians, who had hitherto confined themselves to the development of the Romanizing system of doctrine, began to apply its consequences to the church ritual and the Christian life, and so won for themselves the name of Ritualists, which has driven out their earlier designation. Wherever possible they showed their Catholic zeal by introducing images, crucifixes, candles, holy water, mass dresses, mass bells, and boy choristers, urged the restoration of the seven sacraments, especially of extreme unction, auricular confession, the sacrificial theory and Corpus Christi day, of prayers for the dead and masses for souls, invocation of saints and the blessed Virgin; they also praised celibacy and monasticism, etc. Ritualism has from the first shown singular skill in party organization. The English Church Union, founded in 1860, has now nearly 200,000 members, of these about 3,000 clergymen and 50 bishops, and it embraces 300 branches over the whole domain of the Anglican church. Numerous brotherhoods and sisterhoods, guilds and orders, organized after the style of Roman Catholic monasticism, promote the interests of ritualism, and zealously prosecute home and foreign mission work. The Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament originated in 1862, was able in 1882 to celebrate Corpus Christi day in 250 churches along with the Romish church, dispensing only with the procession. The Society of the Holy Cross, founded in 1873 consists only of priests, and forms a kind of directory for all branches of the ritualistic propaganda. The English Order of St. Augustine has a threefold division, into spiritual brothers who are preparing for priests’ orders, lay brothers who are being qualified as lay preachers, both under the strictest vows, and a sort of tertiaries, who are free from vows. Among the sisterhoods which already supply nurses to all the great hospitals of the capital, the most important is that called “by the name of Jesus.” They take, like the Beguines of the middle ages, the three vows, but not as binding for life. By the ultra high church party the genuine apostolic succession of the ordination of the first Protestant archbishop, Matthew Parker, and so the genuineness of all subsequent ordinations going back to him, were doubted; three Anglican bishops are said to have had episcopal consecration anew conferred on them by a Greek Catholic bishop. The reckless and wilful procedure of the ritualists in imitating the Roman Catholic ritual in public worship called forth frequent violent disturbances at their services, and noisy crowds flocked to their churches. Most frequent and violent were the riots in 1859 and 1860 in the parish of St. George’s, London, where scarcely any service was held without disgraceful scenes of hissing, whistling, stamping, and cries of “No popery.” The offscouring of all London flocked to the Sunday services as to a public entertainment. Instead of hymns, street songs were sung, instead of responses blasphemous cries were shouted forth, while cushions and prayer-books were hurled at the altar decorations, etc. These unseemly proceedings were caused by the ritualistic rector, Bryan King, who had introduced the objectionable ceremonial, and obstinately continued it in spite of the decided opposition and protests of his colleague, Mr. Allen. King’s removal in 1860 first put an end to these disturbances, which police interference proved utterly unable to check. The ritualistic Church Union, called into existence by these proceedings, was opposed by an anti-ritualistic Church Association, and from both multitudes of complaints and appeals were brought before the ecclesiastical and civil tribunals. The first case they brought up was that of Rev. A. H. MacConochie, of Holborn, who, having been admonished by the ecclesiastical courts on account of his ritualistic practices in 1867, appealed to the Privy Council. And although this court decided in 1869 that all ceremonies not authorized by the prayer-book are to be regarded as forbidden, he and his followers continued to act on the principle that whatever is not there expressly prohibited ought to be permitted. The Public Worship Regulation Bill, introduced by Archbishop Tait, and passed by Parliament, which legislatively determined the procedure in ritualistic cases, did not prevent the constant advance of this movement. The Court of Arches now issued a suspension against the accused, and condemned them to prison when they continued to officiate, until they declared themselves ready to obey or to demit their office. Tooth of Hatcham, Dale of London, Enraght of Bordesdale, and Green of Miles Platting were actually sent to prison in 1880. But the first three were soon liberated by the Court of Appeal finding some technical flaw in the proceedings against them, while Green, in whose case no such flaw appeared, lay in confinement for twenty months. The ritualists still persistently continued their practice, and their opponents renewed their prosecutions; these were followed by appeals to the higher courts, presenting of petitions to both the Houses of Parliament, addresses with vast numbers of signatures for and against to the Archbishop of Canterbury, to Convocation which had meanwhile been restored, to the Cabinet, to the Queen, etc. The result was that many cases were abandoned, some obnoxious parties transferred elsewhere, and a very few deposed.

§ 202.4. Liberalism in the Episcopal Church.—The more liberal tendency of the broad church party had also many supporters who scrupled not to pass beyond the traditional bounds of English orthodoxy. In opposition to the orthodoxy zealousy inculcated at Oxford, rationalism found favour at the rival university of Cambridge, and vigorous support was given to the views of the Tübingen school of Baur in the London Westminster Review. And even in high church Oxford, there were not wanting teachers in sympathy with the critical and speculative rationalism of Germany. Great excitement was caused in 1860 by the “Essays and Reviews,” which in seven treatises by so many Oxford professors contested the traditional apologetics and hermeneutics of English theology, and set a sublimated rationalism in its place. In Germany these not very important treatises would probably have excited little remark, but in the English church they roused an unparalleled disturbance; more than nine thousand clergymen of the episcopal church protested against the book, and all the bishops unanimously condemned it. The excitement had not yet subsided when from South Africa oil was poured upon the flames. Bishop Colenso of Natal (died 1883), who had zealously carried on the mission there, but had openly expressed the conviction that it is unwise, unscriptural, and unchristian to make repudiation by Caffres living in polygamy, of all their wives but one, a condition of baptism, had occasioned still greater offence by publishing in 1863 in seven vols. a prolix critical disquisition on the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua, in which he contested the authenticity and unconditional credibility of these books by arguments familiar long ago but now quite antiquated and overthrown in Germany. During a journey to England undertaken for his defence he was excommunicated and deposed by a synod of the South African bishops in Capetown. The Privy Council, as supreme ecclesiastical court in England, cleared him, as well as the authors of the Essays, from the charge of heresy. An important aid for the dissemination of liberal religious views is afforded by the Hibbert Lectureship. Robert Hibbert (died 1849), a wealthy private gentleman in London, assigned the yearly interest of a considerable sum for “the spreading of Christianity in its simplest form as well as the furthering of the unfettered exercise of the individual judgment in matters of religion.” The Hibbert trustees are eighteen laymen who dispense the revenues in supplementing the salaries of poorly paid clergymen of liberal views, in providing bursaries for theological students at home and abroad, and in other such like ways, but since 1878 especially, by advice of distinguished scholars, in the endowment of annual courses of lectures, afterwards published, on subjects in the domain of philosophy, biblical criticism, the comparative science of religion and the history of religion. The first Hibbert Lecturer was the celebrated Oxford professor, Max Müller, in 1878. Among other lecturers may be named Renan of Paris in 1880; Kuenen of Leyden in 1882; Pfleiderer of Berlin, in 1885. The battle waged with great passionateness on both sides since 1869 for and against the removal of the Athanasian Creed, or at least its anathemas, from the liturgy has not yet been brought to any decided result.

§ 202.5. Protestant Dissenters in England.—Down nearly to the end of the eighteenth century all the enactments and restrictions of the Toleration Act of 1689 (§ 155, 3) continued in full force. But in 1779 the obligation of Protestant dissenters to subscribe the Thirty-nine Articles was abolished, and the acknowledgment of the Bible as God’s revealed word substituted. The right of founding schools of their own, hitherto denied them, was granted in 1798. In 1813 the Socinians were also included among the dissenters who should enjoy these privileges. After a severe struggle the Corporation and Test Acts were set aside in 1826, affording all dissenters entrance to Parliament and to all civil offices. The necessity of being married and having their children baptized in an episcopal church was removed by the Marriage and Registration Act of 1836 and 1837, and divorce suits were removed from the ecclesiastical to a civil tribunal in 1857. In 1868 compulsory church rates for the episcopal parish church were abolished. Lord Russell’s University Bill of 1854, by restricting subscription of the Thirty-nine Articles to the theological students, opened the universities of Oxford and Cambridge to dissenters, while the University Tests Bill of 1871 made the adherents of all religious confessions eligible for all university honours and emoluments at both seminaries. Thus one restriction after another was removed, so that at last the episcopal church has nothing of her exclusive privileges left beyond the rank and title of a state church, and the undiminished possession of all her ancient property, from which her prelates draw princely revenues.

§ 202.6. Scotch Marriages in England.—The saints of the English Revolution had indeed resolved in 1653 to introduce civil marriage (§ 162, 1). But the reaction under Cromwell set this unpopular law aside, and the Restoration made marriage by an Anglican clergyman, even for dissenters, an indispensable condition of legal recognition. But in no country, especially among the higher orders, were private marriages, without the knowledge and consent of the family, so frequent as here, and clergymen were always to be found unscrupulous enough to celebrate such weddings in taverns or other convenient places. When an end had been put to such irregularities on English soil by an Act of Parliament of 1753, lovers seeking secret marriage betook themselves to Scotland. In that country there prevailed, and still prevails, the theory that a declaration of willingness on both sides constitutes a perfectly valid marriage. The Scottish ecclesiastical law indeed requires church proclamation and ceremony, but failure to observe this requirement is followed only by a small pecuniary fine. Fugitive English couples generally made the necessary declaration before a blacksmith at Gretna-Green, who was also justice of the peace in this small border village, and were then legitimately married people according to Scottish law. Only in 1856 were all marriages performed in this manner without previous residence in Scotland pronounced by Act of Parliament invalid.

§ 202.7. The Scottish State Church.—The Presbyterian Church of Scotland, from the beginning strictly Calvinistic in constitution, doctrine and practice, has, generally speaking, preserved this character. Only in recent times has the endeavour of the so-called Moderates to introduce a milder type of doctrine won favour. The Established Church, as a national church properly so-called and recognised by law, dates from the political union of England and Scotland in the kingdom of Great Britain in 1707, and the Anglican Episcopal Church there was then reduced to a feebly represented dissenting denomination. Patronage, set aside indeed in the Reformation age, but restored under Queen Anne in 1712, and since then, in spite of all opposition from the stricter party, continued, because often misused to secure the intrusion of inacceptable ministers upon congregations, gave occasion to repeated secessions. Thus the Secession Church broke off in 1732, and the Relief Church in 1752, the latter going beyond the former’s protest against patronage by unconditional repudiation of Erastianism, i.e. the theory of the necessary connection of Church and State (§ 144, 1), and the assertion of the spiritual independence of the church, and expressed firmly the principles of Voluntaryism, i.e. the payment of all ecclesiastical officers, etc., by voluntary contributions. Both parties united in 1847 in the United Presbyterian Church, which now embraces one-fifth of the population.—Twice that number joined the secession of the Free Church in 1843. The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland granted to congregations in 1834 the right of vetoing presentations to vacancies. The civil courts, however, upheld the absolute right of patrons, and at the Assembly of 1843 about two hundred of the most distinguished ministers, with the great Dr. Chalmers (died 1847) at their head, left the state church, and, as Non-Intrusionists, founded the Free Church of Scotland, which at its own cost formed new parishes and distinguished itself by Christian zeal in every direction. It differs from the United Presbyterian Church in restricting its opposition to the abuse of patronage, without repudiating right off every sort of state aid and endowment as unevangelical. But even to it the law passed in 1846, granting to all congregations the right of veto, seemed now no longer a sufficient motive to return to the state church. Even when in 1874, parliament, at the call of the government, formally abolished the rights of patronage through all Scotland and gave to the congregations the right of choosing their own ministers, the General Assembly of the Free Church by a great majority refused to reunite with the state church brought so near it, because it conceded to the civil courts unwarrantable interference with its internal affairs, especially the right of suspending its clergy.[559]

§ 202.8. Scottish Heresy Cases.—The Glasgow presbytery lodged before the United Presbyterian Synod in Edinburgh of 1878 a charge against the Rev. Fergus Ferguson of heresy, because his teaching was in conflict with the church doctrine of the atonement in saying that sinners, apart from Christ’s intervention, would not suffer eternal punishment but extinction, and that the same fate still lay before unbelievers and the impenitent. After five days’ violent discussion, the majority of the synod, while strongly dissenting from his views and urging him to avoid it in his preaching and catechising, resolved to retain him in office as having proved his adherence to the orthodox doctrine of the atonement. But when, at next year’s synod, the Rev. D. Macrae of Gourock asserted that, in spite of the Westminster Confession, it was allowable for ministers to deny the eternity of punishment, and would not promise to preach otherwise, he was unanimously deposed.—Far more exciting and long continued were the proceedings begun in the Free Church in 1876, against Professor Robertson Smith of Aberdeen, who was charged before his presbytery with offensive statements about angels, but especially with contradicting the inspiration of Scripture by contesting the Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy. After various proposals of deposition, suspension, rebuke, acquittal, had been made, the General Assembly of 1880, after much deliberation and discussion, by a majority found the charge of heterodoxy not proven, but earnestly exhorted the accused to greater circumspection and moderation, and the decision was greeted with thundering applause from the students and waving of handkerchiefs from the ladies present. But when, very soon after this acquittal, several other contributions by him appeared in the Encyclopædia Britannica, on the Hebrew Language and Literature, and Haggai, in the spirit of the Wellhausen criticism (§ 182, 18), as also an article on Animal Worship among the Arabians and in the Old Testament, in the Journal of Philology, the Commission sitting in Edinburgh reinstituted proceedings against him. In October, 1880, Smith vindicated before that court his scientific attitude toward the Old Testament, maintaining that a moderate criticism of the biblical books was reconcilable with the maintenance of their inspired authority. The majority of the Commission, however, voted for his expulsion from his chair. Smith protested both against the competence and against the judgment of the Commission, but declared himself ready to submit to the judgment of the General Assembly. Meanwhile he accepted an invitation from Glasgow to deliver public lectures there on the Old Testament, which were received with extraordinary favour. This course was published under the title: “The Old Testament in the Jewish Church.” The General Assembly of May, 1881, now decided by a large majority to remove him from his academical chair, with retention of his license and his professor’s salary, which latter, however, Smith declined. But his numerous sympathizers presented him with a scientific library worth £3,000, and promised an annual stipend equal to his former salary. In 1883 he received the appointment as Professor of Arabic in Cambridge and the large revenues of that office allowed him to decline the offer of his friends.[560]

§ 202.9. The Catholic Church in Ireland.—The Catholic inhabitants of Ireland under Protestant proprietors, and forced to pay tithes for the support of the Protestant clergy, were always deprived of civil rights. In 1809 O’Connell (died 1847), an agitator of great popular eloquence, placed himself at the head of the oppressed people, in order in a constitutional way to secure religious and political freedom and equality. At last, in 1829, the Emancipation Bill, supported by Peel and Wellington, was passed, which on the basis of the formal declaration of the whole Catholic episcopate that papal infallibility and papal sovereignty in civil matters was not part of the Catholic faith nor could be joined therewith either in Ireland or anywhere else in the Catholic world, gave to Catholics admission to parliament and to all civil and military appointments. But the hated tithes remained, and were enforced, when refused, by military force. After long debates in both houses of parliament, the Tithes Bill was adopted in 1838, which transferred the tithe as a land-tax from tenants to proprietors, which, however, was only a postponing of the question. It was thus regarded by O’Connell. He declared that justice for Ireland could only be got by abolishing the legislative union with Great Britain existing since 1800, and restoring her independent parliament. For this purpose he organized the Repeal Association. In 1840 another no less powerful popular agitator arose in the person of the Irish Capuchin, Father Mathew, the apostle of temperance, who with unparalleled success persuaded thousands of those degraded by drink to take vows of abstinence from spirituous liquors. He kept apart from all political agitation, but the fruits of his exertions were all in its favour. O’Connell in 1843 organized monster meetings, attended by hundreds of thousands. The government had him tried, the jury found him guilty, but the House of Lords quashed the conviction and liberated him from prison in 1844. The Peel ministry now sought to soothe the excitement by passing in 1845 the Legacy Act, which allowed Catholics to hold property in their own names, and the Maynooth Bill, by which the theological seminary at Maynooth received a rich endowment from the State. Continued famine, and consequent emigration of several hundreds of thousands to America and Australia, relieved Ireland of a considerable portion of its Catholic population, while Protestant missions by Bible and tract circulation and by schools had some success in evangelizing those who remained. On November 5th, 1855, the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, the Redemptorists at Kingstown, near Dublin, erected and burnt a great bonfire in the public streets of Bibles which they had seized, and the primate archbishop of Ireland justified it by reference to the example of the believers at Ephesus (Acts xix. 19).

§ 202.10. The Fenian movement, originating among the American Irish, which since 1863 created such terror among the English, was the result of political rather than religious agitation. Although this movement failed in its proper end, namely the complete separation of Ireland from England, it yet forced upon the government the conviction of the absolute necessity of meeting the just demands of the Irish by thorough-going reforms and putting an end to the oppressions which the native farmers suffered at the hands of foreign landowners, and the grievances endured by the Catholic church by the maintenance of the Anglican church established in Ireland. The carrying out of these reforms was the service rendered by the Gladstone ministry. By the Irish Land Bill of 1870 the land question was solved according to the demands of justice, and by the Irish Church Bill of 1869, which deprived the Anglican church in Ireland of the character of a state church and put it on the same footing as other denominations, the church question was similarly settled. The dignitaries of the Anglican church thus lost their position as state officials and their seats in the House of Lords. The rich property of the hitherto established church was calculated and applied partly to compensating for losses caused by this reform, partly to creating benevolent institutions for the general good. But neither the Church Bill, nor the Land Bill, nor the Universities Bill, which in 1880 founded by state aid a Catholic university in Dublin, secured the reconciliation of the Irish. “Eternal hatred of England” was and is the battle cry; “Ireland for the Irish, and only for them,” is their watchword. In order to carry out this scheme an Irish “National League” was formed, and innumerable secret “Moonlighters,” under the supposed leadership of “Captain Moonshine,” committed atrocities by burning farm steadings and mutilating cattle, murdering and massacring by dagger and revolver, petroleum and dynamite, and directed their operations against the representatives of the government, against proprietors who sought rent, against tenants who paid rent, against officials who endeavoured to enforce it, and against everything that was, or was called, English. In order to cut at the root of this lawlessness, which by proclamation of a state of siege was only restricted, not overthrown, the government of 1881 passed further agrarian reforms: All tenant rights were to be purchased by the surplus of the fund formed by the disestablishment of the Irish church, and where this did not suffice, by state grants, and the right to conclude contracts for rent and to determine its amount was transferred from the proprietors to a newly-constituted land court, without whose permission, after the lapse of the fifteen years’ term, no rent contract could be made. But even this did not stop almost daily repeated murders and acts of destruction. The government now sought the aid of the pope through the mediation of a Catholic member of parliament on a visit to Rome; but these merely confidential negotiations led to no considerable result. In May, 1883, the curia, on the occasion of a collection promoted by the National League as a magnificent national present to the great (Protestant) leader of the agitation, Mr. Parnell, in a circular letter, forbad “proprio motu,” the bishops in the strictest manner taking any part in the movement, and urged them to dissuade their members from doing so. But only Archbishop McCabe of Dublin (died 1885), from the first an opponent of the League, issued a pastoral against it to be read in all the pulpits of his diocese. The other bishops ignored the papal command, and among the Catholic people the opinion obtained that they owed to the pope obedience in spiritual but not in political matters. The collections for the Parnell fund were continued with redoubled zeal. The attempts of dynamitards, supplied with materials by their American compatriots, and other agrarian offences have not yet been finally stopped.

§ 202.11. The Catholic Church in England and Scotland.—The Emancipation Act, passed mainly for the relief of the Irish, naturally also benefited English Catholics, who in 1791 had been allowed to hold Catholic services. Led by the numerous accessions of Puseyites to entertain the most extravagant hopes, Pius IX. in 1850 issued a bull, by which the Roman Catholic hierarchy in England was reinstituted with twelve suffragan bishoprics under one archbishop of Westminster. The bull occasioned great excitement in the Protestant population (Anti-Papal Aggression), and the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill forbade the use of ecclesiastical titles not sanctioned by the law of the land. After the first excitement had passed, the Catholic bishops, at their head the learned and brilliant and zealous ultramontane Cardinal Archbishop Wiseman (died 1865), and his successor, surpassing him, if not in genius and learning, at least in ultramontane zeal, the Puseyite convert Manning, made a cardinal in 1875, used with impunity their condemned titles, until in 1871 the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill was formally revoked by act of parliament. Conversions in noble families were particularly numerous in the later decades. Since 1850 the number of Catholics in England and Scotland has quadrupled. This has been caused in great part by Irish emigration, for the middle and lower ranks of the English have scarcely been affected by the conversion fever, which as the latest form of the fitful humour of the English had so rich a harvest in the families of the nobility. In 1780 all London had only one Catholic place of worship, the chapel of the Sardinian embassy, which on June 2nd of that year was wrecked and burnt by a raging mob. Now the English capital has two episcopal dioceses, ninety-four Catholic churches and chapels (besides about 900 Anglican churches) with 313 clergymen, and forty-four cloisters. In the House of Lords sit twenty-eight Roman Catholic peers, and in both countries there are forty-seven Catholic baronets. Since 1847 England has a specifically Catholic university at Kensington, under the episcopate, and with the pope as its supreme head, which, however, with its poor staff of teachers and its expensive course attracts but a few of the Catholic youth of England. Since the Anti-Papal Aggression of 1850 failed, the Protestant people have shown themselves comparatively indifferent to such assumptions of the papacy.—In the Act of Union of 1707 (§ 155, 3), Scotland was guaranteed the absolute exclusion of every sort of Roman Catholic hierarchy for all time to come. But in recent times the number of its Catholic inhabitants so greatly increased, that Pius IX. in his last years, not unaided by the English government, eagerly urged the re-establishment of the hierarchy, and Leo XIII. was able at his first consistory of the college of cardinals in March, 1878, to make appointments to the two newly-erected archdioceses and their bishoprics. On the following Easter Sunday the allocution relating thereto was read in all Catholic churches in Scotland. The restoration was thus carried out in spite of all protests and demonstrations of Scottish Protestants.

§ 202.12. German Lutheran Congregations in Australia.—Besides the dominant Anglican church, emigration has led to the formation of a considerable number of German Lutheran congregations, which are distributed in three synods.

1. The Victoria Synod was founded in 1852 by pastor Göthe. It adopted at first the union platform, but subsequently attached itself more decidedly to the Lutheran confession.

2. Pastor Karch, who in 1830 emigrated with a number of Prussian Lutherans, in order to avoid the union, laid the foundation of the Immanuel Synod. Since 1875 it has been supplied with preachers from the missionary institute of Neuendettelsau. It is distinguished by its missionary zeal for the conversion of the natives, pursues with special interest the study of the prophetic word, and makes chiliasm an open question which need not rend the church.

3. The South Australian Synod, on the other hand, is the decided opponent of any sort of chiliasm, and has assumed an attitude of violent antagonism to the Immanuel Synod.

§ 203. FRANCE.

In France, lauded as the eldest daughter of the church after the overthrow of the first Empire, ultramontanism, under the secret and open co-operation of the Jesuits, has ever arisen with revived youth and vigour out of all the political convulsions which have since passed over the land. And though indeed Gallicanism seemed again to obtain strength under the second Empire and, down to the close of that period, found many able champions among learned theologians like Bishop Maret (§ 189, 1), and even among exalted prelates like the noble Archbishop Darboy of Paris, a martyr of his office under the Commune (§ 212, 4), its influence faded gradually, and in the latest phase of France’s political development, the third republic, seems utterly to have disappeared, so that even the “Kulturkampf” which broke out in 1879 could not give it life again.—The number of Protestant churches and church members, in spite of bloody persecutions during the Bourbon restoration, and many arbitrary restrictions by Catholic prefects under the citizen king and the second Empire, by numerous accessions of whole congregations and groups of congregations through zealous evangelization efforts, by means of school instruction, itinerant preaching, and Bible colportage, has increased during the century fourfold. In the Reformed church the opposition of methodistically tinctured orthodoxy, reinforced from England and French Switzerland, and rationalistic freethinking, led to sharp conflicts. Also in the Lutheran church, more strongly influenced by Germany, similar discussions arose, but a more conciliatory spirit prevailed and violent struggles were avoided.

§ 203.1. The French Church under Napoleon I.—In 1801 Napoleon as Consul concluded with Pius VII. a Concordat which, adopting the concordat of Francis I. (§ 110, 14), abandoning the pragmatic sanction of Bourges, and only haggling about the limits to be fixed for the two powers, gave no consideration to the idea of a wholesome internal reform of the French Church: Catholicism is the acknowledged religion of the majority of the French people; the church property belongs to the state, with the obligation to maintain the clergy and ordinances; the clergy who had taken the oath and those who were expatriated were all to resign, but were eligible for election; new boundaries were to be marked out for the episcopal dioceses with reference to the political divisions of the country; the government elects and the pope confirms the bishops, and these, with approval of the government, appoint the priests. The one-sided Organic Articles of the first Consul of 1802, which were annexed to the publication of the Concordat as a code of explanatory regulations, made any proclamation of papal orders and decrees of all foreign councils dependent on previous permission of the government, as also the calling of synods and consultative assemblies of the clergy. They further ordained that all official services of the clergy should be gratuitous, and transferred to the civil council the right and duty of strict inquiry into any clerical breach of civil laws and any misuse or excessive exercise of clerical authority. The thirty-first article, however, created that unhappy order of Desservants or curates, the result of which was that interim appointments were made to most of the benefices in order to squeeze state pay in supplement to the inadequate ecclesiastical endowments, and so their holders were at the absolute mercy of the bishops who could transport or dispense with them at any moment. For further particulars about the friendly and hostile relations of Napoleon and the pope, see § 185, 1. By an imperial decree of 1810, the four articles of the Gallican Church (§ 156, 3) were made laws of the Empire; and a French National Council of 1811 sought to complete the reconstruction of the church according to Napoleon’s ideas, but proved utterly incapable for such a task, and was therefore dissolved by the emperor himself.—To pacify the Protestants, dissatisfied with the Concordat, amid flattering acknowledgment of their services to the state, to science and to the arts, an appendix was attached to the Organic Articles, securing to them liberty of religious worship and political and municipal equality with Catholics. For training ministers for the Reformed Church a theological seminary was founded at Montauban, and for Lutherans an academy with a seminary at Strassburg. Napoleon also afterwards proved himself on every occasion ready to help the Protestants. He was equally forward in recognising public opinion in France. The National Institute of France in 1804 offered a prize for an essay on the influence of Luther’s Reformation on the formation and advance of European national life, and awarded it to the treatise of the Catholic physician Villers (Essai sur l’influence de la réf. de Luther, etc.), which in all respects glorified Protestantism. Even the Catholic clergy during the first Empire exhibited an easy temper and tolerance such as was never shown before or since. The obligatory civil marriage law introduced by the Revolution in 1792, obtained place in the Code Napoléon in 1804, and was with it introduced in Belgium and the provinces of the Rhine.[561]

§ 203.2. The Restoration and the Citizen Kingdom.—The Charter of the Bourbon Restoration under Louis XVIII. (1814-1824) and Charles X. (1824-1830) made Catholicism the state religion and granted toleration and state protection to the other confessions. A new concordat concluded with Pius VII. in 1817, by which that of Napoleon of 1801, with the Organic Articles of the following year, were abrogated, and the state of matters previous to 1789 restored, was so vigorously opposed by the nation, that the ministry were obliged to withdraw the measure introduced in both chambers for giving it legislative sanction. Ultramontanism, however, in its boldest form, steadily favoured by the government, soon prevailed among the clergy to such an extent that any inclination to Gallicanism was denounced as heresy and intolerance of Protestantism lauded as piety. In southern France the rekindled hatred of the Catholic mob against the Reformed broke out in 1815 in brutal and bloody persecution. The government kept silence till the indignation of Europe obliged it to put down the atrocities, but the offenders were left unpunished. Connivance in such lawlessness on the part of the government contributed largely to its overthrow in the July revolution of 1830. The Catholic Church then lost again the privilege of a state religion, and the hitherto persecuted and oppressed Protestants obtained equal rights with the Catholics. But even under the new constitutional government of Orleans, ultramontanism soon reasserted itself. The Protestants had to complain of much injury and injustice from Catholic prefects, and the Protestant minister Guizot claimed for France the protectorate of the whole Catholic world. The Reformed Church meanwhile flourished, though vacillating between methodistic narrowness and rationalistic shallowness, growing both inwardly and outwardly, and also the Lutheran communities, which outside of Alsace were only thinly scattered, enjoyed great prosperity. In the February revolution of 1848 the Catholic clergy readily yielded obedience to the citizen king Louis Philippe, and, on the ground that the Catholic church is suited to any form of government which only grants liberty to the church, did not refuse their benediction to the tree of freedom with the sovereign people at the barricades.

§ 203.3. The Catholic Church under Napoleon III.—Louis Napoleon, as president of the new republic (1848-1852), and still more decidedly as emperor (1852-1870), inclined to follow the traditions of his uncle, regarded the concordat of 1801 as still legally in force and seemed specially anxious to arouse zeal for the Gallican liberties. Although his bayonets secured the pope’s return to Rome (§ 185, 2) and even afterwards supported his authority there, he did not fulfil the heart’s wish of the emperor by the people’s grace to place the imperial crown upon his head in his own person. Severely strained relations between the imperial court and the episcopate resulted in 1860 from a pamphlet against the papacy inspired by the government (§ 185, 3). Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, was one of the oldest and most determined defenders of the interests of the papal see, and from Poitiers the emperor was pretty openly characterized as a second Pilate. The government did not venture directly to interfere between the two, but reminded the bishops that the emperor’s differences with the pope referred only to temporal affairs. It also forbade the forming of separate societies for the collecting of Peter’s pence, and dissolved the societies of St. Vincent, instituted for benevolent purposes, but misused for ultramontane agitations. When Archbishop Desprez of Toulouse, like his predecessors in 1662 and 1762, on May 16th, 1862, with pompous phrases of piety appointed the jubilee festival of the “fait glorieux,” by which at Toulouse three hundred years before, by means of shameful treachery and base breach of pledges 4,000 Protestants were murdered (§ 139, 15), a shout of indignation rose from almost all French journals and the government forbade the ceremonial. It also refused permission to proclaim the papal encyclical with the syllabus (§ 185, 2) and condemned several bishops who disobeyed for misuse of their office. Under the influence of the ultramontane empress Eugenie, however, the relation of the government to the curia and the higher clergy of the empire, since the one could not do without the other, became more friendly and intimate, till the day of Sedan, September 2nd, 1870, put an end to the Napoleonic empire and the temporal power of the papacy which it had maintained.

§ 203.4. The Protestant Churches under Napoleon III.—After the revolution of 1848, the Lutherans at an assembly in Strassburg and the Reformed in Paris consulted about a new organization of their churches. But as the latter resolved in order to maintain constitutional union amid doctrinal diversity, entirely to set aside symbol and dogma, pastor Fr. Monod and Count Gasparin, the noble defenders of French Protestantism, lodged a protest, and with thirty congregations of the strict party constituted a new council at Paris in 1849, independent of the state, as the Union des églises évangéliques de France with biennial synods. Louis Napoleon gave to the Reformed Church a central council in Paris with consistories and presbyteries; to the Lutheran, an annual general consistory as a legislative court and a standing directory as an administrative court. The Lutheran theological faculty at Strassburg with its vigorous unconfessional science represents the westernmost school of Schleiermacher’s theology. The academy at Montauban, with Adolph Monod at its head, represents Reformed orthodoxy, not strictly confessional but coloured by methodistic piety, and Coquerel in Paris, was the head of the rationalistic party of the Reformed national church. The lead in the reaction against rationalism since 1830 has been taken by the Société évangélique at Paris, which, aiming at the Protestantising of France, and using for this end Bible colportage, tract distribution, the sending out of evangelists, school instruction, etc., has developed an extraordinarily restless and successful activity. It has been powerfully supported by the evangelical society of Geneva. The number of Protestant clergymen in France has steadily risen, and almost every year in and out of the Catholic population new evangelical congregations have been formed, in spite of endless difficulties put in the way by Catholic courts. In Strassburg, in 1854, the Jesuits persuaded the Catholic prefects to recall and arrest the revenues of the former St. Thomas institute, which since the Reformation had been applied to the maintenance of a Protestant gymnasium. The prefect of Paris, however, was instructed to desist from his claims. In the speech from the throne in 1858, the emperor declared that the government secured for Protestants full liberty of worship, without forgetting, however, that Catholicism is the religion of the majority, and the Moniteur commented on this imperial speech so evidently in the spirit of the Univers, that the prefects could not be in doubt how to understand it. By General Espinasse, who, after the Orsini attempt on the emperor’s life in 1858, officiated for a long time as Minister of the Interior, the prefects were expressly instructed, to extend their espionage of the ill-affected press to the proceedings of the evangelical societies, and to prohibit the colportage of Protestant Bibles. On a change of minister, however, the latter enactment was withdrawn, and only agents of foreign Bible societies were interfered with. By an imperial decree of 1859, the right of permitting of the opening of new Protestant churches and chapels was taken from the local courts and transferred to the imperial council of state. For every Protestant congregation, so soon as it numbered 400 souls, the legal state salary for the clergymen would be paid.

§ 203.5. The Catholic Church in the Third French Republic.—The Gambetta government, the national vindication of the 4th September, 1870, resigned its power in February, 1871, into the hands of the National Assembly elected by the whole nation, which, although through clerical influence upon the electors predominantly monarchical and clerical, appointed the old Voltairean Thiers (died, 1877), formerly ministerial president under Louis Philippe, as alone qualified for the difficult post of president of the republic. In the necessary second vote, indeed, there was a considerable increase of the republican and as such thoroughly anti-clerical party; but even in its ranks it was admitted that the establishment of France as leader of all Europe in the fight against ultramontanism and the co-operation therein of the clergy were the absolutely indispensable means for the political Revanche, after which the hearts of all Frenchmen longed as the hart for the water streams. A petition from five bishops and other dignitaries to the National Assembly for the restoration of the temporal power of the pope was set aside as inopportune. But Archbishop Guibert of Paris, without asking the government, proclaimed the infallibility dogma, and the minister of instruction, Jules Simon, contented himself with warning the episcopate in a friendly way against any further illegal steps of that kind. The clerical party was also successful in its protest to the National Assembly against the education law, which by raising the standard of instruction, placing it under the supervision of the state and making inspection of schools obligatory, proposed to put an end to the terrible ignorance of the French people as the chief cause of their deep decay. Bishop Dupanloup of Orleans was appointed president of the commission for examining it, and so its fate was sealed. Meanwhile the people, by frequent manifestations of the Virgin, were roused to a high pitch of religious excitement. Crowds of pilgrims encouraged by miraculous healings flocked to our Lady of La Salette, at Lourdes, etc. (§ 188, 6), and the consecration of Notre Dame de la Deliverance at Bayeux was celebrated as a brilliant national festival. When in May, 1873, Thiers gave way before the machinations of his opponents and, under the new president, Marshal Macmahon, the thoroughly clerical ministry of the Duc de Broglie got the helm of affairs, the pilgrimage craze, mariolatry and ultramontane piety, aided by the prefects and mayors, increased to an unparalleled extent among all ranks. Under the Buffet ministry of 1875 the influence of clericalism was unabated. To him it owed its most important acquisition, the right of creating free Catholic universities wholly independent of the State, with the privilege of conferring degrees. But when in 1876 the new elections for the National Assembly gave an anti-clerical majority, Buffet was obliged to resign. The new Dufaure ministry, with the Protestant Waddington as minister of instruction, declared indeed that it continued the liberty of instruction, but decidedly refused the right of conferring degrees. The proposal to this effect met with the hearty support of the new chamber of deputies. But all the greater was the jubilation of the clericals when the senate by a small majority refused its consent, and all the more eagerly was the founding of new free Catholic universities carried on, at Paris, Angers, Lyons, Lille and Toulouse, but notwithstanding every effort they only attracted a very small number of scholars,—in 1879, when they flourished most, at all the five there were only 742 students.

§ 203.6. The French “Kulturkampf,” 1880.—The Dufaure ministry was succeeded in December, 1876, by the semi-liberal ministry of Jules Simon, which again was driven out in a summary fashion by president Macmahon on May 16th, 1877, and replaced, on the dissolution of the chamber, by a clerical ministry under Duc de Broglie. But in the newly elected chamber the republican anti-clerical majority was so overwhelming that Macmahon, on January 30th, 1879, abandoning his motto of government, J’y suis et j’y reste, was at last obliged, between the alternatives offered him by Gambetta, Se soumettre ou se démettre, to choose the latter. His successor was Grévy, president of the Chamber, who entrusted the protestant Waddington with the forming of a new ministry in which Jules Ferry was minister of instruction. Ferry brought in a bill in March to abolish the representation of the clergy in the High Council of Education by four archiepiscopal deputies, continuing indeed the free Catholic universities, but requiring their students to enroll in a state university which alone could hold examinations and give degrees, and finally enacting by Article 7 that the right of teaching in all educational institutions should be refused to members of all religious orders and congregations not recognised by the state. The chamber deputies accepted this bill without amendment on July 9th, but the senate on March 7th, 1880, after passing six articles refused to adopt the seventh. On March 29th, the president of the republic issued on his own authority two decrees, based indeed upon earlier enactments (1789-1852), gone into desuetude indeed, but never abrogated (§ 186, 2), demanded the dissolution of the Society of Jesus, containing 1,480 members in 56 institutions, within three months, and insisted that the orders and congregations not recognised by the State, embracing 14,033 sisters in 602 institutions and 7,444 brothers in 384 institutions, in the same time should by production of their statutes and rules seek formal recognition or else be broken up. A storm of protests on the part of the bishops greeted these “March Decrees,” and riotous demonstrations made before the Minister of Instruction at his residence at Lille expressed the protests of the students of the Catholic university there. The pope now broke his reserve and by a nuncio sent the president of the republic a holograph letter in which he declared that he must interfere on behalf of the Jesuits and the threatened orders, because they were indispensably necessary to the wellbeing of the church. He did not wish that they should have recourse to unlawful means, but it must be understood that they would appeal to the courts for protection of their threatened civil liberties. When therefore on the morning of June 30th the police began their work of expelling the Jesuits from their houses, these lodged a complaint before the courts of invasion of their domestic peace and infringement of their personal liberty. Their schools were closed on August 31st, the end of the school year; meanwhile they had taken the precaution to transfer most of them to such as would be ready afterwards to restore them. The enforcement of the second of the March Decrees against the other orders was delayed for a while. A compromise proposed by the episcopate, favoured by the pope and not absolutely rejected even by the minister Freycinet, Waddington’s successor, according to which instead of the required application for recognition all these orders should sign a declaration of loyalty, undertaking to avoid all participation in political affairs and to do nothing opposed to existing order, brought about the overthrow of this ministry in September, 1880, by the machinations from other motives of the president of the chamber and latent dictator, Leon Gambetta. At the head of the new ministry was Ferry, who held the portfolio of instruction, and under him the carrying out of the second March Decree began on October 16th, 1880. Up to the meeting of the chamber in November 261 monasteries had been vacated; the rest, as from the first all female congregations, were spared, so that France with its colonies and mission stations still number 4,288 male and 14,990 female settlements of spiritual orders, the former with about 32,000, the latter with about 166,200 inmates.—The expulsion of the Jesuits, as well as the more recent of the other orders, was, however, stoutly opposed. The police told off for this duty found doors shut and barricaded against them or defended by fanatical peasants and mobs of shrieking women, so that they had often to be stormed and broken up by the military. Still more threatening than this opposition was the reaction which began to assert itself at the instance of the almost thoroughly ultramontane jurists of the country, a survival of the times of Napoleon III. and Macmahon. An advocate Rousse, who publicly stated the opinion that the March Decrees were illegal and therefore not binding, was supported by 2,000 attorneys and over 200 corporations of attorneys and by many distinguished university jurists. More than 200 state officials and many judiciary and police officers, together with several officers of the army, tendered their resignations so as to avoid taking part in the execution of the decrees. When it became clear that unfavourable verdicts would be given by the courts invoked by the Jesuits against the executors of the decree, as indeed was soon actually done by several courts, the government lodged an appeal against their competence before the tribunal of conflicts which also actually in regard to all such cases pronounced them incompetent and their decisions therefore null and void; but the complainers insisted that their complaints should be taken to a Council of State as the only court suitable to deal with charges against officials, which, as might be expected, was not done.

§ 203.7. In the future course of the French “Kulturkampf” the most important proceedings of the government were the following: The abolition of the institute of military chaplains, highly serviceable in ultramontanizing the officers, was carried out in 1880, as well as the requirement that the clergy and teachers should give military service for one year, and subsequently also military escorts to the Corpus Christi procession were forbidden. In 1880 the Municipal Council of Paris, with the concurrence of the prefect of the Seine, forbad the continuance of the beautiful building of the church of the Heart of Jesus begun in 1875 on Montmartre (§ 188, 12), confiscating the site that had been granted for it. In 1881 the churchyards were relieved of their denominational character, and the following year the right of managing them, with permission of merely civil interment without the aid of a clergyman, was transferred from the ecclesiastical to the civil authorities. By introducing in 1880 high schools for girls with boarding establishments an end was put to the education of girls of the upper ranks in nunneries, which had hitherto been the almost exclusive practice. Far more sweeping was the School Act brought in by the radical minister of worship, Paul Bert, and first enforced in October, 1886, which made attendance compulsory, relegated religious instruction wholly to the church and home, and absolutely excluded all the clergy from the right of giving any sort of instruction in the public schools, and demanded the removal of all crucifixes and other religious symbols from the school buildings. In December, 1884, a tax was imposed on the property of all religious orders, also the state allowance for the five Catholic seminaries with only thirty-seven students was withdrawn, and many other important deductions made upon the budget for Catholic worship, which at first the senate opposed, but at last agreed to. The Divorce Bill frequently introduced since 1881, which permitted parties to marry again, and gave disposal of the matter to the civil court, got the assent of the senate only in the end of July, 1884. The clericals were also greatly offended by the decree passed in May, 1885, which closed the church of St. Genoveva, the former Pantheon, as a place of worship and made it again a burial place for distinguished Frenchmen. This resolution was first carried out by placing there the remains of Victor Hugo. Amid these and many other injuries to its interests the Roman curia, concentrating all its energies upon the German “Kulturkampf,” endeavoured to keep things back in a moderate way. Yet in July, 1883, the pope addressed to president Grévy a friendly but earnest remonstrance, which he treated simply as a private letter and, without communicating it officially to his cabinet, answered that apart from parliament he could not act, but that so far as he and his ministry were able they would seek to avoid conflict with the holy see. And in fact the government, especially after the overthrow of the Gambetta ministry in 1882, often successfully opposed the proposal of the radical chamber, e.g. the separation of church and state, the abrogation of the concordat, the recall of the embassy to the Vatican, the abolition of religious oaths in the proceedings of the courts, the stopping of the state subvention of a million francs for payment of salaries in seminaries for priests, etc.

§ 203.8. The Protestant Churches under the Third Republic.—Since the French Reformed began to emulate their Catholic countrymen in wild Chauvinism, fanatical hatred of Germany and unreasoning enthusiasm for the Revanche, they were left by the advancing clerical party unmolested in respect of life, confession and worship during the time of war. The Lutherans on the other hand, consisting, although on French territory, mainly of German emigrants and settlers, even their French members not so disposed to Chauvinistic extravagance, were obliged to atone for this double offence by expulsion from house and home and by various injuries to their ecclesiastical interests. After the conclusion of peace, especially under Thiers’ moderate government, this fanaticism gradually cooled down, so that the expelled Germans returned and the churches and institutions that had been destroyed were restored, so far as means would allow. By the decree of Waddington, the minister of instruction, of date March 27th, 1877, instead of the theological faculty of Strassburg, now lost for the French Lutheran church, one for both Protestant churches was founded in Paris.—The Lutheran Church, in consequence of the cession of Alsace-Lorraine, had only sixty-four out of 278 pastorates and six out of forty-four consistories remaining. At the general synod convened at Paris, in July, 1872, by the government for reorganising the Lutheran church it was resolved: To form two inspectorates independent of each other—Paris, predominantly orthodox, Mömpelgard, predominantly liberal; the general assembly, which meets every third year alternately at Mömpelgard and Paris, to consist of delegates from both. The two inspectorates are to correspond in administrative matters directly with the minister of public instruction, but in everything referring to confession, doctrine, worship and discipline, the general assembly is the supreme authority. In regard to the confessional question they agreed to the statement, that the holy Scripture is the supreme authority in matters of faith, and the Augsburg Confession the basis of the legal constitution of the church. An express undertaking on the part of the clergy to this effect is not, however, insisted upon. Only in 1879 could this constitution obtain legal sanction by the State, and that only after considerable modification in the direction of liberalism, especially in reference to electoral qualification. In consequence of this the first ordinary general assembly held in Paris in May, 1881, found both parties in a conciliatory mood.—The Reformed Church, with about 500 pastorates and 105 consistories, summoned by order of government a newly constituted General Assembly at Paris, in June, 1872. Prominent among the leaders of the orthodox party was the aged ex-minister Guizot; the leaders of the liberals were Coquerel and Colani. The former supported the proposal of Professor Bois of Montauban, who insisted on the frank and full confession of holy Scripture as the sovereign authority in matters of faith, of Christ as the only Son of God, and of justification by faith as the legal basis of instruction, worship and discipline; while the latter protested against every attempt to lay down an obligatory and exclusive confession. The orthodox party prevailed and the dissenters who would not yield were struck off the voting lists. When now in consequence of the complaint of the liberal party the summoning of an ordinary general assembly was refused by the government, the orthodox party repeatedly met in “official” provincial and general assemblies without state sanction. The council of state then declared all decisions regarding voting qualifications passed by the synod of 1872 to be null and void, the minister of worship, Ferry, ordered the readmission of electors struck from the lists, and his successor Bert legalized, by a decree of March 25th, 1882, the division of the Parisian consistorial circuit into two independent consistories of Paris and Versailles, moved for by the liberal party but opposed by the orthodox. But upon the elections for the new consistory of Paris, ordered in spite of all protests, and for the presbyteries of the eight parishes assigned to it, contrary to all expectation, in seven of these the elections with great majorities were in favour of the orthodox, and the first official document issued by the new consistory was a solemn protest against the decree to which it owed its existence. Under such circumstances the government as well as the liberal party had no desire for the calling of an official general assembly, and the latter resolved at a general assembly at Nimes, in October, 1882, to institute official synods of their own for consultation and protection of their own interests.

§ 204. ITALY.

In Italy matters returned to their old position after the restoration of 1814. But liberalism, aiming at the liberty and unity of Italy, gained the mastery, and where for the time it prevailed, the Jesuits were expelled, and the power of the clergy restricted; where it failed, both came back with greatly increased importance. The arms of Austria and subsequently also of France stamped out on all sides the revolutionary movements. Pius IX., who at first was not indisposed, contrary to all traditions of the papacy, to put himself at the head of the national party, was obliged bitterly to regret his dealings with the liberals (§ 185, 2). Sardinia, Modena and Naples put the severest strain upon the bow of the restoration, while Parma and Tuscany distinguished themselves by adopting liberal measures in a moderate degree. Sardinia, however, in 1840 came to a better mind. Charles Albert first broke ground with a more liberal constitution, and in 1848 proclaimed himself the deliverer of Italy, but yielded to the arms of Austria. His son Victor Emanuel II. succeeded amid singularly favourable circumstances in uniting the whole peninsula under his sceptre as a united kingdom of Italy governed by liberal institutions.

§ 204.1. The Kingdom of Sardinia.—Victor Emanuel I. after the restoration had nothing else to do but to recall the Jesuits, to hand over to them the whole management of the schools, and, guided and led by them in everything, to restore the church and state to the condition prevailing before 1789. Charles Felix (1821-1831) carried still further the absolutist-reactionary endeavours of his predecessor, and even Charles Albert (1831-1849) refused for a long time to realize the hopes which the liberal party had previously placed in him. Only in the second decade of his reign did he begin gradually to display a more liberal tendency, and at last in 1848 when, in consequence of the French Revolution, Lombardy rose against the Austrian rule, he placed himself at the head of the national movement for freeing Italy from the yoke of strangers. But the king gloried in as “the sword of Italy” was defeated and obliged to abdicate. Victor Emanuel II. (1849-1878) allowed meanwhile the liberal constitution of his father to remain and indeed carried it out to the utmost. The minister of justice, Siccardi, proposed a new legislative code which abolished all clerical jurisdiction in civil and criminal proceedings, as also the right of asylum and of exacting tithes, the latter with moderate compensation. It was passed by parliament and subscribed by the king in 1850. The clergy, with archbishop Fransoni of Turin at their head, protested with all their might against these sacrilegious encroachments on the rights of the church. Fransoni was on this account committed for a month to prison and, when he refused the last sacrament to a minister, was regularly sentenced to deposition and banishment from the country. Pius IX. thwarted all attempts to obtain a new concordat. But the government went recklessly forward. As Fransoni from his exile in France continued his agitation, all the property of the archiepiscopal chair was in 1854 sequestered and a number of cloisters were closed. Soon all penalties in the penal code for spreading non-Catholic doctrines were struck out and non-Catholic soldiers freed from compulsory attendance at mass on Sundays and festivals. The chief blow now fell on March 2nd, 1855, in the Cloister Act, which abolished all orders and cloisters not devoted to preaching, teaching, and nursing the sick. In consequence 331 out of 605 cloisters were shut up. The pope ceased not to condemn all these sacrilegious and church robbing acts, and when his threats were without result, thundered the great excommunication in July, 1855, against all originators, aiders, and abettors of such deeds. Among the masses this indeed caused some excitement, but it never came to an explosion.

§ 204.2. The Kingdom of Italy.—Amid such vigorous progress the year 1859 came round with its fateful Franco-Italian war. The French alliance had not indeed, as it promised, made Italy free to the Adriatic, but by the peace of Villafranca the whole of Lombardy was given to the kingdom of Sardinia as a present from the emperor of the French. In the same year by popular vote Tuscany, including Modena and Parma, and in the following year the kingdom of the two Sicilies, as well as the three provinces of the States of the Church, revolted and were annexed, so that the new kingdom of Italy embraced the whole of the peninsula, with the exception of Venice, Rome and the Campagna. Prussia’s remarkable successes in the seven days’ German war of 1866 shook Venice like ripe fruit into the lap of her Italian ally, and the day of Sedan, 1870, prepared the way for the addition of Rome and the Campagna (§ 185, 3).—In Lombardy and then also in Venice, immediately after they had been taken possession of, the concordat with Austria was abrogated and the Jesuits expelled. Ecclesiastical tithes on the produce of the soil were abolished throughout the whole kingdom, begging was forbidden the mendicant friars as unworthy of a spiritual order, ecclesiastical property was put under state control and the support of the clergy provided for by state grants. In 1867 the government began the appropriation and conversion of the church property; in 1870 all religious orders were dissolved, with exception for the time being of those in Rome, wherever they did not engage in educational and other useful works. In May, 1873, this law was extended to the Roman province, only it was not to be applied to the generals of orders in Rome. Nuns and some monks were also allowed to remain in their cloisters situated in unpeopled districts. The amount of state pensions paid to monks and nuns reached in 1882 the sum of eleven million lire, at the rate of 330 lire for each person. The abolition of the theological faculties in ten Italian universities in 1873, because these altogether had only six students of theology, was regarded by the curia rather as a victory than a defeat. The newly appointed bishops were forbidden by the pope to produce their credentials for inspection in order to obtain their salaries from the government. The loss of temporalities thus occasioned was made up by Pius IX. out of Peter’s pence flowing in so abundantly from abroad; each bishop receiving 500 and each archbishop 700 lire in the month. Leo XIII., however, felt obliged in 1879, owing to the great decrease in the Peter’s pence contributions, to cancel this enactment and to permit the bishops to accept the state allowance. In consequence of the civil marriage law passed in 1866 having been altogether ignored by the clergy, nearly 400,000 marriages had down to the close of 1878 received only ecclesiastical sanction, and the offspring of such parties would be regarded in the eye of the law as illegitimate. To obviate this difficulty a law was passed in May, 1879, which insisted that in all cases civil marriage must precede the ecclesiastical ceremony, and clergymen, witnesses and parties engaging in an illegal marriage should suffer three or six months’ imprisonment; but all marriages contracted in accordance merely with church forms before the passing of this law might be legitimized by being entered on the civil register.—Finally in January, 1884, the controversy pending since 1873 as to whether the rich property of the Roman propaganda (§ 156, 9) amounting to twenty million lire should be converted into state consols was decided by the supreme court in favour of the curia, which had pronounced these funds international because consisting of presents and contributions from all lands. But not only was the revenue of the propaganda subjected to a heavy tax, but also all increase of its property forbidden. In vain did the pope by his nuncios call for the intervention of foreign nations. None of these were inclined to meddle in the internal affairs of Italy. The curia now devised the plan of affiliating a number of societies outside of Italy to the propaganda for receiving and administering donations and presents.

§ 204.3. The Evangelization of Italy.—Emigrant Protestants of various nationalities had at an early date, by the silent sufferance of the respective governments, formed small evangelical congregations in some of the Italian cities; in Venice and Leghorn during the seventeenth century, at Bergamo in 1807, at Florence in 1826, at Milan in 1847. Also by aid of the diplomatic intervention of Prussia and England, the erection of Protestant chapels for the embassy was allowed at Rome in 1819, at Naples in 1825, and at Florence in 1826. When in 1848 Italy’s hopes from the liberal tendencies of Pius IX. were so bitterly disappointed, Protestant sympathies began to spread far and wide through the land, even among native Catholics, fostered by English missionaries, Bibles and tracts, which the governments sought in vain to check by prisons, penitentiaries and exile. Persecution began in 1851 in Tuscany, where, in spite of the liberty of faith and worship guaranteed by the constitution of 1848, Tuscan subjects taking part in the Italian services in the chapel of the Prussian embassy at Florence were punished with six months’ hard labour, and in the following year the pious pair Francesco and Rosa Madiai were sentenced to four years’ rigorous punishment in a penitentiary for the crime of having edified themselves and their household by reading the Bible. In vain did the Evangelical Alliance remonstrate (§ 178, 3), in vain did even the king of Prussia intercede. But when, stirred up by public opinion in England, the English premier Lord Palmerston offered to secure the requirement of Christian humanity by means of British ships of war, the grand-duke got rid of both martyrs by banishing them from the country in 1853. In proportion as the union of Italy under Victor Emanuel II. advanced, the field for evangelistic effort and the powers devoted thereto increased. So it was too since 1860 in Southern Italy. But when in 1866 a Protestant congregation began to be formed at Barletta in Naples, a fanatical priest roused a popular mob in which seventeen persons were killed and torn in pieces. The government put down the uproar and punished the miscreants, and the nobler portion of the nation throughout the whole land collected for the families of those murdered. The work of evangelization supported by liberal contributions chiefly from England, but also from Holland, Switzerland, and the German Gustav-Adolf-Verein (§ 178, 1), advanced steadily in spite of occasional brutal interferences of the clergy and the mob, so that soon in all the large cities and in many of the smaller towns of Italy and Sicily there were thriving and flourishing little evangelical congregations of converted native Catholics, numbering as many as 182 in 1882.

§ 204.4. The chief factor in the evangelization of Italy as far as the southern coast of Sicily was the old Waldensian Church, which for three hundred years had occupied the Protestant platform in the spirit of Calvinism (§ 139, 25). Remnants consisting of some 200,000 souls still survived in the valleys of Piedmont, almost without protection of law amid constant persecution and oppressions (§ 153, 5), moderated only by Prussian and English intervention. But when Sardinia headed Italian liberalism in 1848 religious liberty and all civil rights were secured to them. A Waldensian congregation was then formed in the capital, Turin, which was strengthened by numerous Protestant refugees from other parts of Italy. But in 1854 a split occurred between the two elements in it. The new Italian converts objected, not altogether without ground, against the old Waldensians that by maintaining their church government with its centre in the valleys, the so-called “Tables” and their old forms of constitution, doctrine and worship, much too contracted and narrow for the enlarged boundaries of the present, they thought more of Waldensianizing than of evangelizing Italy. Besides, their language since 1630, when a plague caused their preachers and teachers to withdraw from Geneva, had been French, and the national Italian pride was disposed on this domain also to unfurl her favourite banner “Italia farà da se.” The division spread from Turin to the other congregations. At the head of the separatists, afterwards designated the “Free Italian Church” (Chiesa libera), stood Dr. Luigi Desanctis, a man of rich theological culture and glowing eloquence, who, when Catholic priest and theologian of the inquisition at Rome, became convinced of the truth of the evangelical confession, joined the evangelical church at Malta in 1847 and wrought from 1852 with great success in the congregation at Turin. After ten years’ faithful service in the newly formed free church he felt obliged, owing to the Darbyite views (§ 211, 11) that began to prevail in it, to attach himself again in 1864 to the Waldensians, who meanwhile had been greatly liberalised. He now officiated for them till his death in 1869 as professor of theology at Florence, and edited their journal Eco della verità. This journal was succeeded in 1873 by the able monthly Rivista Cristiana, edited at Florence by Prof. Emilio Comba.—After Desanctis left the Chiesa libera its chief representative was the ex-Barnabite father Alessandro Gavazzi of Naples. Endowed with glowing eloquence and remarkable popularity as a lecturer, he appeared at Rome in 1848 as a politico-religious orator, attached himself to the evangelical church in London in 1850, and undertook the charge of the evangelical Italian congregation there. He returned to Italy in 1860 and accompanied the hero of Italian liberty, Garibaldi, as his military chaplain, preaching to the people everywhere with his leonine voice with equal enthusiasm of Victor Emanuel as the only saviour of Italy and of Jesus Christ as the only Saviour of sinners. He then joined the Chiesa libera, and, as he himself obtained gradually fuller acquaintance with evangelical truth, wrought zealously in organizing the congregations hitherto almost entirely isolated from one another. At a general assembly at Milan in 1870, deputies from thirty-two congregations drew up a simple biblical confession of faith, and in the following year at Florence a constitutional code was adopted which recognised the necessity of the pastoral office, of annual assemblies, and a standing evangelization committee. They now took the name “Unione della Chiesa libere in Italia.” The predominantly Darbyist congregations, which had not taken part in these constitutional assemblies, have since formed a community of their own as Chiesa Cristiana, depending only on the immediate leading of the Holy Spirit, rejecting every sort of ecclesiastical and official organization, and denouncing infant baptism as unevangelical.—Besides these three national Italian churches, English and American Methodists and Baptists carry on active missions. On May 1st, 1884, the evangelical denominations at a general assembly in Florence, with the exception only of the Darbyist Chiesa Cristiana, joined in a confederation to meet annually in an “Italian Evangelical Congress” as a preparation for ecclesiastical union. When, however, the various Methodist and Baptist denominations began to check the progress of the work of union, the two leading bodies, the Waldensians and the Free Church party, separated from them. A committee chosen from these two sketched at Florence in 1885 a basis of union, according to which the Free Church adopted the confession and church order of the Waldensians, subject to revision by the joint synods, their theological school at Rome was to be amalgamated with the Waldensian school at Florence, and the united church was to take the name of the “Evangelical Church of Italy.” But a Waldensian synod in September, 1886, resolved to hold by the ancient name of the “Waldensian Church.” Whether the “Free Church” will agree to this demand is not yet known.

§ 205. SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.

No European country has during the nineteenth century been the scene of so many revolutions, outbreaks and civil wars, of changes of government, ministries and constitutions, sometimes of a clerical absolutist, sometimes of a democratic radical tendency, and in none has revolution gone so unsparingly for the time against hierarchy, clergy and monasticism, as in unfortunate Spain. Portugal too passed through similar struggles, which, however, did not prove so dreadfully disordering to the commonwealth as those of Spain.

§ 205.1. Spain under Ferdinand VII. and Maria Christina.—Joseph Bonaparte (1808-1813) had given to the Spaniards a constitution of the French pattern, abolishing inquisition and cloisters. The constitution which the Cortes proclaimed in 1812 carried out still further the demands of political liberalism, but still declared the apostolic Roman Catholic religion as alone true to be the religion of the Spanish nation and forbad the exercise of any other. Ferdinand VII., whom Napoleon restored in December, 1813, hastened to restore the inquisition, the cloisters and despotism, especially from 1815 under the direction of the Jesuits highly esteemed by him. The revolution of 1820 indeed obliged him to reintroduce the constitution of 1812 and to banish the Jesuits; but scarcely had the feudal clerical party of the apostolic Junta with their army of faith in the field and Bourbon French intervention under the Duke of Angoulême again made his way clear, than he began to crush as before by means of his Jesuit Camarilla every liberal movement in church and state. But all the more successful was the reaction of liberalism in the civil war which broke out after Ferdinand’s death under the regency of his fourth wife, the intriguing Maria Christina (1833-1837). The revolution now erected an inquisition, but it was one directed against the clergy and monks, and celebrated its autos de fe; but these were in the form of spoliation of cloisters and massacres of monks. Ecclesiastical tithes were abolished, all monkish orders suspended, the cloisters closed, ecclesiastical goods declared national property, and the papal nuncio sent over the frontier. A threatening papal allocution of 1841 only increased the violence of the Cortes, and when Gregory XVI. in 1842 pronounced all decrees of the government null and void, it branded all intercourse with Rome as an offence against the state.

§ 205.2. Spain under Isabella II., 1843-1865.—Ferdinand VII., overlooking the right of his brother Don Carlos, had, by abolishing the Salic law, secured the throne to Isabella, his own and Maria Christina’s daughter. After the Cortes of 1843 had declared Isabella of age in her thirteenth year, the Spanish government became more and more favourable to the restoration. After long negotiations and vacillations under constantly changing ministries a concordat was at last drawn up in 1851, which returned the churches and cloisters that had not been sold, allowed compensation for what had been sold, reduced the number of bishoprics by six, put education and the censorship of the press under the oversight of the bishops, and declared the Catholic religion the only one to be tolerated. But although in 1854 the Holy Virgin was named generalissima of the brave army and her image at Atocha had been decorated by the queen with a band of the Golden Fleece, a revolution soon broke out in the army which threatened to deal the finishing stroke to ultramontanism. Meanwhile it had not fully permeated the republican party. The proposal of unrestricted liberty to all forms of worship was supported by a small minority, and the new constitution of 1855 called upon the Spanish nation to maintain and guard the Catholic religion which “the Spaniards profess;” yet no Spaniard was to be persecuted on account of his faith, so long as he did not commit irreligious acts. A new law determined the sale of all church and cloister property, and compensation therefore by annual rents according to the existing concordat. Several bishops had to be banished owing to their continued opposition; the pope protested and recalled his legates. Clerical influence meanwhile regained power over the queen. The sale of church and cloister property was stopped, and previous possessors were indemnified for what had been already sold. Owing to frequent change of ministry, each of which manifested a tendency different from its predecessor, it was only in 1859 that matters were settled by a new concordat. In it the government admitted the inalienability of church property, admitted the unrestricted right of the church to obtain new property of any kind, and declared itself ready to exchange state paper money for property that had fallen into decay according to the estimation of the bishops. The queen proved her Catholic zeal at the instigation of the nun Patrocinio by fanatical persecution of Protestants, and hearty but vain sympathies for the sufferings of the pope and the expatriated Italian princes. Pius IX. rewarded Isabella, who seemed to him adorned with all the virtues, by sending her in 1868 the consecrated rose at a time when she was causing public scandal more than ever by her private life, and by her proceedings with her paramour Marforio had lost the last remnant of the respect and confidence of the Spanish nation. Eight months later her reign was at an end. The provisional government now ordered the suppression of the Society of Jesus, as well as of all cloister and spiritual associations, and in 1869 the Cortes sanctioned the draught of a new civil constitution, which required the Spanish nation to maintain the Catholic worship, but allowed the exercise of other forms of worship to strangers and as cases might arise even to natives, and generally made all political and civil rights independent of religious profession.

§ 205.3. Spain under Alphonso XII., 1875-1885.—When Isabella’s son returned to Spain in January, 1875, in his seventeenth year, he obtained the blessing of his sponsor the pope on his ascending the throne, promised to the Catholic church powerful support, but also to non-Catholics the maintenance of liberty of worship. How he meant to perform both is shown by a decree of 10th February, 1875, which, abolishing the civil marriage law passed by the Cortes in 1870, gave back to the Catholic church the administration of marriage and matters connected therewith; for all persons living in Spain, however, “who professed another than the true faith,” as well as for “the bad Catholics,” to whom ecclesiastical marriage on account of church censures is refused, liberty was given to contract a civil marriage; but this did not apply to apostate priests, monks, and nuns, to whom any sort of marriage is for ever refused, and whose previously contracted marriages are invalid, without, however, affecting the legitimacy of children already born of such connections.—Against the draught of the new constitution, whose eleventh article indeed affords toleration to all dissenting forms of worship, but prohibits any public manifestation thereof outside of their place of worship and burial grounds, Pius IX. protested as infringing upon the still existing concordat in its “noblest” part, and aiming a serious blow at the Catholic church. The Cortes, however, sanctioned it in 1876.

§ 205.4. The Evangelization of Spain.—A number of Bibles and tracts, as well as a religious paper in Spanish called el Albo, found entrance into Spain from the English settlement at Gibraltar, without Spain being able even in the most flourishing days of the restoration to prevent it, and evangelical sympathies began more or less openly to be expressed. Franc. Ruat, formerly a lascivious Spanish poet, who was awakened at Turin by the preaching of the Waldensian Desanctis, and by reading the Bible had obtained knowledge of evangelical truths, appeared publicly after the publication of the new constitution of 1855 as a preacher of the gospel in Spain. The reaction that soon set in, however, secured for him repeated imprisonments, and finally in 1856 sentence of banishment for life. He then wrought for several years successfully in Gibraltar, next in London, afterwards in Algiers among Spanish residents, till the new civil constitution of 1868 allowed him to return to Spain, where, in the service of the German mission at Madrid, he gathered around him an evangelical congregation, to which he ministered till his death in 1878. While labouring in Gibraltar he won to the evangelical faith among others the young officer Manuel Matamoros, living there as a political refugee. This noble man, whose whole career, till his death in exile in 1866, was a sore martyrdom for the truth, became the soul of the whole movement, against which the government in 1861 and 1862 took the severest measures. By intercepted correspondence the leaders and many of the members of the secret evangelical propaganda were discovered and thrown into prison. The final judgment condemned the leaders of the movement to severe punishment in penitentiaries and the galleys. Infliction of these sentences had already begun when the queen found herself obliged, by a visit to Madrid in 1863 of a deputation of the Evangelical Alliance (§ 178, 3), consisting of the most distinguished and respected Protestants of all lands, to commute them to banishment.—After Isabella’s overthrow in 1868, permission was given for the building of the first Protestant church in Madrid, where a congregation soon gathered of more than 2,000 souls. In Seville an almost equally strong congregation obtained for its services what had been a church of the Jesuits. Also at Cordova a considerable congregation was collected, and in almost all the other large cities there were largely attended places of worship. Several of those banished under Isabella, who had returned after her overthrow, Carrasco, Trigo, Alhama, and others, increased by new converts who had received their theological training at Geneva, Lausanne, etc., and supported by American, English and German fellow-labourers, such as the brothers F. and H. Fliedner, wrought with unwearied zeal as preachers and pastors, for the spreading and deeper grounding of the gospel among their countrymen. With the restoration of the monarchy in 1875, the oppression of the Protestants was renewed with increasing severity. The widest possible interpretation was given to the prohibition of every public manifestation of dissenting worship in Article XI. of the constitution. The excesses and insults of the mob, whose fanaticism was stirred up by the clergy, were left unpunished and uncensured. Even the most sorely abused and injured Protestants were themselves subjected to imprisonment as disturbers of the peace. No essential improvement in their condition resulted from the liberal ministry of Sagasta in 1881. Nevertheless the number of evangelical congregations continued steadily though slowly to increase, so that now they number more than sixty, with somewhere about 15,000 native Protestant members.—Besides these an Iglesia Española arose in 1881, consisting of eight congregations, which may be regarded to some extent as a national Spanish counterpart to the Old Catholicism of Germany. Its founder and first bishop is Cabrera, formerly a Catholic priest, who, after having wrought from 1868 in the service of the Edinburgh (Presbyterian) Evangelization Society as preacher in Seville, and then in Madrid, received in 1880 episcopal consecration from the Anglican bishop Riley of Mexico (§ 209, 1), then visiting Madrid. Although thus of Anglican origin, the church directed by him wishes not to be Anglican, but Spanish episcopal. It attaches itself therefore, while accepting the thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican Church, in the sketch of its order of service in the Spanish language, more to the old Mozarabic ritual (§ 88, 1) than to the Anglican liturgy.[562]

§ 205.5. The Church in Portugal.—Portugal after some months followed the example of the Spanish revolution of 1820. John VI. (1816-1826) confirmed the new constitution, drawn up after the pattern of the democratic Spanish constitution of 1812, enacting the seizure of church property and the suppression of the monasteries. But a counter revolution, led by the younger son of the king, Dom Miguel, obliged him in 1823 to repudiate it and to return to the older constitution. But he persistently resisted the reintroduction of the Jesuits. After his death in 1826, the legitimate heir, Pedro I. of Brazil, abandoned his claims to the Portuguese throne in favour of his daughter Donna Maria II. da Gloria, then under a year old, whom he betrothed to his brother Dom Miguel. Appointed regent, Dom Miguel took the oath to the constitution, but immediately broke his oath, had himself proclaimed king, recalled the Jesuits, and, till his overthrow in 1834, carried on a clerical monarchical reign of terror. Dom Pedro, who had meanwhile vacated the Brazilian throne, as regent again suppressed all monkish orders, seized the property of the church, and abolished ecclesiastical tithes, but died in the same year. His daughter Donna Maria, now pronounced of age and proclaimed queen (1834-1853), amid continual revolutions and changes of the constitution, manifested an ever-growing inclination to reconciliation with Rome. In 1841 she negotiated about a concordat, and showed herself so submissive that the pope rewarded her in 1842 with the consecrated golden rose. But the liberal Cortes resisted the introduction of the concordat, and maintained the right of veto by the civil government as well as the rest of the restrictions upon the hierarchy, and the Codigo penal of 1882 threatened the Catholic clergy with heavy fines and imprisonment for every abuse of their spiritual prerogatives and every breach of the laws of the State. In 1857 a concordat was at last agreed to, which, however, was adopted by the representatives of the people not before 1859, and then only by a small majority. Its chief provisions consist in the regulating of the patronage rights of the crown in regard to existing and newly created bishoprics. The relation of government to the curia, however, still continued strained. The constitution declares generally that the Catholic Apostolic Romish Church is the state religion. A Portuguese who passes over from it to another loses thereby his civil rights as a citizen. Yet no one is to be persecuted on account of his religion. The erection of Protestant places of worship, but not in church form, and also of burial grounds, where necessary, is permitted.—Evangelization has made but little progress in Portugal. The first evangelical congregation, with Anglican episcopal constitution, was founded at Lisbon by a Spanish convert, Don Angelo Herrero de Mora, who in the service of the Bible Society had edited a revision of the old Spanish Bible in New York, and had there been naturalized as an American citizen. Consisting originally of American and English Protestants, about a hundred Spanish and Portuguese converts have since 1868 gradually attached themselves to it, the latter after they had been made Spanish instead of Portuguese subjects. After the pattern of this mother congregation, two others have been formed in the neighbourhood of Lisbon and one at Oporto.

§ 206. RUSSIA.

The Russian government since the time of Alexander I. has sought amid many difficulties to advance the education and enlightenment of the people, and to elevate the orthodox church by securing a more highly cultured clergy, and to increase its influence upon the life of the people; a task which proved peculiarly difficult in consequence of the wide-spread anti-ecclesiastical spirit (§ 210, 3) and the incomparably more dangerous antichristian Nihilism (§ 212, 6).—The Catholic church, mainly represented in what had before been the kingdom of Poland, had, in consequence of the repeated revolutionary agitation of the Poles, in which the clergy had zealously taken part by stirring up fanaticism among the people and converting their religion and worship into a vehicle of rebellion, so compromised itself that the government, besides taking away the national political privileges, reduced more and more the rights and liberties granted to the church as such.—The prosperous development of the evangelical church in Russia, which, through the absolutely faultless loyalty of its members, had hitherto enjoyed the hearty protection of the government, in 1845 and 1846, and afterwards in 1883, in consequence of numerous conversions among Esthonian and Livonian peasants, was checked by incessant persecutions.

§ 206.1. The Orthodox National Church.—The evangelical influences introduced from the West during the previous century, especially among the higher clergy, found further encouragement under Alexander I., A.D. 1801-1825. Himself affected by the evangelical pietism of Madame Krüdener (§ 176, 2), he aimed at the elevation of the orthodox church in this direction, founded clerical seminaries and public schools, and took a lively interest in Bible circulation among the Russian people. But under Nicholas I., A.D. 1825-1855, a reaction proceeding from the holy synod set in which unweariedly sought to seal the orthodox church hermetically against all evangelical influences. Also during the reign of Alexander II., A.D. 1855-1881, a reign singularly fruitful in civil reforms, this tendency was even more rigidly illustrated, while with the consent and aid of the holy synod every effort was put forth to improve the church according to its own principles. Specially active in this work was Count Tolstoi, minister of instruction and also procurator of the holy synod. A committee presided over by him produced a whole series of useful reforms in 1868, which were approved by the synod and confirmed by the emperor. While the inferior clergy had hitherto formed an order by themselves, all higher ranks of preferment were now opened to them, but, on the other hand, the obligation of priests’ sons to remain in the order of their fathers was abolished. The clamant abuse of putting mere clerks and sextons to do the work of priests was also now put a stop to, and training in clerical seminaries or academies was made compulsory. Previously only married men could hold the offices of deacon and priest; now widowers and bachelors were admitted, so soon as they reached the age of forty years. In order to increase the poor incomes many churches had not their regular equipment of clergy, and instead of the full set of priest, deacon, sub-deacon, reader, sexton, and doorkeeper, in the poorer churches there were only priest and reader. Order was restored to monastic life, now generally grown dissolute, by a fixed rule of a common table and uniform dress, etc. In 1860 an Orthodox Church Society for Missions among the peoples of the Caucasus, and in 1866 a second for Pagans and Mohammedans throughout the empire, were founded, both under the patronage of the empress. The Russian church also cleverly took advantage of political events to carry on missionary work in Japan (§ 184, 6). A society of the “Friends of Intellectual Enlightenment,” founded in St. Petersburg in 1872, aimed chiefly at the religious improvement of the cultured classes in the spirit of the orthodox church by means of tracts and addresses, while agreeing with foreign confessions as to the nature and characteristics of the true church. Under Alexander III., since A.D. 1881, the emperor’s former tutor Pobedownoszew, with the conviction of the incomparable superiority of his church, and believing that by it and only by it could the dangerous commotions of the present be overcome (§ 212, 6) and Russia regenerated, as procurator of the holy synod has zealously wrought in this direction.—But meanwhile a new impulse was given to the evangelical movement in aristocratic circles by Lord Radstock, who appeared in St. Petersburg in 1870. The addresses delivered by him in French in the salons of the fashionable world won a success scarcely to be looked for. The most famous gain was the conversion of a hitherto proud, worldly, rich and popular Colonel of the Guards, called Paschcow, who now turned the beautiful ball-room of his palatial residence into a prayer-meeting room, and with all the enthusiasm of a neophyte proclaimed successfully among high and low the newly won saving truth in a Biblical evangelical spirit, though not without a methodistic flavour. The excitement thus created led to police interference, and finally, when he refused to abstain from spreading his religious views among the members of the orthodox church by the circulation of evangelical tracts in the Russian language, he was, at the instigation of the holy synod and its all powerful procurator, banished first from St. Petersburg and then in 1884 from the empire, whereupon he withdrew to London.

§ 206.2. The Catholic Church.—After the Greeks in the old West Russian provinces (§ 151, 3), who had been forcibly united to Rome in 1596, had again in 1772, in consequence of the first partition of Poland, come under Russian rule, the government sought to restore them also to the orthodox national church. This was first accomplished under Nicholas I., when at the synod of Polosk in 1839 they themselves spontaneously expressed a wish to be thus reunited with the mother church. Rome thus lost two million members. But the allocution directed against this robbery by Gregory XVI. was without effect, and the public opinion of Europe saw a case of historical justice in this reunion, though effected not without severe measures against those who proved obstinate and rebellious. Yet there always remained a considerable remnant, about one-third of a million, under the bishop of Chelun, in the Romish communion. But even these in 1875, after many disturbances with the prelate Popiel at their head, almost wholly severed their connection with the pope, and were again received into the bosom of the orthodox national church. In a memorial addressed to the emperor for this purpose, they declared they were led to this on the one hand by the continual endeavour of the curia and its partisans, by Latinizing their old Greek liturgy and Polandizing the people, to overthrow their old Russian nationality, and on the other hand, by their aversion to the new papal dogmas of the immaculate conception of Mary and the infallibility of the pope.—The insurrection of the Poles against Russian rule in 1830, which even Pope Gregory XVI. condemned, bore bitter fruits for the Catholic church of that country. The organic statute of 1832 indeed secured anew to the Poles religious liberty, but the bishops were prohibited holding any direct communication with Rome, the clergy deprived of all control over the schools, and the Russian law regarding mixed marriages made applicable to that province. By an understanding with the curia in 1847 the choice of the bishops was given to the emperor, their canonical investiture to the pope. The mildness with which Alexander II. treated the Poles and the political troubles in the rest of Europe fostered the hope of restoring the old kingdom of Poland. Reckless demonstrations were made in the beginning of 1861, pilgrimages to the graves of the martyrs of freedom were organized, political memorial festivals were celebrated in churches, a general national mourning was enjoined, mourning services were held, revolutionary songs were sung in churches, etc. The Catholic clergy headed the movement and canonized it as a religious duty. In vain the government sought to put it down by making liberal concessions, in vain they applied to Pius IX. to discountenance it. When in October the country lay in a state of siege, and the military forced their way into the churches to apprehend the ringleaders of rebellion, the episcopal administrator, Bialobezeski, denounced that as church profanation, had all the Catholic churches in Warsaw closed, and answered the government’s request to reopen them by making extravagant demands and uttering proud words of defiance. The military tribunal sentenced him to death, but the emperor commuted this to one year’s detention in a fortress, with loss of all his dignities and orders. Meanwhile the eyes of the pope had at length been opened. He now confirmed the government’s appointment of Archbishop Felinsky, who entered Warsaw in February, 1862, and reopened the churches. After the suppression of the revolt in 1864, almost all cloisters, as nurseries of revolution, were abolished; in the following year the whole property of the church was taken in charge by the State, and the clergy supported by state pay. The pope, enraged at this, gave violent expression to his feelings to the Russian ambassador at Rome during the New Year festivities of 1866, whereupon the government completely broke off all relations with the curia. Consequently in 1867 all the affairs of the Catholic church were committed to the clerical college at St. Petersburg, and intercourse between the clergy and the pope prohibited. Hence arose many conflicts with Catholic bishops, whose obstinacy was punished by their being interned in their dioceses. In 1869 the Russian calendar was introduced, and Russian made the compulsory language of instruction. But in 1870 greater opposition was offered to the introduction of Russian in the public services by means of translations of the common Polish prayer and psalm-books. Pietrowitsch, dean of Wilna, read from the pulpit the ukase referring to this matter, but then cast it together with the Russian translations into the flames, with violent denunciations of the government, and gave information against himself to the governor-general. He was agreeably to his own desire imprisoned, and then transported to Archangel. The same sentence was pronounced against several other obstinate prelates and clergy, among them Archbishop Felinsky, and thus further opposition was stamped out.—Leo XIII. soon after entering on his pontificate in 1878 took the first step toward reconciliation. His efforts reached a successful issue first in February, 1883. The deposed prelates were restored from their places of banishment, with promise of a liberal pension, and were allowed to choose their residences as they pleased, only not within their former dioceses. In their stead the pope consecrated ten new bishops nominated by the emperor, who amid the jubilation of the people entered their episcopal residences. With reference to the Roman Catholic seminaries and clerical academies at Warsaw, the curia granted to the government the right of control over instruction in the Russian language, literature and history, but committed instruction in canonical matters solely to the bishops, who, after obtaining the approval of the government, appointed the rector and inspector and canonical teachers. Vacant pastorates were filled by the bishops, and only in the case of the more important was the approval of the government required. As to the language to be used, it was resolved that only where the people speak Russian were the clergy obliged to employ that language in preaching and in their pastoral work.

§ 206.3. The Evangelical Church.—The Lutheran church in Russia, comprising two and a half millions of Germans, Letts, Esthonians and Finns, is strongest in Livonia, Esthonia and Courland, is the national church in Finland, and is also largely represented in Poland, in the chief cities of Russia, and in the numerous German colonies in South Russia. In 1832 it obtained, for the Baltic provinces and the scattered congregations in central Russia, a church constitution and service book, the latter on the basis of the old Swedish service book, the former requiring all religious teachers in church and school to accept the Formula of Concord. Annual provincial synods have the initiative in calling in, when necessary for legislative purposes, the aid of the general synod.—In Poland the Reformed and Lutheran churches were in 1828 united under one combined consistory. By an imperial ukase of 1849, however, the independent existence of both churches was restored. Protestants enjoyed all civil rights and had absolute liberty in the exercise of their religion; but in central Russia down to recent times, when a more liberal spirit began to prevail, they were prohibited putting bells in their churches. The old prohibition of evangelical preaching and the teaching of religion in the Russian tongue also continued; but the attempt made for some decades in St. Petersburg and the surrounding district to preach the gospel to Germans who had lost their mother tongue, in the Russian language, has been hitherto ungrudgingly allowed by the government. Quitting the national church or returning from it to a church that had been left before, is visited by severe penalties, and children of mixed marriages, where one parent belongs to the national orthodox church, are claimed by law for that church. Only Finland counts among her privileges the right of assigning children of mixed marriages to the church of the father. The Lutheran church in Livonia, with the island of Oesel, suffered considerable, and according to the law of the land irreparable, loss by the secession of sixty or seventy thousand Letts and Esthonians to the orthodox church under the widespread delusion that thereby their economic position would be improved. Disillusions and regret came too late, and the ever increasing desire for restoration to the church forsaken in a moment of excitement could only obtain arbitrary and insufficient satisfaction in Lutheran baptism of infants seemingly near death, and in permission at irregular intervals and without previous announcement to sit at the Lord’s Table according to the Lutheran rite. In 1865, not indeed legislatively but administratively, the contracting of mixed marriages in the Baltic provinces was permitted without the enforcement of the legal enactment requiring that the children should be trained in the Greek church. In Esthonia, however, in 1883 there was a new outbreak of conversions in Leal, where five hundred peasants went over to the orthodox church, declaring their wish to be of the same faith as the emperor and the whole of the Russian people. By imperial decree in 1885 the suspension of the law against withdrawing again from the national church, which had existed for twenty years, was abolished. At the instigation of Pobedownoszew the Imperial Council granted an annual subsidy of 100,000 roubles for furthering orthodoxy in the Baltic provinces. No evangelical church could be built in these provinces without the approval of the orthodox bishop of the diocese, and any evangelical pastor who should dissuade a member of his church from his purpose of joining the orthodox church, was liable to punishment.—In order to supply the want of churches and schools, preachers and teachers in the Lutheran congregations of Russia, a society was formed in 1858 similar to the Gustav-Adolfs-Verein, under the supervision of the General Consistory of St. Petersburg, which has laboriously and zealously endeavoured to improve the condition of the oppressed church.[563]

§ 207. GREECE AND TURKEY.

In the spirited struggle for liberty Greece freed herself from the tyranny of the Turkish Mohammedan rule and obtained complete civil independence. But the same princes representing all the three principal Christian confessions, who in 1830 gave their sanction to this emancipation within lamentably narrow limits, in 1840 conquered again the Holy Land for the Turks out of the hands of a revolting vassal. And so inextricable were, and still are, the political interests of the Christian States of Europe with reference to the East, that in the London parliament of 1854 it could be affirmed that the existence of Turkey in a condition of utter impotence was so necessary, that if it did not exist, it would require to be created. On two occasions has Russia called out her whole military force to emancipate from the Turkish yoke her Slavic brethren of a common race and common faith, without being able to give the finishing blow to the “sick man” who had the protection of European diplomacy.

§ 207.1. The Orthodox Church of Greece.—Deceived in their expectations from the Vienna Congress, the Greeks tried to deliver themselves from Turkish tyranny. In 1814 a Hetairia was formed, branches of which spread over the whole land and fostered among the people ideas of freedom. The war of independence broke out in 1821. Its first result was a fearful massacre, especially in Constantinople. The patriarch Gregorius [Gregory] with his whole synod and about 30,000 Christians were in three months with horrid cruelty murdered by the Turks. The London Conference of 1830 at last declared Greece an independent state, and an assembly of Greek bishops at Nauplia in 1833 freed the national church of Greece from the authority of the patriarch of Constantinople, who was under the control of Turkey. Its supreme direction was committed to a permanent Holy Synod at Athens, instituted by the king but in all internal matters absolutely independent. The king must belong to the national church, but otherwise all religions are on the same footing. Meanwhile the orthodox church is fully represented, the Roman Catholic being strongest, especially in the islands. The University of Athens, opened in 1856 with professors mostly trained in Germany, has not been unsuccessful in its task even in the domain of theology.

§ 207.2. Massacre of Syrian Christians, 1860.—The Russo-Turkish war ending in the beginning of 1856, in which France and England, and latterly also Sardinia took the part of the sick man, left the condition of the Christians practically unchanged. For though the Hatti Humayun of 1856 granted them equal civil rights with the Moslems, this, however well meant on the part of the Sultan of that time, practically made no improvement upon the equally well meant Hatti Sherif of Gülhane of 1839. The outbreak of 1860 also proved how little effect it had in teaching the Moslems tolerance towards the Christians. Roused by Jesuit emissaries and trusting to French support, the Maronites of Lebanon indulged in several provoking attacks upon their old hereditary foes the Druses. These, however, aided by the Turkish soldiery were always victorious, and throughout all Syria a terrible persecution against Christians of all confessions broke out, characterized by inhuman cruelties. In Damascus alone 8,000, in all Syria 16,000 Christians were murdered, 3,000 women taken to the harems, and 100 Christian villages destroyed. After the massacre had been stopped, 120,000 Christians wandered about without food, clothing, or shelter, and fled hither and thither in fear of death. Fuad Pasha was sent from Constantinople to punish the guilty, and seemed at first to proceed to business energetically; but his zeal soon cooled, and French troops, sent to Syria to protect the Christians, were obliged, yielding to pressure from England, where their presence was regarded with suspicion, to withdraw from the country in June, 1861.

§ 207.3. The Bulgarian Ecclesiastical Struggle.—The Bulgarian church, with somewhere about two and a half million souls, was from early times subject to the patriarch of Constantinople (§ 73, 3), who acted toward it like a pasha. He sold the Bulgarian bishoprics and archbishoprics to the highest bidders among the Greek clergy, who were quite ignorant of the language of the country, and had only one end in view, namely to recoup themselves by extorting the largest possible revenue. No thought was given to the spiritual needs of the Bulgarians, preaching was wholly abandoned, the liturgy was read in a language unknown to the people. It was therefore not to be wondered at that the Bulgarian church was for years longing for its emancipation and ecclesiastical independence, and made every effort to obtain this from the Porte. Turkey, however, sympathized with the patriarch till the revolt in Crete in 1866-1869 and threatening political movements in Bulgaria broke out. Then at last in 1870 the sultan granted the establishment of an independent Slavic ecclesiastical province under the designation of the Bulgarian Exarchate, with liberty to attach itself to the other Slavic provinces upon a two-thirds majority of votes. The patriarch Gregorius [Gregory] protested, but the Sublime Porte would not thereby be deterred, and in May, 1872, Anthimos the Exarch elect was installed. The patriarch and his synod now stigmatized Phyletism, the struggle for a national church establishment, as accursed heresy, and excommunicated the exarch and the whole Bulgarian church. Only the patriarch Cyril of Jerusalem dissented, but he was on that account on his return home treated with indignity and abuse and was deposed by a synod at Jerusalem.

§ 207.4. The Armenian Church.—To the Gregorian-Armenian patriarch at Constantinople (§ 64, 3), equally with his orthodox colleague (§ 67, 7), had been assigned by the Sublime Porte civil jurisdiction as well as the primacy over all members of his church in the Turkish empire. When now in 1830, at the instigation of France, an independent patriarchate with equal rights was granted to the United Armenians (§ 72, 2), the twofold dependence on the Porte and on the Roman curia created difficulties, which in the meantime were overcome by giving the patriarch, who as a Turkish official exercised civil jurisdiction, a primacy with the title of archbishop as representative of the pope. The United Armenians, like the other united churches of the East, had from early times enjoyed the liberty of using their ancient liturgy, their old ecclesiastical calendar, and their own church constitution with free election of their bishops and patriarchs, and these privileges were left untouched down to 1866. But when in that year the Armenian Catholic patriarch died, the archbishop Hassun was elected patriarch, and then a fusion of the two ecclesiastical powers was brought about, which was expected to lead to absolute and complete subjection under papal jurisdiction and perfect assimilation with the Romish constitution and liturgy, at the same time Hassun with a view to securing a red hat showed himself eager and zealous in this business. By the bull Reversurus of 1867 Pius IX. claimed the right of nominating the patriarchs of all united churches of the East, of confirming bishops chosen by these patriarchs, in cases of necessity even choosing these himself, and deciding all appeals regarding church property. But the Mechitarists of St. Lazzaro (§ 164, 2) had already discovered the intriguing designs of France and made these known among their countrymen in Turkey. These now, while Monsignore Hassun was engaged combating the infallibility dogma at the Vatican Council of 1870, drove out his creatures and constituted themselves into a church independent of Rome, without however, joining the Gregorian-Armenians. The influence of France being meanwhile crippled by the Prussian victory, the Porte acquiesced in the accomplished fact, confirmed the appointment of the newly chosen patriarch Kupelian, and refused to yield to the pope’s remonstrances and allocutions. In 1874, however, it also recognised the Hassun party as an independent ecclesiastical community, but assigned the church property to the party of Kupelian, and banished Hassun as a fomenter of disturbance, from the capital. The hearty sympathies which on the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish war the Roman curia expressed so loudly and openly for the victory of the crescent over the schismatic Russian cross, made the Sublime Porte again regard the Hassunites with favour, so that Hassun in September, 1877, returned to Constantinople, where the churches were given over to his party and a great number of the Kupelianists were won over to his side. He was eagerly aided not only by the French but also by the Austrian ambassador, and the patriarch Kupelian, now sorely persecuted from every side, at last resigned his position and went in March, 1879, to Rome to kneel as a penitent before the pope. By an irade of the sultan, Hassun was now formally restored, and in 1880 he was adorned with a red hat by Leo XIII. Shortly before this the last of the bishops of the opposing party, with about 30,000 souls, had given in his submission.

§ 207.5. The Berlin Treaty, 1878.—Frequent and severe oppression, refusal to administer justice, and brutal violence on the part of the Turkish government and people toward the defenceless vassals drove the Christian states and tribes of the Balkan peninsula in 1875 into a rebellion of desperation, which was avenged, especially in Bulgaria in 1876, by scandalous atrocities upon the Christians. When the half-hearted interference of European diplomacy called forth instead of actual reforms only the mocking sham of a pretended free representative constitution, Russia held herself under obligation in 1877 to avenge by arms the wrongs of her brethren by race and creed, but owing to the threats of England and Austria could not fully reap the fruits of her dearly bought victory as had been agreed upon in the Treaty of San Stefano. By the Berlin Conference, however, of 1878 the principalities of Roumania, Servia, and Montenegro, hitherto under the suzerainty of Turkey, were declared independent, and to them, as well as to Greece, at the cost of Turkey, a considerable increase of territory was granted, the portion between the Balkans and the Danube was formed into the Christian principality of Bulgaria under Turkish suzerainty, but East Roumelia, south of the Balkans, now separated from Bulgaria, obtained the rank of an autonomous province with a Christian governor-general. To Thessaly, Epirus, and Crete were granted administrative reforms and throughout the European territory left to the Porte it was stipulated that full religious and political rights be granted to members of all confessions. The administration of Bosnia and Herzegovina was given over to Austria, and that of Cyprus, by means of a separate treaty, to England. The greater part of Armenia, lying in Asia, belongs to Russia.

§ 208. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.[564]

The Republic of the United States of America, existing since the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and recognised by England as independent since the conclusion of Peace in 1783, requires of her citizens no other religious test than belief in one God. Since the settlers had often left their early homes on account of religious matters, the greatest variety of religious parties were gathered together here, and owing to their defective theological training and their practical turn of mind, they afforded a fruitful field for religious movements of all sorts, among which the revivals systematically cultivated by many denominations play a conspicuous part. The government does not trouble itself with religious questions, and lets every denomination take care of itself. Preachers are therefore wholly dependent on their congregations, and are frequently liable to dismissal at the year’s end. Yet they form a highly respected class, and nowhere in the Protestant world is the tone of ecclesiastical feeling and piety so prevailingly high. In the public schools, which are supported by the State, religious instruction is on principle omitted. The Lutheran and Catholic churches have therefore founded parochial schools; the other denominations seek to supply the want by Sunday schools. The candidates for the ministry are trained in colleges and in numerous theological seminaries.

§ 208.1. English Protestant Denominations.—The numerous Protestant denominations belong to two great groups, English and German. Of the first named the following are by far the most important:

1. The Congregationalists are the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers who emigrated in 1620 (§ 143, 4). They profess the doctrines of the Westminster Confession (§ 155, 1).

2. The Presbyterians, of Scotch origin, have the same confession as the Congregationalists, but differ from them by having a common church government with strict Synodal and Presbyterial constitution. By rejecting the doctrine of predestination the Cumberland Presbyterians in 1810 formed a separate body and have since grown so as to embrace in the south-western states 120,000 communicants.

3. The Anglican Episcopal Church is equally distinguished by moderate and solid churchliness. Even here, however, Puseyism has entered in and the Romish church has made many proselytes. But when at the general conference of the Evangelical Alliance at New York in 1873, bishop Cummins of Kentucky took part in the administration of the Lord’s Supper in the Presbyterian church and was violently attacked for this by his Puseyite brethren, he laid the foundation of a “Reformed Episcopal Church,” in which secession other twenty-five Episcopal ministers joined. They regard the episcopal constitution as an old and wholesome ordinance but not a divine institution, also the Anglican liturgy and Book of Common Prayer, though capable of improvement, while they recognise the ordinations of other evangelical churches as valid, and reject as Puseyite the doctrine of a special priesthood of the clergy, of a sacrifice in the eucharist, the presence of the body and blood of Christ in the elements, and of the essential and invariable connection between regeneration and baptism.

4. The Episcopal Methodists in America formed since 1784 an independent body (§ 169, 4). Their influence on the religious life in the United States has been extraordinarily great. They have had by far the most to do with the revivals which from the first they have carried to a wonderful pitch with their protracted meetings, inquiry meetings, camp meetings, etc. They reached their climax in the camp meetings which, under the preaching mostly of itinerant Methodist preachers frequently in the forest under the canopy of heaven, produced religious awakening among the multitudes gathered from all around. Day and night without interruption they continued praying, singing, preaching, exhorting; all the horrors of hell are depicted, the excitement increases every moment, penitent wrestlings with sighs, sobs, groans, convulsions and writhings, occur on every side; grace comes at last to view; loud hallelujahs, thanksgivings and ascription of praise by the converted mix with the moanings of those on “the anxious bench” pleading for grace, etc. In San Francisco in 1874 there were “Baby-Revivals,” at which children from four to twelve years of age, who trembled with the fear of hell, sang penitential hymns, made confession of sin, and wrote their names on a sheet in order to engage themselves for ever for Jesus. Since 1847 the Methodist church had been divided into two hostile camps, a southern and a northern. The first named tolerated slavery, while the members of the latter were decided abolitionists and excommunicated all slave-owners as unworthy of the name of Christian. Another party, the Protestant Methodists, has blended the episcopal and congregational constitution.

5. The Baptists are split up into many sects. The most numerous are the Calvinistic Baptists. Their activity in proselytising is equally great with their zeal for missions to the heathen. In opposition to them the Free-Will Baptists are Arminian and the Christian Baptists have adopted Unitarian views.[565]

§ 208.2. The German Lutheran Denominations.—The German emigration to America began in Penn’s time. In the organization of church affairs, besides Zinzendorf and the Herrnhut missionaries, a prominent part was taken by the pastor Dr. Melchior Mühlenberg (died 1787), a pupil of A. H. Francke, and the Reformed pastor Schlatter from St. Gall; the former sent by the Halle Orphanage, the latter by the Dutch church. The Orphanage sent many earnest preachers till rationalism broke in upon the society. As at the same time the stream of German emigration was checked almost completely for several decades, and so all intercourse with the mother country ceased, crowds of Germans, impressed by the revivals, went over to the Anglo-American denominations, and in the German denominations themselves along with the English language entered also English Puritanism and Methodism. In 1815 German emigration began again and grew from year to year. At the synod of 1857 the Lutheran church with 3,000 pastors divided into three main divisions:

1. The American Lutheran church had become in language, customs, and doctrine thoroughly Anglicised and Americanized; Zwinglian in its doctrine of the sacraments, it was Lutheran in scarcely anything but the name, until in its chief seminary at Gettysburg in Pennsylvania in 1850 a reaction set in in favour of genuine Lutheran and German tendencies.

2. A greatly attenuated Lutheranism with unionistic sympathies and frequent abandonment of the German language also found expression in the congregations of the Old Pennsylvanian Synod.

3. On the other hand, the strict Lutheran church held tenaciously to the exclusive use of the German language and the genuine Lutheran confession. The Prussian emigration with Grabau and the Saxon Lutheran settlers with Stephan constituted its backbone (§ 194, 1). To them a number of Bavarian Lutherans attached themselves who had emigrated under the leadership of Löhe, whose missionary institute at Neuendettelsau supplied them with pastors. The Saxon Lutherans were meanwhile grouped together in the Missouri Synod, which Löhe’s missionaries also joined, so that it soon acquired much larger proportions than the Buffalo Synod formed previously by the Prussian Lutherans under Grabau. But very soon the two synods had a violent quarrel over the idea of office and church which, owing to the reception by the Missouri Synod of several parties excommunicated by the Buffalo Synod, led to the formal breach of church fellowship between the two parties. The Missouri Synod, with Dr. Walther at its head, attached all importance to sound doctrine; the clerical office was regarded as a transference of the right of the congregation and excommunication as a congregational not a clerical act. The Buffalo Synod, on the other hand, in consequence of serious conflict with pietistic elements, had been driven into an overestimation of external order, of forms of constitution and worship, and of the clerical office as of immediately divine authority, and carried this to such a length as led to the dissolution of the synod in 1877. Löhe’s friends, who had not been able to agree with either party, formed themselves into the Synod of Iowa, with their seminary at Wartburg under Fritschel. On all questions debated between the synods they took a mediating position. The Missourians, however, would have nothing to do with them, while those of Buffalo long maintained tolerably friendly relations with them. But the historical view of the symbols taken by the Iowans, their inclination toward the new development of Lutheran theology, and above all their attitude toward biblical chiliasm, which they wished to treat as an open question, seemed to those of Buffalo, as well as to the Missourians, a falling away from the church confession, and led to their excommunication by that party also.

In opposition to all this splitting up into sections a General Council of the Lutheran Church in America was held in 1866, which sought to combine all Lutheran district synods, of which twelve, out of fifty-six, with 814 clergymen, joined it, Iowa assuming a friendly and Missouri a distinctly hostile attitude. The ninth assembly at Galesburg in Illinois in 1875 laid down as its fundamental principle, “Lutheran pulpits only for Lutheran preachers, and Lutheran altars only for Lutheran communicants.” The native Americans, however, insisted upon exceptions being allowed, e.g. in peril of death, etc. On the question of the limits of these exceptions, however, subsequent assemblies have not been able to agree.

§ 208.3. But also in the Synodal Conference founded and led by the Missouri Synod, embracing five synods, doctrinal controversies sprang up in 1860. A large number with Dr. Walther at their head held a strict doctrine of predestination which they regarded as the mark of genuine Lutheranism. God has, they taught, chosen a definite number of men from eternity to salvation; these shall and must be saved. Salvation in Christ is indeed offered to all, but God secures it only for His elect, so that they are sure of it and cannot lose it again, not indeed intuitu fidei but only according to His sovereign grace. Even one of the elect may seem temporarily to fall from grace, but he cannot die without returning into full possession of it. Prof. Fritschel protested against this in 1872 as essentially Calvinistic, and opposition also arose in the Missouri Pastoral Conference. Prof. Asperheim, of the seminary of the Norwegian Synod at Madison in Wisconsin, who first pronounced against it in 1876, was deprived of his office and obliged to withdraw from the synod. The controversy broke out in a violent form at the conferences of about 500 pastors held at Chicago in 1880 and at Milwaukee three months later in 1881, at the former of which Prof. Stellhorn of Fort Wayne, at the latter Prof. Schmidt of Madison, offered a vigorous opposition. Walther closed the conference with the words: “You ask for war, war you shall have.” The result was that the whole of the Ohio Synod and a large portion of the Norwegian Wisconsin Synod, broke away from communion with the Missouri Synod.—Walther and his adherents went so far in their fanaticism as to pronounce not only their American opponents but all the most distinguished Lutheran theologians of Germany, Philippi as well as Hofmann, Luthardt as well as Kahnis, Vilmar as well as Thomasius, Harms as well as Zöckler, etc., bastard theologians, semipelagians, synergists and rationalists, and to refuse church fellowship not only with all Lutheran national churches in Europe, but also with German Lutheran Free Churches, which did not unconditionally attach themselves to them. These Missouri separatist communities, though everywhere quite unimportant, are in Europe strongest in the kingdom of Saxony; they have also a few representatives in Nassau, Baden, Württemberg, Bavaria and Hesse.

§ 208.4. German-Reformed and other German-Protestant Denominations.—The German-Reformed church has its seminary at Mercersburg in Pennsylvania. Its confession of faith is the Heidelberg Catechism, its theology an offshoot of German evangelical union theology, but with a distinctly positive tendency. Although the union theology there prevailed among the Reformed as well as the Lutherans, a German Evangelical Church Union was formed at St. Louis in 1841 which wished to set aside the names Reformed and Lutheran. It established a seminary at Marthasville in Missouri. The Herrnhuters are also represented in America. Several German Methodist sects have recently sprung up:

1. The “United Brethren in Christ,” with 500 preachers, founded by a Reformed preacher Otternbein (died 1813).

2. The “Evangelical Communion,” commonly called Albrechtsleute, founded by Jac. Albrecht, originally a Lutheran layman, whom his own followers ordained in 1803, with 500 or 600 preachers working zealously and carrying on mission work also in Germany (§ 211, 1).

3. The Weinbrennians or Church of God, founded by an excommunicated Reformed pastor of that name in 1839. They carry the Methodist revivalism to the most extravagant excess and are also fanatical opponents of infant baptism.

§ 208.5. The Catholic Church.—A number of English Catholics under Lord Baltimore settled in Maryland in 1634. The little community grew and soon filled the land. There alone in the whole world did the Roman Catholic church though dominant proclaim the principle of toleration and religious equality. Consequently Protestants of various denominations crowded thither, outnumbered the original settlers, and rewarded those who had hospitably received them with abuse and oppression. The Catholics were also treated in other states as idolaters and excluded from public offices and posts of honour. Only after the Declaration of Independence in 1783 was this changed by the sundering of the connection of church and state and the proclamation of absolute religious liberty. The number of Catholics was greatly increased by numerous emigrations, specially from Ireland and Catholic Germany. They now claim seven million members, with a cardinal at New York, 13 archbishops, 64 bishops, about 7,000 churches and chapels. A beautiful cathedral was erected in New York in 1879, the immense cost of which, exceeding all expectation, was at last defrayed by very unspiritual and unecclesiastical methods, e.g. lotteries, fairs, dramatic exhibitions, concerts, and even dearly sold kisses, etc. The Roman Catholics have also a university at St. Louis, 80 colleges, and 300 cloisters.

§ 209. THE ROMAN CATHOLIC STATES OF SOUTH AMERICA.

To the predominantly Protestant North America the position of the Roman Catholic states of South America forms a very striking contrast. Nowhere else was the influence and power of the clergy so wide-spread and deeply rooted, nowhere else has the depravation of Catholicism reached such a depth of superstition, obscurantism, and fanaticism. During the second and third decades of our century the Spanish states, favoured by the revolutionary movement in the mother country, one after another asserted their independence, and the Portuguese Brazil established herself as an independent empire under the legitimate royal prince of Portugal, Pedro I. in 1822. Although the other new states adopted a republican constitution, they could not throw aside the influence of the Catholic clergy and carry out the principles of religious freedom proclaimed in their constitutions. The Catholicism of the Creoles, half-castes, and mulattoes was of too bigoted a kind and the power of the clergy too great to allow any such thing. Mexico went furthest in the attempt, and Brazil, under Dom Pedro II. from 1831, astonished the world by the vigorous measures of its government in 1874 against the assumptions of the higher clergy.—In spite of all hindrances a not inconsiderable number of small evangelical congregations have been formed in Romish America, partly through emigration and partly by evangelization.

§ 209.1. Mexico.—Of all the American states, Mexico, since its independence in 1823, has been most disturbed by revolutions and civil wars. The rich and influential clergy, possessing nearly a half of all landed property, was the factor with which all pretenders, presidents and rulers had to reckon. After most of the earlier governments had supported the clergy and been supported by them, the ultimately victorious liberal party under president Juarez shook off the yoke in 1859. He proclaimed absolute religious freedom, introduced civil marriage, abolished cloisters, pronounced church possessions national property and exiled the obstinate bishops. The clerical party now sought and obtained foreign aid. Spain, France and England joined in a common military convention in 1861 in supporting certain claims of citizens repudiated by Juarez. Spain and England soon withdrew their troops, and Napoleon III. openly declared the purpose of his interference to be the strengthening of the Latin race and the monarchical principle in America. At his instigation the Austrian Grand-Duke Maximilian was elected emperor, and that prince, after receiving the pope’s blessing in Rome, began his reign in 1864. Distrusted by all parties as a stranger, in difficulties with the curia and clergy because he opposed their claims to have their most extravagant privileges restored, shamefully left in the lurch by Napoleon from fear of the threatening attitude of the North American Union, and then sold and betrayed by his own general Bazaine, this noble but unfortunate prince was at last sentenced by Juarez at a court-martial to be shot in 1867. Juarez now maintained his position till the end of his life in 1872, and strictly carried out his anticlerical reforms. After his death clericalism again raised her head, and the Jesuits expelled from Guatemala swarmed over the land. Yet constitutional sanction was given to the Juarez legislation at the congress of 1873. The Jesuits were driven across the frontiers, obstinate priests as well as a great number of nuns, who had gathered again in cloisters and received novices, were put in prison.—Also Evangelization advanced slowly under sanction of law, though regarded with disfavour by the people and interfered with often by the mob. It began in 1865 with the awakening of a Catholic priest Francisco Aguilar and a Dominican monk Manuel Aguas, through the reading of the Scriptures. They laid the foundation of the “Iglesia de Jesus” of converted Mexicans, with evangelical doctrine and apostolic-episcopal constitution, which has now 71 congregations throughout the whole country with about 10,000 souls. This movement received a new impulse in 1869, when a Chilian-born Anglican episcopal minister of a Spanish-speaking congregation in New York, called Riley, took the control of it and was in 1879 consecrated its bishop. Besides this independent “Church of Jesus” North American missionaries of various denominations have wrought there since 1872 with slow but steady success.

§ 209.2. In the Republics of Central and Southern America, when the liberal party obtained the helm of government through almost incessant civil wars, religious freedom was generally proclaimed, civil marriage introduced, the Jesuits expelled, cloisters shut up, etc. But in Ecuador, president Moreno, aided by the clergy, concluded in 1862 a concordat with the curia by which throughout the country only the Catholic worship was tolerated, the bishops could condemn and confiscate any book, education was under the Jesuits, and the government undertook to employ the police in suppressing all errors and compelling all citizens to fulfil all their religious duties. And further the public resolved in 1873, although unable to pay the interest of the national debt, to hand over a tenth of all state revenues to the pope. But Moreno was murdered in 1875. The Jesuits, who were out of favour, left Quito. The tithe hitherto paid to the pope was immediately withheld, and in 1877 the concordat was abrogated. As Ecuador in Moreno, so Peru at the same time in Pierola had a dictator after the pope’s own heart. The republic had his misgovernment to thank for one defeat after another in the war with Chili.—Bolivia in 1872 declared that the Roman Catholic religion alone would be tolerated in the country, and suffered, in common with Peru, annihilating defeats at the hand of Chili.—When at St. Iago in Chili, during the festival of the Immaculate Conception in 1863, the Jesuit church La Compania was burnt and in it more than 2,000 women and children consumed, the clergy pronounced this disaster an act of grace of the blessed Virgin, who wished to give the country a vast number of saints and martyrs. But here, too, the conflicts between church and state continued. In 1874 the Chilian episcopate pronounced the ban against the president and the members of the national council and of the Lower House who had favoured the introduction of a new penal code which secured liberty of worship, but it remained quite unheeded. When then the archiepiscopal chair of St. Iago became vacant in 1878, the pope refused on any condition to confirm the candidate appointed by the government. After the decisive victory over Peru and Bolivia, the government again in December, 1881, urgently insisted upon their presentation. The curia now sent to Chili, avowedly to obtain more accurate information, an apostolic delegate who took advantage of his position to stir up strife, so that the government was obliged to insist upon his recall. As the curia declined to do so, his passports were sent to the legate in January, 1883, and a presidential message was addressed to the next congress which demanded the separation of the church and state, with the introduction of civil marriage and register of civil station, as the only remaining means for putting down the confusion caused by papal tergiversation. The result of the long and heated debates that followed was the promulgation of a law by which Catholicism was deprived of the character of the state religion and the perfect equality of all forms of worship was proclaimed.—Guatemala in 1872 expelled the Jesuits whose power and wealth had become very great. In 1874 the president Borrias opened a new campaign against the clergy by forbidding them to wear the clerical dress except when discharging the duties of their office, and closing all the nunneries.—In Venezuela, in 1872, Archbishop Guevara of Caracas, who had previously come into collision with the government by favouring the rebels, forbade his clergy taking part in the national festival, and put the cathedral in which it was to be celebrated under the interdict. Deposed and banished on this account, he continued from the British island of Trinidad his endeavours to stir up a new rebellion. The president, Guzman Blanco, after long fruitless negotiations with the papal nuncio, submitted in May, 1876, to the congress at St. Domingo the draft of a bill, which declared the national church wholly independent of Rome. The congress not only homologated his proposals, but carried them further, by abolishing the episcopal hierarchy and assigning its revenues to the national exchequer, for education. Now at last the Roman curia agreed to the deposition of Guevara and confirmed the nomination of his previously appointed successor. But president Blanco now asked congress to abolish the law, and this was agreed to.—In the United States of Colombia since 1853, and in the Argentine Republic since 1865, perfect liberty of faith and worship have been constitutionally secured. From the latter state the Jesuits had been banished for a long time but had managed to smuggle themselves in again. When in the beginning of 1875 Archbishop Aneiros of Buenos Ayres addressed to the government which favoured the clerical party rather than to the congress which was the only competent court, a request to reinvest the Jesuits with the churches, cloisters, and properties held by them before their expulsion, a terrible outbreak took place, which the archbishop intensified to the utmost by issuing a violent pastoral. A mob of 30,000 men, convened by the students of the university, wrecked the palace of the archbishop, then attacked the Jesuit college, burnt all its furniture and ornaments on the streets and by means of petroleum soon reduced the building itself to flames. Only with difficulty did the military succeed in preventing further mischief. In October, 1884, the papal nuncio was expelled, because, when the government decidedly refused his request to prevent the spread of Protestant teaching and to place Sunday schools under the oversight of the bishops, he replied in a most violent and passionate manner. About the same time the republic of Costa-rica issued a law forbidding all religious orders, pronouncing all vows invalid, and threatening banishment against all who should contravene these enactments, and also an education act which forbade all public instruction apart from that provided by the State.

§ 209.3. Brazil.—In Brazil down to 1884, the “Catholic Apostolic Roman Religion” was, according to the constitution, the religion of the empire. But from 1828 there was a Protestant congregation in Rio de Janeiro, and through the inland districts, in consequence of immigration, there were 100 small evangelical congregations, with twenty-five ordained pastors, whose forms of worship were of various kinds. In earlier times Protestant marriage was regarded as concubinage, but in 1851 a law was passed which gave it civil recognition. But the bishops held to their previous views and demanded of married converts a repetition of the ceremony. Since 1870, however, the government has energetically opposed the claims of the clergy who wished only to acknowledge the authority of Rome. Protestant marriages were pronounced equally legitimate with Catholic marriages, no civil penalties are incurred by excommunication, all papal bulls are subject to the approval of the government, and it was insisted that announcement should be made of all clergy nominated. The clergy considered freemasonry the chief source of all this liberal current, and against it therefore they directed all their forces. The pope assisted by his brief of May, 1873, condemning freemasonry. At the head of the rebel prelates stood Don Vitalis Gonsalvez de Oliveira, bishop of Olinda and Pernambuco. He published the papal brief without asking the imperial permission, pronounced the ban upon all freemasons and suspended the interdict over all associations which refused to expel masonic brothers from their membership. In vain the government demanded its withdrawal. It then accused him of an attack upon the constitution. The supreme court ordered his detention, and he was placed in the state prison at Rio de Janeiro in January, 1874. The trial ended by his being sentenced to four years’ imprisonment, which the emperor as an act of grace commuted to detention in a fortress, and set him free in a year and a half. In consequence of this occurrence the Jesuits were, in 1874, expelled from the country. The increasing advent of monks and nuns from Europe led the government, in 1884, to appoint a commission to carry out the law already passed in 1870, for the secularization of all monastic property after providing pensions for those entitled to support. In the same year all naturalized non-Catholics were pronounced eligible for election to the imperial parliament and to the provincial assemblies. The members belonging to the evangelical churches now number about 50,000, of whom 30,000 are Germans.[566]

V. Opponents of Church and of Christianity.

§ 210. SECTARIANS AND ENTHUSIASTS IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC AND ORTHODOX RUSSIAN DOMAINS.

It cannot be denied that since the Tridentine attempt to define the church doctrine far fewer sects condemning the church as such have sprung from Roman Catholicism than from Protestantism. Yet such phenomena are not wanting in the nineteenth century. Their scarcity is abundantly made up for by the numberless degenerations and errors (§ 191) which the Catholic church or its representatives in the higher and lower grades of the clergy not only fell into, but actually provoked and furthered, and thus encouraged an unhealthy love for religious peculiarities. Were the absence of new heretical, sectarian and fanatical developments something to be gloried in for itself alone, the Eastern church, with its absolute stability, would obtain this distinction in a far higher degree. In the Russian church, however, the multitude of sects which amid manifold oppressions and persecutions continue to exist to the present day, in spite of many persistent and even condemnable errors, witnesses to a deep religious need in the Russian people.

§ 210.1. Sects and Fanatics in the Roman Catholic Domain (§ 187, 6-8, § 190).—On the Catholic Irvingites see § 211, 10.

1. The Order of New Templars sprang from the Freemasons (§ 172, 2). Soon after their establishment in France the Jesuits sought to carry out their own hierarchical ideas. The fable of an uninterrupted connection between freemasonry as a “temple of humanity” and the Templars of the Middle Ages, and the introduction therewith in their secret ceremonies of exercises, borrowed from the chivalry of romance, afforded a means toward this end. The idea was started in the Jesuit college at Claremont and was approved and accepted by the local lodge. In A.D. 1754 a great number of their noble members, who were disgusted with the Jesuit templar farce, withdrew in order as “New Templars” to continue the old order in the spirit of modern times. In consequence, however, of the revolution that broke out in A.D. 1789 they could no longer hold their ground as a band of nobles. Napoleon favoured the reorganization of the order freed from those limits. The day of Molay’s death (§ 112, 7) was publicly celebrated with great pomp in Paris, A.D. 1808 and the order spread among all French populations. On the Bourbon restoration the grand-master was, at the instigation of the Jesuits, cast into prison and the order suppressed. After the July revolution he was liberated and a new temple was opened in Paris in A.D. 1833. The show-loving Parisians for a long time took pleasure in the peculiar rites and costume of the templars. When this interest declined the order passed out of view. Its religion, which professed to be a primitive revelation carried down in the Greek and Egyptian mysteries, from which Moses borrowed, then further developed by Christ and transmitted in esoteric tradition by John and his successors the grand-masters of the templars, taught a divine trinity of being, act and consciousness, the eternity of the world alongside of God and an indwelling of God in man. It declared the Roman Catholic church to be the only true Christianity (église chrétienne primitive). Its sacred book consisted of an apocryphal gospel of John in accordance with its own notions.

2. On the communistic society of St. Simonians, which also sprang up in France, see § 212, 2.

3. St. Simon’s secretary was Aug. Comte, the founder of the Positivist philosophical school (§ 174, 2) and he maintained intimate relations with his master all through life. In his later years he undertook by carrying his philosophical doctrine into the practical domain to sketch out a “religion of humanity,” and thus became the founder of a Positivist religious sect. The men of science indeed who had adopted his philosophical principles (Littré, Renan, Taine, Lewes, Leslie Stephens, Tyndall, Huxley, Draper, etc.), repudiate it; but in the middle and lower ranks some were found longing for an object of worship, who endeavoured on the basis of his Calendrier positiviste and Catechisme positiviste to form a religious society for the worship of humanity. His festival calendar divides the year into thirteen months of four weeks each, named after the thirteen great benefactors of mankind (among whom Christ does not appear), while the weeks are named after lesser heroes. By the profound veneration of woman, which savours greatly of Mariolatry, as well as by the fantastic worship of heroes, geniuses and scholars, which is a mimicry of the popish saint worship, and by the adoption of a sacerdotalism like that of Catholicism, this religion of humanity shows itself to be an antichristian growth on Roman Catholic soil.

§ 210.2.

1. Thomas Pöschl, in the second decade of the century, presents an instance of a degeneration of originally pietistic tendencies into mischievous fanaticism. A Catholic priest at Ampfelwang near Linz, he sought under the influence of Sailer’s mysticism to awaken in his congregation a more lively Christianity by means of prayer meetings and the circulation of tracts, in which he proclaimed the approaching end of the world. When the district in which he lived was, in 1814, attached to Austria, he was committed to prison, and his followers accepted as their leader the peasant Jos. Haas, who led them further still into fanatical excesses. His fanaticism at length went so far that on Good Friday of 1817 a young maiden belonging to their party suffered a voluntary death after the example of Christ for her brothers and sisters. Pöschl professed the deepest horror at this cruel deed for which he was blamed. He died in close monastic confinement in 1837.

2. The Antinomian sect of the Antonians, most numerous in the Canton Bern, had its beginning among the Roman Catholics. Its founder was Antoni Unternährer, born and reared at Shüpfheim, near Lucerne, in the Catholic faith. From 1802 he resided at Amfoldingen, near Thun, where he stood in high repute among the peasants as a quack doctor, gave himself out as the son of God a second time become man, and proclaimed by word and writing the perfect redemption from the curse of the law by the introduction of the true freedom of the sons of God, which was to show itself first of all in the absolutely unrestricted intercourse of the sexes. After two years’ confinement in a house of correction he was banished from the Canton Bern and transported to his native place, where, abandoning all pastoral duties, he died in a police cell in 1814. The sect, which had meanwhile spread widely, and at Gsteig near Interlaken had obtained a new leader in the person of Benedict Schori, a third incarnation of Christ, could not be finally suppressed, notwithstanding the liberal use of the prison, till the beginning of 1840. Even at this day scattered remnants of Antonians are to be found in Canton Bern.

3. When the Austrian constitution of 1849 gave unconditional religious toleration, the Bohemian Adamites (§ 115, 5), of whom remnants under the mask of Catholicism had continued down to the nineteenth century, ventured again publicly to engage in proselytising efforts. An official enquiry instituted on this occasion declared that the sect, consisting of Bohemian peasants and artisans, had its headquarters among the mystics of the Krüdener school, that its religious doctrine was a mixture of communism, freethinking and quietism, and that its members were in their ordinary public life blameless, but that in their secret nightly assemblies, where they dispensed with clothes, they celebrated orgies regardless of marriage or relationship.

4. David Lazzaretti, formerly a carrier in Tuscany, appeared in his native place after an absence of several years, in 1872, declaring that he was descended from a natural son of Charlemagne and had been entrusted by the Apostle Peter with a message to the pope, pointing to a cross that had been burnt upon his brow by the apostle himself. He startled those of the Vatican, where he was quite unknown, by declaring that the bones of his ancestors lay under the ruins of an old Franciscan cloister in Sabina, of whose existence nobody was aware, the discovery of which seemed to vouch for his claims. These were all the more readily admitted when it was found that he made the restoration of the Pope’s temporal power his main task. The number of his adherents, mostly peasants, soon increased immensely, reaching, it is said, 40,000. On Monte Labro they built a church with a strong “David’s Tower,” over which “St. David” appointed two priests who, when they had made certain changes in worship at the call of the prophet, were excommunicated by the bishop. David now began to spread his socialistic and communistic ideas. He insisted that his adherents should surrender their goods to him as representative of the society, and promised down to December 31st, 1890, the introduction of community of goods throughout Italy and afterwards in other countries. In Arcidosso, the prophet’s birthplace, a beginning was to be made, but in its overthrow on August 18th, 1878, he met his death, and his befooled followers waited in vain for the fulfilment of his dying promise that he would rise again on the third day.

§ 210.3. Russian Sects and Fanatics.—After the attempt under Nicholas I. at the forcible conversion of the Raskolniks, especially the purely schismatic Starowerzians or Old Believers (§ 163, 10), had proved fruitless, the government of Alexander II. by patience and concession took a surer way to reconciliation and restoration. In October, 1874, their marriages, births and deaths, which had hitherto been without legal recognition, were put on the regular register and so their lawful rights of inheritance were secured. Under Alexander III. in 1883 an imperial decree was issued, which gave them permission to celebrate divine service after their own methods in their chapels, which had not before the legal standing of churches, and declared them also eligible for public appointments.—To the Duchoborzians (§ 166, 2), sorely oppressed under Catherine II. and Paul I., Alexander I., after they had laid before him the confession which they had adopted, granted toleration, but assigned them a separate residence in the Taurus district. Under Nicholas I. they were to the number of 3,000 transported to the Transcaucasian mountains in 1841, where they were called Duchoborje.—The Württemberg Pietist colonists of South Russia originated among the peasants the widespread sect of the Stundists soon after the abolition of serfdom in 1863. The originator of those separatist meetings for the study of Scripture, which led first of all to the condemnation of image worship and making the sign of the cross as unbiblical, and subsequently to a complete withdrawal from the worship of the orthodox church and the forming of conventicles, was the peasant and congregational elder Ratusny of Osnowa near Odessa, to whom, at a later period, with equal propagandist zeal, the peasant Balabok attached himself. The latter was, in 1871, sentenced to one year’s imprisonment at Kiev and the loss of civil rights, and in 1873, at Odessa, a great criminal prosecution was instituted against Ratusny and all the other leaders of the sect, which, however, after proceeding for five years ended in a verdict of acquittal. A process started in 1878 against the so-called Schaloputs had a similar issue. This sect, spread most widely among the Cossacks of Cuban, rejects the Old Testament, the sacraments and the doctrine of the resurrection, but believes in a continued effusion of the Holy Spirit upon the prophets of the church who have prepared themselves for their vocation by complete abstinence from flesh and spirituous liquor as well as by incessant prayer and frequent fasting.

§ 210.4. About the middle of the eighteenth century among the “Men of God,” the strict interpretation of the prescriptions of their founder Danila Filipow (§ 163, 10) had led many to abstain wholly from sexual relations; when a peasant Andrew Selivanov appeared as a reformer and founded the sect of the Skopzen or mutilators, who, building on misinterpreted passages of Scripture (Matt. v. 28-30, xix. 12; Rev. xiv. 4) insisted upon the destruction of sexual desire by castration and excision of the female breasts, generally performed under anæsthetics, as a necessary condition of entrance into the kingdom of heaven. The first Skopzic congregation was gathered round him in the village of Sosnowka. The “men of God” enraged at his success denounced him to the government. He was punished with the knout and condemned in 1774 to hard labour at Irkutzk. The idea that Peter III., who died in 1762, was still alive, then widely prevailed. The “men of God” had also adopted this opinion, and proclaimed him their last-appearing Christ, who would soon return from his hiding-place to call to account all unbelievers. Selivanov, who knew of this, now gave himself out for the exiled monarch, and was accepted as such by his adherents in his native place. When Paul I., Peter’s son, assumed the reins of government in 1796, a Skopzic merchant of Moscow told him secretly that his father was living at Irkutzk under the name of Selivanov. The emperor therefore brought him to Petersburg and shut him up as an imbecile in an asylum. After Paul’s death, however, his adherents obtained his release. He now lived for eighteen years in honour at Petersburg, till in 1820 the court again interfered and had him confined in a cloister at Suzdal, where after some years he died. Sorely persecuted by Nicholas I. many of his followers migrated to Moldavia and Walachia where they, dwelling in separate quarters at Jassy, Bucharest and Galatz, lived as owners of coach-hiring establishments, and by rich presents obtained proselytes. Still more vigorously was the propaganda carried on in the Moscow colonies on the Sea of Azov. There in Morschansk lived the spiritual head of all Russian Skopzen, the rich merchant Plotizyn. After the government got on the track of this society, Plotizyn’s house was searched and a correspondence revealing the wide extension of the sect was found, together with a treasure of several, some say as much as thirty, millions of roubles, which, however, in great part again disappeared in a mysterious manner. Plotizyn and his companions were banished to Siberia and sentenced to hard labour, the less seriously implicated to correction in a cloister.—The secret doctrine of the Skopzen so far as is known is as follows: God had intended man to propagate not by sexual intercourse but by a holy kiss. They broke this command and this constituted the fall. In the fulness of time God sent his Son into the world. The central point of his preaching transmitted to us in a greatly distorted form was the introduction of the baptism of fire (Matt. iii. 11), i.e. mutilation by hot irons for which, in consideration of human weakness, a baptism of castration may be substituted (Matt. xix. 12). Origen is regarded by them as the greatest saint of the ancient church; to his example all saints conformed who are represented as beardless or with only a slight beard. The promised return of the Christ (in this alone diverging from the doctrine of the “men of God”), took place in the person of the emperor Peter III. whom an unstained virgin bore, who was called the empress Elizabeth Petrovna. The latter after some years transferred the government to a lady of the court resembling her and retired into private life under the name of Akulina Ivanovna, where she still remains invisible behind golden walls, waiting for the things that are to come. Her son Peter III., who had also himself undergone the baptism of fire, escaped the snares of his wife, reappeared under the name of Selivanov, performed many miracles and converted multitudes, obtained as a reward the knout, and was at last sent to Siberia. Emperor Paul recalled him and was converted by him. Under Alexander I. he was again arrested and imprisoned in the cloister of Suzdal. But he was conveyed thence by a divine miracle to Irkutzk, where he now lives in secret, whence at his own time he shall return to judge the living and the dead.—They kept up an outward connection with the state church although they regarded it as the apocalyptic whore of Babylon. In their own secret services inspired psalms were sung, and after exciting dances prophecies were uttered.[567]

§ 211. SECTARIES AND ENTHUSIASTS IN THE PROTESTANT DOMAIN.

The United States of America with their peculiar constitution formed the favourite ground for the gathering and moulding of sects during this age. There, besides the older colonies of Quakers, Baptists and Methodists from England, we meet with Swedenborgianism and Unitarianism, while Baptists and Methodists began to send missionaries into Europe, and from England the Salvation Army undertook a campaign for the conquest of the world. But also on the European continent independent fanatical developments made their appearance.—A new combination of communism with religious enthusiasm is represented by the Harmonists and by the Perfectionists in North America. The Grusinian Separatists and the Bavarian Chiliasts are millenarians of German extraction, of whom the former sought deliverance from the prevailing antichristian spirit in removal from, and the latter in removal to, South Russia. The Amen churches sought to gather God’s people of the Jewish Christian communities together in Palestine, while the so-called German Temple sought to gather the Gentile Christians. As Latter Day Saints, besides the Adventists, the Darbyites established themselves on an independent basis; the Irvingites, with revival of the apostolic offices and charisms, and their American caricature, the Mormons, with the addition of socialistic and fantastic gnostic tendencies. The religion of the Taiping rebellion in China presented the rare phenomenon of a national Chinese Christianity of native growth, and a still rarer manifestation is met with in American-European spiritualism with pretended spirit revelations from the other world.

§ 211.1. The Methodist Propaganda.—From 1850 the American Methodists, both the Albrechtsleute (§ 208, 4) and the Episcopal Methodists, have sent out numerous missionaries, mostly Germans into Germany, whose zeal has won considerable success among the country people. In North-West Germany Bremen is their chief station, whence they have spread to Sweden, Central and Southern Germany, and Switzerland, and have stations in Frankfort, Carlsruhe, Heilbronn, and Zürich.—Of a more evanescent character was the attempt made on Germany by the so-called Oxford Holiness Movement. In 1866 the North American Methodists celebrated their centenary in New York by the appointment of a great revival and holiness committee, in which were also members of many other denominations. Among them the manufacturer, Pearsall Smith, of Philadelphia, converted in 1871, exhibited extraordinary zeal. In September, 1874, he held at Oxford great revival meetings, from which the designation of the Oxford movement had its origin. By some Germans there present his opinions were carried to Germany. In spring, 1875, he began his second European missionary tour. While his two companions, the revivalists Moody and Sankey, travelled through England for the conversion of the masses, Smith went to Germany, and proceeding from Berlin on to Switzerland, gave addresses in English, that were interpreted, in ten of the large cities. The most pious among clergy and laity flocked from far and near to hear him. The new apostle’s journey became more and more a triumphal march. He was lauded as a reformer called to complete the work of Luther; as a prophet, who was to fructify the barren wastes of Germany with the water of life. The core of his doctrine was: Perfect holiness and the attainment of absolute perfection, not hereafter, but now! now! now! with the constant refrain: “Jesus saves me now;” not remission of sins through justification by faith in the atoning efficacy of Christ’s blood, which only avails for outward sinful actions, but immediate extinction of sins by Christ in us, proved in living, unfaltering, inner, personal experience, etc. By a great international and interconfessional meeting at Brighton, lasting for ten days, in June, 1875, at which many German pastors, induced by the payment of travelling expenses, were present, the crown was put upon the work. But at the height of his triumph, under the daily increasing tension and excitement the apostle of holiness showed himself to be a poor sinful son of man, for he strayed into errors, “if not practically, at least theoretically,” which his admirers at first referred to mental aberration, but which they hid from the eyes of the world under a veil of mystery. Toward the end of the Brighton conference he declared to his hearers: “Thus plunge into a life of divine unconcern!” and, “All Europe lies at my feet.” And in subsequent private conversations he developed a system of ethics that “would suit Utah rather than England,” to which he then so conformed his own conduct that his admirers, “although satisfied of the purity of his own intentions,” were obliged energetically to repudiate and with all speed send away across the sea the man whom their own unmeasured adulation had deceived.

§ 211.2. The Salvation Army.—An extremely fantastic caricature of English Methodism is the Salvation Army. The Methodist evangelist, William Booth, who in 1865 founded in one of the lowest quarters of London a new mission station, fell upon the idea in 1878, in order to make an impression on the rude masses, to give his male and female helpers a military organisation, discipline and uniform, and with military banners and music to undertake a campaign against the kingdom of the devil. The General of the Salvationists is Booth himself, his wife is his adjutant, his eldest daughter field-marshal; his fellow-workers male and female are his soldiers, cadets and officers of various ranks; chief of the staff is Booth’s eldest son. Their services are conducted according to military forms; their orchestra of trombone, drum and trumpet is called the Hallelujah Brass Band. Their journal, with an issue of 400,000, is the War Cry; another for children, is The Little Soldier, in which Jane, four years old, dilates on the experiences of her inner life; and Tommy, eleven years old, is sure that, having served the devil for eleven years, he will now fight for King Jesus; and Lucy, nine years old, rejoices in being washed in the blood of the Lamb. The army attained its greatest success in England. Its numerous “prisoners of war” from the devil’s army (prostitutes, drunkards, thieves, etc.) are led at the parade as trophies of war, and tell of their conversion, whereupon the command of the general, “Fire a Volley,” calls forth thousands of hallelujahs. Liberal collections and unsought contributions, embracing several donations of a £1,000 and more, are given to the General, not only to pay his soldiers, but also to rent or to purchase and fit up theatres, concert halls, circuses, etc., for their meetings, and to build large new “barracks.” Its wonderful success has secured for the army many admirers and patrons, even in the highest ranks of society. Queen Victoria herself testified to Mrs. Booth her high satisfaction with her noble work. At the Convocation, too, in the Upper as well as the Lower House, distinguished prelates spoke favourably of its methods and results, and so encouraged the formation of a Church Army, which, under the direction of the mission preacher Aitken, pursues similar ways to those of the Salvation Army, without, however, its spectacular displays, and has lately extended its exertions to India. The temperance party after the same model has formed a Blue Ribbon Army, the members of which, distinguished by wearing a piece of blue ribbon in the buttonhole, confine themselves to fighting against alcohol. In opposition to it public-house keepers and their associates formed a Yellow Ribbon Army, which has as its ensign the yellow silk bands of cigar bundles. Soon after the first great success of the Salvation Army, a Skeleton Army was formed out of the lowest dregs of the London mob, which, with a banner bearing the device of a skeleton, making a noise with all conceivable instruments, and singing obscene street songs to sacred melodies, interrupted the marches of the Salvation, and afterwards of the Church, Army: throwing stones, filthy rotten apples and eggs, and even storming and demolishing their “barracks.”—In 1880 a detachment of the Salvation Army, with Railton at its head, assisted by seven Hallelujah Lasses, made a first campaign in America, with New York as its head-quarters. In the following year, under Miss Booth, it invaded France, where it issues a daily bulletin, “En Avant.” In 1882 it appeared in Australia, then in India, where Chunder Sen, the founder of the Brama-Somaj, showed himself favourable. In Switzerland it broke ground in 1882, in Sweden in 1884, and in Germany, at Stuttgart, in November, 1886. Africa, Spain, Italy, etc., followed in succession. These foreign corps outside of England also found considerable success. Almost everywhere they met with opposition, the magistrates often forbidding their meetings, and inflicting fines and imprisonment, and the mob resorting to all sorts of violent interference. Nowhere were both sorts of opponents so persistent as in Switzerland in 1883 and 1884, especially in Lausanne, Geneva, Neuenburg, Bern, Beil, etc. Although General Booth himself at the annual meeting in April, 1884, boasted that £393,000 had been collected during the past year for the purposes of the army, and over 846 barracks in eighteen countries of the world had been opened, and now even spoke of strengthening the army by establishing a Salvation Navy, the increasing extravagances caused by the army itself, as well as the far greater improprieties of those more or less associated with it, has drawn away many of its former supporters.

§ 211.3. Baptists and Quakers.—Baptist sympathies and tendencies often appeared in Germany apart from an anti-ecclesiastical pietism or mysticism. But this aberration first assumed considerable proportions when a Hamburg merchant, Oncken, who had been convinced by his private Bible reading of the untenableness of infant baptism, was baptized by an American baptist in 1834, and now not only founded the first German baptist congregation in Hamburg, but also proved unwearied in his efforts to extend the sect over all Germany and Scandinavia by missions and tract distribution. Oncken died in 1884. Thus gradually there were formed about a hundred new Baptist German congregations in Mecklenburg, Brandenburg (Berlin), Pomerania, Silesia, East Prussia (Memel, Tilsit, etc.), Westphalia, Wupperthal, Hesse, Württemberg and Switzerland. In Sweden (250 congregations with 18,000 souls) they were mainly recruited from the “Readers,” who after 1850 went over in crowds (§ 201, 2). They also found entrance into Denmark and Courland, but in all cases almost exclusively among the uncultured classes of labourers and peasants. After long but vain attempts at suppression by the governments during the reactionary period of 1850, they obtained under the liberal policy of the next two decades more or less religious toleration in most states. They called themselves the society of “baptized Christians,” and maintained that they were “the visible church of the saints,” the chosen people of God, in contrast to the “hereditary church and the church of all and sundry,” in which they saw the apocalyptic Babylon. Even the Mennonites who “sprinkle,” instead of immersing, “all,” i.e. without proper sifting, they regard as a “hereditary” church. With the Anglo-American Baptists they do indeed hold fellowship, but take exception to them in several points, especially about open communion.—A peculiar order of Baptists has arisen in Hungary in the Nazarenes or Nazirites, or as they call themselves: “Followers of Christ.” Founded in 1840 by Louis Henefey originally a Catholic smith, who had returned home from Switzerland, the sect obtained numerous adherents from all three churches, most largely from the Reformed church, favoured perhaps by the not yet altogether extinguished reminiscences of the Baptist persecutions of the eighteenth century (§ 163, 2). They practised strict asceticism, refused to take oaths or engage in military service, and kept the bare Puritan forms of worship, in which any one was allowed to preach whom the Holy Spirit enlightened. Their congregations embraced weak and strong friends, and also weak and strong brethren. The strong friends after receiving baptism joined the ranks of weak brethren, and then again became strong brethren on their admission to the Lord’s Supper. The church officers were singers, teachers, evangelists, elders, and bishops.—In North America Quakerism, under the influence of increasing material prosperity, had lost much of its primitive strictness in life and manners. The more lax were styled Wet-, and their more rigorous opponents Dry-Quakers. Enthusiasm over the American War of Independence of 1776-1783, spreading in their ranks, led to further departures from the rigid standard of early times. Those who took weapons in their hands were designated Fighting Quakers. The General Assembly disapproved but tolerated these departures; neither the Wet nor the Fighting Quakers were excommunicated, but they were not allowed any part in the government of the community. In 1822 a party appeared among them, led by Elias Hicks, which carried the original tendency of Quakerism to separate itself from historical Christianity so far as to deny the divinity of Christ, and to allow no controlling authority to Scripture in favour of the unrestricted sway of reason and conscience. This departure from the traditions of Quakerism, however, met with vigorous opposition, and the protesting party, known as Evangelical Friends, pronounced more decidedly than ever for the authority of Scripture. In England, notwithstanding the wealth and position of its adherents, Quakerism, since the second half of the eighteenth century, has suffered a slow but steady decrease, while even in America, to say the least, no advance can be claimed. In Holland, Friesland, and Holstein, Quaker missionaries had found some success among the Mennonites, without, however, forming any separate communities. In 1786 some English Quakers succeeded in winning a small number of proselytes in Hesse, who in 1792, under the protection of the prince of Waldeck, formed a little congregation at Friedersthal, near Pyrmont, which still maintains its existence.—On the sects of Jumpers and Shakers, variously related to primitive, fanatical Quakerism, see § 170, 7.[568]

§ 211.4. Swedenborgians and Unitarians.—In the nineteenth century Swedenborgianism has found many adherents. In England, Scotland and North America the sect has founded many missionary and tract societies. In Württemberg the procurator Hofacker and the librarian Tafel, partly by editions and translations of the writings of Swedenborg, partly by their own writings, were specially zealous in vindicating and spreading their views. A general conference of all the congregations in Great Britain and Ireland in 1828 published a confession of faith and catechism, and thirteen journals (three English, seven American, Tafel’s in German, one Italian and one Swedish) represent the interests of the party. The liberal spirit of modern times has in various directions introduced modifications in its doctrine. Its Sabellian opposition to the church doctrine of the Trinity and its Pelagian opposition to the doctrine of justification, have been retained, and its spiritualising of eschatological ideas has been intensified, but the theosophical magical elements have been wholly set aside and scarcely any reference is ever made to revelations from the other world.—From early times the Unitarians had a well ordered and highly favoured ecclesiastical institution in Transylvania (§ 163, 1). But in England the law still threatened them with a death sentence. This law had not indeed for a long time been carried into effect, and in 1813 it was formally abrogated. There are now in England about 400 small Unitarian congregations with some 300,000 souls. The famous chemist Jos. Priestly may be regarded as the founder of North American Unitarianism (§ 171, 1), although only after his death in 1804 did the movement which he represented spread widely through the country. Then in a short time hundreds of Unitarian congregations were formed. Their most celebrated leaders were W. Ellery Channing, who died in 1842, and Theodore Parker, who died in 1860, both of Boston.

§ 211.5. Extravagantly Fanatical Manifestations.—The English woman Johanna Southcote declared that she was the “woman in the sun” of Revelation xii. or the Lamb’s wife. In 1801 she came forth with her prophecies. Her followers, the New Israelites or Sabbatarians, so called because they observed the Old Testament law of the Sabbath, founded a chapel in London for their worship. A beautiful cradle long stood ready to receive the promised Messiah, but Johanna died in 1814 without giving birth to him.—A horrible occurrence, similar to that recorded in § 210, 2, took place some years later, in 1823, in the village of Wildenspuch in Canton Zürich. Margaret Peter, a peasant’s daughter, excited by morbid visions in early youth, was on this account expelled from Canton Aargau, and was carried still farther in the direction of extreme mysticism by the vicar John Ganz, by whom she was introduced to Madame de Krüdener (§ 176, 2). Amid continual heavenly visions and revelations, as well as violent conflicts with the devil and his evil spirits, she gathered a group of faithful followers, by whom she was revered as a highly gifted saint, among them a melancholy shoemaker, Morf, whom Ganz introduced to her. The spiritual love relationship between the two in an unguarded hour took a sensual form and led to the birth of a child, which Morf’s forbearing wife after successfully simulating pregnancy adopted as her own. This deep fall, for which she wholly blamed the devil, drove her fanaticism to madness. The ridiculous proceedings in her own house, where for a whole day she and her adherents beat with fists and hammers what they supposed to be the devil, led the police to interfere. But before orders arrived from Zürich, she found refuge in an asylum, and there the end soon came. Margaret assured her followers that in order that Christ might fully triumph and Satan be overthrown, blood must be shed for the salvation of many thousand souls. Her younger sister Elizabeth voluntarily allowed herself to be slain, and she herself with almost incredible courage allowed her hands and feet to be nailed to the wood and then with a stroke of the knife was killed, under the promise that she as well as her sister should rise again on the third day. The tragedy ended by the apprehension and long confinement of those concerned in it.—The sect of Springers in Ingermannland had its origin in 1813. Arising out of a religious excitement not countenanced by the church authorities, they held that each individual needed immediate illumination of the Holy Spirit for his soul’s salvation. So soon as they believed that this was obtained, the presence of the Spirit was witnessed to by ecstatic prayer, singing and shouting joined with handshaking and springing in their assemblies. The special illumination required as its correlate a special sanctification, and this they sought not only in repudiation of marriage, but also in abstinence from flesh, beer, spirits and tobacco. The “holy love,” prized instead of marriage, however, here also led to sensual errors, and the result was that many after the example of the Skopzen (§ 210, 4) resorted to the surer means of castration.—Among the Swedish peasants in 1842 appeared the singular phenomenon of the Crying Voices (Röstar). Uneducated laymen, and more particularly women and even children, after convulsive fits broke out into deep mutterings of repentance and prophesyings of approaching judgment. The substance of their proclamations, however, was not opposed to the church doctrine, and the criers were themselves the most diligent frequenters of church and sacrament.—In the beginning of 1870 the wife of a settler at Leonerhofe, near San Leopoldo in Brazil, Jacobina Maurer, became famous among the careless colonists of that region as a pious miracle-working prophetess. In religious assemblies which she originated, she gave forth her fantastic revelations based upon allegorical interpretations of Scripture, and founded a congregation of the “elect” with a communistic constitution, in which she assumed to herself all church offices as the Christ come again. Rude abuse and maltreatment of these “Muckers” on the part of the “unbelieving,” and the interference of the police, who arrested some of the more zealous partisans of the female Christ, brought the fanaticism to its utmost pitch. Jacobina now declared it the duty of believers to prepare for the bliss of the millennium by rooting out all the godless. Isolated murders were the prelude of the night of horror, June 25th-26th, 1874, on which well organized Mucker-bands, abundantly furnished with powder and shot, went forth murdering and burning through the district for miles around. The military sent out against them did not succeed in putting down the revolt before August 2nd, after the prophetess with many of her adherents had fallen in a fanatically brave resistance.

§ 211.6. Christian Communistic Sects.—The only soil upon which these could flourish was that of the Free States of North America. Besides the small Shaker communities (§ 170, 7) still surviving in 1858, the following new fraternities are the most important:

1. The Harmonites. The dissatisfaction caused among the Württemberg Pietists by the introduction of liturgical innovations led to several migrations in the beginning of the century. Geo. Rapp, a simple peasant from the village of Iptingen, went to America in 1803 or 1804 with about six hundred adherents, and settled in the valley of Connoquenessing, near Pittsburg in Pennsylvania. As a fundamental principle of this “Harmony Association,” which honoured father Rapp as autocratic patriarch, prophet and high priest, and with him believed in the near approach of the second advent, the community of goods holds a prominent place. By diligence and industry in agriculture, labour and manufactures, they reached great prosperity under the able leadership of their patriarch. In 1807 the community, by a resolution of its own to which Rapp agreed, resolved to abstain from marriage, so that henceforth no children were born nor marriages performed. A falling off in numbers was made up in 1817 by new arrivals from Württemberg and afterwards by the adoption of children. Industrial reasons led the community in 1814 to colonize Wabashthal in Indiana, where they built the town of Harmony, which, however, in 1823, on account of its unhealthy situation, they sold to the Scotchman Robert Owen (§ 212, 3), and then founded for themselves the town of Economy, not far from Pittsburg, where they still reside. In 1831 an adventurer, Bernard Müller, appeared among them, who, at Offenbach, had, for a long time, under the name of Proli, played a brilliant part as a prophet called to establish universal spiritual monarchy, and then, when in danger from the courts of law, had fled to America. In Economy, where he passed himself off as Count Maximilian von Leon, persecuted on account of his belief in the second coming, he found as such a hearty welcome, and within a year, by his agitation for the reintroduction of marriage and worldly enjoyments, drew away a third part of the community, embracing 250 souls. The dissentients with 105,000 dollars from the common purse withdrew and settled under the leadership of the pseudo-count as a New Jerusalem society in the neighbouring village of Philippsburg. But the new patriarch conducted himself so riotously that he was obliged in 1833 to flee to Louisiana, where in the same year he died of cholera. His people now in deep distress turned to Dr. Keil, a mystic come from Prussia, who reorganised them after the pattern of Rapp’s communistic society, but with liberty to marry, and brought them to a prosperous condition in two colonies mainly founded by him at Bethel in Missouri and Aurora in Oregon. Economy, too, flourished in spite of the heavy losses it sustained, so that now the common property of the populace, which through celibacy had been reduced to about eighty persons, amounts to eight million dollars. Father Rapp died in 1847, in his ninetieth year, confident to the end that he would guide his church unto the hourly expected advent of Christ.

2. When in 1831 a wave of revival passed over North America, J. H. Noyes, an advocate’s assistant, applied himself to the study of the Bible and became the founder of a new sect, the Bible Communists or Perfectionists of the Oneida Society. He taught that the promised advent of Christ took place spiritually soon after the destruction of Jerusalem; by it the kingdom of Adam was ended and the kingdom of God in the heart of those who knew and received him was established. The official churches were only state churches, but the true church was scattered in the hearts of individual saints, until Noyes collected and organized it into a Bible family. For them there is no more law, for laws are for sinners and the saints no longer sin. Each saint can do and suffer whatever the Spirit of God moves him to. All the members of the congregation constitute one family, live, eat, and work together. Goods, wives and children are in common. It lies with the wife to accept or refuse the approaches of a man. But soon this proclaimed freedom from law sent everything into confusion and disunion; schism—apostasy prevailed. But Father Noyes now saved his church from destruction by introducing a correction to this freedom from law in Sympathy, i.e. in the agreement of all members of the family. The odium which fell upon the community from without on account of its “complex marriages,” induced him at last in August, 1879, although he still always maintained the soundness of his principle of free love and its final victory over prejudice, to ordain the introduction of monogamic marriages, and the community acquiesced. With regard to community of goods, meals and children, however, they kept to the old lines. The parent community has its seat at Lenox in Oneidabach in New York State. Alongside of it are three daughter communities. They have their prophets and prophetesses, but no ritual service and no Sunday. Their employment (they number about 300 souls) is mainly fruit culture and the manufacture of snares of every kind for wild and other animals.[569]

§ 211.7. Millenarian Exodus Communities.

1. The Georgian Separatists. The stream of Württemberg emigrants above referred to turned also toward Southern Russia. The settlers in Transcaucasian Georgia in the long absence of regular pastors fell into fanatical separation, which the clergy who followed in 1820 could not overcome. Under the direction of three elders (one of them an old woman) as representing the Holy Trinity, they lived quietly, refused to baptize their children, to give their dead burial according to the rites of the church, to call in physicians in sickness, and at last rejected the marriage relation. In 1842 their female elder, Barbara Spohn, wife of a cartwright, appeared in the rôle of a prophet, proclaiming the near approach of the end of the world and calling upon her followers to pass through the wilderness to the promised land, there to enter into the millenial kingdom. They were to take with them no money, no bread, etc., but only a staff; their clothes and shoes would not wear old in the desert, they could eat manna and quails, and in the holy land Christ would dress them in the bridal robe. The government sought in vain to bring them to reason and to obstruct their way, when about three hundred of them wished at Pentecost, 1843, to start on their journey. They were allowed to send three men to Constantinople and Palestine to seek permission from the Turkish government to settle in a spot near Jerusalem. But these returned before the close of the year with the news, that Palestine is not the land that would suit them. This brought the majority to their senses and they rejoined the church.

2. Equally unfortunate was the attempt at colonization made in 1878 by some Bavarian Chiliasts. The pastor Clöter in Illenschwang had for a long time in the “Brüderbote,” edited by him, urged the emigration of believers to South Russia, where, according to his exposition of the apocalyptic prophecy, a secure place of refuge had been provided by God for believers of the last times during the near approaching persecutions of antichrist. In June, 1878, the tailor Minderlein with his family and nineteen other persons started to go thither. Minderlein died by the way, and his companions after enduring great hardships were obliged to return, and reached Nuremberg again in October, absolutely destitute. Clöter, however, was not discouraged by this misfortune. In December he called his adherents from Bavaria, Württemberg and Switzerland, together to a conference at Stuttgart, where they formed themselves into the “German Exodus Church.” In the summer, 1880, Clöter himself travelled to South Russia and thought that he found in the Crimea the fittest place of refuge. On his return he was banished, but after some days liberated, though deprived of his clerical office. A final stop was then put to the exodus movement.

§ 211.8.

1. The Amen Community owed its feeble existence to a Christian Jew, Israel Pick of Bohemia. Believing that he was not required in baptism to renounce his Judaism, but that rather thereby he first became a true Jew, through a onesided interpretation of Old Testament promises to his nation, he wished to found a colony of the people of God in the Holy Land on Jewish-Christian principles. The whole Mosaic law, excluding the observance of the Sabbath and circumcision, was to be the basis, together with baptism and the Lord’s Supper, of ecclesiastical and civil organization. He succeeded in winning a few converts here and there, to whom he gave the name of the Amen Community, because in Christ (the אֱלֹהֵי אָמֵן Isa. lxv. 16) all the prophecies of the old covenant are Yea and Amen. Its chief seat was at Munich-Gladbach. In 1859 Pick travelled to Palestine in order to choose a spot for the settlement of his followers and there all trace of him was lost.

2. The founder of the German Temple Communities in Palestine was Chr. Hoffmann, brother of General Superintendent Hoffmann of Berlin, and son of the founder of the Kornthal Community (§ 196, 5), in connection with Chr. Paulus, nephew of the well known Heidelberg professor Paulus (§ 182, 2). In 1854 they issued an invitation to a conference at Ludwigsburg, for consultation about the means for gathering the people of God in Palestine. A great crowd of believers from all parts, numbering some 10,000 families, was to embark for the holy land to form there a new people of God which, on the foundation of prophets and apostles, should strictly practise the public law of the old covenant in all points of civil administration, including the laws of the sabbath and the jubilee. The conference besought of the German League that it would use its influence with the Sultan to secure permission for colonization with self-government and religious freedom. As the German League simply declined the request, the committee bought the estate of Kirschenhardthof near Marbach, in order there temporarily and in a small way to form a social commonwealth observing the Mosaic law. In 1858 Hoffmann went with two of his followers to Jerusalem in order to look out a place there suitable for their purpose. The result was unsatisfactory. Therefore he issued in 1861 a summons to take part in a German Temple. Consequently a number of men from Württemberg, Bavaria, and Baden, Protestants and Catholics, forsook their churches, ordained priests and elders, and appointed Hoffmann their bishop and held regular synods. The final aim of this procedure, however, was always still to find a settlement in Palestine and erect a temple in Jerusalem which, according to prophecy, is to form the central sanctuary for the whole world. Colonization in the East was tried as a means to this end. Since 1869 there have been five organized colonies, with a Temple Chief and a congregational school, embracing about 1,000 souls, established in Palestine, viz. at Jaffa, Haifa, Sarona, Beyrout, and in 1878 even in Jerusalem, whither the original colony at Jaffa was transferred. The German Imperial Government refused indeed in 1879 to give the recognition sought for to the civil and political organization of the Palestinian colonies, as in a foreign country beyond its jurisdiction, but granted to its Lyceum at Jerusalem a yearly contribution of 1,500 marks and to the schools of Jaffa, Haifa and Sarona from 650 to 1,000. In 1875 Hoffmann published at Stuttgart a large apologetical and polemical work, “Occident und Orient,” which contained many thoughtful remarks. But since then, in the central organ of all the Temple Communities inspired by him, the “Süddeutsche Warte,” he has openly and distinctly attached himself to Ebionitic rationalism, by denying and opposing the fundamental evangelical doctrine of the trinity, redemption, and the sacraments. These theological views, however, were by no means shared in by all the Templars, and caused a split in the community, one section at Haifa with the chief templar there, Hardegg, at its head, separating from the central body as an independent “Imperial Brotherhood.” The seceders, joined by many German and American templar friends, again drew nearer to the Evangelical church and ultimately became reconciled with it. But Hoffmann has, in his last work, Bibelforschungen i. ii.: Röm.- u. Kol. br., Jerus. 1882, 1884, carried his polemic against the church doctrine to the utmost extreme of cynical abuse. He died in December, 1885. At the head of the denomination now stands his fellow-worker Paulus. From year to year several drop back into the Evangelical church so that the community is evidently approaching extinction.

§ 211.9. The Community of “the New Israel.”—The Jewish advocate Jos. Rabinowitsch at Kishenev in Bessarabia, who had long occupied himself with plans for the improvement of the spiritual and material circumstances of his fellow-countrymen, at the outbreak of the persecution of the Jews in 1882 in South Russia eagerly urged their return to the holy land of their fathers and himself undertook a journey of inspection. There definite shape seems to have been given to the long cherished thought of seeking the salvation of his people in an independent national attachment to their old sacred historical development, broken off 1850 years before, by acknowledging the Messiahship of Jesus. At least after his return he gave expression to the sentiment, based on Romans xi.: “The keys of the holy land are in the hands of our brother Jesus,” which, in consequence of the high esteem in which he was held by his countrymen, was soon re-echoed by some 200 Jewish families. His main endeavour now was the formation of independent national Jewish-Christian communities, after the pattern of the primitive church of Jerusalem, as “New Israelites,” observing all the old Jewish rites and ordinances compatible with New Testament apostolic preaching and reconcilable with modern civil and social conditions. The Torah, the prophets of the Old Testament and the New Testament writings, are held as absolutely binding, whereas the Talmud and the post-apostolic Gentile Christian additions to doctrine, worship, and constitution are not so regarded. Jesus, Rabinowitsch teaches, is the true Messiah who, as Moses and prophets foretold, was born as Son of David by the Spirit of God and in the power of that Spirit lived and taught in Israel, then for our salvation suffered, was crucified and died, rose from the dead, and ascended to the right hand of the Father in heaven. The trinity of persons in God as well as the two natures in Christ he rejects, as not taught in the New Testament and originating in Gentile Christian speculation. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper (and that “according to the example of Christians of the pure Evangelical confession in England and Germany”) are recognised as necessary means of grace; but the Lord’s Supper is to be, according to its institution, a real meal with the old Jewish prayers. As to the doctrine of the Supper, Rabinowitsch agrees with the views of the Lutheran church. Circumcision and the observance of the Sabbath and the feasts (especially the Passover), are retained, not indeed as necessary to salvation, therefore not binding on Gentile Christians, but patriotically observed by Jewish-Christians as signs of their election from and before all nations as the people of God. In January, 1885, with consent of the Russian Government, the newly-erected synagogue of “the holy Messiah Jesus Christ” for the small congregation of Rabinowitsch’s followers at Kishenev was solemnly opened, the Russian church authorities, the Lutheran pastor Fultin and many young Jews taking part in the service. Soon afterwards Rabinowitsch received Christian baptism in the chapel of the Bohemian church at Berlin at the hands of Prof. Mead of Andover, probably in recognition of the aid sent from America.—A Jewish-Christian religious communion with similar tendencies has been formed in the South Russian town of Jellisawetgrad under the designation of a “Biblical Spiritual Brotherhood.”

§ 211.10. The Catholic Apostolic Church of the Irvingites.—Edward Irving, 1792-1834, a powerful and popular preacher of the Scotch-Presbyterian church in London, maintained the doctrine that the human nature of Christ like our own was affected by original sin, which was overcome and atoned for by the power of the divine nature. At the same time he became convinced that the spiritual gifts of the apostolic church could and should still be obtained by prayer and faith. A party of his followers soon began to exercise the gift of tongues by uttering unintelligible sounds, loud cries, and prophecies. His presbytery suspended him in 1832 and the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland excommunicated him. Rich and distinguished friends from the Episcopal church, among them the wealthy banker, Drummond, afterwards prominent as an apostle (died 1859), rallied round the man thus expelled from his church, and gave him the means to found a new church, but, in spite of Irving’s protests, brought with them high church puseyite tendencies, which soon drove out the heretical as well as the puritanic tendencies, and modified the fanatical element into a hierarchical and liturgical formalism. The restoration of the office of apostle was the characteristic feature of the movement. After many unsuccessful attempts they succeeded by the divine illumination of the prophets in calling twelve apostles, first and chief of whom was the lawyer Cardale (died 1877). By the apostles, as chief rulers and stewards of the church, evangelists and pastors (or angels, Rev. ii. 1, 8, etc.) were ordained in accordance with Eph. iv. 11; and subordinate to the pastors, there were appointed six elders and as many deacons, so that the office bearers of each congregation embraced thirteen persons, after the example of Christ and His twelve disciples. In London seven congregations were formed after the pattern of the seven apocalyptic churches (Rev. i. 20). Prominent among their new revelations was the promise of the immediately approaching advent of the Lord. The Lord, who was to have come in the lifetime of the first disciples and so was looked for confidently by them, delayed indefinitely His return on account of abounding iniquity and prevented the full development of the second apostolate designed for the Gentiles and meanwhile represented only by Paul, because the church was no longer worthy of it. Now at last, after eighteen centuries of degradation, in which the church came to be the apocalyptic Babylon and ripened for judgment, the time has come when the suspended apostolate has been restored to prepare the way for the last things. Very confidently was it at first maintained that none of their members should die, but should live to see the final consummation. But after death had removed so many from among them, and even the apostles one after another, it was merely said that those are already born who should see the last day. It may come any day, any hour. It begins with the first resurrection (Rev. xx. 5) and the “changing” of the saints that are alive (the wise virgins, i.e. the Irvingites), who will be caught up to the Lord in the clouds and in a higher sphere be joined with the Lord in the marriage supper of the Lamb. They are safely hidden while antichrist persecutes the other Christians, the foolish virgins, who only can be saved by means of painful suffering, and executes judgment on Babylon. This marks the end of the Gentile church; but then begins the conversion of the Jews, who, driven by necessity and the persecution of sinful men, have sought and found a refuge in Palestine. After a short victory of antichrist the Lord visibly appears among the risen and removed. The kingdom of antichrist is destroyed, Satan is bound, the saints live and reign with Christ a thousand years on the earth freed from the curse. Thereafter Satan is again let loose for a short time and works great havoc. Then comes Satan’s final overthrow, the second resurrection and last judgment. Their liturgy, composed by the apostles, is a compilation from the Anglican and Catholic sources. Sacerdotalism and sacrifice are prominent and showy priestly garments are regarded as requisite. Yet they repudiate the Romish doctrine of the bloodless repetition of the bleeding sacrifice, as well as the doctrine of transubstantiation. But they strictly maintain the contribution of the tenth as a duty laid upon Christians by Heb. vii. 4. Their typical view of the Old Testament history and legislation, especially of the tabernacle, is most arbitrary and baseless. Their first published statement appeared in 1836 in an apostolic “Letter to the Patriarchs, Bishops, and Presidents of the Church of Christ in all Lands, and to emperors, kings, and princes of all baptized nations,” which was sent to the most prominent among those addressed, even to the pope, but produced no result. After this they began to prosecute their missionary work openly. But they gave their attention mainly to those already believers, and took no part in missions to the heathen, as they were sent neither to the heathen nor to unbelievers, but only to gather and save believers. In their native land of England, where at first they had great success, their day seems already past. In North America they succeeded in founding only two congregations. They prospered better in Germany and Switzerland, where they secured several able theologians, chief of all Thiersch, the professor of Theology in Marburg, the Tertullian of this modern Montanism (died 1885), and founded about eighty small congregations with some 5,000 members, chief of which are those of Berlin, Stettin, Königsberg, Leipzig, Marburg, Cassel, Basel, Augsburg, etc. Even among the Catholic clergy of Bavaria this movement found response; but that was checked by a series of depositions and excommunications during 1857.—In 1882 the Lutheran pastor Alpers of Gehrden in Hanover was summoned to appear before the consistory to answer for his Irvingite views. He denied the charge and referred to his good Lutheran preaching. As, however, he had taken the sacramental “sealing” from Irvingite apostles, the court regarded this as proof of his having joined the party and so deposed him.[570]

§ 211.11. The Darbyites and Adventists.—Related on the one hand to Irvingism by their expectation of the immediately approaching advent and by their regarding themselves as the saints of the last time who would alone be saved, the Darbyites, on the other hand, by their absolute independentism form a complete contrast to the Irvingite hierarchism. John Darby, 1800-1882, first an advocate, then a clergyman of the Anglican church, breaking away from Anglicanism, founded between 1820 and 1830 a sectarian, apocalyptic, independent community at Plymouth (whence the name Plymouth Brethren), but in 1838 settled in Geneva, and in 1840 went to Canton Vaud, where Lausanne and Vevey have become the headquarters of the sect. All clerical offices, all ecclesiastical forms are of the evil one, and are evidence of the corruption of the church. There is only one office, the spiritual priesthood of all believers, and every believer has the right to preach and dispense the sacraments. Not only the Catholic, but also the Protestant church is a “Balaam Church,” and since the departure of the apostles no true church has existed. In doctrine they are strictly Calvinistic.[571]—The Adventists. Regarding the 2,300 days of Dan. viii. 14 as so many years, W. Miller of New York and Boston proclaimed in 1833 that the second advent would take place on the night of October 23rd, 1847, and convinced many thousands of the correctness of his calculations. When at last the night referred to arrived the believers continued assembled in their tabernacles waiting, but in vain, for the promise (Matt. xxiv. 30, 31; 1 Cor. xv. 52; 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17), at “the voice of the archangel and the trump of God to be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” This miscalculation, however, did not shake the Adventists’ belief in the near approach of the Lord, but their number rather increased from year to year. Most zealous in propagating their views by journals and tracts, evangelists and missionaries, is a branch of the sect founded by James White of Michigan, whose adherents, because they keep the Sabbath in place of the Lord’s Day, are called Seventh Day Adventists.

§ 211.12. The Mormons or Latter Day Saints.—Jos. Smith, a broken down farmer of Vermont, who took to knavish digging for hid treasures, affirmed in 1825, that under direction of divine revelations and visions, he had excavated on Comora hill in New York State, golden tablets in a stone kist on which sacred writings were engraved. A prophet’s spectacles, i.e., two pierced stones which as a Mormon Urim and Thummim lay beside them, enabled him to understand and translate them. He published the translation in “the Book of Mormon.” According to this book, the Israelites of the ten tribes had migrated under their leader, Lehi, to America. There they divided into two peoples; the ungodly Lamanites, answering to the modern Redskins, and the pious Nephites. The latter preserved among them the old Israelitish histories and prophecies, and through miraculous signs in heaven and earth obtained knowledge of the birth of Christ that had meanwhile taken place. Toward the end of the fourth century after Christ, however, the Lamanites began a terrible war of extermination against the Nephites, in consequence of which the latter were rooted out with the exception of the prophet Mormon and his son Moroni. Mormon recorded his revelations on the golden tablets referred to, and concealed them as the future witness for the saints of the last days on the earth. Smith proclaimed himself now called on of God, on the basis of these documents and the revelations made to him, to found the church of The Latter Day Saints. The widow of a preacher in New York proved indeed that the Book of Mormon was almost literally a plagiarism from a historico-didactic romance written by her deceased husband, Sal. Spaulding. The MS. had passed into the hands of Sidney Rigdon, formerly a Baptist minister and then a bookseller’s assistant, subsequently Smith’s right-hand man. But even this did not disturb the believers. In 1831 Smith with his followers settled at Kirtland in Ohio. To avoid the daily increasing popular odium, he removed to Missouri, and thence to Illinois, and founded there, in 1840, the important town of Nauvoo with a beautiful temple. By diligence, industry and good discipline, the wealth, power and influence of their commonwealth increased, but in the same proportion the envy, hatred and prejudices of the people, which charged them with the most atrocious crimes. In 1844, to save bloodshed the governor ordered the two chiefs, Jos. and Hiram Smith, to surrender to voluntary imprisonment awaiting a regular trial. But furious armed mobs attacked the prison and shot down both. The roughs of the whole district then gathered in one great troop, destroyed the town of Nauvoo, burned the temple and drove out the inhabitants. These, now numbering 15,000 men, in several successive expeditions amid indescribable hardships pressed on “through the wilderness” over the Rocky Mountains, in order to erect for themselves a Zion on the other side. Smith’s successor was the carpenter, Brigham Young. The journey occupied two full years, 1845-1847. In the great Salt Lake basin of Utah they founded Salt Lake City, or the New Jerusalem, as the capital of their wilderness state Deseret. The gold digging of the neighbouring state of California did not allure them, for their prophet told them that to pave streets, build houses and sow fields was better employment than seeking for gold. So here again they soon became a flourishing commonwealth.

§ 211.13. In common with the Irvingites, who recognised in them their own diabolic caricature, the Mormons restored the apostolic and prophetic office, insisted upon the continuance of the gift of tongues and miracles, expected the speedy advent of the Lord, reintroduced the payment of tithes, etc. But what distinguished them from all Christian sects was the proclamation of polygamy as a religious duty, on the plea that only those women who had been “sealed” to a Latter-day Saint would share in the blessedness of life eternal. This was probably first introduced by Young in consequence of a new “divine revelation,” but down to 1852 kept secret and denied before “the Gentiles.” The ambiguous book of Mormon was set meanwhile more and more in the background, and the teachings and prophecies of their prophet brought more and more to the front. “The Voice of Warning to all Nations” of the zealous proselyte Parly Pratt, formerly a Campbellite preacher, exercised a great influence in spreading the sect. But the most gifted of them all was Orson Pratt, Rigdon’s successor in the apostolate. To him mainly is ascribed the construction of its later, highly fantastic religious system which, consisting of elements gathered from Neo-platonism, gnosticism, and other forms of theosophical mysticism, embraces all the mysteries of time and eternity. Its fundamental ideas are these: There are gods without number; all are polygamists and their wives are sharers of their glory and bliss. They are the fathers of human souls who here on earth ripen for their heavenly destiny. Jesus is the first born son of the highest god by his first wife; he was married on earth to Mary Magdalene, the sisters Martha and Mary and other women. Those saints who here fulfil their destiny become after death gods, while they are arranged according to their merit in various ranks and with prospect of promotion to higher places. At the end of this world’s course, Jesus will come again, and, enthroned in the temple of Salt Lake City, exercise judgment against all “Gentiles” and apostates, etc.—The constitution of the Mormon State is essentially theocratic. At the head stood the president, Brigham Young, as prophet, patriarch, and priest-king, in whose hands are all the threads of the spiritual as well as secular administration. A high council alongside of him, consisting of seventy members, as also the prophets and apostles, bishops and elders, and generally the whole richly organized hierarchy, are only the pliable instruments of his all-commanding will. Every one on entering the society surrenders his whole property, and after that contributes a tenth of his yearly income and personal labour to the common purse of the community. Soon numerous missionaries were sent forth who crossed the Atlantic, and attained great success, especially in Scotland, England and Scandinavia, but also in North-West Germany and in Switzerland. On removing the misunderstanding that prevailed about their social and political condition, and supplying the penniless out of the rich immigration fund with the means to make the journey, they persuaded great crowds of their new converts to accompany them to Utah.

§ 211.14. In 1849 the Mormons had asked Congress for the apportioning of the district colonized by them as an independent and autonomous “State” in the union, but were granted, in 1850, only the constitution of a “territory” under the central government at Washington, and the appointment of their patriarch, Young, as its governor. Accustomed to absolute rule, in two years he drove out all the other officers appointed by the union. He was then deprived of office, but the new governor, Col. Sefton, appointed in 1854, with the small armament supplied him could not maintain his position and voluntarily retired. When afterwards in 1858 Governor Cumming, appointed by president Buchanan, entered Utah with a strong military force, Young armed for a decisive struggle. A compromise, however, was effected. A complete amnesty was granted to the saints, the soldiers of the union entered peacefully into the Salt-Lake City, and Young assumed tolerably friendly relations with the governor, who, nevertheless, by the erection of a fort commanding the city made the position safe for himself and his troops. On the outbreak of the war of Secession in 1861 the troops of the union were for the most part withdrawn. But all the more energetically did the central government at the close of the war in 1865 resolve upon the complete subjugation of the rebel saints, having learnt that since 1852 numerous murders had taken place in the territory, and that the disappearance of whole caravans of colonists was not due to attacks of Indians, who would have scalped their victims, but to a secret Mormon fraternity called Danites (Judges xviii.), brothers of Gideon (Judges vi. ff.) or Angels of Destruction, which, obedient to the slightest hint from the prophet, had undertaken to avenge by bloody terrorism any sign of resistance to his authority, to arrest any tendency to apostasy, and to guard against the introduction of any foreign element. The Union Pacific Railway opened in 1869 deprived the “Kingdom of God” of its most powerful protection, its geographical isolation, while the rich silver mines discovered at the same time in Utah, peopled city and country with immense flocks of “Gentiles.” The nemesis, which brought the Mormon bishop Lee, twenty years after the deed, under the lash of the high court of justiciary as involved in the horrible massacre of a large party of emigrants at Mountain Meadows in 1857, would probably have also befallen the prophet himself as the main instigator of this and many other crimes had he not by a sudden death two months later, in his seventy-fifth year, escaped the jurisdiction of any earthly tribunal (died 1877). A successor was not chosen, but supreme authority is in the hands of the college of twelve apostles with the elder John Taylor at their head.—Repeated attempts made since 1874 by the United States authorities by penal enactments to root out polygamy among the Mormons have always failed, because its actual existence could never be legally proved. The witness called could or would say nothing, since the “sealing” was always secretly performed, and the women concerned denied that a marriage had been entered into with the accused, or if one confessed herself his married wife she refused to give any evidence about his domestic relations.—Recently a split has occurred among the Mormons. By far the larger party is that of the “Salt Lake Mormons,” which holds firmly by polygamy and all the other institutions introduced by Young and since his time. The other party is that of the Kirtland, or Old Mormons, headed by the son of their founder, Jos. Smith, who had been passed over on account of his youth, which repudiates all these as unsupported novelties and restores the true Mormonism of the founder. The Old Mormons not only oppose polygamy, but also all more recently introduced doctrines. They are called Kirtland Mormons from the first temple built by their founder at Kirtland in 1814, which having fallen into ruins, was restored by Geo. Smith, jun., and became the centre of the Old Mormon denomination. In April 1885 they held there their first synod, attended by 200 deputies.[572]

§ 211.15. The Taepings in China.—Hung-sen-tsenen, born in 1813 in the province of Shan-Tung, was destined for the learned profession but failed in his examination at Canton. There he first, in 1833, came into contact with Protestant missionaries, whose misunderstood words awakened in him the belief that he was called to perform great things. At the same time he there got possession of some Christian Chinese tracts. Failing in his examination a second time in 1837, he fell into a dangerous illness and had a series of visions in which an old man with a golden beard appeared, handing to him the insignia of imperial rank, and commanding him to root out the demons. After his recovery he became an elementary teacher. A relative called Li visited him in 1843. The Christian tracts were again sought out and carefully studied. Sen now recognised in the old man of his visions the God of the Christians and in himself the younger brother of Jesus. The two baptized one another and won over two young relatives to their views. Expelled from their offices, they went in 1844 to the province of Kiang Se as pencil and ink sellers, preached diligently the new doctrine and founded numerous small congregations of their sect. The American missionaries at Canton heard of the success of their preaching, and Sen accepted an invitation to join them in 1847. The missionary Roberts had a great esteem for him and intended to baptize him, when in consequence of stories spread about him their relations became strained. Sen now returned in 1848 to his companions in Kiang Se, who had diligently and successfully continued their preaching. In 1850 they began to attract attention by the violent destruction of idols. When now all the remnants of a pirate band joined them as converts, they were in common with these persecuted by the government and proclaimed rebels. The expulsion of the hated Mantshu dynasty, which two hundred years before had displaced the Ming dynasty, and the overthrow of idolatry were now their main endeavour, and in 1857 they organized under Sen a regular rebellion for the setting up of a Taeping dynasty, i.e., of universal peace. The Taeping army advanced unhindered, all Mantschu soldiers who fell into its hands were massacred, and of the inhabitants of the provinces conquered, only those were spared who joined their ranks. In March, 1853, they stormed the second capital of the empire, Nankin, the old residence of the Ming dynasty. There Sen fixed his residence and styled himself Tien-Wang, the Divine Prince. He assigned to ten subordinate princes the government of the conquered provinces, almost the half of the immense empire. Thousands of bibles were circulated; the ten commandments proclaimed as the foundation of law, many writings, prayers and poems composed for the instruction of the people, and these with the bible made subjects of examination for entrance to the learned order. An Arian theory of the trinity was set forth; the Father is the one personal God, whose likeness in bodily human form Sen strictly forbade, destroying the Catholic images as well as the Chinese idols. Jesus is the first-born son of God, yet not himself God, sent by the Father into the world in order to enlighten it by his doctrine and to redeem it by his atoning sufferings. Sen, the younger brother of Jesus, was sent into the world to spread the doctrine of Jesus and to expel the demons, the Mantschu dynasty. Reception takes place through baptism. The Lord’s Supper was unknown to them. Bloody and bloodless offerings were still tolerated. The use of wine and tobacco was forbidden; the use of opium and trafficking in it were punished with death. But polygamy was sanctioned. Saturday, according to the Old Testament, was their holy day. Their service consisted only of prayer, singing and religious instruction; but also written prayers were presented to God by burning.

§ 211.16. Sen himself had no more visions after 1837. But other ecstatic prophets arose, the eastern prince Yang and the western prince Siao. The revelations of the latter were comparatively sober, but those of the former were in the highest degree blasphemously fanatical. He declared himself the Paraclete promised by Jesus, and taught that God himself, as well as Jesus, had a wife with sons and daughters. He was at the same time a brave and successful general, and the mass of the Taepings were enthusiastically attached to him. Sen humbly yielded to the extravagances of this fanatic, even when Yang sentenced him to receive forty lashes. Sen’s overthrow was already resolved upon in Yang’s secret council, when Sen took courage and gave the northern prince secret orders to murder Yang and his followers in one night. This was done, and Sen was weak enough to allow the executioner of his secret order to be publicly put to death so as to appease the excited populace. But he thus again in 1856 became master of the situation.—One of the oldest apostles of Sen, his near relative Hung Yin, had been turned off at Hong Kong. He there attached himself to the Basel missionary, Hamberg, who in 1852 baptized him and made him his native helper. In hope of winning his cousin to the true Christian faith, he travelled in 1854 to Nankin, which however he did not reach till January, 1859. Sen received him gladly and made him his war minister. But his efforts to introduce a purer Christianity among the Taepings were unsuccessful, for he tried the slippery way of accommodation, and under pressure from Sen set up for himself a harem. In October, 1860, on Sen’s repeated invitation, his former teacher, the missionary Roberts of Nankin, arrived and was immediately made minister for foreign affairs. The Shanghai missionaries, several of whom visited Nankin, had interesting interviews with Yin in 1860, but not with the emperor, as they refused to go on their knees before him. They were encouraged by Yin to hope for a future much needed purifying of Taeping Christianity. Yang’s revelations, however, held their ground after as well as before, and were increased by further absurdities. To such crass fanaticism was now added the inhuman cruelty with which they massacred the vanquished and wasted the conquered cities and districts. Had the European powers ranged themselves in a friendly and peaceful attitude alongside of the Taepings, China might now have been a Christian empire. Instead of this the English, on account of the extreme opposition of the Taepings to the opium traffic, took up a hostile position toward them, while they were also in disfavour with the French, who had been denounced by them as idolaters on account of their Romish image worship. Down to the beginning of 1862, however, Yin’s influence had prevented any hostile proceedings against the Europeans in spite of many provocations given. But after that the Taepings refused them any quarter. Roberts fled by night to save his life. Against disciplined European troops the rebels could not hold their ground. One city after another was taken from them, and at last, in July 1864, their capital Nankin. Sen was found poisoned in his burning palace.[573]

§ 211.17. The Spiritualists.—The shoemaker’s apprentice, Andrew Jackson Davis of Poughkeepsie on the Hudson, in his nineteenth year fell into a magnetic sleep and composed his first work, “The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations and a Voice to Mankind,” in 1845. He declared its utterances to be spiritual revelations from the other world. But his later writings composed in working hours made the same claim, especially the five volume work, “Great Harmonia, being a Philosophical Revelation of the Natural, Spiritual, and Celestial Universe,” 1850 ff. Both went through numerous editions and were translated into German. The great spiritual manifestation promised in the first work was not long delayed. In a house bought by the family of Fox in Hydesville in New York State a spectral knocking was often heard. Through the intercourse which the two youngest daughters, aged nine and twelve years, had with the ghosts, the skeleton of a murdered five years’ old child of a pedlar was discovered buried in the cellar, and when the family soon thereafter left the house, the ghosts went with them and continued their communications by table turning, table rapping, table writing, etc. The thing now became epidemic. Hundreds and thousands of male and female mediums arose and held an extremely lively and varied intercourse with innumerable departed ones of earlier and later times. The believers soon numbered millions, including highly educated persons of all ranks, even such exact chemists as Mapes and Hare. An abundant literature in books and journals, as well as Sunday services, frequent camp-meetings and annual congresses formed a propaganda for the alleged spiritualism, which soon found its way across the ocean and won enthusiastic adherents for all confessions in all European countries, especially in London, Paris, Brussels, St. Petersburg, Vienna, Dresden, Leipzig, etc. They now broke up into two parties called respectively Spiritualists and Spiritists. The former put in the foreground physical experiments with astonishing results and miraculous effects; the latter, with the Frenchman Allan Kardec (Rivail) as their leader, give prominence to the teaching of spirits by direct communication. The former in reference to the origin of the human soul held by the theory of traducianism; the latter to that of pre-existence in connection with a doctrine of re-incarnation of spirits by reason of growing purity and perfection. The latter see in Christ the incarnation of a spirit of the highest order; the former merely the purest and most perfect type of human nature. But neither admit the real central truth of Christianity, the reconciliation of sinful humanity with God in Christ. Both evaporate the resurrection into a mere spectral spirit manifestation; and the disclosures and utterances of the spirits with both are equally trivial, silly, and vain.—In England the famous palæontologist and collaborateur of Darwin, Alfr. Russel Wallace, and the no less celebrated physicist Wm. Crookes, are apologists of spiritualism. The latter declared in 1879 that to the three well-known conditions of matter, solid, fluid and gaseous, should be added a fourth, “radiant,” and that there is the borderland where force and matter meet. And in Germany the acute Leipzig astrophysicist Fr. Zöllner, after a whole series of spiritualistic séances conducted by the American medium Slade in 1877 and 1878 had been carefully scrutinized and tested by himself and several of his most accomplished scientific colleagues, was convinced of the existence and reality of higher “four dimension” space in the spirit world, to which by reason of its fourth dimension the power belonged of passing through earthly bodily matter. The philosophers I. H. Fichte of Stuttgart and Ulrici of Halle have admitted the reality of spiritualistic communications and allege them as proofs of immortality. Among German theologians Luthardt of Leipzig regards it all as the work of demons who take advantage for their own ends of the moral-religious dissolution of the modern world and its consequent nerve shaking that prevails, just as in the ancient world in the beginnings of Christianity. Zöckler of Greifswald finds an analogy between it and the demoniacal possession of New Testament times; so too Martensen in his “Jacob Boehme,” and on the Catholic side W. Schneider; while Splittgerber refers most of the manifestations in question to a merely subjective origin in “the right side of the human soul life,” but puts the materialization of spirits in the category of delusive jugglery. Spiritualism has scarcely rallied from the obloquy cast upon it by the unmasking of the tricks of the famous medium Miss Florence Cook in London in 1880 and of the distinguished spirit materialiser Bastian by the Grand-duke John of Austria in 1884.[574]

§ 211.18. To the domain of unquestionable illusion belongs also the spiritualistic movement of Indian Theosophism or Occultism. The American Col. Olcott of New York had already moved for twenty-two years in spiritualist circles when in 1874 he met with Madame Blavatsky, widow of a Russian general who had been governor of Erivan in Armenia. She professed to have been from her eighth year in communication with spirits, then to have had secret intercourse with the Mahatmas, i.e. spirits of old Indian penitents, during a seven years’ residence on the Himalayas. She now promised to introduce the colonel to them. Olcott and Blavatsky founded at New York in 1875 a society for research in the department of the mystic sciences, travelled in 1878 to Further India and Ceylon, and settled finally in Madras, whence by word and writing they proclaimed through the whole land theosophism or occultism as the religion of the future, which, consisting in a medley of Hinduism and Buddhism, enriched by spiritualistic revelations of Mahatmas, vouched for by spiritualistic signs and miracles and conformed to the most recent philosophical and scientific researches in America and Europe, aimed at heaping contempt upon Christianity and finally driving it from the field. As fanatical opponents of Christian missions in India they were strongly supported by the Brahman and Buddhist hierarchy, and soon obtained for the theosophical society founded by them not only numerous adherents from among the natives, but also many Englishman befooled by their spiritualistic swindle. As apostle and literary pioneer of the new religion appeared an Anglo-Indian called Sinnett. In spring, 1884, Madame Blavatsky and Col. Olcott went on a propagandist tour to Europe, where, in England, France, Austria, and Hungary, they won many converts, while Col. Olcott at Elberfeld and Madame Blavatsky at Odessa founded branches of their theosophical society.—But meanwhile in India affairs assumed a threatening aspect. Blavatsky on her departure had entrusted the keys of her dwelling and her mysterious cabinet with its various panels, falling doors, etc., to Mr. and Mrs. Coulomb, who had been hitherto her assistants in all her juggleries. Madame Coulomb, however, quarrelled with the board of theosophists at Madras, and revenged herself by placing in the hands of the Scottish mission letters addressed by Blavatsky to herself and her husband which supplied evidence that all her spiritualistic manifestations were only common tricks. In addition she gave public exhibitions in which she demonstrated to the spectators ad oculos the spiritual manifestations of the Mahatmas, and subsequently published an “Account of My Acquaintanceship with Madame Blavatsky, 1872-1884,” with discoveries of her earlier rogueries. Meanwhile the swindler had herself in December, 1884, returned to Madras in company with several believers gathered up in England, among others a young English clergyman, Leadbeater, who some days previously in Ceylon had formally adopted Buddhism. The theosophists now demanded that the reputed cheat and deceiver should be brought before a civil court. The president, however, declared that the investigations and judgment of a profane court of law could not be accepted to the mysteries of occultism, but promised a careful examination by a commission appointed by himself, and Blavatsky thought it advisable “for the restoration of her health in a cooler climate” to make off from the scene of conflict.[575]

§ 212. ANTICHRISTIAN SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM.

While the antichristian spirit of the age breaks out in various theoretical forms in our literature, there also abound social and communistic movements of a practical kind. Socialism and communism both aim at a thorough-going reform of the rights of property and possession in strict proportion to the labour spent thereon. They are, however, distinguished in this, that while communism declares war against all private property and demands absolute community of goods, socialism, at least in its older and nobler forms, proceeding from the idea of precise correspondence between capital and labour, seeks to have expression given to this in fact. From the older socialism, which endeavoured to reach its end in a peaceful way within the existing lines of civil order, a later social democracy is to be distinguished by its decidedly politico-revolutionary character and tendency to attach itself more to communism. This modern socialism thinks to open the way to the realization of its hare-brained ideas by the confusion and overthrow of existing law and order.

§ 212.1. The Beginnings of Modern Communism.—As early as 1796 Babeuf published in Paris a communistic manifesto which maintained the thesis that natural law gives all men an equal right to the enjoyment of all goods. His ideas were subsequently systematized and developed by Fourier, Proudhon, Cabet, and Louis Blanc in France, and by Weibling and Stirner in Germany. In a treatise of 1840 Proudhon answered the question, Qu’est-ce que la propriété? in words which afterwards became proverbial, and formed the motto of communism: La propriété c’est le vol. But the mere negation of property affords no permanent standing ground. All altars must be thrown down; all religion rooted out as the plague of humanity; the family and marriage, as the fountain of all selfishness, must be abolished; all existing governments must be overthrown; all Europe must be turned into one great social democracy. A secret communistic propaganda spread over all western Europe, had its head centres in Belgium and Switzerland, crossed the Alps and the Pyrenees, as well as the Channel, and found a congenial soil even in Russia.

§ 212.2. St. Simonism.—The Count St. Simon of Paris, reduced to poverty by speculation, proposed by means of a thorough organization of industry to found a new and happy state of things in which there would be pure enjoyment without poverty and care. An attempted suicide, which led however to his death in 1825, made him in the eyes of his disciples a saviour of the world. The July revolution of 1830 gave to the new universal religion, which reinstated the flesh in its long lost rights and sought to assign to each individual the place in the commonwealth for which he was fitted, some advantage. “Father” Enfantin, whom his followers honoured as the highest revelation of deity, contended with pompous phrases and in fantastic style for the emancipation of woman and against the unnatural institution of marriage. But St. Simonism soon excited public ridicule, was pronounced immoral by the courts of justice, and the remnants of its votaries fled from the scorn of the people and the vengeance of the law to Egypt, where they soon disappeared.

§ 212.3. Owenists and Icarians.—The Scotch mill-owner Rob. Owen went in 1829 to America, in order there, unhindered by religious prejudices, clerical opposition, and police interference, to work out on a large scale his socialistic schemes for improving the world, which in a small way he believed he had proved already among his Scotch mill-operatives. He bought for this purpose from the Württemberger Rapp the colony of Harmony (§ 211, 6); but wanting the necessary capital for the socialistic commonwealth there established, and failing to realize his expectations, discontent, disorder, and opposition got the upper hand, and in 1826 Owen was obliged to abandon all his property. He now returned to England, and addressed himself in treatises, tracts, and lectures to the working classes of the whole land, in order to win them over to his ideas. A vast brotherhood for mutual benefit and for the enjoyment of their joint earnings was to put an end to earth’s misery, which the positive religions had not lessened but only increased. In 1836, in the great industrial cities socialist unions with nearly half a million members were formed, with their head centre and annual congress at Birmingham. The practical schemes of Owen, however, had no success in England, and his societies no permanency. He died in 1858.—Still more disastrous was the fate of the Icarian Colony, founded in Texas in 1848 by the Frenchman Stephen Cabet, author of “Voyage en Icarie, Roman philos. et social,” 1840, as an attempt to realize his communistic-philanthropic ideas on the other side of the Atlantic. The colonists soon found their sanguine hopes bitterly disappointed, and hurled against their leader reproaches and threats. Some ex-Icarians accused him in 1849 before the Paris police-court as a swindler, and he was condemned to two years’ imprisonment and five years’ loss of civil privileges. Cabet now hastened to France, and on appeal obtained reversion of his sentence in 1851. Returning to America, he founded a new Icarian colony at Nauvoo in Illinois. But there, too, everything went wrong, and a revolt of the colonists obliged him to flee. He died in 1856.[576]

§ 212.4. The International Working-Men’s Association.—Local and national working-men’s unions with a socialistic organization had for a long time existed in England, France, and Germany. The idea of a union embracing the whole world was first broached at the great London Exhibition in 1862, and at a conference in London on September 28th, 1864, at which all industrial countries of Europe were represented, it assumed a practical shape by the founding of a universal international working-men’s association. Its constitution was strictly centralistic. A directing committee in London, Carl Marx of Treves, formerly Privatdocent of philosophy at Bonn, standing at its head as dictator, represented the supreme legislative and governing authority, while alongside of it a general standing council held the administrative and executive power. The latter was divided into eight sections, English, American, French, German, Belgian, Dutch, Italian, and Spanish, and annual international congresses at Geneva, Lausanne, Brussels, Basel, and the Hague gave opportunity for general consultation on matters of common interest. Reception as members was granted by the giving of a diploma after six months’ trial, and involved unconditional obedience to the statutes and ordinances of the central authorities and the payment of an annual fee. The number of members, not, however, exclusively drawn from the working classes, is said to have reached two and a half millions. The society adopted the current socialistic and communistic ideas and tendencies. The religious principle of the association was therefore: atheism and materialism; the political: absolute democracy; the social: equal rights of labour and profit, with abolition of private property, hereditary rights, marriage, and family; and as means for realizing this programme, unaccomplishable by peaceable methods, revolution and rebellion, fire and sword, poison, petroleum and dynamite. Such means have been used already in various ways by the international throughout the Romance countries; but specially in the brief Reign of Terror of the Paris Commune, March and April, 1871, in the relatively no less violent attempted revolt at Alcoy in Southern Spain in July, 1873. But meanwhile differences appeared within the society, which were formulated at the Hague Congress in 1872, and led to splits, which greatly lessened its unity, influence, and power to do mischief, so that this congress may perhaps be regarded as the first beginning of its end.[577]

§ 212.5. German Social Democracy.—Ferd. Lassalle, son of a rich Jewish merchant of Breslau, after a full course of study in philosophy and law, began in 1848 to take a lively part in the advanced movements of the age, and when he found among the liberal citizens no favour for his socialistic ideas turned exclusively to the working classes. In answer to the question as to what was to be done, by the central committee of a working-men’s congress at Leipzig, he wrought out in 1863 with great subtlety in an open letter the fundamental idea of his universal redemption. All plans of self-help to relieve the distress of working men hitherto proposed (specially that of Schulze-Delitzsch) break down over the “iron economic law of wages,” in consequence of which under the dominion of capital and the large employers of labour wages are always with fatalistic necessity reduced to the point indispensable for supplying a working man’s family with the absolute necessaries of life. The working classes, however, have the right according to the law of nature to a full equivalent for their labour, but in order to reach this they must be their own undertakers, and where self-help is only a vain illusion, state help must afford the means. By insisting on the right to universal suffrage the working classes have obtained a decided majority in the legislative assemblies, and there secured a government of the future in accordance with their needs. On these principles the Universal German Society of Working Men was constituted, with Lassalle as its president, which position he held till his death in a duel in 1864. Long internal disputes and personal recriminations led to a split at the Eisenach Congress in 1869. The malcontents founded an independent “Social Democratic Working-Men’s Union,” under the leadership of Bebel and Liebknecht, which, particularly successful in Saxony, Brunswick, and South Germany, represents itself as the German branch of the “International Working-Men’s Association.” It adhered indeed generally to Lassalle’s programme, but objected to the extravagant adulation claimed for Lassalle by their opponents, the proper disciples of Lassalle, who had Hasenclaver as their leader and Berlin as their headquarters, substituted a federal for a centralistic organization, and instead of a great centralised government in the future desired rather a federal republic embracing all Europe. But both declared equally in favour of revolution; they vied with one another in bitter hatred of everything bearing the name of religion; and wrought out with equal enthusiasm their communistic schemes for the future. At the Gotha Congress of 1875 a reconciliation of parties was effected. The social-democratic agitation thus received a new impulse and assumed threatening proportions. Yet it required such extraordinary occurrences as the twice attempted assassination of the aged emperor, by Hodel on May 11th, and Nobiling on June 2nd, 1878, to rouse the government to legislative action. On the basis of a law passed in October, 1878, for two and a half years (but in May, 1880, continued for other three and a half years, and in May, 1884, and again in April, 1886, on each occasion extended to other two years), 200 socialist societies throughout the German empire were suppressed, sixty-four revolutionary journals, circulated in hundreds of thousands and with millions of readers, and about 800 other seditious writings, were forbidden. But that the social-democratic organization and agitation was not thereby destroyed is proved by the fact that in August, 1880, in an uninhabited Swiss castle lent for the purpose, in Canton Zürich, a congress was held, attended by fifty-six German socialists, with greetings by letter from sympathisers in all European countries, which among other things passed the resolution unanimously, no longer as had been agreed upon at Gotha, to seek their ends by lawful methods, as by the law of the socialists impossible, but by the way of revolution.—On the other hand, the German Imperial Chancellor Prince Bismarck in the Reichstag, 1884, fully admitted the “right of the worker to work,” as well as the duty of the state to ameliorate the condition of working men as far as possible, and in three propositions: “Work for the healthy workman, hospital attendance to the sick, and maintenance to the invalided,” granted all that is asked for by a healthy social policy.

§ 212.6. Russian Nihilism.—In Russia, too, notwithstanding a strictly exercised censorship, the philosophico-scientific gospel of materialism and atheism found entrance through the writings of Moleschott, Feuerbach, Büchner, Darwin, etc. (§ 174, 3), especially among the students. In 1860, Nihilism, springing from this seed, first assumed the character of a philosophical and literary movement. It sought the overthrow of all religious institutions. Then came the women’s question, claiming emancipation for the wife. The example of the Paris Commune of 1871 contributed largely to the development of Nihilistic idealism, its political revolutionary socialism. The Nihilist propaganda, like an epidemic, now seized upon the academic youth, male and female, was spread in aristocratic families by tutors and governesses, won secret disciples among civil servants as well as officers of the army and navy, and was enthusiastically supported by ladies in the most cultured and exalted ranks. In order to spread its views among the people, young men and women disguised in peasant’s dress went out among the peasants and artisans, lived and wrought like them, and preached their gospel to them in their hours of rest. But their efforts failed through the antipathy and apathy of the lower orders, and the energetic interference of the government by imprisonment and banishment thinned the ranks of the propagandists. But all the more closely did those left bind themselves together under their central leaders as the “Society for Country and Freedom,” and strove with redoubled eagerness to spread revolutionary principles by secretly printing their proclamations and other incendiary productions, and scattering them in the streets and houses. On January 24th, 1878, the female Nihilist Vera Sassulitsch from personal revenge dangerously wounded with a revolver General Trepoff, the dreaded head of the St. Petersburg police. Although she openly avowed the deed before the court and gloried in it, she was amid the acclamations of the public acquitted. This was the hour when Nihilism exercised its fellest terrorism. The fair, peaceful phrase, “To work, fight, suffer, and die for the people,” was silenced; it was now, sword and fire, dagger and revolver, dynamite and mines for all oppressors of the people, but above all for the agents of the police, for their spies, for all informers and apostates. An “executive committee,” unknown to most of the conspirators themselves, issued the death sentence; the lot determined the executioner, who himself suffered death if he failed to accomplish it. What was now aimed at was the assassination of higher state officials; then the sacred person of the emperor. Three bold attempts at assassination miscarried; the revolver shot of Solowjews on April 14th, 1879; the mine on the railway near Moscow that exploded too late on November 30th, 1879; the horrible attempt to blow up the Winter Palace with the emperor and his family on February 17th, 1880; but the fourth, a dynamite bomb thrown between the feet of the emperor on March 13th, 1881, destroyed the life of this noble and humane monarch, who in 1861-1863 had freed his people from the yoke of serfdom. As for years nothing more had been heard of Nihilist attempts, it was hoped that the government had succeeded in putting down this diabolical rebellion, but in 1887 the news spread that an equally horrible attempt had been planned for the sixth anniversary of the assassination of Alexander II., but fortunately timely precautions were taken against it.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES.

FIRST CENTURY.

A.D.

14-37.

The Emperor Tiberius, § 22, 1  .

41-54.

The Emperor Claudius, § 22, 1  .

44.

Execution of James the Elder, § 16  .

51.

The Council at Jerusalem, § 18, 1  .

54-68.

The Emperor Nero, § 23, 1  .

61.

Paul’s Arrival at Rome, § 15  .

63.

Stoning of James the Just, § 16, 3  .

64.

Persecution of Christians in Rome, § 22, 1  .

66-70.

Jewish War, § 16  .

81-96.

The Emperor Domitian, § 22, 1  .

SECOND CENTURY.

98-117.

The Emperor Trajan, § 22, 2  .

115.

(?) Ignatius of Antioch, Martyr, § 22, 2  .

117-138.

The Emperor Hadrian, § 22, 2  .

Basilides, Valentinus, § 22, 2, 4  .

132-135.

Revolt of Barcochba [Bar-Cochba], § 25  .

Abt. 150.

Celsus, § 23, 3  .

Marcion, § 27, 11  .

138-161.

The Emperor Antoninus Pius, § 22, 2  .

155.

Paschal Controversy between Polycarp and Amicetus [Anicetus], § 37, 2  .

161-180.

The Emperor Marcus Aurelius, § 22, 3  .

165.

Justin Martyr, § 30, 9  .

166.

(155?) Martyrdom of Polycarp, § 22, 3  .

172.

(156?) Montanus appears as a Prophet, § 40, 1  .

177.

Persecution of Christians at Lyons and Vienne, § 22, 3  .

178.

Irenæus made Bishop of Lyons, § 31, 2  .

180-192.

The Emperor Commodus, § 22, 3  .

196.

Paschal Controversy between Victor and Polycrates, § 37, 2  .

THIRD CENTURY.

202.

Tertullian becomes Montanist, § 40, 2  .

Pantænus dies, § 31, 4  .

220.

Clement of Alexandria dies, § 31, 4  .

235.

Settlement of the Schism of Hippolytus, § 41, 1  .

235-238.

The Emperor Maximinus Thrax, § 22, 4  .

243.

Ammonius Saccus [Saccas] dies, § 25, 2  .

244.

Arabian Synod against Beryllus, § 33, 7  .

249-251.

The Emperor Decius, § 22, 5.

250.

The Schism of Felicissimus, § 41, 2  .

251.

The Novatian Schism, § 41, 3  .

253-260.

The Emperor Valerian, § 22, 5  .

254.

Origen dies, § 31, 5  .

255-256.

Controversy about Heretics’ Baptism, § 35, 5  .

258.

Cyprian dies, § 31, 11  .

260-268.

The Emperor Gallienus.

The Toleration Edict, § 22, 5  .

262.

Synod at Rome against Sabellius and Dionysius of Alexandria, § 33, 7  .

269.

Third Synod of Antioch against Paul of Samosata, § 33, 8  .

276.

Mani dies, § 29, 1  .

284-305.

The Emperor Diocletian, § 22, 6  .

FOURTH CENTURY.

303.

Beginning of Diocletian Persecution, § 22, 6  .

306.

Synod of Elvira, § 38, 3; 45, 2  .

Meletian Schism in Egypt, § 41, 4  .

Constantius Chlorus dies, § 22, 7  .

311.

Galerius dies, § 22, 6  .

312.

Constantine’s Expedition against Maxentius, § 22, 7  .

Donatist Schism in Africa, § 63, 1  .

313.

Edict of Milan, § 22, 7  .

318.

Arius is Accused, § 50, 1  .

323-337.

Constantine the Great, Sole Ruler, § 42, 2  .

325.

First Œcumenical Council at Nicæa, § 50, 1  .

330-415.

Meletian Schism at Antioch, § 50, 8  .

335.

Synod at Tyre, § 50, 2  .

336.

Athanasius Exiled. Arius dies, § 50, 2  .

341.

Council at Antioch, § 50, 2  .

343.

Persecution of Christians under Shapur [Sapor] II., § 64, 2  .

344.

Synod at Sardica, § 46, 3; 50, 2  .

346.

Council at Milan against Photinus, § 50, 2  .

348.

Ulfilas, Bishop of the Goths, § 76, 1  .

350-361.

Constantius, Sole Ruler, § 42, 2  .

351.

First Council at Sirmium against Marcellus, § 50, 2  .

357.

Second Council at Sirmium, Homoians, § 50, 3  .

358.

Third Council at Sirmium, § 50, 3  .

359.

Synods at Seleucia and Rimini, § 50, 3  .

361-363.

Emperor Julian the Apostate, § 42, 3  .

362.

Synod at Alexandria against Athanasius, § 50, 4  .

366-384.

Damasus I., Bishop of Rome, § 46, 4  .

368.

Hilary of Poitiers dies, § 47, 14  .

373.

Athanasius dies, § 47, 3  .

379.

Basil the Great dies, § 47, 4  .

379-395.

Theodosius the Great, Emperor, § 42, 4  .

380.

Synod at Saragossa, § 54, 2  .

381.

Second Œcumenical Council at Constantinople, § 50, 4  .

Ulfilas dies, § 76, 1  .

384-398.

Siricius, Bishop of Rome, § 46, 4  .

385.

Priscillian beheaded at Treves, § 54, 2  .

390.

Gregory Nazianzen dies, § 47, 4  .

391.

Destruction of the Serapeion at Alexandria, § 42, 6  .

393.

Council at Hippo Rhegius, § 59, 1  .

397.

Ambrose dies, § 47, 15  .

399.

Rufinus Condemned at Rome as an Origenist, § 51, 2  .

400.

Martin of Tours dies, § 47, 15  .

FIFTH CENTURY.

402-417.

Innocent I. of Rome, § 46, 5  .

403.

Synodus ad Quercum, § 51, 3  .

Epiphanius dies, § 47, 10  .

407.

Chrysostom dies, § 47, 8  .

408-450.

Theodosius II. in the East, § 52, 3  .

411.

Collatio cum Donatistis, § 63, 1  .

412.

Synod at Carthage against Cœlestius, § 53, 4  .

415.

Synods at Jerusalem and Diospolis against Pelagius, § 53, 4  .

416.

Synods at Mileve and Carthage against Pelagius, § 53, 4  .

418.

General Assembly at Carthage, § 53, 4  .

Roman Schism of Eulalius and Bonifacius, § 46, 6  .

420.

Jerome dies, § 47, 16  .

Persecution of Christians under Behram [Bahram] V., § 64, 2  .

422-432.

Cœlestine I., Bishop of Rome, § 46, 6  .

428.

Nestorius is made Patriarch of Constantinople, § 52, 3  .

429.

Theodore of Mopsuestia dies, § 47, 9  .

The Vandals in North Africa, § 76, 3  .

430.

Cyril’s Anathemas, § 52, 3  .

Augustine dies, § 47, 18  .

431.

Third Œcumenical Council at Ephesus, § 52, 3  .

432.

St. Patrick in Ireland, § 77, 1  .

John Cassianus dies, § 47, 21  .

440-461.

Leo I., the Great, § 46, 7; 47, 22  .

444.

Cyril of Alexandria dies, § 47, 6  .

Dioscurus succeeds Cyril, § 52, 4  .

445.

Rescript of Valentinian III., § 46, 7  .

448.

Eutyches excommunicated at Constantinople, § 52, 4  .

449.

Robber Synod at Ephesus, § 52, 4  .

Attack of Angles and Saxons upon Britain, § 77, 4  .

451.

Fourth Œcumenical Synod at Chalcedon, § 52, 4  .

457.

Theodoret dies, § 47, 9  .

475.

Semipelagian Synods at Arles and Lyons, § 53, 5  .

476.

Overthrow of the West Roman Empire, § 46, 8; 76, 6  .

Monophysite Encyclical of Basiliscus, § 52, 5  .

482.

Henoticon of the Emperor Zeno, § 52, 5  .

Severinus dies, § 76, 6  .

484-519.

The Thirty-five Years’ Schism between the East and West, § 52, 5  .

492-496.

Gelasius I., Bishop of Rome, § 46, 8; 47, 22  .

496.

Battle of Zülpich. Clovis baptized, § 76, 9  .

SIXTH CENTURY.

502.

Synodus Palmaris, § 46, 8  .

517.

Council at Epaon, § 76, 5  .

527-565.

Justinian I., Emperor, § 46, 9; 52, 6  .

529.

Synods at Oranges and Valence, § 53, 5  .

Monastic Rule of Benedict of Nursia, § 85  .

Suppression of the University of Athens, § 42, 4  .

533.

The Theopaschite Controversy, § 52, 6  .

Overthrow of the Vandal Empire, § 76, 3  .

544.

Condemnation of the “Three Chapters,” § 52, 6  .

553.

Fifth Œcumenical Council at Constantinople, § 52, 6  .

554.

Overthrow of the Ostrogoth Empire in Italy, § 76, 7  .

563.

Council at Braga, § 54, 2  .

St. Columba among the Picts and Scots. § 77, 2  .

567.

Founding of the Exarchate of Ravenna, § 46, 9  .

568.

The Longobards under Alboin in Italy, § 76, 8  .

589.

Council at Toledo under Reccared, § 76, 2  .

Columbanus and Gallus in the Vosges Country, § 77, 7  .

590-604.

Gregory I., the Great, § 46, 10; 47, 22  .

595.

Gregory of Tours dies, § 90, 2  .

596.

Augustine goes as Missionary to the Anglo-Saxons, § 77, 4  .

597.

St. Columba dies, § 77, 2  .

Ethelbert baptized, § 77, 4  .

SEVENTH CENTURY.

606.

Emperor Phocas recognises the Roman Primacy, § 46, 10  .

611-641.

Heraclius, Emperor, § 52, 8  .

615.

Columbanus dies, § 77, 7  .

622.

Hejira, § 65  .

625-638.

Honorius I., Pope, § 46, 11  .

636.

Isidore of Seville dies, § 90, 2  .

637.

Omar conquers Jerusalem, § 65  .

638.

Monothelite Ecthesis of Heraclius, § 52, 8  .

640.

Omar conquers Egypt, § 65  .

642-668.

Constans II., Emperor, § 52, 8  .

646.

St. Gallus dies, § 78, 1  .

648.

The Typus of Constans II., § 52, 8  .

649-653.

Martin I., Pope, § 46, 11  .

649.

First Lateran Council under Martin I., § 52, 8  .

652.

Emmeran at Regensburg, § 78, 2  .

657.

Constantine of Mananalis, § 71, 1  .

662.

Maximus Confessor, dies, § 47, 13  .

664.

Synod at Streoneshalch (Syn. Pharensis), § 77, 6  .

668-685.

Constantinus Pogonnatus, § 52, 8; 71, 1  .

677.

Wilfrid among the Frisians, § 78, 3  .

678-682.

Agatho, Pope, § 46, 11  .

680.

Sixth Œcumenical Council at Constantinople (Trullanum I.), § 52, 8  .

690.

Wilibrord among the Frisians, § 78, 3  .

692.

Concilium Quinisextum (Trullanum II.), § 63, 2  .

696.

Rupert in Bavaria (Salzburg), § 78, 2  .

EIGHTH CENTURY.

711.

The Saracens conquer Spain, § 81  .

715-731.

Pope Gregory II., § 66, 1; 78, 4  .

716.

Winifrid goes to the Frisians, § 78, 4  .

717-741.

Leo III., the Isaurian, Emperor, § 66, 1  .

718.

Winifrid in Rome, § 78, 4  .

722.

Winifrid in Thuringia and Hesse, § 78, 4  .

723.

Winifrid a second time at Rome, consecrated Bishop, etc., § 78, 4  .

724.

Destruction of the Wonder-working Oak at Geismar, § 78, 4  .

726.

Leo’s First Edict against Image Worship, § 66, 1  .

730.

Leo’s Second Edict against Image Worship, § 66, 1  .

731.

Gregory III., Pope, § 66, 1; 78, 4; 82, 1  .

732.

Boniface, Archbishop and Apostolic Vicar, § 78, 4  .

Battle at Poitiers, § 81  .

Separation of Illyria from the Roman See by Leo the Isaurian, § 66, 1  .

735.

The Venerable Bede dies, § 90, 2  .

739.

Wilibrord dies, § 78, 3.

741.

Charles Martel dies, § 78, 5  .

Gregory III. dies. Leo the Isaurian dies.

741-752.

Pope Zacharias, § 78, 5, 7; 82, 1  .

741-775.

Constantinus Copronymus, Emperor, § 66, 2  .

742.

Concilium Germanicum, § 78, 5  .

743.

Synod at Liptinä, § 78, 5; 86, 2  .

744.

Synod at Soissons, § 78, 5  .

745.

Boniface, Archbishop of Mainz, § 78, 5  .

752.

Childeric III. deposed, Pepin the Short, King, § 78, 5; 82, 1  .

754.

Iconoclastic Council at Constantinople, § 66, 2  .

Pepin’s donation to the Chair of St. Peter, § 82, 1.

755.

Boniface dies, § 78, 7  .

Abt. 760.

Rule of St. Chrodegang of Metz, § 84, 4  .

767.

Synod at Gentilliacum, § 91, 2; 92, 1  .

768-814.

Charlemagne, § 82, 2, 4; 90, 1  , etc.

772-795.

Pope Hadrian I., § 82, 2  .

772.

Destruction of Eresburg, § 78, 9  .

774.

Charlemagne’s donation to the Chair of St. Peter, § 82, 2  .

785.

Wittekind and Alboin are baptized, § 78, 9  .

787.

Seventh Œcumenical Council at Nicæa, § 66, 3  .

Founding of Cloister and Cathedral Schools, § 90, 1  .

790.

Libri Carolini, § 92, 1  .

792.

Synod at Regensburg, § 91, 1  .

794.

General Synod at Frankfort, § 91, 1; 92, 1  .

795-816.

Leo III., Pope, § 82, 3  .

799.

Alcuin’s disputation with Felix at Aachen, § 91, 1  .

800.

Leo III. crowns Charlemagne, § 82, 3  .

NINTH CENTURY.

804.

End of the Saxon War, § 78, 9  .

Alcuin dies, § 90, 3  .

809.

Council at Aachen, on the Filioque, § 91, 2  .

813-820.

Leo the Armenian, Emperor, § 66, 4  .

814-840.

Louis the Pious, § 82, 4  .

817.

Reformation of Monasticism by Benedict of Aniane, § 85, 2  .

820-829.

Michael Balbus, Emperor, § 66, 4  .

825.

Synod at Paris against Image Worship, § 92, 1  .

826.

Theodorus Studita dies, § 66, 4  .

Ansgar in Denmark, § 80, 1  .

827.

Establishment of Saracen Sovereignty in Sicily, § 81  .

829-842.

Theophilus, Emperor, § 66, 4  .

833.

Founding of the Archbishopric of Hamburg, § 80, 1  .

835.

Synod at Didenhofen, § 82, 4  .

839.

Claudius of Turin dies. Agobard of Lyons dies, § 90, 4  .

840-877.

Charles the Bald, § 90, 1  .

842.

Feast of Orthodoxy, § 66, 4  .

Theodora recommends the out-rooting of the Paulicians, § 71, 1  .

843.

Compact of Verdun, § 82, 5  .

844.

Eucharist Controversy of Paschasius Radbertus, § 91, 3  .

845-882.

Hincmar of Rheims, § 83, 2; 90, 5  .

847.

Archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen, § 80, 1  .

848.

Synod of Mainz against Gottschalk, § 91, 5  .

850-859.

Persecution of Christians in Spain, § 81, 1  .

851-852.

The Decretals of the Pseudo-Isidore, § 87, 2, 3  .

853.

Synod of Quiersy. Capitula Carisiaca, § 91, 5  .

855.

Synod at Valence in favour of Gottschalk, § 91, 5  .

856.

Rabanus Maurus dies, § 90, 4  .

858-867.

Pope Nicholas I., § 82, 7  .

858.

Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, § 67, 1  .

859.

Synod of Savonnières, § 91, 5  .

861.

Methodius goes to the Bulgarians, § 73, 3  .

863.

Cyril and Methodius go to Moravia, § 79, 2  .

865.

Ansgar dies, § 80, 1  .

866.

Encyclical of Photius, § 67, 1  .

867-886.

Basil the Macedonian, Emperor, § 67, 1  .

867-872.

Hadrian II., Pope, § 82, 7  .

869.

Eighth Œcumenical Council of the Latins at Constantinople § 67, 1  .

870.

Treaty of Mersen, § 82, 5  .

871.

Basil the Macedonian puts down the Paulicians, § 71, 1  .

Borziwoi and Ludmilla baptized, § 79, 3  .

871-901.

Alfred the Great, § 90, 9  .

875.

John VIII. crowns Charles the Bald Emperor, § 82, 8  .

879.

Eighth Œcumenical Council of the Greeks at Constantinople, § 67, 1  .

886-911.

Leo the Philosopher, Emperor, § 67, 2  .

891.

Photius dies, § 67, 1  .

TENTH CENTURY.

910.

Abbot Berno founds Clugny, § 98, 1  .

911.

The German Carolingians die out, § 82, 8  .

911-918.

Conrad I., King of the Germans. § 96, 1  .

914-928.

Pope John X., § 96, 1  .

919-936.

Henry I., King of the Germans, § 96, 1  .

934.

Henry I. enforced toleration of Christianity in Denmark, § 93, 2  .

936-973.

Otto I., Emperor, § 96, 1  .

942.

Odo of Clugny founds the Clugniac Congregation, § 98, 1  .

950.

Gylas of Hungary baptized, § 93, 8  .

955.

Olga baptized in Constantinople, § 73, 4  .

960.

Atto of Vercelli dies, § 100, 2  .

962.

Founding of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, § 96, 1  .

963.

Synod at Rome deposes John XII., § 96, 1  .

966.

Miecislaw of Poland baptized, § 93, 7  .

968.

Founding of Archbishopric of Magdeburg, § 93, 9  .

970.

Migration of Paulicians to Thrace, § 71, 1  .

973-983.

Otto II., Emperor, § 96, 2  .

974.

Ratherius of Verona dies, § 100, 2  .

983-1002.

Otto III., Emperor, § 96, 2, 3  .

983.

Mistewoi destroys all Christian establishments among the Wends, § 93, 9  .

987.

Hugh Capet is made King of France, § 96, 2  .

988.

Wladimir Christianizes Russia, § 73, 4  .

992-1025.

Boleslaw Chrobry of Poland, § 93, 7  .

996-999.

Pope Gregory V., § 96, 2  .

997-1038.

Stephen the Saint, § 93, 8  .

997.

Adalbert of Prague, Apostle of Prussia, dies, § 93, 13  .

999-1003.

Pope Sylvester II., § 96, 3  .

1000.

Olaf Tryggvason dies, § 93, 4  .

Christianity introduced into Iceland and Greenland, § 93, 5  .

Stephen of Hungary secures the throne, § 93, 8  .

ELEVENTH CENTURY.

1002-1024.

Henry II., Emperor, § 96, 4  .

1008.

Olaf Skautkoning of Sweden baptized, § 93, 3  .

1009.

Bruno martyred, § 93, 13  .

1012-1024.

Pope Benedict VIII., § 96, 4  .

1014-1036.

Canute the Great, § 93, 2  .

1018.

Romuald founds the Camaldulensian Congregation, § 98, 1  .

1024-1039.

Conrad II., Emperor, § 96, 4  .

1030.

Olaf the Thick of Norway dies, § 93, 4  .

1031.

Overthrow of the Ommaides in Spain, § 95, 2  .

1039-1056.

Henry II., Emperor, § 96, 4, 5  .

1041.

Treuga Dei, § 105, 1  .

1046.

Synod at Sutri, § 96, 4  .

1049-1054.

Pope Leo IX., § 96, 5  .

1050.

Synods at Rome and Vercelli against Berengar, § 101, 2  .

1053.

Epistle of Michael Cærularius, § 67, 3  .

1054.

Excommunication of Greek Church by Papal Legates, § 67, 3  .

1056-1106.

Henry IV., Emperor, § 96, 6-11  .

1059.

Pope Nicholas II. assigns the choice of Pope to the College of Cardinals, § 96, 6  .

1060.

Robert Guiscard founds the Norman Sovereignty in Italy, § 95, 1  .

1066.

Murder of Gottschalk, King of the Wends, § 93, 9  .

1073-1085.

Pope Gregory VII., § 96, 7-9  .

1075.

Gregory’s third Investiture Enactment, § 96, 7  .

1077.

Henry IV. as a Penitent at Canossa, § 96, 8  .

1079.

Berengar subscribes at Rome the doctrine of Transubstantiation, § 101, 2  .

1086.

Bruno of Cologne founds the Carthusian Order, § 98, 2  .

1088-1099.

Pope Urban II., § 96, 10  .

1095.

Synod at Clermont, § 94  .

1096.

First Crusade. Godfrey of Boulogne, § 94, 1  .

1098.

Synod at Bari. Anselm of Canterbury, § 67, 4  .

Robert of Citeaux founds the Cistercian Order, § 98, 1  .

1099.

Conquest of Jerusalem, § 94, 1  .

1099-1118.

Pope Paschalis II., § 96, 11  .

TWELFTH CENTURY.

1106-1125.

Henry V., Emperor, § 96, 11  .

1106.

Michael Psellus dies, § 68, 5  .

1109.

Anselm of Canterbury dies, § 101, 1, 3  .

1113.

Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, § 98, 1; 102, 3  .

1118.

Founding of the Order of Knights Templar.

Knights of St. John, § 98, 7  .

Basil, head of Bogomili, sent to the stake, § 71, 4  .

1119-1124.

Calixtus II., Pope, § 96, 11  .

1121.

Norbert founds the Præmonstratensian Order, § 98, 2  .

1122.

Concordat of Worms, § 96, 11  .

1123.

Ninth Œcumenical Council (First Lateran), § 96, 11  .

1124.

First Missionary Journey of Otto of Bamberg, § 93, 10  .

1126.

Peter of Bruys burnt, § 108, 7  .

1128.

Second Missionary Journey of Otto of Bamberg, § 93, 10  .

1130-1143.

Pope Innocent II., § 96, 13  .

1135.

Rupert of Deutz dies, § 102, 8  .

1139.

Tenth Œcumenical Council (Second Lateran), § 96, 13  .

1141.

Synod at Sens condemns Abælard’s writings, § 102, 2  .

Hugo St. Victor dies, § 102, 4  .

1142.

Abælard dies, § 102, 2  .

1143.

Founding of the Roman Commune, § 96, 13  .

1145-1153.

Pope Eugenius III., § 96, 13  .

1146.

Fall of Edessa, § 94, 2  .

1147.

Second Crusade. Conrad III. Louis VII., § 94, 2  .

1149.

Henry of Lausanne dies, § 108, 7  .

1150.

Decretum Gratiani, § 99, 5  .

1152-1190.

Frederick I., Barbarossa, § 96, 14  .

1153.

Bernard of Clairvaux dies, § 102, 3  .

1154.

Vicelin [Vicelinus] dies, § 93, 9  .

1154-1159.

Hadrian IV., Pope, § 96, 14  .

1155.

Arnold of Brescia put to death, § 96, 14  .

1156.

Peter the Venerable dies, § 98, 1  .

Founding of Carmelite Order, § 98, 3  .

1157.

Introduction of Christianity into Finland, § 93, 11  .

1159-1181.

Pope Alexander III., § 96, 15, 16  .

1164.

Peter the Lombard dies, § 102, 5  .

Council of Clarendon, § 96, 16  .

1167.

Council at Toulouse (Cathari), § 108, 2  .

1168.

Christianity of the Island of Rügen, § 93, 10  .

1169.

Gerhoch of Reichersberg dies, § 102, 6, 7  .

1170.

Thomas Becket murdered, § 96, 16  .

Founding of the Waldensian sect, § 108, 10  .

1176.

Battle of Legnano, § 96, 15  .

1179.

Eleventh Œcumenical Council (Third Lateran), § 96, 15  .

1180.

John of Salisbury dies, § 102, 9  .

1182.

Maronites are attached to Rome, § 73, 3  .

1184.

Meinhart in Livonia, § 93, 12  .

1187.

Saladin conquers Jerusalem, § 94, 3  .

1189.

Third Crusade. Frederick Barbarossa, § 94, 3  .

1190-1197.

Henry VI., Emperor, § 96, 16  .

1190.

Founding of Order of Teutonic Knights, § 98, 8  .

1194.

Eustathius of Thessalonica dies, § 68, 5  .

1198-1216.

Pope Innocent III., § 96, 17, 18  .

THIRTEENTH CENTURY.

1202.

Joachim of Floris dies, § 108, 5  .

Founding of Order of the Brothers of the Sword, § 93, 12  .

Genghis Khan destroys Kingdom of Prester John, § 72, 1  .

1204-1261.

Latin Empire in Constantinople, § 94, 4  .

1207.

Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, § 96, 18  .

1208.

Peter of Castelnau slain, § 109, 1  .

1209-1229.

Albigensian Crusade, § 109, 1  .

1209.

Council of Paris against Sect of Amalrich of Bena, § 108, 4  .

1212.

Battle at Tolosa, § 95, 2  .

1213.

John Lackland receives England as a Papal Fief, § 96, 18  .

1215-1250.

Frederick II., Emperor, § 96, 17, 19, 20  .

1215.

Twelfth Œcumenical Council (Fourth Lateran), § 96, 18  .

1216.

Confirmation of the Dominican Order, § 98, 5  .

1216-1227.

Pope Honorius III., § 96, 19  .

1217.

Fourth Crusade. Andrew II. of Hungary, § 94, 4  .

1223.

Confirmation of Franciscan Order, § 98, 3  .

1226.

Francis of Assisi dies, § 98, 3  .

1226-1270.

Louis IX., the Saint, § 94, 6; 93, 15  .

1227-1241.

Pope Gregory IX., § 96, 19  .

1228.

Fifth Crusade. Frederick II., § 94, 5  .

Settlement of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, § 93, 13  .

1229.

Synod at Toulouse, § 109, 2  .

1231.

St. Elizabeth dies, § 105, 3  .

1232.

Inquisition Tribunal set up, § 109, 2  .

1233.

Conrad of Marburg slain, § 109, 3  .

1234.

Crusade against Stedingers, § 109, 3  .

1237.

Union of the Order of Sword with that of Teutonic Knights, § 98, 8  .

1243-1254.

Pope Innocent IV., § 96, 20  .

1245.

Thirteenth Œcumenical Council (first of Lyons), § 96, 20  .

Alexander of Hales died, § 103, 4  .

1248.

Foundation stone of Cathedral of Cologne laid, § 104, 13  .

Sixth Crusade, Louis IX., § 94, 6  .

1253.

Robert Grosseteste dies, § 103, 1  .

1254.

Condemnation of the “Introductorius in evangelium æternum,” § 108, 5  .

1260.

First Flagellant Campaign in Perugia, § 107, 1  .

1260-1282.

Michael Paläologus, Emperor, § 67, 4  .

1261-1264.

Urban IV., Pope, § 96, 20  .

1262.

Arsenian Schism, § 70, 1  .

1268.

Conradin on the Scaffold. § 96, 20  .

1269.

Pragmatic Sanction of Louis IX., § 96, 21  .

1270.

Seventh Crusade, Louis IX., § 94, 6  .

1271-1276.

Pope Gregory X., § 96, 21  .

1272.

Italian Mission to the Mongols. Marco Polo, § 93, 15  .

David of Augsburg dies, § 103, 10  .

Bertholdt [Berthold] of Regensburg dies, § 104, 1  .

1273-1291.

Rudolph of Hapsburg, Emperor, § 96, 21, 22  .

1274.

Fourteenth Œcumenical Council (second of Lyons), § 96, 21  .

Thomas Aquinas dies, § 103, 6  .

Bonaventura dies, § 103, 4  .

1275.

Strassburg Minster, § 104, 13  .

1280.

Albert the Great dies, § 103, 5  .

1282.

Sicilian Vespers, § 96, 22  .

1283.

Prussia subdued, § 93, 13  .

1286.

Barhabraeus [Barhebræus] dies, § 72, 2  .

1291.

Fall of Acre, § 94, 6  .

John of Montecorvino among the Mongols, § 93, 16  .

1294.

Roger Bacon dies, § 103, 8  .

1294-1303.

Boniface VIII., Pope, § 110, 1  .

1296.

Bull Clericis laicos, § 110, 1  .

1300.

First Roman Jubilee, § 117  .

Lollards at Antwerp, § 116, 2  .

Gerhard Segarelli burnt, § 108, 8  .

FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

1302.

Bull Unam Sanctam, § 110, 1  .

1305-1314.

Pope Clement V., § 110, 2  .

1307.

Dolcino burnt, § 108, 4  .

1308.

Duns Scotus dies, § 113, 1  .

1309-1377.

Residence of Popes at Avignon, § 110, 2-4  .

1311-1312.

Fifteenth Œcumenical Council at Vienne, § 110, 2  .

Suppression of Templar Order, § 112, 7  .

1314-1347.

Louis the Bavarian, Emperor, § 110, 3, 4  .

1315.

Raimund Lullus dies, § 93, 16; 103, 5  .

1316-1334.

Pope John XXII., § 110, 3; 112, 2  .

1321.

Dante dies, § 115, 10  .

1322.

Split in the Franciscan Order, § 112, 2  .

1327.

Meister Eckhart dies, § 114, 1  .

1334-1342.

Pope Benedict XII., § 110, 4  .

1335.

Bishop Hemming in Lapland, § 93, 11  .

1338.

Electoral Union at Rhense, § 110, 5  .

1339.

Union negotiations at Avignon. Barlaam, § 67, 5  .

1340.

Nicholas of Lyra dies, § 113, 7  .

1341-1351.

Hesychast Controversy in Constantinople, § 69, 1  .

1342-1352.

Pope Clement VI., § 110, 4  .

1346-1378.

Charles IV., Emperor, § 110, 4  .

1347.

Rienzi, § 110, 4  .

Emperor Louis dies, § 110, 4  .

1348.

Founding of University of Prague, § 119, 3  .

1348-1350.

Black Death. Flagellant Campaign, § 116, 3  .

1349.

Thomas Bradwardine dies, § 113, 2  .

1352-1362.

Pope Innocent VI., § 110, 4  .

1356.

Charles IV. issues the Golden Bull, § 110, 4  .

1360.

Wiclif against the Begging Friars, § 119, 1  .

1361.

John Tauler dies, § 114, 2  .

1362-1370.

Pope Urban V., § 110, 4  .

1366.

Henry Suso dies, § 114, 5  .

1367-1370.

Urban V. in Rome, § 110, 4  .

1369.

John Paläologus passes over to the Latin Church, § 67, 5  .

1370-1378.

Pope Gregory XI., § 110, 4  .

1374.

Dancers, § 116, 3  .

1377.

Return of the Curia to Rome, § 110, 4  .

1378-1417.

Papal Schism, § 110, 6  .

1380.

Catharine of Siena dies, § 112, 4  .

1384.

Wiclif dies, § 119, 1  .

Gerhard Groot dies, § 112, 9  .

1386.

Introduction of Christianity into Lithuania, § 93, 14  .

1400.

Florentius Radewin dies, § 112, 9  .

FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

1402.

Hus becomes Preacher in the Bethlehem Chapel, § 119, 3  .

1409.

Œcumenical Council at Pisa, § 110, 6.[578]

Withdrawal of the Germans from Prague, § 119, 3  .

1410-1415.

John XXIII., Pope, § 110, 7  .

1410-1437.

Sigismund, Emperor, § 110, 7, 8  .

1412.

Traffic in Indulgences in Bohemia, § 119, 4  .

1413.

Papal Ban against Hus, § 119, 4  .

1414-1418.

Sixteenth Œcumenical Council at Constance, § 110, 6; 119, 5  .

1415.

Hus obtains the crown of martyrdom, § 119, 5  .

1416.

Jerome of Prague martyred, § 119, 5  .

1417-1431.

Pope Martin V., § 110, 7  .

1420.

Calixtines and Taborites, § 119, 7  .

1423.

General Councils at Pavia and Siena, § 110, 7  .

1424.

Ziska dies, § 119, 7  .

1425.

Peter D’Ailly dies, § 118, 3  .

1429.

Gerson dies, § 118, 3  .

1431-1447.

Pope Eugenius IV., § 110, 7  .

1431-1449.

Seventeenth Œcumenical Council at Basel, § 110, 8; 119, 5-7  .

1433.

Basel Compacts, § 119, 7  .

1434.

Overthrow of Hussites at Böhmischbrod, § 119, 7  .

1438.

Papal Counter-Council at Ferrara, § 110, 8  .

Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, § 110, 9  .

1439.

Council at Florence, § 67, 6  .

1448.

Concordat of Vienna, § 110, 9  .

1453.

Fall of Constantinople, § 67, 6  .

1457.

Laurentius Valla dies, § 120, 1  .

1458-1464.

Pope Pius II., § 110, 11  .

1459.

Congress of Princes at Mantua, § 110, 10  .

1464-1471.

Pope Paul II., § 110, 11  .

1467.

Convention of Bohemian Brethren at Lhota, § 119, 8  .

1471.

Thomas à Kempis dies, § 114, 5  .

1471-1484.

Sixtus IV., Pope, § 110, 11  .

1483.

Luther born on November 10th, § 122, 1  .

Spanish Inquisition, § 117, 1  .

Close of Corpus juris canonici, § 99, 5  .

1484-1492.

Innocent VIII., Pope, § 110, 11  .

1484.

Zwingli born January 1st, § 130, 1  .

Bull Summis desiderantes, § 117, 4  .

1485.

Rudolph Agricola dies, § 120, 3  .

1489.

John Wessel dies, § 119, 10  .

1492-1503.

Alexander VI., Pope, § 110, 12  .

1492.

Fall of Granada, § 95, 2  .

1493-1519.

Maximilian I., Emperor, § 110, 13  .

1497.

Melanchthon born, § 122, 5  .

1498.

Savonarola sent to the stake, § 119, 11  .

SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

1502.

Founding of University of Wittenberg, § 122, 1  .

1508-1513.

Pope Julius II., § 110, 13  .

1506.

Rebuilding of St. Peter’s at Rome, § 115, 13  .

1508.

Luther becomes Professor at Wittenberg, § 122, 1  .

1509.

Calvin born on July 10th, § 138, 2  .

1509-1547.

Henry VIII. of England, § 139, 4  .

1511.

Luther’s journey to Rome, § 122, 1  .

Council at Pisa, § 110, 13  .

1512.

Luther made Doctor of the Holy Scriptures and Preacher, § 112, 1  .

1512-1517.

Fifth Lateran Council, § 110, 13, 14  .

1513-1521.

Pope Leo X., § 110, 14  .

1514.

Reuchlin’s contest with the Dominicans, § 120, 4  .

1516.

Epistolæ Obscur. virorum, § 120, 5  .

Erasmus edits the New Testament, § 120, 6  .

Zwingli preaches at Mariä Einsiedeln, § 130, 1  .

1517.

Luther’s Theses, October 31st, § 122, 2  .

1518.

Luther at Heidelberg and before Cajetan at Augsburg, § 122, 3  .

Melanchthon Professor at Wittenberg, § 122, 5  .

1519.

Miltitz, § 122, 3  .

Disputation at Leipzig, § 122, 4  .

Zwingli in Zürich, § 130, 1  .

Olaf and Laurence Peterson in Sweden, § 139, 1  .

1519-1556.

Emperor Charles V., § 123, 5  .

1520.

Bull of Excommunication against Luther, § 123, 2  .

Christian II. in Denmark, § 139, 2  .

1521.

Luther at Worms, § 123, 7  .

Melanchthon’s Loci, § 124, 1  .

Beginning of Reformation in Riga, § 139, 3  .

1521-1522.

The Wartburg Exile, § 123, 8  .

1522.

The Prophets of Zwickau in Wittenberg, § 124, 1  .

Reuchlin dies, § 120, 4  .

1522-1523.

Pope Hadrian VI., § 126, 1  .

1523.

Thomas Münzer in Allstädt, § 124, 4  .

Luther’s contest with Henry VIII., § 125, 3  .

First Martyrs, Voes and Esch, § 128, 1  .

Sickingen’s defeat, § 124, 2  .

1523-1534.

Pope Clement VII., § 149, 1  .

1524.

Staupitz dies, § 112, 2  .

Carlstadt in Orlamünde, § 124, 3  .

Erasmus against Luther, § 125, 2  .

Diet of Nuremberg, § 126, 2  .

Regensburg League, § 126, 3  .

Hans Tausen in Denmark, § 139, 2  .

Founding of Theatine Order, § 149, 7  .

1525.

Eucharist Controversy, § 131, 1  .

Luther’s Marriage, § 129  .

Albert of Prussia, Hereditary Duke, § 126, 4  .

Founding of the Capuchin Order, § 149, 7  .

1525-1532.

John the Constant, Elector of Saxony, § 124, 5  .

1526.

Synod at Hamburg, § 127, 2  .

Torgau League, § 126, 5  .

Diet at Spires, § 126, 6  .

Disputation at Baden, § 130, 6  .

1527.

Diet at Odense, § 139, 2  ;

and at Westeräs, § 139, 1  .

1528.

The Pack incident, § 132, 1  .

Disputation at Bern, § 130, 7  .

1529.

Church Visitation of Saxony, § 127, 1  .

Diet at Spires, § 132, 3  .

Marburg Conference, § 132, 4  .

First Peace of Cappel, § 130, 9  .

1530.

Diet at Augsburg. Conf. Augustana, June 25th, § 132, 6, 7  .

1531.

Schmalcald League, § 133, 1  .

Zwingli dies. Second Peace of Cappel, § 130, 10  .

1532-1547.

John Frederick the Magnanimous, Elector of Saxony, § 133, 2  .

1532.

Religious Peace of Nuremberg, § 133, 2  .

Farel at Geneva, § 138, 1  .

Henry VIII. renounces authority of the Pope, § 139, 4  .

1534.

Luther’s complete Bible Translation, § 129, 1  .

Reformation in Württemberg, § 133, 3  .

1534-1535.

Anabaptist Troubles in Münster, § 133, 6  .

1534-1549.

Pope Paul III., § 149, 2  .

1535.

Vergerius in Wittenberg, § 134, 1  .

Calvin’s Institutio rel. Christ., § 138, 5  .

1536.

Erasmus dies, § 120, 6  .

Wittenberg Concord, § 133, 8  .

Calvin in Geneva, § 138, 2  .

Diet at Copenhagen, § 139, 2  .

Menno Simons baptized, § 147, 1  .

1537.

Schmalcald Articles, § 134, 1  .

Antinomian Controversy, § 141, 1  .

1538.

Nuremberg League, § 134, 2  .

Calvin Expelled from Geneva, § 138, 3  .

1539.

Outbreak at Frankfort, § 134, 3  .

Reformation in Albertine Saxony, § 134, 4  .

Joachim II. reforms Brandenburg, § 134, 5  .

Diet at Odense, § 139, 2  .

1540.

The Society of Jesus, § 149, 8  .

Double Marriage of the Landgrave, § 135, 1  .

Religious Conferences at Spires, Hagenau, and Worms, § 135, 2  .

1541.

Carlstadt dies, § 124, 3  .

Interim of Regensburg, § 135, 3  .

Naumburg Episcopate, § 135, 5  .

Calvin returns to Geneva, § 138, 3, 4  .

1542.

Reformation in Brunswick, § 135, 6  .

National Assembly at Bonn, § 135, 7  .

Francis Xavier in the East Indies, § 150, 1  .

Roman Inquisition, § 139, 23  .

1544.

Diet at Spires, Peace of Crespy, Wittenberg Reformation, § 135, 9  .

Diet at Westeräs, § 139, 1  .

1545.

Synod at Erdöd, § 139, 20  .

1545-1547.

Nineteenth Œcumenical Council at Trent, § 136, 4; 149, 2  .

1546.

Regensburg Conference: Murder of John Diaz, § 135, 10  .

Luther dies, February 18th, § 135, 11  .

Reformation in the Palatinate, § 135, 6  .

1546-1547.

Schmalcald War, § 136  .

1547-1553.

Edward VI. of England, § 139, 5  .

1547.

Hermann of Cologne resigns, § 136, 2  .

1548-1572.

Sigismund Augustus, of Poland, § 139, 18  .

1548.

Interim of Augsburg, § 136, 5  .

Adiaphorist Controversy, § 141, 5  .

Priests of the Oratory, § 149, 7  .

1549.

Consensus Tigurinus, § 138, 7  .

Andrew Osiander at Königsburg, § 141, 2  .

Jesuit Mission in Brazil, § 150, 3  .

The first Jesuits in Germany (Ingolstadt), § 151, 2  .

1550-1555.

Pope Julius III., § 136, 8  .

1550.

Brothers of Mercy, § 149, 7  .

1551.

Resumption of Tridentine Council, § 136, 8; 149, 2  .

1552.

Compact of Passau, § 137, 3  .

Outbreak of Crypto-Calvinist Controversy, § 141, 9  .

Francis Xavier dies, § 150, 1  .

1553-1558.

Mary the Catholic of England, § 139, 5  .

1553.

Elector Maurice dies, § 137, 4  .

Servetus burnt, § 148, 2  .

1554.

Consensus Pastorum Genevensium, § 138, 7  .

John Frederick the Magnanimous dies, § 137, 3  .

1555.

Religious Peace of Augsburg, § 137, 5  .

Outbreak of Synergist Controversies, § 141, 7  .

1555-1598.

Philip II. of Spain, § 139, 21  .

1556-1564.

Ferdinand I, Emperor, § 137, 8  .

1556.

Loyola dies, § 149, 8  .

1557.

National Assembly at Clausenburg and Confessio Hungarica, § 139, 20  .

1558.

Frankfort Recess, § 141, 11  .

1558-1603.

Elizabeth of England, § 139, 6  .

1559.

Gustavus Vasa’s Mission to the Lapps, § 142, 7  .

Confessio Gallicana, § 139, 14  .

The English Act of Uniformity, § 139, 6  .

1560-1565.

Pope Pius IV., § 149, 2  .

1560.

Confessio Scotica, § 139, 9  .

John a Lasco dies, § 139, 18  .

Calvinizing of the Palatinate, § 144, 1  .

Melanchthon dies, § 141, 10  .

1561.

Gotthard Kettler, Duke of Courland, § 139, 3  .

Religious Conference at Poissy, § 139, 14  .

Mary Stuart in Scotland, § 139, 10  .

Princes’ Diet at Naumburg, § 141, 11  .

1562-1563.

Resumption and Close of Tridentine Council, § 149, 2  .

1562.

Confessio Belgica, § 139, 12  .

The XXXIX. Articles of the English Church, § 139, 6  .

Calvinizing of Bremen, § 144, 2  .

Heidelberg Catechism, § 144, 1  .

Lælius Socinus dies, § 148, 4  .

1564.

Calvin dies, § 138, 4  .

Professio fidei Tridentinæ, § 149, 14  .

Cassander’s Union Proposals, § 137, 8  .

Maulbronn Convention, § 144, 1  .

1564-1576.

Emperor Maximilian II., § 137, 8  .

1566.

Catechasimo Romanus, § 149, 10  .

Confessio Helvetica posterior, § 138, 7  .

The League of “the Beggars,” § 139, 12  .

1567.

The writings of Michael Baius condemned, § 149, 13  .

1570.

General Synod at Sendomir, § 139, 13  .

Peace of St. Germains, § 139, 15  .

1572-1585.

Pope Gregory XIII., § 149, 3  .

1572.

John Knox dies, § 139, 11  .

Bloody Marriage of Paris, August 24th, § 139, 16  .

1573.

Pax dissidentium in Poland, § 139, 18  .

1574.

Maulbronn Convention, § 141, 12  .

Restoration of Catholicism in Eichsfelde, § 151, 1  .

1575.

Confessio Bohemica, § 139, 19  .

1576.

Book of Torgau, § 141, 12  .

Pacification of Ghent, § 139, 12  .

1576-1612.

Rudolph II., Emperor, § 137, 8  .

1577.

The Formula of Concord, § 141, 12  .

Restoration of Catholicism in Fulda, § 151, 1  .

1578.

The Jesuit Possevin in Sweden, § 151, 3  .

1579.

The Union of Utrecht, § 139, 12  .

1580.

Book of Concord, § 141, 12  .

1582.

Second Attempt at Reformation in Cologne, § 137, 6  .

Matthew Ricci in China, § 150, 1  .

Reform of Calendar, § 149, 3  .

1585-1590.

Pope Sixtus V., § 149, 3  .

1587.

Mary Stuart on the Scaffold, § 139, 10  .

1588.

Louis Molina, § 149, 13  .

1589-1610.

Henry IV. of France, § 139, 17  .

1589.

Patriarchate at Moscow, § 73, 4  .

1592.

Saxon Articles of Visitation, § 141, 13  .

1593.

Assembly of Representatives at Upsala, § 139, 1  .

1595.

Synod at Thorn, § 139, 18  .

1596.

Synod at Brest, § 151, 3  .

1597.

Calvinizing the Principality of Anhalt, § 144, 3  .

Congregatio de auxiliis, § 149, 13  .

1598.

Edict of Nantes, § 139, 17  .

1600.

Giordano Bruno at the Stake, § 146, 3  .

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

1604.

Faustus Socinus dies, § 148, 4  .

1605.

Landgrave Maurice calvinizes Hesse Cassel, § 154, 1  .

Gunpowder Plot, § 153, 6  .

1606.

The Treaty of Vienna, § 139, 10  .

Interdict on the Republic of Venice, § 156, 2  .

1608.

Founding the Jesuit State of Paraguay, § 156, 10  .

1609.

The Royal Letter, § 139, 19  .

1610-1643.

Louis XIII. of France, § 153, 3  .

1610.

Remonstrants and Counter-Remonstrants, § 160, 2  .

1611.

Pères de l’Oratoire, § 156, 7  .

1612-1619.

Matthias, Emperor, § 153, 1  .

1613.

Elector John Sigismund of Brandenburg goes over to Reformed Church, § 154, 3  .

George Calixtus in Helmstädt [Helmstadt], § 159, 2  .

1614.

Confessio Marchica, § 154, 3  .

1616.

Leonard Hutter dies, § 159, 4  .

1618.

Monks of St. Maur in France, § 156, 7  .

1618-1648.

The Thirty Years’ War, § 153, 2  .

1618-1619.

Synod of Dort, § 161, 2  .

1619-1637.

Ferdinand II., Emperor, § 153, 2  .

1620.

The Valteline Massacre, § 153, 3  .

The Pilgrim Fathers, § 143, 2  .

1621.

John Arndt dies, § 160, 1  .

1622.

Francis de Sales dies, § 157, 1  .

Congregatio de propaganda fide, § 156, 9  .

1624.

End of Controversy over κένωσις and κρύψις, § 159, 1  .

Jac. Böhme dies, § 160, 2  .

1628.

Adam Schall in China, § 156, 12  .

1629.

Edict of Restitution, § 153, 2  .

1631.

Religious Conference at Leipzig, § 154, 4  .

1632.

Gustavus Adolphus falls at Lützen, § 153, 2  .

1637.

John Gerhard dies, § 159, 4  .

Rooting out of Christianity in Japan, § 156, 11  .

1638.

Overthrow of Racovian Seminary, § 148, 4  .

Cyril Lucar strangled, § 152, 2  .

Scottish Covenant, § 155, 1  .

1641.

Irish Massacre, § 153, 5  .

1642.

Condemnation of the “Augustinus” of Jansen, § 157, 5  .

1643-1715.

Louis XIV. of France, § 153, 2; 157, 2, 3, 5  .

1643.

Orthodox Confession of Peter Mogilas, § 152, 3  .

Opening of Westminster Assembly, § 155, 1  .

1645.

Hugo Grotius dies, § 153, 7  .

Religious Conference at Thorn, § 153, 7  .

Peace of Linz, § 153, 3  .

1645-1742.

Accommodation Controversy, § 156, 12  .

1647.

George Fox appears as Leader of the Quakers, § 163, 4  .

1648.

Peace of Westphalia, § 153, 2  .

Close of Westminster Assembly, § 155, 1  .

1649.

Execution of Charles I. of England, § 155, 1  .

1650.

Descartes dies, § 164, 1  .

1652.

Liturgical Reform of the Patriarch Nikon, § 163, 10  .

1653.

Innocent X. condemns the Five Propositions of Jansen, § 157, 5  .

Barebones’ Parliament, § 155, 2  .

1654.

Christina of Sweden becomes a Catholic, § 153, 1  .

John Val. Andreä dies, § 160, 1  .

1655.

The Bloody Easter in Piedmont, § 153, 5  .

Consensus repetitus fidei vere Lutheranæ, § 159, 2  .

1656.

George Calixtus dies, § 159, 2  .

Pascal’s Lettres Provinciales, § 157, 5  .

1658.

Outbreak of Cocceian Controversies, § 161, 5  .

1660.

Vincent de Paul dies, § 156, 8  .

Restoration of Royalty and Episcopacy in England, § 155, 3  .

1661.

Religious Conference at Cassel, § 154, 4  .

1664.

Founding of Order of Trappists, § 156, 8  .

1669.

Cocceius dies, § 161, 3  .

1670.

The Labadists in Herford, § 163, 7  .

1673.

The Test Act, § 153, 6  .

1675.

Formula consensus Helvetici, § 161, 2  .

Spener’s Pia Desideria, § 159, 3  .

1676.

Paul Gerhardt dies, § 154, 4  .

Voetius dies, § 161, 3  .

1677.

Spinoza dies, § 164, 1  .

1682.

Quatuor propositiones Cleri Gallicani, § 156, 1  .

Founding of Pennsylvania, § 163, 4  .

1685.

Revocation of Edict of Nantes and Expulsion of Waldensians from Piedmont, § 153, 4, 5  .

1686.

Spener at Dresden and Collegia philobiblica in Leipzig, § 159, 3  .

Abraham Calov dies, § 159, 4  .

1687.

Michael Molinos forced to Abjure, § 157, 2  .

1689.

English Act of Toleration, § 155, 3  .

Return of banished Waldensians, § 153, 5  .

1690.

The Pietists Expelled from Leipzig, § 159, 3  .

1691.

Spener in Berlin, § 159, 3  .

1694.

Founding of University of Halle, § 159, 3  .

1697.

Frederick Augustus the Strong of Saxony becomes Catholic, § 153, 1  .

1699.

Propositions of Fénelon Condemned, § 157, 3  .

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

1701.

Thomas of Tournon in the East Indies, § 156, 12  .

1702.

Löscher’s “Unschuldige Nachrichten,” § 167, 1  .

Buttlar Fanatical Excesses, § 170, 4  .

1703.

Collegium caritativum at Berlin, § 169, 1  .

Peter Codde deposed, § 165, 8  .

1704.

Bossuet dies, § 153, 7; 157, 3  .

1705.

Spener dies, § 159, 3  .

1706.

Founding of Lutheran Mission at Tranquebar, § 167, 9  .

1707.

The Praying Children at Silesia, § 167, 8  .

1709.

Port Royal suppressed, § 157, 5  .

1712.

Richard Simon dies, § 158, 1  .

Mechitarist Congregation, § 165, 2  .

1713.

The Constitution Unigenitus, § 165, 7  .

1717-1774.

Louis XV. of France, § 165, 5  .

1715.

Fénelon dies, § 157, 3  .

1716.

Leibnitz dies, § 164, 2  .

1717.

French Appellants, § 165, 7  .

Madame Guyon dies, § 157, 3  .

Gottfried Arnold dies, § 160, 2  .

Inspired Communities in the Cevennes, § 170, 2  .

1721.

Holy Synod of St. Petersburg, § 166  .

Hans Egede goes as Missionary to Greenland, § 167, 9  .

1722.

Founding of Herrnhut, § 168, 2  .

1727.

A. H. Francke dies, § 167, 8  .

Thomas of Westen dies, § 160, 7  .

Founding of the Society of United Brethren, § 168, 2  .

1728.

Callenberg’s Institute for Conversion of Jews, § 167, 9  .

1729.

Buddeus dies, § 168, 2  .

Methodist Society formed, § 169, 4  .

1731.

Emigration of Evangelicals of Salzburg, § 165, 4  .

1740-1786.

Frederick II. of Prussia, § 171, 4  .

1741.

Moravian Special Covenant with the Lord Jesus, § 168, 4  .

1750.

Sebastian Bach dies, § 167, 7  .

End of Jesuit State of Paraguay, § 165, 3  .

1751.

Semler, Professor in Halle, § 171, 6  .

1752.

Bengel dies, § 167, 4  .

1754.

Christ. v. Wolff dies, § 167, 3  .

Winckelmann becomes a Roman Catholic, § 165, 6  .

1755.

Mosheim dies, § 167, 3  .

1758-1769.

Pope Clement XIII., § 165, 9  .

1759.

Banishment of Jesuits from Portugal, § 165, 9  .

1760.

Zinzendorf dies, § 168, 3  .

1762.

Judicial Murder of Jean Calas, § 165, 5  .

1765.

Universal German Library, § 171, 4  .

1769-1774.

Pope Clement XIV., § 165, 9  .

1772.

Swedenborg dies, § 170, 5  .

1773.

Suppression of Jesuit Order, § 165, 9  .

1774.

Wolfenbüttel Fragments, § 171, 6  .

1775-1799.

Pius VI., Pope, § 165, 9, 10  .

1775.

C. A. Crusius dies, § 167, 3  .

1776.

Founding of the Order of the Illuminati, § 165, 13  .

1778.

Voltaire and Rousseau die, § 165, 14  .

1780-1790.

Joseph II., sole ruler, § 165, 10  .

1781.

Joseph’s Edict of Toleration, § 165, 10  .

1782.

Pope Pius VI. in Vienna, § 165, 10  .

1786.

Congress at Ems and Synod at Pistoja, § 165, 10  .

1787.

Edict of Versailles, § 165, 4  .

1788.

The Religious Edict of Wöllner, § 171, 5  .

1789.

French Revolution, § 165, 15  .

1791.

Wesley dies, § 169, 5  .

Semler dies, § 171, 6  .

1793.

Execution of Louis XVI. and his Queen. Abolition of Christian reckoning of time and of the Christian religion in France. Temple de la Raison, § 165, 15  .

1794.

Le peuple français reconnait l’Etre suprème et l’immortalité de l’âme, § 165, 15  .

1795.

Founding of London Missionary Society, § 172, 5  .

1799.

Schleiermacher’s “Reden über die Religion,” § 182, 1  .

1800.

Stolberg becomes a Roman Catholic, § 165, 6  .

NINETEENTH CENTURY.

1800-1823.

Pope Pius VII., § 185, 1  .

1801.

French Concordat, § 203, 1  .

1803.

Recess of Imperial Deputies, § 192, 1  .

1804.

Founding of British and Foreign Bible Society, § 183, 4  .

Kant dies, § 171, 10  .

1806.

End of Catholic German Empire, § 192  .

1809.

Napoleon under Ban; the Pope Imprisoned, § 185, 1  .

1810.

Founding of American Missionary Society at Boston, § 184, 1  .

Schleiermacher professor at Berlin, § 182, 1  .

1811.

French National Council, § 185, 1  .

1814.

Vienna Congress. Restoration of the Pope, § 185, 1  .

Restoration of the Jesuits, § 186, 1  .

1815.

The Holy Alliance, § 173  .

1816.

Mission Seminary at Basel, § 184, 1  .

1817.

The Theses of Harms, § 176, 1  .

Union Interpellation of Frederick William III., § 177, 1  .

1822.

Introduction of the Prussian Service Book, § 176, 1  .

Lyons Association for Spreading the Faith, § 186, 7  .

1823-1829.

Pope Leo XII., § 185, 1  .

1825.

Book of Mormon, § 211, 12  .

1827.

Hengstenberg’s Evangel. Kirchenzeitung, § 176, 1  .

1829.

English Catholic Emancipation Bill, § 202, 9  .

Founding of Barmen Missionary Institute, § 184, 1  .

1829-1830.

Pope Pius VIII., § 185, 1  .

1830.

July Revolution, § 203, 2  .

Halle Controversy, § 176, 1  .

Abbé Chatel in Paris, § 187, 6  .

1831-1846.

Gregory XVI., Pope, § 185, 1  .

1831.

Hegel dies, § 174, 1  .

1833.

Beginning of Puseyite Agitation, § 203, 2  .

1834.

Conflict at Hönigern, § 177, 2  .

Schleiermacher dies, § 182, 1  .

1835.

Strauss’ first Life of Jesus, § 182, 6  .

Condemnation of Hermesianism, § 193, 1  .

Edward Irving dies, § 211, 10  .

Persecution of Christians in Madagascar, § 184, 3  .

1836.

Founding of Dresden Missionary Institute, § 184, 1  .

1837.

Emigrants of Zillerthal, § 198, 1  .

Beginning of Troubles at Cologne, § 193, 1  .

1838.

Archbishop Dunin of Posen, § 193, 1  .

Rescript of Altenburg, § 194, 2  .

J. A. Möhler dies, § 191, 4  .

English Tithes’ Bill, § 202, 9  .

1839.

Call of Dr. Strauss to Zürich, § 199, 4  .

Bavarian order to give Adoration, § 195, 2  .

Synod at Polozk, § 206, 2  .

1810-1861.

Frederick William IV. of Prussia, § 193  .

1841.

Schelling at Berlin, § 174, 1  .

Constitution of Lutherans separated from National Church of Prussia, § 177, 2  .

Founding of Evangelical Bishopric of Jerusalem, § 184, 8  .

Founding of Gustavus Adolphus Association, § 178, 1  .

1843.

Disruption and Founding of the Free Church of Scotland, § 202, 7  .

1844.

German-Catholic Church, § 187, 1  .

Wislicenus’ “Ob Schrift, ob Geist?” § 176, 1  .

1845.

Founding Free Church of Vaud, § 199, 2  .

1845-1846.

Conversions in Livonia, § 206, 3  .

1846-1878.

Pope Pius IX., § 185, 2-4  .

1846.

Founding of Evangelical Alliance in London, § 178, 3  .

Fruitless Prussian General Synod in Berlin, § 193, 3  .

1847.

Prussian Patent of Toleration, § 193, 3  .

War of Swiss Sonderbund, § 199, 1  .

1848.

Revolution of February and March, § 192, 4  .

Founding of Evangel. Kirchentag, § 178, 4  .

Founding of Catholic “Pius Association,” § 186, 3  .

Bishops’ Congress of Würzburg, § 192, 4  .

1849.

Roman Republic, § 185, 2  .

First Congress for Home Missions, § 183  .

1850.

Institution of Berlin “Oberkirchenrat,” § 193, 4  .

Return of Pope to Rome, § 185, 2  .

English Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, § 202, 11  .

1851.

Memorial of Upper Rhine Bishops, § 196, 1  .

Taeping Rebellion in China, § 211, 15  .

1852.

Conference at Eisenach, § 178, 2  .

1852-1870.

Napoleon III., Emperor of the French, § 203, 3, 5  .

1853.

The Kirchentag at Berlin acknowledges the Augustana, § 178, 4  .

Missionary Institute at Hermannsburg, § 185, 1  .

New Organization of the Catholic Hierarchy in Holland, § 200, 4  .

1855.

Sardinian Law about Monasteries, § 204, 1  .

Austrian Concordat, § 198, 2  .

1857.

The Evangelical Alliance in Berlin, § 178, 3  .

1858.

Disturbances in Baden about Service Book, § 196, 3  .

The Mother of God at Lourdes, § 188, 7  .

1859.

Franco-Austrian War in Italy, § 204, 2  .

1860.

Persecution of Syrian Christians, § 207, 2  .

Abrogation of Baden Concordat, § 196, 2  .

1861.

The Austrian Patent, § 198, 3  .

Introduction of a Constitutional Church Order into Baden, § 196, 3  .

Radama II. in Madagascar, § 184, 3  .

Schism among Separatist Lutherans in Prussia, § 177, 3  .

1862.

Hanoverian Catechism Scandal, § 194, 3  .

Renan’s Life of Jesus, § 182, 8  .

Württemberg Ecclesiastical Law, § 196, 6  .

1863.

Congress of Catholic Scholars at Munich, § 191, 10  .

1864.

Encyclical and Syllabus, § 185, 2  .

Strauss’ and Schenkel’s Life of Jesus, § 182, 8, 17  .

1865.

The first Protestantentag at Eisenach, § 180, 1  .

1866.

Founding of the North German League.

1867.

St. Peter’s Centenary Festival at Rome, § 185, 2  .

1869.

Irish Church Bill, § 202, 10  .

Opening of Vatican Council, § 189, 2  .

1870.

Proclamation of Doctrine of Infallibility, July 18th, § 189, 3  .

Revocation of the Austrian Concordat. § 198, 2  .

Overthrow of the Church States, § 185, 3  .

1871.

Founding of the new German Empire, January 18th, § 197  .

The first Old Catholic Congress at Munich, § 190, 1  .

“The Kanzelparagraph,” § 197, 4  .

First Lutheran National Synod in the kingdom of Saxony, § 194, 1  .

1872.

Dr. Falk, Prussian Minister of Worship, § 193, 5  .

The Prussian School Inspection Law, § 199, 3  .

The Roman Disputation, § 175, 3  .

The German Jesuit Law, § 197, 4  .

Epidemic of Manifestations of the Mother of God in Alsace-Lorraine, § 188, 6  .

1873.

The four Prussian Ecclesiastical Laws, § 197, 5  .

Mermillod and Lachat Deposed from office, § 199, 2, 3  .

Constitution of Old Catholic Church in German Empire, § 190, 1  .

1874.

The Austrian Ecclesiastical Laws, § 198, 6  .

Union Conference at Bonn, § 175, 6  .

1875.

The Encyclical Quod numquam and the Embargo Act, § 197, 8  .

Berlin Extraordinary General Synod, § 193, 5  .

Pearsall Smith, § 211, 1  .

1876.

Marpinger Mother-of-God trick, § 188, 7  .

The Dutch University Law, § 202, 2  .

1878.

Leo XIII. ascends the Papal chair, § 185, 5  .

Organization of a Catholic Hierarchy in Scotland, § 202, 11  .

Congress of Berlin, § 207, 5  .

Amnesty to the recalcitrant Clergy of the Jura, § 199, 3  .

First appearance of the Salvation Army, § 205, 2  .

1879.

The Belgian Liberal Education Act, § 200, 6  .

1880.

Abolition of the “Kulturexamen” in Baden, § 197, 14  .

French Decree of March, § 203, 6  .

1881.

Robertson Smith’s Heresy Case, § 202, 8  .

1882.

The Confessional Lutheran Conflict with the Ritschlian School, § 182, 21  .

1883.

The Luther Jubilee, § 175, 10  .

1884.

The Belgian Clerical Education Act, § 200, 6  .

Conclusion of the “Kulturkampf” in Switzerland, § 199, 2, 3  .

1887.

Prussian and Hessian Governments conclude Peace with Papal Curia, § 197, 13, 15  .

Founding of Evangelical Bund, § 178, 5  .

INDEX.

- Aachen, Council of, § 91, 1, 2.

- Aargau, § 199, 1.

- Abælard, § 102, 1, 2; 104, 10.

- Abbacomites, § 85, 5.

- Abbadie, § 161, 7.

- Abbate, Abbé, § 111, 2.

- Abbo of Fleury, § 100, 2.

- Abbot, § 44, 3.

- Abbuna, § 52, 7.

- Abdas of Susa, § 64, 2.

- Abdelmoumen, § 95, 2.

- Abderrhamann [Abderrhaman], § 81; 95, 2.

- Abdias, § 32, 5.

- Abel, von, § 195, 2.

- Abelites, § 44, 7.

- Abgar Bar Maanu, § 21.

- Abgar of Edessa, § 13, 2.

- About, E., § 185, 3.

- Abraham a St. Clara, § 158, 2.

- Abrahamites, § 165, 16.

- Abrasax, § 27, 3.

- Abrenunciatio diaboli, § 35; 58, 1.

- Absolution, Formula of, § 89, 5.

- Abstinence, Days of, § 56, 2.

- Abulfarajus, § 72, 2.

- Abyssinian Church, § 64, 1; 72, 2; 150, 4; 152, 1; 160, 7; 166, 3; 184, 9.

- Acacius of Amida, § 64, 2.

- Acacius of Constantinople, § 52, 5.

- Acceptants, § 165, 7.

- Accommodation Controversy, § 156, 12.

- Acceptants, § 165, 7.

- d’Achery, § 158, 2.

- Achterfeld, § 191, 1.

- Acindynos, § 69, 2.

- Acoimetæ, § 44, 3; 52, 5, 6.

- Acolytes, § 34, 3.

- Acominatus, § 68, 5.

- Acosta, Uriel, § 156, 14.

- Acta facientes, § 22, 5.

- Acta Pilati, § 22, 7; 32, 4.

- Acta Sanctorum, § 158, 2.

- Acton, Lord, § 189, 2.

- Acts of Apostles, Apocryphal, § 32, 5, 6.

- Acts of Martyrs, § 32, 8.

- Adalbert of Bremen, § 96, 6; 97, 2.

- Adalbert the Heretic, § 78, 6.

- Adalbert of Prague, § 93, 13.

- Adalbert of Tuscany, § 96, 1.

- Adam, Book of, § 32, 3.

- Adam, St. Victor, § 104, 10.

- Adamantius (Origen), § 31, 5.

- Adamites, § 27, 8.

- Adamites, Bohemian, § 116, 5; 210, 2.

- Adamnan, § 77, 8.

- Addai [Addæi], § 32, 6.

- Adeodatus, § 47, 18.

- Adiaphorist Controversy, § 141, 5.

- Adoptionists, § 91, 1; 102, 6.

- Adrianus, § 48, 1.

- Adrumetum, § 53, 5.

- Advent, § 56, 5.

- Adventists, § 211, 11.

- Advocatus diaboli, § 104, 8.

- Advocatus ecclesiæ, § 86.

- Aedesius, § 64, 1.

- Aelfric, § 100, 1.

- Aeneas [Æneas] of Gaza, § 47, 7.

- Aeneas [Æneas] of Sylvius, see Pius II.

- Aeons [Æons], § 26, 2.

- Aepinus [Æpinus], § 141, 3.

- Aërius, § 62, 2.

- Aeternus [Æternus] ille, § 149, 4.

- Aetius [Aëtius], § 50, 3.

- Africa, § 76, 3.

- Africanus, § 31, 8.

- Agape, § 17, 7; 36, 1.

- Agapetæ, § 39, 3.

- Agapetus, § 46, 9; 52, 6.

- Agathangelos, § 64, 3.

- Agatho, § 46, 11; 52, 8.

- Agenda Controversy in Prussia, § 177, 1.

- Agenum, Synod of, § 50, 3.

- Agilulf, § 76, 8.

- Agnostics, § 174, 2.

- Agobard, § 90, 4, 9; 91, 1; 92, 2.

- Agreda, § 156, 5.

- Agricola, John, § 141, 1.

- Agricola, Rudolph, § 120, 3.

- Agrippa of Nettesheim, § 146, 2.

- Aguas, § 209, 1.

- Aguilar, § 209, 1.

- Aguirre, § 158, 2.

- Ahle, Rud., § 160, 5.

- Aidan, § 77, 5.

- d’Ailly, § 110, 7; 118, 4; 119, 5.

- Aistulf, § 82, 1.

- Aizanas, § 64, 1.

- Ἀκέφαλοι, § 52, 5.

- Ἀκρόασις, § 39, 2.

- Ἀκροώμενοι, § 35, 1.

- Alacoque, § 156, 6.

- Alanus ab Insulis, § 102, 5.

- Alaric, § 76, 2.

- Alaviv, § 76, 1.

- Alba, § 59, 7.

- Alba, Duke of, § 136, 3; 139, 12.

- Albati, § 116, 3.

- Alberich, § 96, 1.

- Albert the Great, § 103, 5.

- Albert of Apeldern, § 93, 12.

- Albert the Bear, § 93, 9.

- Albert of Buxhöwden, § 93, 12.

- Albert of Franconia-Brandenburg, § 137, 2, 4.

- Albert of Mainz, § 122, 2; 123, 8; 134, 5.

- Albert of Prussia, § 126, 4; 127, 3; 141, 2.

- Albert of Suerbeer, § 73, 6; 93, 12.

- Alberti, § 160, 3.

- Albigensians, § 109, 1.

- Albinus, § 160, 4.

- Alboin, § 76, 8.

- Albrechtsleute, § 208, 4; 211, 1.

- Alcantara, Peter of, § 149, 16.

- Alcantarmes [Alcantara], § 98, 8; 149, 6.

- Alcibiades, § 40, 1.

- Alcuin, § 90, 3; 91, 1, 2; 92, 1.

- Aldgild, § 78, 3.

- Aleander, § 123, 6, 7.

- d’Aleman, Cardinal, § 110, 8; 118, 4.

- Alemanni, § 78, 1.

- d’Alembert, § 165, 14.

- Alexander II., § 96, 6.

- Alexander III., § 96, 15, 16.

- Alexander IV., § 96, 20.

- Alexander V., § 110, 6; 119, 4.

- Alexander VI., § 110, 12.

- Alexander VII., § 156, 1, 2, 4, 5; 157, 5.

- Alexander VIII., § 156, 1, 3.

- Alexander I., Czars I., II., III., § 203, 1; 207, 3.

- Alexander of Alexandria, § 50, 1.

- Alexander of Antioch, § 50, 8.

- Alexander of Hales, § 103, 4.

- Alexander of Newsky, § 73, 6.

- Alexander of Parma, § 139, 12.

- Alexander Severus, § 22, 3.

- Alexandrian School, § 31, 4; 47, 2, 3.

- Alexis, § 73, 5.

- Alexius Comnenus, § 71, 1, 4.

- Alfarabi, § 103, 1.

- Alfred the Great, § 90, 10.

- Algazel, § 103, 1, 2.

- Alger of Liege, § 102, 7.

- Alkindi, § 103, 1.

- Allatius, Leo, § 158, 2.

- Allégri, § 158, 3.

- Allen, W., § 139, 6.

- Allendorf, § 167, 6.

- Alliance, The Holy, § 173.

- Alliance, The Evangelical, § 178, 2.

- All Saints’ Day, § 57, 1; 88, 5.

- All Souls’ Day, § 104, 7.

- Almansor, § 95, 2.

- Almohaden [Almohades], § 95, 2.

- Almoravides, § 95, 2.

- Alms, Dispensers of, § 17, 2.

- Alogians, § 33, 2.

- Alpers, § 211, 10.

- Alphonso the Catholic, § 81, 1.

- Alphonso the Chaste, § 81, 1.

- Alphonso of Aragon [Arragon], Castile, and Portugal, § 95, 2.

- Alphonso XII., § 205, 3.

- Alsace-Lorraine, § 196, 7.

- Altar, § 38; 60, 5; 88, 5.

- Altenburg, § 194, 2.

- Alting, § 160, 7.

- Alumbrados, § 149, 16.

- Alvarus, § 81, 1; 90, 6.

- Alvarus, Pelagius, § 118, 2.

- Alzog, § 5, 6.

- Amadeus of Savoy, § 110, 8.

- Amalarius, § 90, 4; 91, 5.

- Amalrich of Bena, § 108, 4.

- Amandus, § 78, 3.

- Ambo, § 60, 5.

- Ambrose, § 47, 15; 50, 4; 57, 2, 3; 59, 5.

- Ambrosian Chant, § 59, 5.

- Ambrosiaster, § 47, 15.

- Amen Sect, § 211, 8.

- America, § 150, 3; 208; 209.

- Amesius, § 161, 7; 162, 4.

- Amling, § 144, 3.

- Ammon, § 182, 2.

- Ammonius, § 44, 3.

- Ammonius, Saccas, § 24, 2.

- Amort, § 165, 12.

- Amsdorf, § 127, 4; 135, 5; 141, 4, 6, 7.

- Amulets, § 188, 13.

- Amyrald [Amyrault], § 161, 3, 7.

- Anabaptists, § 124, 1; 130, 5; 133, 6; 147; 148, 1; 163, 1, 2.

- Anacletus I., § 17, 1.

- Anacletus II., § 96, 13.

- Ἀνάδοχαι, § 35, 3.

- Ἀναγνώσται, § 34, 3.

- Anastasius Biblioth. [ Bibliothecarius], § 90, 6.

- Anastasius I., § 46, 4; 51, 2.

- Anastasius II., § 46, 8.

- Anastasius IV., § 96, 10.

- Anastasius Sinaita, § 47, 12; 60, 6.

- Anathema, § 52, 3.

- Anatolius, § 46, 7.

- Anchorets, § 44.

- Ancyra, Council of, § 50, 3.

- Anderledy [Anderlady], § 182, 1.

- Anderson, § 139, 1.

- Andreä, Jac., § 141, 12.

- Andreä, Val., § 160, 1.

- Andrew II. of Hungary, § 94, 4.

- Andrew of Crain, § 110, 11.

- Andrew of Crete, § 70, 2.

- Andronicus Paläologus, § 67, 5.

- Angela of Brescia, § 149, 7.

- Angelicals, § 149, 7.

- Angels, Worship of, § 57, 3.

- Angelo, Michael, § 115, 13; 149, 15.

- Angelus Silesius, § 157, 4; 160, 3.

- Angilram [Angilramnus], § 87, 1.

- Anglican Church, § 139, 6; 155; 202.

- Anglo-Saxon Church, § 77, 4, 5, 6.

- Anhalt, Reformation in, § 133, 4; 144, 3.

- Anicetus, § 37, 2.

- Anjou, § 96, 21, 22.

- Ann, Veneration of St., § 57, 2; 115, 1.

- Anna of Russia, § 73, 4.

- Anna of Prussia, § 154, 3.

- Annats, § 110, 15.

- Anno of Cologne, § 96, 6; 97, 2.

- Annunciation, Order of the, § 112, 8.

- Anomæans [Anomœans], § 50, 3.

- Ansbert [Ausbert] of Milan, § 83, 3.

- Ansegis, § 87, 1.

- Anselm of Canterbury, § 67, 4; 96, 12; 101, 1, 3.

- Anselm of Havelberg, § 67, 4.

- Anselm of Laon, § 101, 1.

- Anselm of Lucca, § 96, 6.

- Ansgar, § 80, 1.

- Anthimus of Constantinople, § 52, 6.

- Anthimus [Anthimos], Exarch, § 207, 3.

- Anthony, St., § 44, 1.

- Anthony, of Padua, § 98, 4.

- Anthony, Order of St., § 98, 2.

- Anthusa, § 47, 1.

- Antidicomarianites, § 62, 2.

- Ἀντίδωρα, § 58, 4.

- Antilegomena, § 36, 8.

- Ἀντιμήνσιον, § 60, 5.

- Antinomianism, § 27, 8.

- Antinomian Controversy, § 141, 1.

- Antioch, Council of, § 50, 2.

- Antiochean School, § 31, 1; 47, 1; 52, 2.

- Antiphonal Music, § 59, 5.

- Antiphonarium, § 59, 5.

- Antitrinitarians, § 148.

- Anton of Bourbon, § 139, 14.

- Anton Paul, § 159, 3.

- Antonelli, § 185, 2, 4; 189, 1; 196, 7; 197.

- Antonians, § 207, 2.

- Antoninus Pius, § 22, 3.

- Antoninus [Antonine] of Florence, § 113, 7.

- Apelles, § 27, 12.

- Aphraates, § 47, 13.

- Apiarius, § 46, 5, 6.

- Apocrisiarians, § 46, 1.

- Apocrypha, Non-Canonical, § 32.

- Apocrypha, Deutero-Canonical, § 59, 1; 136, 4.

- Apocryphal Controversy, § 161, 8; 183, 4.

- Apollinaris, § 47, 5; 52, 1.

- Apollinaris, Claudius, § 30, 8.

- Apollonius of Tyana, § 24, 1.

- Apollos, § 18, 3.

- Apologists, Early Christian, § 30, 8.

- Apology of Augsburg Confession, § 132, 7.

- Apostles of the Lord, §§ 14-16.

- Apostles, New Testament Office of, § 17, 5; 37, 1.

- Apostles, Teaching of XII., § 30, 7.

- Apostles, Doctrine of the, § 18, 2.

- Apostles’ Creed, § 35, 2; 59, 2.

- Apostolic Age, Beginning and Close of, § 14.

- Apostolic Church, Constitution of, § 17.

- Apostolic Epistles, § 32, 7.

- Apostolic Fathers, § 30, 3-6.

- Apostolic Constitutions and Canons, § 43, 4.

- Apostolics, § 62, 1.

- Appellants, § 165, 7.

- Appellatio ab abusu, § 185, 4; 192, 4; 197, 9.

- Appenfeller, § 170, 4.

- Apse, § 60, 1.

- Aquarii, § 27, 10.

- Aquaviva, § 149, 8, 10, 12; 156, 13.

- Arabia, § 21.

- Arbues [Arbires], § 117, 2.

- Arcadius, Emperor, § 42, 4; 51, 3.

- Archbishop, § 46, 1.

- Arch-chaplain, § 84, 1.

- Archdeacon, § 45, 3; 84, 2; 97, 3.

- Archelaus of Cascar, § 29, 1.

- Archimandrite, § 44, 3.

- Architecture, § 60, 1; 88, 6; 104, 12; 115, 13; 149, 15; 158, 3; 174, 9.

- Archpresbyter, § 45, 3.

- Areopagite, Dionysius the, § 47, 11.

- Arialdus [Ariald], § 97, 5.

- Arians, § 50; 76.

- Aribert, § 76, 8.

- Aristides, § 30, 8.

- Aristobulus, § 10, 1.

- Ariston of Pella, § 30, 8.

- Aristotle, § 7, 4; 68, 2; 103, 1.

- Arius, § 50, 1, 2.

- Arles, Synod at, § 50, 2.

- Armenian Church, § 64, 3; 72, 2; 82, 8; 207, 4.

- Arminians, § 161, 2.

- Arnaud, § 153, 4.

- Arnauld, § 157, 5.

- Arndt, E. M., § 174, 6; 181, 1.

- Arndt, John, § 160, 1.

- Arno of Salzburg, § 79, 1.

- Arno of Reichersberg, § 102, 6, 7.

- Arnobius, § 31, 12,

- Arnobius, the Younger, § 53, 5.

- Arnold of Brescia, § 96, 13.

- Arnold of Citeaux, § 109, 1.

- Arnold the Dominican, § 108, 6.

- Arnold Gottfried, § 5, 3; 159, 4; 160, 2, 4.

- Arnoldi, Bishop, § 187, 6.

- Arnoldists, § 108, 7.

- Arnulf of Carinthia, § 82, 8.

- Arnulf of Rheims, § 96, 2.

- Arran, Earl of, § 139, 8.

- Ars Magna, § 103, 7.

- Ars Moriendi, § 115, 5.

- Arsacius, § 51.

- Arsenius, § 70, 1.

- Art, Early Christian and Mediæval, § 38, 3; 60.

- Artemon, § 33, 3.

- Articles of English Church, The XXXIX., § 139, 6.

- Articles, Organic, § 203, 1.

- Artotyrites, § 40, 4.

- Ascension, Festival of, § 56, 4.

- Ascension of Mary, § 32, 4; 57, 2.

- Asceticism, § 39, 3; 44, 6; 70, 3; 107.

- Aschaffenberg [Aschaffenburg] Concord, § 110, 8.

- Ash Wednesday, § 56, 4.

- Asia Minor, Theological School of, § 31, 1.

- Asinarii, § 23, 2.

- Asseburg, § 170, 1.

- Assemani, § 165, 12.

- Assenath, § 32, 3.

- Asses, Feast of, § 105, 2.

- Asterius, § 50, 6.

- Asterius of Amasa, § 57, 4.

- Astruc, § 165, 11.

- Asylum, Right of, § 43, 1.

- Athanaric, § 76.

- Athanasian Creed, § 59, 2.

- Athanasius, § 44; 47, 3; 50; 52, 2.

- Athenagoras, § 30, 10.

- Athos, Monks of Mount, § 70, 3; 69, 1.

- Atrium, § 60, 1.

- Attila, § 46, 7.

- Atto of Vercelli, § 100, 2.

- d’Aubigné, Merle, § 178, 2.

- d’Aubigné, Th. A., § 139, 17.

- Audians, § 62, 1.

- Audientes, § 35, 1.

- Audientia episc., § 43, 1.

- Augsburg Confession, § 132, 7.

- Augsburg Religious Peace, § 137, 5.

- Augustus of Saxony, § 141, 12.

- Augusta, § 139, 19.

- Augusti, § 182, 5.

- Augustine, § 47, 18, 19; 53, 2-5; 54, 1; 61, 1, 4; 63, 1.

- Augustine, Missionary to England, § 77, 4.

- Augustinus Triumphus, § 118, 2.

- Augustinian Order, § 98, 6; 112, 5.

- August Conference, § 179, 1.

- Aurelian, Emperor, § 22, 5; 33, 8.

- Aurelian, Bishop, § 63, 1.

- Auricular Confession, § 61, 1; 104, 4.

- Aurifaber, § 129, 1.

- Ausculta fili, § 110, 1.

- Australia, § 184, 7; 202, 12.

- Austria, § 165, 9; 190, 3; 198.

- Autbert, § 81, 1.

- Auto al nasciemento, § 115, 12.

- Auto de fé, § 117, 2.

- Auto sacramentale, § 115, 12.

- Autocephalic Bishops, § 46, 1.

- Auxentius of Dorostorus, § 76, 1.

- Auxentius of Milan, § 47, 14.

- Avars, § 79, 1.

- Avenarius, § 142, 6.

- Aventin [Aventinus], § 120, 3.

- Averrhoes [Averroes], § 103, 1, 2.

- Avicenna, § 103, 1, 2.

- Avignon, § 110, 2-5.

- Avitus, § 53, 5; 76, 5.

- Azimites [Azymites], § 67, 3.

- Baader, Francis, § 175, 5; 187, 3; 191, 2.

- Baanes, § 71, 1.

- Babäus, § 52, 3.

- Babeuf, § 212, 1.

- Babylonian Exile of Popes, § 110, 2-5.

- Bach, Sebastian, § 167, 7.

- Bacon, Roger, § 103, 8.

- Bacon, Lord Verulam, § 164, 1.

- Baden, § 196, 2, 3; 197, 13.

- Bahrdt, § 170, 4, 7.

- Baius, Michael, § 149, 13.

- Bajazet, § 110, 11.

- Baläus, § 48, 7.

- Balde, Jac., § 158, 3.

- Baldwin of Jerusalem, § 94, 1; 98, 7.

- Baldwin of Flanders, § 94, 4.

- Baldwin the Heretic, § 108, 4.

- Balsamon, § 68, 5.

- Balthazar of Fulda, § 151, 2.

- Baltic Provinces of Russia, § 139, 3; 206, 3.

- Baltimore, Lord, § 208, 5.

- Baltzer, § 191, 1, 3.

- Baluzius, § 158, 2.

- Bampfield, § 163, 3.

- Ban, § 89, 6; 106, 1.

- Bañez, § 149, 13.

- Bangor, § 85, 4.

- Baphomet, § 112, 7.

- Baptism, § 35, 2-4; 58, 1, 4; 141, 13.

- Baptismal Font, § 60, 4; 88, 5.

- Baptismus Clinicorum, § 35, 3.

- Baptists, § 163, 3; 170, 6; 208, 1; 211, 3.

- Baptistries, § 60, 4.

- Bär, David, § 170, 4.

- Baradai, § 52, 7.

- Barbatianus, § 62, 2.

- Barbs, § 108, 10.

- Barckhausen, § 169, 1.

- Barclay, § 163, 5.

- Bar-Cochba, § 25.

- Bardesanes, § 27, 5.

- Barefooted Friars, § 98, 3; 149, 6.

- Bar Hanina, § 47, 15.

- Bar Hebræus, § 72, 2.

- Bari, Synod at, § 67, 4.

- Barkers, § 170, 7.

- Barlaam, § 67, 5; 69, 2.

- Barlaam and Josaphat, § 68, 6.

- Barletta, § 115, 2.

- Barnabas, § 14; 30, 4.

- Barnabites, § 149, 7.

- Barnim, § 133, 4.

- Baronius, § 5, 2; 149, 14.

- Barriere [Barrière], § 149, 6.

- Barrow, § 143, 4.

- Barsumas, § 52, 3.

- Bartholomew, Massacre of St., § 139, 16.

- Bartholomew of Pisa, § 98, 3.

- Bartolemeo [Bartolomeo], Fra, § 115, 13.

- Basedow, § 171, 4.

- Basel, § 130, 3, 8; 196, 4.

- Basel, Council of, § 110, 8, 9; 119, 7.

- Basil the Great, § 44; 47, 4; 59, 6.

- Basil, chief of Bogomili, § 71, 4.

- Basil of Ancyra, § 50, 3.

- Basil the Macedonian, § 67, 1; 68, 1; 71, 1; 73, 1.

- Basilica, § 60, 1, 2.

- Basilicus, § 139, 26.

- Basilides, the Gnostic, § 27, 2.

- Basilides, the Martyr, § 22, 4.

- Basnage, § 5, 2; 161, 7.

- Basrelief [Bas-relief], § 60, 6.

- Bassi, § 149, 6.

- Bathori, Steph., § 139, 18.

- Bauer, Bruno, § 174, 1; 182, 6.

- Bauer, Lor., § 171, 7.

- Baumgarten-Crusius, § 182, 4.

- Baumgarten M., § 180, 1; 194, 6.

- Baumgarten Sigism. Jac., § 167, 4.

- Baumstark, § 175, 7.

- Baur, Chr. F., § 182, 7; 5, 4.

- Baur, Gust., § 194, 1.

- Bautain, § 91, 1.

- Bavaria, § 78, 2; 151, 2; 165, 10; 195; 197, 14.

- Bavo, § 78, 3.

- Baxter, § 162, 3.

- Bayle, § 164, 4.

- Bayly, Lewis, § 162, 3.

- Beatification, § 104, 8.

- Beaton, § 139, 8.

- Beaumont, § 165, 7.

- Bebel, § 212, 5.

- Bebenburg, § 118, 2.

- Beccus, § 67, 4.

- Beck, Tob., § 182, 12.

- Becket, § 96, 16.

- Bede, The Venerable, § 90, 2.

- Beethoven, § 174, 10.

- Begging Friars, § 98, 3-6; 103, 3-6; 112, 2-6.

- Beghards and Beguins [Beguines], § 98, 7; 116, 5.

- Bekker, Balthaz., § 161, 5.

- Belgium, § 200, 4-7.

- Bellarmine, § 149, 4, 10, 14.

- Beller, Card., § 188, 13.

- Bellini, § 115, 13.

- Bells, § 60, 5.

- Bells, Baptism of, § 88, 5.

- Βῆμα, § 60, 1.

- Bembo, § 120, 1.

- Benard [Bernard], Lor., § 156, 7.

- Bender, § 176, 4.

- Benedetto of Mantova, § 139, 23.

- Benedict III., § 82, 5.

- Benedict V., § 96, 1.

- Benedict VI., VII., § 96, 2.

- Benedict VIII., IX., 96, 4.

- Benedict X., § 96, 6.

- Benedict XI., § 110, 1.

- Benedict XII., § 110, 4; 67, 5; 112, 1.

- Benedict XIII., XIV., § 165, 1.

- Benedict of Aniane, § 85, 2.

- Benedict Levita, § 87, 1.

- Benedict of Nursia, § 85, 1.

- Benedictines, § 85; 98, 1; 112, 1; 186, 2.

- Benedict Medal, § 188, 13.

- Benefice System, § 86, 2.

- Bengel, § 167, 3.

- Benno of Meissen, § 93, 9; 129, 1.

- Berengar, § 101, 1, 2.

- Berengar, I., II., § 96, 1.

- Berg, John, § 153, 7.

- Berg, Book of, § 141, 12.

- Berlage, § 188, 6.

- Berleburger [Berleburg] Bible, § 170, 1.

- Bern, § 130, 4; 199, 3, 4.

- Bernard of Clairvaux, §  102, 2, 3; 94, 2; 96, 13; 104, 10; 108, 2, 3, 7; 109.

- Bernard the Missionary, § 93, 10.

- Bernard Sylvester, § 102, 9.

- Bernard de Saisset, § 110, 1.

- Bernard Tolomei, § 112, 1.

- Bernardino of Siena, § 112, 3.

- Bernardines, § 98, 1.

- Berno of Clugny, § 98, 1.

- Berruyer, § 165, 14.

- Bertha, § 77, 4.

- Bertheau, § 182, 11.

- Berthold of Limoges, § 98, 6.

- Berthold of Loccum, § 93, 12.

- Berthold of Regensburg, § 104, 1.

- Berthold Leonard, § 171, 7.

- Berti, § 165, 15.

- Bertrada, § 96, 10.

- Bertrand de Got, § 110, 2.

- Berylle [Barylla], Pet., § 156, 7.

- Beryllus, § 33, 6.

- Bespopowtschini, § 163, 10.

- Bessarion, § 67, 6; 68, 2; 120, 1.

- Besser, § 181, 4.

- Bestmann, § 182, 21.

- Bethel, § 183, 1.

- Bethman [Bethmann]-Hollweg, § 193, 4.

- Beuggen, § 183, 1.

- Beust, von, § 198, 2, 4.

- Beyschlag, § 182, 10.

- Beza, § 138, 8; 139, 14; 143, 2, 5.

- Bianchi, § 116, 3.

- Bible Societies, § 183, 4; 185, 1.

- Bible Communists, § 211, 6.

- Bible Revision, § 181, 4.

- Bible Translations, § 37, 1; 59, 1; 115, 4.

- Bible reading forbidden, § 105, 3; 185, 1.

- Biblia pauperum, § 115, 3.

- Bickell, § 194, 4.

- Biedermann, § 182, 19.

- Biel, Gebr [Gabriel], § 113, 3.

- Bienemann, § 142, 4.

- Bilderdijk, § 200, 2.

- Billicanus, § 122, 2.

- Bilocation, § 105, 4.

- Bingham, § 169, 6.

- Bischof, Conrad, § 175, 2.

- Bishops, § 17, 5; 34, 2; 45; 84; 97.

- Bishops, Election of, § 34, 3; 45; 84; 97, 3.

- Bishops’ Bible, § 202, 1.

- Bishops’ Paragraph, § 197, 11, 12.

- Bismarck, § 197; 212, 5.

- Bittner, § 175, 2.

- Blackburne, § 171, 1.

- Blahoslaw, § 139, 19.

- Blanc, Louis, § 212, 1.

- Blandina, § 22, 3.

- Blandrata, § 148, 3.

- Blasilla, § 44, 4.

- Blastus, § 37, 2.

- Blau, Dr., § 165, 13.

- Blaurer, § 125, 1; 133, 3; 143, 2.

- Blaurock, § 147, 3.

- Blavatski [Blavatsky], § 211, 18.

- Bleek, § 182, 11.

- Blondel, § 161, 7.

- Blood vases, § 35, 2.

- Blood baptism, § 35, 4.

- Blood revenge, § 88, 5.

- Bloody Marriage, § 139, 16.

- Blot-Sweyn, § 93, 3.

- Blount, § 168, 3.

- Blue Ribbon Army, § 211, 2.

- Blum, Bishop, § 197, 6, 11.

- Blumhardt, § 196, 5.

- Bluntschli, § 180, 1; 196, 3.

- Boabdil, § 95.

- Bobadilla, § 149, 8.

- Bobbio, § 78, 1; 85, 4.

- Boccaccio, § 115, 10.

- Bochart, § 161, 6.

- Bodelschwingh, § 183, 1.

- Bodin, § 117, 4; 148, 3.

- Boeckh, § 181, 3.

- Boethius [Boëthius], § 47, 23.

- Bogatzky [Bogatsky], § 167, 6, 8.

- Bogomili, § 71, 4.

- Bogoris, § 72, 3.

- Böhl v. Faber, § 174, 7.

- Böhme, Jacob, § 160, 2.

- Böhme, Mart., § 142, 4.

- Bohemia, § 79, 3; 93, 6; 139, 19; 153, 2.

- Bohemian Brethren, § 119, 8; 139, 19.

- Böhmer, § 167, 5.

- Böhringer, § 5, 4.

- Bois, Professor, § 203, 8.

- Bolanden, Cour. v., § 175, 2.

- Boleslaw of Poland, § 93, 7.

- Boleslaw of Bohemia, § 93, 6.

- Boleslaw Chrobry, § 93, 7.

- Boleyn, Anne, § 139, 4.

- Bolingbroke, § 170, 1.

- Bolivia, § 209, 2.

- Bollandists, § 158, 2.

- Bolsec, § 138, 3.

- Bolsena, Mass of, § 104, 7.

- Bomberg, § 120, 9.

- Bomelius, § 125, 2.

- Bona, § 158, 2.

- Bonald, § 188, 1.

- Bonaventura, § 103, 4; 104, 10.

- Boniface, Apostle of Germany, § 78, 4-8.

- Boniface, I., § 46, 6.

- Boniface, II., § 46, 8.

- Boniface, III., IV., § 46, 10.

- Boniface, VI., § 82, 8.

- Boniface, VII., § 96, 2.

- Boniface, VIII., § 110, 1; 99, 4; 117, 1.

- Boniface, IX., § 110, 6; 117, 2.

- Boni homines, § 108, 2.

- Bonner, Bp., § 139, 4, 5.

- Bonosus, § 62, 2.

- Book of Discipline, § 139, 9.

- Boos, Mart., § 187, 2.

- Booth, General, § 211, 2.

- Bordelum, Sectaries at, § 170, 4.

- Borgia, § 110, 10, 12.

- Borgia, Francis, § 149, 8.

- Borromeo, § 149, 17; 151, 2.

- Borromeo, Society, § 186, 4.

- Borsenius, § 170, 4.

- Boruth, § 79, 1.

- Borziwoi, § 79, 3.

- Bosio, Ant., § 38, 1.

- Boso, § 95, 3.

- Bossuet, § 5, 2; 153, 7; 156, 3; 157, 3; 158, 2.

- Bost, Pastor, § 156, 1.

- Bothwell, § 139, 10.

- Bourdaloue, § 159, 2.

- Bourgos, Pragmatic Sanction of, § 110, 9.

- Bourignon, § 157, 4.

- Bouthillier de Rancé, § 156, 8.

- Boyle, § 164, 3.

- Bradacz, M. v., § 119, 8.

- Bradwardine, § 113, 2.

- Braga, Syn. of, § 76, 4.

- Brakel, § 169, 2.

- Bramante, § 115, 3; 149, 15.

- Brandenburg, § 134, 5; 154, 3.

- Brandt, § 181, 4.

- Braniss, § 174, 2.

- Brant, Seb., § 115, 11.

- Braun, Hermesian, § 191, 1.

- Brazil, § 150, 3; 209, 3.

- Breckling, § 163, 9.

- Breithaupt, § 159, 3.

- Breitinger, § 162, 6.

- Bremen, § 127, 4; 144, 2.

- Brendel, § 151, 1.

- Brentano, § 188, 3.

- Brenz, § 131, 1; 133, 3; 141, 8; 142, 2, 6.

- Brest, Synod of, § 72, 4; 151, 3.

- Brethren, The four long, § 51, 3.

- Brethren of the Free Spirit, § 116, 5.

- Brethren of the Common Life, § 112, 9.

- Brethren, Bohemian and Moravian, § 119, 7.

- Brethren, The United, § 168.

- Bretschneider, § 174, 3; 182, 2.

- Bretwalda, § 77, 4.

- Breviary, § 56, 2; 149, 14.

- Briçonnet, § 120, 8; 138, 1.

- Bridaine, § 158, 1.

- Bridge-Brothers, § 98, 9.

- Bridget, St., § 110, 5; 112, 4, 8.

- Bridgewater Treatises, § 174, 3.

- Brief, Papal, § 110, 16.

- Briesmann, § 139, 3.

- Brinckerinck, § 112, 9.

- Brinkmann, § 197, 6, 11.

- Britons, Ancient, § 77.

- Broad Churchmen, § 202, 1.

- Broglie, Duc de, § 203, 5, 6.

- Broglie, Bishop, § 200, 1.

- Brothers of the Common Life, § 112, 9.

- Brothers of Mercy, § 149, 7.

- Brothers of the Free Spirit, § 116, 5.

- Brown, Archbishop, of Dublin, § 139, 7.

- Brown, Rob. (Brownist), § 143, 4.

- Brown, Thomas, § 164, 3.

- Bruccioli, § 115, 4.

- Brück, Dr., § 132, 7.

- Brucker, Jac., § 167, 8.

- Bruggeler, Sectaries, § 170, 4.

- Brunehilde [Brunehilda], § 77, 7; 46, 10.

- Bruneleschi, § 115, 13.

- Bruno of Cologne, § 97, 2.

- Bruno the Missionary, § 93, 13.

- Bruno of Rheims, § 98, 2.

- Bruno of Toul, § 96, 5.

- Bruno Giordano, § 146, 3.

- Brunswick, § 127, 4; 135, 6; 194, 5.

- Bucer, § 122, 2; 124, 3; 131, 1; 133, 8; 135, 1, 3, 7; 139, 5.

- Buchel, Anna v., § 170, 4.

- Buchführer, § 128, 1.

- Büchner, § 174, 3.

- Budæus [Buddæus], § 120, 8.

- Buddeus, § 167, 1, 4.

- Buffalo Synod, § 208, 4.

- Bugenhagen, § 125, 1; 127, 4; 133, 4; 139, 2; 142, 2.

- Bülau, § 139, 3.

- Bulgaria, § 67, 1; 73, 3; 175, 4; 207, 3.

- Bulgari, § 108, 1.

- Bulls, Papal, § 110, 16.

- Bull, The Golden, § 97, 2; 110, 4.

- Bullinger, § 133, 8; 138, 7; 161, 4.

- Bunsen, § 181, 1, 4; 182, 17; 198, 1.

- Bunyan, § 162, 3.

- Büren, § 144, 2.

- Burgundians, § 76, 5.

- Burmann, § 161, 7.

- Burnet, Bishop, § 161, 3.

- Bursfeld, Congregation of, § 112, 1.

- Busch, John, § 112, 1.

- Busembaum, § 158, 1; 149, 10.

- Buttlar Sectaries, § 170, 4.

- Butter week, § 56, 7.

- Buxhöwden, § 93, 12.

- Buxtorf, § 161, 3, 6.

- Byron, § 174, 7.

- Byse, § 200, 8.

- Caballero, § 174, 7.

- Cabasilas, § 68, 5; 70, 4.

- Cabet, § 212, 3.

- Cabrera, § 205, 4.

- Cadan, Peace of, § 133, 3.

- Cæcilius, § 63, 1.

- Cædmon, § 89, 3.

- Cæsarius of Arles, § 47, 20; 53, 5; 61, 4.

- Cæsarius of Heisterbach, § 103, 9.

- Cainites, § 27, 6.

- Caius, § 31, 7; 33, 9.

- Cajetan, Card., § 122, 3.

- Cajetan, of Thiene, § 149, 7.

- Calas, § 165, 5.

- Calatrava, Order of, § 98, 8.

- Calderon, § 158, 3.

- Calendar Reform, § 149, 3.

- Calixt, Geo., § 153, 7; 159, 2, 4.

- Calixtines, § 119, 7.

- Calixtus II., § 96, 11.

- Calixtus III., § 96, 15; 110, 10.

- Callinice, § 71, 1.

- Callistus, § 33, 5; 41, 1.

- Calmet, § 165, 14.

- Calov, § 153, 7; 159, 2, 4, 5; 160, 2.

- Calvin, § 138; 143, 5.

- Camaldulensian Order, § 98, 1.

- Camera Romana, § 110, 16.

- Camerarius, § 142, 6.

- Camisards, § 153, 4.

- Campanella, § 164, 1.

- Campanus, § 148, 1.

- Campbellites, § 170, 6.

- Campe, § 171, 4.

- Campegius, § 126, 2, 3; 132, 6.

- Campello, § 190, 3.

- Camp-Meeting, § 208, 1.

- Cancellaria Romana, § 110, 16.

- Canisius, § 149, 14; 151, 1.

- Canisius Society, § 186, 4.

- Canon, Biblical, § 36, 8; 59, 1.

- Canon, of the Mass, § 59, 5.

- Canon, in Music, § 115, 8.

- Canon, Law, § 43, 2.

- Canones Apostt., § 43, 4.

- Canonesses, § 85, 3.

- Canonical Age, § 45, 1.

- Canonical Life, § 84, 4; 97, 3.

- Canonici, § 84, 4; 97, 3.

- Canossa, § 96, 8.

- Canova, § 174, 9.

- Canstein, § 167, 8.

- Cantores, § 34, 3.

- Cantus Ambros., § 59, 5.

- Cantus figuratus, § 104, 11.

- Cantus firmus, § 59, 5.

- Canute the Great, § 93, 2, 4.

- Canus, § 149, 14.

- Canz, § 167, 2.

- Capistran, § 112, 3.

- Capito, § 124, 3; 130, 3; 131, 1.

- Capitula Carisiaca, § 91, 5.

- Capitula Clausa, § 111.

- Capitula episcoporum, § 87, 1.

- Capitularies, § 87, 1.

- Cappadocians, The Three, § 47, 5.

- Cappadose, § 200, 2.

- Cappel, Peace of, § 130, 9, 10.

- Cappellus, § 161, 3, 6.

- Capuchins, § 149, 6.

- Caraccioli, § 139, 24.

- Caraffa, § 149, 2, 7; 139, 22, 23.

- Carantanians, § 79, 1.

- Carbeas, § 71, 1.

- Cardale, § 211, 10.

- Cardinals, § 97, 1.

- Carey, § 172, 5.

- Carl, Dr., § 170, 1.

- Carlomann, § 78, 5.

- Carlstadt, § 122, 4; 124, 1, 3; 131, 1; 139, 2.

- Carmelites, § 98, 6; 149, 6.

- Carnesecchi, § 139, 22, 23.

- Carnival, § 56, 4; 105, 2.

- Carpentarius, § 128, 1.

- Carpocrates, § 27, 8.

- Carpov, § 167, 4.

- Carpzov, J. B., § 117, 4, 158, 3; 167, 1.

- Carpzov, J. G., § 167, 4.

- Carranza, § 139, 21.

- Carrasco, § 205, 4.

- Carthusians, § 98, 2; 112.

- las Casas, § 150, 3.

- Casimir of Berleburg, § 170.

- Casimir of Brunswick, § 126, 4.

- Cassander, § 137, 8.

- Cassel, Religious Conference of, § 154, 4.

- Cassianus, § 44, 4; 47, 21; 53, 5.

- Cassiodorus, § 47, 23.

- Castellio, § 138, 4; 143, 5.

- Castellus, § 161, 6.

- Castelnau, Pet. v., § 109, 1.

- Casuists, § 113, 4.

- Casula, § 59, 7.

- Catacombs, § 38, 1-3.

- Cataphrygians, § 40, 1.

- Catechetical School, § 31, 1.

- Catechism, Heidelberg, § 144, 1.

- Catechism, Luther’s, § 127, 1.

- Catechisms, § 115, 5.

- Catechismus Genevensis, § 138, 2.

- Catechismus Romanus, § 149, 14.

- Catechoumens, § 35, 1.

- Catenæ, § 48, 1.

- Cathari, § 108, 1.

- Catharine of Aragon [Arragon], § 139, 4.

- Catharine Bora, § 129.

- Catharine de Medici, § 139, 13 ff.

- Catharine II. of Russia, § 165, 9.

- Catharine St., of Sweden, § 112, 8.

- Catharine of Siena, § 112, 4; 110, 5, 6.

- Cathedral, § 84, 4.

- Cathedral, Schools, § 90, 8.

- Catholicus, § 52, 7.

- Catholicity, § 20, 2; 34, 7.

- Cave, § 161, 7.

- Celbes, § 28, 4.

- Celibacy, § 39, 3; 45, 2; 84, 3; 96, 7; 111, 1; 187, 4.

- Cellites, § 116, 3.

- Celsus, § 23, 3.

- Celtes, Conrad, § 120, 3.

- Celtic Church, § 77.

- Cemeteries, § 38; 60, 2.

- Cencius, § 96, 7.

- Centuries, The Magdeburg, § 5, 2.

- Ceolfrid, § 77, 3, 8.

- Cerdo, § 27, 11.

- Cerinthus, § 17, 3; 27, 1.

- Cesarini, § 110, 7.

- Cesena, § 112, 2.

- Cevennes, Prophets of the, § 153, 4; 170, 2, 7.

- Chaila, du, § 153, 4.

- Chalcedon, Council of, § 46, 1, 7; 52, 4.

- Chaldean Christians, § 52, 3; 72, 1; 150, 4.

- Chalmers, § 178, 2; 202, 7.

- Chalybæus, § 174, 2.

- Chambre ardente, § 139, 13.

- Chamier, § 161, 7.

- Chandler, § 171, 1.

- Channing, § 208, 4.

- Chantal, § 156, 7; 157, 1.

- Chapels, § 84, 1, 2.

- Chaplain, § 84, 1, 2.

- Chapter of Cathedral, § 84, 4; 97, 2; 111.

- Chapters, Controversy of the three, § 52, 6.

- Charlemagne, § 78, 9; 79, 1; 81, 1; 82, 2, 3; 89, 2; 90, 1; 92, 1.

- Charles of Anjou, § 96, 20-22.

- Charles the Bald, § 82, 4, 5, 8; 90, 1.

- Charles Martel, § 81; 82, 1.

- Charles IV., Emperor, § 110, 4, 5; 117, 2.

- Charles VII. of France, § 110, 9.

- Charles V., Emperor, § 123, 5.

- Charles I., II. of England, § 153, 6; 155, 1, 3.

- Charles IX. of France, § 139, 14-16.

- Charles IX. of Sweden, § 139, 1.

- Charles XII. of Sweden, § 165, 4.

- Charles Albert of Sardinia, § 204, 1.

- Charles Felix of Sardinia, § 204, 1.

- Charles Alexander of Württemberg, § 165, 5.

- Charles Theodore of Bavaria, § 165, 10.

- Charles of Lorraine, Cardinal, § 139, 13; 149, 2, 17.

- Charisms, § 17, 1.

- Chastel, § 5, 5.

- Chateaubriand, § 174, 7.

- Chatel, Abbé, § 187, 6.

- Chatimar, § 79, 1.

- Chazari, § 73, 2.

- Chemnitz, § 141, 2, 12; 142, 2, 6.

- Cherbury, § 164, 3.

- Children, The Praying, § 167, 1.

- Children, Baptism of, § 17, 7; 35, 4; 58, 1.

- Children’s Communion, § 36, 3; 58, 4.

- Children’s Crusade, § 94, 4.

- Chili, § 209, 2.

- Chiliasm, § 33, 9; 40, 4; 108, 5; 162, 1; 211, 7.

- Chillingworth, § 161, 3.

- China, § 93, 15; 150, 1; 156, 12; 165, 3; 184, 6; 186, 7.

- Chinese Rites, § 156, 12.

- Choir, § 60, 1.

- Chorale, § 142, 5; 160, 5; 181, 2.

- Chorepiscopi, § 34, 3; 45; 84; 97, 3.

- Choristers, § 97, 3.

- Chorisantes, § 116, 2.

- Chosroes, § 11; 64, 2.

- Chrism, § 35, 4.

- Christ, Order of, § 112, 8.

- Christian Association (German), § 172, 5.

- Christian, Bishop, § 93, 13.

- Christian II., III. of Denmark, § 139, 2.

- Christian Baptists, § 170, 6; 208, 1.

- Christina of Sweden, § 153, 1.

- Christopher of Württemberg, § 133, 3.

- Christo sacrum, § 172, 4.

- Χριστὸς πάσχων, § 48, 5.

- Chrodegang of Metz, § 48, 4.

- Chronicon paschale, § 48, 2.

- Chrysolaras, § 120, 1.

- Chrysologus, § 47, 17.

- Chrysostom, § 47, 8; 51, 3; 53, 1.

- Chubb, § 171, 1.

- Churches, § 38.

- Church Army, § 211, 2.

- Church Discipline, § 39; 61; 89, 6; 106.

- Church History, Idea, Periods, Sources, etc., of, §§ 1-5.

- Church Law, Catholic, § 43, 3-5; 68, 5; 87; 99, 5.

- Church Law, Protestant, § 167, 5.

- Church Property, § 45, 4; 86, 1; 96, 15.

- Church States, § 82, 1; 185, 3.

- Church Year, § 56, 6.

- Chytræus, § 141, 12; 142, 6.

- Ciborium, § 60, 5.

- Cilicium, § 106.

- Cimabue, § 104, 14.

- Circumcelliones, § 63, 1.

- Cistercians, § 98, 1.

- Ciudad, § 147, 7.

- Clara of Assisi, § 98, 3.

- Clara, Nuns of St., § 98, 3.

- Clarendon, Council at, § 96, 16.

- Clarke, Sam., § 171, 1.

- Classes, § 143, 1.

- Classical Synods, § 143, 1.

- Claude, § 161, 3, 7.

- Claudius Apollinaris, § 30, 4.

- Claudius I., Emperor, § 22, 1.

- Claudius II., Emperor, § 22, 5.

- Claudius of Savoy, § 148, 3.

- Claudius of Turin, § 90, 4; 92, 2.

- Claudius Matthias, § 171, 11.

- Clausen, § 201, 1.

- Clemangis, § 110, 3; 118, 4.

- Clemens, F. J., § 191, 3.

- Clement of Alexandria, § 31, 4.

- Clement of Rome, § 30, 3.

- Clement II., § 96, 4, 5.

- Clement III., § 96, 8, 16.

- Clement IV., § 96, 20; 103, 8.

- Clement V., § 110, 2; 112, 7.

- Clement VI., § 110, 4, 5.

- Clement VII., § 110, 6; 126, 2; 132, 2; 149, 1.

- Clement VIII., § 110, 7; 149, 2, 13, 14.

- Clement IX., X., § 156, 1.

- Clement XI., § 165, 1, 7.

- Clement XIII., XIV., § 165, 9.

- Clement a Heretic of Britain, § 78, 6.

- Clementine Homilies and Recognitions, § 28, 3, 4.

- Clementinæ, § 99, 5.

- Cleomenes, § 33, 5.

- Clergy, § 34, 4.

- Clerici vagi, § 84, 2.

- Clericis laicos, § 110, 1.

- Clericus, § 169, 6.

- Clermont, Synod at, § 94; 96, 7.

- Climacus, § 47, 12.

- Clinici, § 34, 3; 45, 1.

- Cloister Schools, § 90, 8.

- Cloots, Anach., § 165, 12.

- Clothilda, § 76, 5, 9.

- Clovis, § 76, 9.

- Clugny, § 98, 1; 165, 2.

- Cluniacs, § 98, 1.

- Cocceius, § 161, 4, 6; 162, 5.

- Cochlæus, § 129, 1; 135, 10.

- Cock, H. de, § 200, 2.

- Codde, § 165, 8.

- Codex Alexandrinus, § 152, 2.

- Codex Sinaiticus, § 182, 11.

- Cœlestine I., § 46, 1; 52, 3; 53, 4.

- Cœlestine II., § 96, 13.

- Cœlestine III., § 96, 16.

- Cœlestine IV., § 96, 19.

- Cœlestine V., § 96, 22.

- Cœlestines, § 98, 2.

- Cœlestines, Eremites, § 98, 4.

- Cœlestius, § 53, 4.

- Cœlicolæ, § 42, 6.

- Cœnobites, § 44.

- Coisi, § 77, 4.

- Coke, § 169, 4.

- Colani, § 203, 8.

- Colenso, § 202, 4.

- Coleridge, § 202, 1.

- Colet, § 120, 6, 7.

- Colidei, § 77, 8.

- Coligny, § 139, 14, 16; 143, 6.

- Collatio cum Donatist., § 63, 1.

- Collegia philobibl., § 159, 3.

- Collegia pietatis, § 159, 3.

- Collegial System, § 167, 5.

- Collegiants, § 163, 1.

- Collegiate Foundations, § 84, 4.

- Collegium caritativum, § 169, 1.

- Collegium Germanicum, § 151, 1.

- Collegium Helveticum, § 151, 2.

- Collenbusch, § 172, 3.

- Collins, § 171, 1.

- Collyridian Nuns, § 57, 2.

- Colman, § 77, 6.

- Cologne, Cathedral of, § 104, 13.

- Cologne, Conflict of, § 190, 1.

- Cologne, Reformation of, § 135, 7; 136, 2; 137, 7.

- Colombière, § 156, 6.

- Colonna, § 110, 1, 3.

- Colonna, Vittoria, § 139, 22.

- Columba, § 77, 2.

- Columbanus, § 77, 7.

- Columbus, § 116.

- Comenius, § 163, 9; 168, 2.

- Comes Hieron., § 59, 3.

- Commendatory Abbots, § 85, 5; 111, 2.

- Commodian, § 31, 12; 33, 9.

- Commodus, § 22, 2.

- Common Prayer, Book of, § 139, 5, 6.

- Communicatio idiomatum, § 141, 9.

- Communism, § 211, 6; 212, 1.

- Compact, The Basel, § 119, 7.

- Competentes, § 35, 1.

- Compiegne, Diet of, § 82, 4.

- Composition, § 89, 5, 6.

- Compromise, Belgian, § 139, 12.

- Comte, § 174, 2; 210, 1.

- Concha, § 60, 1.

- Concilium Germanicum, § 78, 5.

- Conclave, § 96, 21.

- Concomitantia, § 105, 1.

- Concord of Wittenberg, § 133, 8.

- Concord Formula of, § 141, 12.

- Concordat of Austria, § 198, 2.

- Concordat of Baden, § 196, 2.

- Concordat of Bavaria, § 195, 1.

- Concordat of France, § 203, 1.

- Concordat of Holland, § 200, 1.

- Concordat of Portugal, § 205, 5.

- Concordat of Prussia, § 193, 1.

- Concordat of Spain, § 205, 1.

- Concordat of Upper Rhine, § 196, 1.

- Concordat of Vienna, § 110, 7.

- Concordat of Worms, § 96, 5.

- Concordat of Württemberg, § 96, 5.

- Condé, § 139, 14, 16, 17.

- Condé, Louise de, § 186, 2.

- Conference, Evangelical, § 178, 4.

- Confessio, § 57, 1.

- Confession, § 36, 3; 61, 1; 89, 6; 104, 4.

- Confessio Augustana, § 132, 7.

- Confessio Augustana Variata, § 141, 4, 7.

- Confessio Belgica, § 139, 12.

- Confessio Bohemica, § 139, 19.

- Confessio Czengeriana, § 139, 20.

- Confessio Gallicana, § 139, 14.

- Confessio Hafnica, § 139, 2.

- Confessio Helvetica I., § 133, 8.

- Confessio Helvetica II., § 138, 7.

- Confessio Hungarica, § 139, 20.

- Confessio Marchica, § 154, 3.

- Confessio Saxonica, § 136, 8.

- Confessio Scotica, § 139, 9.

- Confessio Sigismundi, § 154, 3.

- Confessio Tetrapolit., § 132, 7.

- Confession, Westminster, § 155, 1.

- Confession, Württemberg, § 136, 8.

- Confessores, § 22, 5; 39, 2, 5.

- Confirmation, § 35, 4; 139, 19; 167, 2.

- Confutatio Conf. August., § 132, 7.

- Congregatio de auxiliis, § 149, 13.

- Congregatio de propag. fides, § 156, 9.

- Congregationalists, § 143, 4; 162, 1; 202, 5.

- Congregations, § 98, 1; 186, 2.

- Conon, Pope, § 46, 11.

- Cononites, § 57, 2.

- Conrad I., Emperor, § 96, 1.

- Conrad II., § 96, 4.

- Conrad III., § 96, 13; 94, 2.

- Conrad IV., § 96, 20.

- Conrad of Hochsteden, § 104, 13.

- Conrad of Marburg, § 109, 3.

- Conrad of Massovia, § 93, 13.

- Conrad of Megenburg, § 118, 2.

- Conradin, § 96, 20.

- Consalvi, § 185, 1; 192, 3.

- Conscientiarii, § 164, 4.

- Consensus Dresdensis, § 141, 10.

- Consensus Genev., § 138, 7.

- Consensus Sendomir, § 139, 18.

- Consensus repetitus, § 159, 2.

- Consensus Tigurinus, § 138, 7.

- Consilia evangelica, § 39.

- Consistories, § 142, 1.

- Consolamentum, § 108, 2.

- Constance, Council of, § 110, 7; 119, 5, 7.

- Constantia, § 50, 2.

- Constantine the Great, § 22, 7; 42, 1, 2; 60, 1; 63, 1.

- Constantine I., Pope, § 46, 11.

- Constantine II., “ § 82, 2.

- Constantine Chrysomalus, § 70, 4.

- Constantine Copronymus, § 66, 2.

- Constantine of Mananalis, § 71, 1.

- Constantine Monomachus [Monómachus], § 67, 3.

- Constantine Pogonnatus, § 52, 8.

- Constantine Porphyrogenneta, § 68, 1.

- Constantinople, Second Œcum. Council at, § 46, 1; 50, 4, 5; 52, 2.

- Constantinople, Fifth Œcum. Council at, § 52, 6.

- Constantinople, Sixth Œcum. Council at, § 52, 8.

- Constantinople, Seventh Œcum. Council at, § 66, 2, 3.

- Constantinople, Eighth Œcum. Council at, § 67, 1.

- Constantius, § 42, 2; 50, 2.

- Constantius, Chlorus, § 22, 6.

- Constitutio Rom., § 82, 4.

- Constitution of Early Church, § 17.

- Constitutiones apost., § 43, 4.

- Contarini, § 135, 2; 139, 22.

- Continentes, § 39, 3.

- Contraremonstrants, § 161, 2.

- Convenensa, § 108, 2.

- Conventuals, § 112, 3.

- Conversi, § 98.

- Converts, Romish, § 153, 1; 165, 6; 175, 7.

- Convocation, English, § 202, 3.

- Copts, § 52, 7; 72, 2.

- Coquerel, § 203, 4, 8.

- Coracion, § 33, 9.

- Coran, § 65.

- Corbinian, § 78, 2.

- Cordeliers, § 149, 6.

- Cornelius, Bishop, § 42, 3.

- Coronation, Papal, § 96, 23; 110, 15.

- Corporale, § 60, 5.

- Corporations Act, § 155, 3; 202, 5.

- Corpus Cathol. et Evangel., § 153, 1.

- Corpus Christi Festival, § 104, 7.

- Corpus doctr. Misnicum, § 141, 10.

- Corpus juris canon., § 99, 5.

- Corpus Pruthen., § 141, 2.

- Correctores Rom., § 99, 5.

- Correggio, § 115, 13.

- Cosmas of Jerusalem, § 70, 2.

- Cosmas Indicopleustes, § 48, 2.

- Cosmas Patr., § 70, 4.

- Cosmas Usurpator, § 66, 1.

- Cossa, Cardinal, § 110, 7.

- Costa, Is. da, § 200, 2.

- Coster, § 149, 14.

- Cotta, Urs., § 122, 1.

- Councils, Œcumenical, § 43, 2.

- Counter-Reformation, § 151; 153; 165, 4.

- Cour, Did. de la, § 156, 4.

- Courland, § 93, 12; 139, 3.

- Court, Ant., § 165, 5.

- Covenant, § 139, 8; 155, 1.

- Cowper, § 172, 4.

- Cranach, § 142, 2.

- Cranmer, § 139, 4, 5.

- Cranz, § 115, 8.

- Crasselius, § 167, 6.

- Crato of Crafftheim, § 141, 10; 137, 8.

- Creationism, § 53, 1.

- Crell, J., § 148, 4.

- Crell, Nich., § 141, 13.

- Crell, Paul, § 141, 10.

- Crescens, § 30, 9.

- Crescentius, § 96, 2, 4.

- Creuzer, § 174, 4.

- Cromwell, § 153, 5, 6; 155, 1-3.

- Crookes, § 211, 17.

- Cross, § 38, 2; 60, 6.

- Cross, Discovery of the, § 57, 5.

- Cross, Ordeal of the, § 88, 5.

- Cross, Sign of the, § 39, 1; 59, 8; 73, 5.

- Crotus, Rubianus, § 120, 2, 5.

- Crucifix, § 60, 6.

- Cruciger, § 136, 7.

- Cruco, § 93, 9.

- Crüger, § 160, 5.

- Crusaders, § 98, 8.

- Crusades, § 94; 105, 3.

- Crusius, Mart., § 139, 26.

- Crusius, Chr. Aug., § 167, 4.

- Crypto-Calvinists, § 141, 10, 13.

- Crypts, § 38, 1; 60, 1.

- Cubricus, § 29, 1.

- Cudworth, § 164, 3.

- Culdees, § 77, 8.

- Cum ex apostolatus officio, § 149, 2.

- Cummins, § 208, 1.

- Cunæus, § 161, 6.

- Cupola, § 60, 3.

- Curati, § 84, 2.

- Curæus, § 141, 10.

- Curci, § 187, 5.

- Curia, The Papal, § 110, 15.

- Curio, § 139, 24.

- Cursores, § 60, 5.

- Cusa, Nich. of, § 113, 6.

- Cynewulf, § 89, 3.

- Cyprian, St., § 22, 5; 31, 11; 34, 1, 7, 8; 35, 3; 39, 2; 41, 2, 3.

- Cyprian, of Antioch, § 48, 8.

- Cyprian, Sal., § 167, 4; 169, 1.

- Cyran, St., § 157, 2.

- Cyriacus, § 104, 9.

- Cyril of Alexandria, § 47, 6; 52, 2, 3.

- Cyril of Jerusalem, § 47, 10; 52, 2, 3.

- Cyril Lucar, § 152, 2.

- Cyril and Methodius, § 73, 2, 3; 79, 2, 3.

- Cyrillonas, § 48, 7.

- Cyrus of Alexandria, § 52, 8.

- Czersky, § 186, 6.

- Dach, Sim., § 160, 3.

- Dächsel, § 186, 4.

- Dagobert I., § 78, 1.

- Daillé, § 161, 3, 7.

- Dalberg, J. v., § 120, 2, 3.

- Dalberg, K. Th. v., § 187, 3; 192, 2.

- Dale, § 202, 3.

- Dalmatica, § 59, 7.

- Damascus I., § 46, 4; 59, 1, 4.

- Damascus II., § 96, 5.

- Dames du Cœur sacré, § 186, 1.

- Damiani, Petrus [Peter], § 97, 4; 104, 10; 106, 4.

- Damiens, § 158, 1.

- Dandalo [Dandolo], § 94, 4.

- Daniel of Winchester, § 78, 4.

- Danites, § 211, 14.

- Dankbrand, § 93, 5.

- Dannecker, § 174, 9.

- Dannhauer, § 159, 5.

- Dante, § 115, 10.

- Danzig, § 139, 18.

- Darboy, § 189, 3; 203.

- Darbyites, § 211, 11.

- Darnley, § 139, 10.

- Darwin, § 174, 3.

- Dataria Rom., § 110, 16.

- Daub, § 182, 6.

- Daumer, § 175, 7.

- David of Augsburg, § 103, 10.

- David of Dinant, § 108, 4.

- David Christian, § 167, 9.

- Davidis, Fr., § 148, 3.

- Davis, § 211, 17.

- Deacon, § 17, 5; 34, 3.

- Deaconess, § 34, 3.

- Deaconess-institutes, § 183, 1.

- Dean, § 84, 2.

- Decius, Emperor, § 22, 5.

- Decius, Nich., § 142, 3.

- Declaratio Thornuensis, § 153, 7.

- Decretals, § 46, 3.

- Decretists, § 99, 5.

- Decretum Gelasianum, § 47, 22.

- Decretum Gratiani, § 99, 5.

- Defensores, § 45, 3.

- Deism, § 164, 3; 171, 1.

- Delicieux, § 117, 2.

- Delitzsch, § 182, 14.

- Delrio, § 149, 11.

- Demetrius of Alexandria, § 31, 5.

- Demetrius Cydonius, § 68, 5.

- Demetrius Mysos, § 139, 26.

- Demiurge, § 26, 2.

- Denek, § 148, 1.

- Denecker, § 160, 1.

- Denifle, § 191, 7.

- Denison, § 202, 2.

- Denmark, § 80; 93, 2; 139, 2; 201, 1.

- Denzinger, § 191, 9.

- Derezer, § 165, 11.

- Dernbach, § 151, 1.

- De salute animarum, § 193, 1.

- Desanctis, § 204, 4.

- Descant, § 104, 11.

- Descartes, § 161, 3; 164, 1.

- Deseret, § 211, 12.

- Desiderius, § 82, 1.

- Desprez, § 203, 3.

- Dessau, Convention of, § 126, 5.

- Dessler, § 167, 6.

- Deutinger, § 191, 6.

- “Deutsche Theologie,” § 114, 2.

- De Valenti, § 174, 3.

- Devay, § 139, 20.

- Dhu Nowas, § 64, 4.

- Diana of Poitiers, § 139, 13.

- Diatessaron, § 30, 9; 36, 7.

- Diaz, Juan, § 135, 10.

- Didache, § 30, 7.

- Didascalia Apost., § 43, 4.

- Didenhofen, Synod of, § 82, 4.

- Diderot, § 165, 12.

- Didier de la Cour, § 156, 7.

- Didymus of Alexandria, § 47, 5.

- Didymus Gabr, § 124, 1.

- Dieckhoff, § 182, 21.

- Diedrich, § 177, 3.

- Diepenbrock, § 189, 1.

- Dieringer, § 191, 6.

- Dies Stationum, § 37; 56, 1.

- Diestel, Past., § 176, 3.

- Dietrich, Meister, § 103, 10.

- Dietrich, Veit, § 142, 2.

- Dillmann, § 182, 11.

- Dinant, David of, § 108, 4.

- Dinder, Archbishop, § 197, 12.

- Dinkel, Bishop, § 187, 3.

- Dinter, § 174, 8.

- Diocletian, Emperor, § 22, 6.

- Diodorus of Tarsus, § 47, 8.

- Diognetus, § 30, 6.

- Dionysius of Alexandria, § 31, 6; 32 8; 33, 7, 9; 35, 3.

- Dionysius the Areopagite, § 47, 11; 90, 8.

- Dionysius Exiguus, § 47, 23.

- Dionysius of Paris, § 25.

- Dionysius of Rome, § 33, 7.

- Dioscurus of Alexandria, § 52, 4.

- Dioscurus of Rome, § 46, 8.

- Dippel, § 170, 3.

- Diptychs, § 59, 6.

- Disciplina arcani, § 36, 4.

- Disputation at Baden, § 130, 6.

- Disputation at Basel, § 130, 3.

- Disputation at Bern, § 130, 7.

- Disputation at Leipzig, § 122, 4.

- Disputation at Rome, § 175, 3.

- Disputation at Zürich, § 130, 2.

- Dissenters, § 143, 3, 4; 155, 1-3; 202, 5.

- Dober, § 168, 3, 4, 11.

- Docetism, § 26, 2.

- Doctor acutus, § 113, 2.

- Doctor angelicus, § 103, 6.

- Doctor audientium, § 33, 1.

- Doctor Christianiss., § 113, 4.

- Doctor ecstaticus, § 114, 5.

- Doctor invincibilis, § 113, 3.

- Doctor irrefragibilis, § 103, 4.

- Doctor melifluus, § 102, 2.

- Doctor mirabilis, § 103, 8.

- Doctor profundus, § 103, 8; 116, 2.

- Doctor resolutissimus, § 113, 3.

- Doctor seraphicus, § 103, 4.

- Doctor subtilis, § 113, 1.

- Doctor universalis, § 103, 5.

- Doctores audientium, § 34, 3.

- Doctores ecclesiæ, § 47, 22.

- Döderlein, § 171, 8.

- Dodwell, § 161, 7.

- Dolcino, § 108, 8.

- Döllinger, § 190, 1; 191, 5, 9; 175, 6; 5, 6.

- Domenichino, § 149, 15.

- Domenico da Pescia, § 119, 11.

- Dominic, St., § 98, 4; 106, 3.

- Dominicans, § 98, 5; 109, 2; 112, 4; 186, 2.

- Dominus ac redemt., § 165, 9.

- Domitian, Emperor, § 22, 1.

- Domitian, Abbot, § 52, 6.

- Domnus of Antioch, § 52, 4.

- Donatio Constantini, § 87, 4.

- Donatists, § 63, 1.

- Donnet, Card., § 190, 3.

- Doré, Gustav, § 174, 9.

- Doring, Matt., § 113, 7.

- Dormitoria, § 38, 2; 60, 4.

- Dorner, § 182, 10.

- Dorotheus, § 30, 6.

- Dort, Synod of, § 161, 2.

- Dositheus of Samaria, § 25, 2.

- Dositheus of Jerusalem, § 152, 3.

- Drabricius, § 163, 9.

- Dragonnades, § 153, 3.

- Drake, § 174, 9.

- Drey, § 191, 6.

- Druids, § 77, 2.

- Drummond, § 211, 10.

- Drusius, § 161, 6.

- Druthmar, Christ., § 90, 4, 9; 91, 3.

- Dualism, § 26, 2.

- Dualistic Heretics, § 71.

- Dubois, Pet. v., § 118, 1.

- Dubois, Card., § 165, 7.

- Ducange, § 158, 2.

- Duchoborzians, § 166, 2; 210, 3.

- Dufay, § 115, 8.

- Dufresne, § 158, 2.

- Dulignon, § 163, 8.

- Dumont, Bishop, § 200, 7.

- Dumoulin, § 161, 3, 7.

- Dungal, § 92, 2.

- Dunin, § 193, 1.

- Duns Scotus, § 113, 1.

- Dunstan, § 97, 4; 100, 1.

- Dupanloup, § 189, 3; 203, 3-5.

- Duplessis-Mornay, § 139, 17.

- Duræus, § 154, 4.

- Durandus of Osca, § 108, 10.

- Durandus, William, § 113, 3.

- Dürer, Albert, § 115, 13; 142, 2.

- Durousseaux, § 200, 7.

- Düsselthal, § 183, 1.

- Dutoit, § 171, 9.

- Duvergier, § 157, 5.

- Eadbald, § 77, 4.

- Eanfled, § 77, 6.

- Eardley, § 178, 2.

- Easter-Festival, § 37, 1; 56, 3, 4.

- Easter Reckoning of, § 56, 3; 77, 3.

- East Friesland, § 170, 3.

- East Indies, § 64, 4; 150, 1; 156, 11; 165, 3; 167, 9; 168, 6; 184, 5.

- Ebed Jesu, § 72, 1.

- Ebel, § 176, 3.

- Eber, Paul, § 141, 10; 142, 3.

- Eberhard of Bamberg, § 102, 6.

- Eberhard J. A., § 171, 4-7.

- Eberhard Bishop of Treves, § 197, 6.

- Eberlin, § 125, 1.

- Ebionites, § 28, 1.

- Ebner, § 114, 6.

- Ebo of Rheims, § 80; 87, 3.

- Ebrard, § 182, 16; 195, 5; 5, 5.

- Ecbert of Schönau, § 107, 1.

- Eccart, John, § 142, 5.

- Ecclesia Christi Bull, § 203, 1.

- Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, § 202, 11.

- Ecetæ, § 70, 3.

- Echter, Jul., § 151, 1.

- Echternach Procession, § 188, 11.

- Eck, § 122, 1, 4; 123, 1; 130, 6; 135, 2, 3; 149, 14.

- Eckhart, Meister, § 114, 1.

- Ecthesis, § 52, 8.

- Edelmann, § 171, 3.

- Edessa, School of, § 31, 1; 47, 1.

- Edward VI. of England, § 139, 5.

- Edwin, § 77, 4.

- Egbert, § 77, 8; 78, 3.

- Egede, § 167, 9.

- Egli, § 199, 3.

- Eichhorn, J. G., § 171, 7.

- Eichhorn, Minister, § 196, 2.

- Eichhorn, Nich., § 174, 5.

- Eichsfeld, § 151, 1.

- Einhard, § 88, 6.

- εἰρήνη, § 39, 2.

- Eisenach, Conference at, § 172, 2.

- Eisenach, Attentat, § 194, 2.

- Eisenmenger, § 161, 7.

- Eisleben, Magister, § 141, 1.

- Elagabalus, § 22, 4.

- Eleesban, § 64, 4.

- Eleutherus, § 40, 2.

- Elias of Cortona, § 98.

- Eligius, § 78, 3.

- Elipandus, § 91, 1.

- Elisæus [Elisaeus], § 64, 3.

- Elizabeth, St., § 105, 3.

- Elizabeth of Brandenburg, § 128, 1.

- Elizabeth of Calenberg, § 134, 5.

- Elizabeth of England, § 139, 6-8.

- Elizabeth of Herford, § 163, 7, 8.

- Elizabeth of Schönau, § 104, 9; 107, 1.

- Elizabeth-Society, § 186, 4.

- Elkesaites, § 28, 2.

- Eller, § 170, 4.

- Elliot, § 162, 7.

- Eltz, Jac. v., § 151, 1.

- Elvenich, § 191, 1.

- Elvira, Syn. of, § 38, 3; 45, 2.

- Elxai, § 27, 2.

- Elzevir, § 161, 6.

- Emanation, § 26, 2.

- Emancipation Bill, § 202, 9.

- Emmerau, § 78, 2.

- Emmerich, § 188, 3.

- Empaytaz, § 199, 5.

- Emser, Jerome, § 123, 4; 149, 14.

- Encratites, § 27, 10.

- Encyclicon, § 52, 5.

- Encyclopædists, § 165, 14.

- Endemic Synods, § 43, 2.

- Energumens, § 35, 3.

- Enfans sans souci, § 115, 12.

- Enfantin, § 212, 2.

- England, § 139, 4; 143, 1; 154, 4; 155; 162, 1; 202.

- Ennodius, § 46, 8; 59, 4.

- Enoch, Book of, § 32, 2.

- Enraght, § 202, 3.

- Eoban, St., § 78, 7.

- Epaon, Council of, § 76, 5.

- Ephesus, Council of, § 52, 3; 53, 4.

- Ephraem [Ephraim], § 47, 13; 48, 7; 59, 4.

- Epigonus, § 33, 5.

- Epiphanes, § 27, 8.

- Epiphanius, § 47, 10; 51, 2, 3; 57, 4.

- Episcopal System, § 167, 5.

- Episcopi in partibus, § 97, 3.

- Episcopius, § 161, 2.

- Epistolæ decretales, § 46, 3.

- Epistolæ formatæ, § 34, 6.

- Epistolæ obscur. vir., § 120, 5.

- Epistolæ paschales, § 34, 6; 56, 3.

- Epistolæ synodales, § 34, 6.

- Epulæ Thyesteæ, § 22.

- Erasmus, § 120, 6; 123, 3; 125, 3.

- Erastianism, § 202, 7.

- Erastus, § 117, 4; 144, 1.

- Erfurt, University of, § 120, 2.

- Eric of Calenberg, § 136, 1.

- Eric of Sweden, § 80, 1; 93, 2.

- Eric, St., § 93, 3, 11.

- Eric the Red, § 93, 5.

- Erigena, § 90, 7; 91, 5.

- Erimbert, § 81, 1.

- Erlembald, § 97, 5.

- Ernest the Pious, § 160, 6.

- Ernest of Lüneburg, § 126, 4; 127, 3.

- Ernesti, § 171, 6.

- Ernestine Bible, § 160, 6.

- Esch, John, § 128, 1.

- Eschenmayer, § 176, 2.

- Escobar, § 149, 16; 158, 1.

- Essenes, § 8, 4; 28, 2.

- Essenius, § 161, 5.

- Established Church, § 139, 6; 202, 1.

- Esthonia, § 93, 2; 205, 3.

- Estius, § 149, 14.

- Ethelberga, § 77, 4.

- Ethelbert, § 77, 4.

- Ethelwold, Bishop, § 100, 1.

- Etherius of Osma, § 91, 1.

- Ethiopia, § 64, 1.

- Etshmiadzin, § 72, 2.

- Εὐχαριστία, § 17, 7; 36, 3.

- Εὐχέλαιον, § 61, 3.

- Eucherius, § 47, 21.

- Euchites, § 44, 7; 71, 3.

- Eudocia, § 48, 5; 52, 3, 4, 5.

- Eudoxia, § 51, 3.

- Eudoxius, § 50, 8.

- Eugenius II., § 82, 4.

- Eugenius III., § 96, 13.

- Eugenius IV., § 67, 6; 110, 8, 9.

- Eulalius, § 46, 6.

- Euler, § 171, 8.

- Eulogies, § 58, 4.

- Eulogius of Cæsarea, § 53, 4.

- Eulogius of Cordova, § 81, 1; 90, 6.

- Eunapius, § 42, 5.

- Eunomius, § 50, 3.

- Euphemites, § 42, 6.

- Euphrates, § 28, 4.

- Euric, § 76, 2.

- Eusebians, § 50, 2.

- Eusebius of Cæsarea, § 36, 8; 47, 2; 50, 1; 59, 1.

- Eusebius of Doryläum, § 52, 3.

- Eusebius of Emesa, § 47, 8.

- Eusebius of Nicomedia, § 50, 1.

- Eusebius of Vercelli, § 50, 2.

- Eustasius of Luxeuil, § 78, 2.

- Eustathians, § 44, 7.

- Eustathius of Antioch, § 50, 8.

- Eustathius of Sebaste, § 44, 3, 7; 62, 1.

- Eustathius of Thessalonica, § 68, 5; 70, 4.

- Euthalius, § 59, 1.

- Euthymius Zigabenus, § 68, 5.

- Eutyches, § 52, 4.

- Euzoius, § 50, 8.

- Evagrius, § 5, 1.

- Evangelical-Party, § 202, 1, 4.

- Evangelists, § 17, 5; 34, 1.

- Evangelium æternum, § 108, 4.

- Evolutionists, § 174, 2.

- Ewald, The black and white, § 78, 9.

- Ewald, H., § 182, 3.

- Exarchate, § 46, 9; 76, 7; 82, 1.

- Exarchs, Episcopal, § 46, 1.

- Execrabilis, § 110, 10.

- Exemption, § 98.

- Exercises, Spiritual, § 149, 9; 188, 1.

- Excommunication, § 35, 2; 88, 5; 106, 1.

- Exodus-Churches, § 211, 6, 7.

- ἐξομολόγησις, § 32, 2.

- Exorcism, § 35, 4; 58, 1; 142, 2; 167, 2.

- Exorcists, § 33, 3.

- Exsurge Domini, § 123, 2.

- Extra, § 99, 5.

- Extraneæ, § 39, 3.

- Extravagantes, § 99, 5.

- Eyck, § 115, 13.

- Eznik, § 64, 3.

- Ezra, Fourth Book of, § 32, 2.

- Faber, John, § 130, 2, 6.

- Faber, Stapulensis, § 120, 8.

- Fabian, Bishop of Rome, § 22, 5.

- Facundus of Hermiane, § 47, 19; 52, 6.

- Fagius, § 139, 5.

- Falk, Dr., § 174, 8; 193, 5, 6; 197, 2, 3, 5.

- Familists, § 146, 5.

- Farel, § 130, 3; 138, 1.

- Fasts, Ascetic, § 44, 4; 107.

- Fasts, Ecclesiastical, § 37, 3; 56, 4, 7; 115, 1, 12.

- Fatak, § 29, 1.

- Faustus of Mileve, § 54, 1.

- Faustus of Rhegium, § 47, 21; 53, 5.

- Favre, Pet., § 149, 8.

- Fawkes, Guy, § 153, 6.

- Fazy, § 199, 1.

- Febronius, § 165, 10.

- Fecht, § 167, 1.

- Federal Theology, § 161, 4.

- Felicissimus, § 41, 2.

- Felicitas, § 22, 4.

- Felix II., § 46, 4.

- Felix III., § 46, 8; 52, 5.

- Felix IV., § 46, 8.

- Felix V., § 110, 8.

- Felix of Aptunga, § 63, 1.

- Felix the Manichæan, § 54, 1.

- Felix Pratensis, § 120, 9.

- Felix of Urgellis, § 91, 1.

- Fell, Marg., § 163, 4.

- Feneberg, § 187, 1.

- Fénelon, § 157, 3; 158, 2.

- Fenian-movement, § 202, 10.

- Ferdinand I., § 137, 8; 126, 2, 3; 139, 19, 20.

- Ferdinand II., § 151, 1; 153, 2.

- Ferdinand VII. of Spain, § 205, 1.

- Ferdinand I. of Castile, § 95, 2.

- Ferdinand III. of Castile, § 95, 2.

- Ferdinand the Catholic, § 95, 2; 117, 2; 118, 7.

- Ferguson, Fergus, § 202, 8.

- Ferrara, Council of, § 67, 6; 110, 8.

- Ferrer, Bonif., § 115, 4.

- Ferrer, Vincent, § 115, 2; 110, 6.

- Ferry, Minister, § 203, 6.

- Ferula, § 60, 1.

- Fessler, Bishop, § 189, 3.

- Fessler, Ign., § 165, 13.

- Feudalism, § 86, 1.

- Feuerbach, § 174, 1, 3; 182, 6.

- Feuillants, § 149, 6.

- Feyin, Synod of, § 64, 3.

- Fichte, J. G., § 171, 10.

- Fichte, J. H., § 174, 2; 211, 15.

- Fiesole, § 115, 13.

- Fifth Monarchy Men, § 162, 1.

- Filioque, § 50, 7; 67, 1; 91, 2.

- Finkenstein, § 176, 3.

- Finland, § 93, 11; 139, 1; 206, 3.

- Firmian, § 165, 4.

- Firmcius Maternus, § 47, 14.

- Firmilian, § 34, 3; 35, 3.

- Fischart, § 142, 7.

- Fisher, Bishop, § 139, 4.

- Fisherman’s Ring, § 110, 16.

- Fitzgerald, § 189, 3.

- Five Mile Act, § 155,  3.

- Flacius, § 141, 4-8; 142, 6; 5, 2.

- Flagellants, § 106, 4; 116, 3; 149, 17.

- Flagellation, § 106, 4; 116, 3; 149, 17.

- Flavia Domitilla, § 22, 1.

- Flavian of Antioch, § 50, 8.

- Flavian of Constantinople, § 52, 4.

- Flechier, § 158, 2.

- Flemming, § 160, 3.

- Fletcher, § 169, 3.

- Fleury, § 5, 2; 158, 2; 165, 7.

- Fliedner, § 183, 1.

- Flora, § 27, 5.

- Florence, Council of, § 67, 6; 72; 110, 8.

- Florentius Radewin, § 112, 9.

- Florinus, § 31, 2.

- Florus Magister, § 90, 5; 91, 5.

- Folmar, § 102, 6.

- Fontevraux, Order of, § 98, 2.

- Fools, Festival of, § 105, 2.

- Formosus, § 82, 8.

- Formula Concordiæ, § 141, 9.

- Formula Consensus Helvet., § 161, 3.

- Förster, J., § 142, 6.

- Förster, prelate, § 118, 3; 197, 6.

- Fortunatus, § 48, 6.

- Fouque, de la M., § 174, 5.

- Fourier, § 212, 1.

- Fox, George, Quaker, § 163, 4, 5.

- Fox, American Spiritualist, § 211, 17.

- France, § 139, 13-17; 153, 4; 165, 5; 203.

- Francis, St., § 93, 16; 98, 3; 104, 10; 105, 4.

- Francis de Paula, § 112, 8.

- Francis de Sales, § 156, 6; 157, 1.

- Francis I., of France, § 110, 9, 14; 120, 8; 126, 5, 6; 139, 13.

- Francis II., of France, § 139, 14.

- Francisca Romana, § 112, 1.

- Franciscans, § 98, 3; 112, 2; 149, 6.

- Francis Xavier Society, § 186, 4.

- Franck, Seb. § 146, 3.

- Franck, John, § 160, 4.

- Franck, Michael, § 160, 4.

- Franck, Sal., § 167, 6.

- Francke, A. H., § 159, 3; 167, 2, 8, 9; 160, 7.

- Franco of Cologne, § 104, 11.

- Frank, J. H., § 182, 15.

- Frankists, § 165, 17.

- Franks, The, § 76, 9.

- Frankfort, Synod of, § 91, 1; 92, 1.

- Frankfort, Concordat of, § 110, 9, 14.

- Frankfort, Parliament of, § 189, 4.

- Frankfort, Recess of, § 141, 11.

- Frankfort, Troubles of, § 134, 3.

- Fratres de communi vita, § 112, 9.

- Fratres minores, § 98, 3.

- Fratres pontifices, § 98, 9.

- Fratres praedicatores, § 98, 5.

- Fraticelli, § 112, 2.

- Fredigis, § 90, 4.

- Frederick I., Barbarossa, § 96, 14, 15; 94, 3.

- Frederick II., Emperor, § 94, 5; 96, 20; 97, 2; 99, 3; 109, 2.

- Frederick III., Emperor, § 110, 9.

- Frederick III., of Austin, § 110, 3.

- Frederick I., of Prussia, § 169, 1.

- Frederick II., “ § 165, 9; 171, 4.

- Frederick I., of Denmark, § 139, 2.

- Frederick IV., “ § 167, 9.

- Frederick of Palatinate, § 153, 3.

- Frederick Aug. the Strong, § 153, 1.

- Frederick the Wise, § 122, 3; 123, 9.

- Frederick William, the Great Elector, § 154, 4.

- Frederick William II., § 171, 5.

- Frederick William III., § 171, 5; 172, 3; 177, 1; 193.

- Frederick William IV., § 177, 2; 193.

- Freemasons, § 171, 2; 104, 13.

- Free-will Baptists, § 162, 3; 208, 1.

- Free-thinkers, § 164, 2; 171, 2.

- Freiligrath, § 174, 5.

- Fresenius, § 167, 8.

- Freylinghausen, § 167, 6-8.

- Fricke, § 182, 21.

- Fridolin, § 77, 7; 78, 1.

- Friedewalt, Convention of, § 126, 6.

- Friedrich, John, § 190, 1; 191, 7.

- Fries, § 174, 1.

- Frisians, § 78, 3.

- Frith, § 139, 4.

- Frithigern, § 76, 1.

- Fritzlar, § 78, 4.

- Fritzsche, § 183, 3.

- Frobenius, § 120, 6.

- Frohschammer, § 191, 6.

- Froment, § 138, 1.

- Fronto, § 23.

- Frumentius, § 64, 1.

- Fry, Elizabeth, § 183, 1.

- Fugue, Musical, § 115, 8.

- Fulbert of Chartres, § 101, 1.

- Fulco, Canonist, § 102, 1.

- Fulco of Neuilly, § 104, 1.

- Fulda, § 78, 5; 151, 2.

- Fulgentius, Ferr., § 47, 20.

- Fulgentius of Ruspe, § 47, 20.

- Gabler, Andr., § 182, 6.

- Gabler, Th. A., § 171, 5.

- Gabriel, Didymus, § 124, 1.

- Galen, § 23.

- Galerius, § 22, 6.

- Galileo, § 156, 4.

- Gall, St., § 130, 4, 8.

- Galle, Peter, § 139, 1.

- Gallienus, § 22, 5.

- Gallican Church, § 156, 3; 203.

- Gallizin, Am. v., § 172, 2.

- Gallus, St., § 178.

- Gallus, Emperor, § 22, 5.

- Ganganelli, § 165, 8.

- Gangra, Synod of, § 44, 7; 45, 2.

- Gardiner, Allen, § 184, 2.

- Gardiner, Bishop, § 139, 4, 5.

- Garibaldi, § 185, 3.

- Garve, § 170, 4.

- Gasparin, § 203, 4.

- Gannilo, § 101, 3.

- Gauzbert, § 81, 1.

- Gavazzi, § 204, 4.

- Gebhardt of Eichstedt [Eichstadt], § 96, 5.

- Gebhardt of Cologne, § 137, 7.

- Gebhardt of Salzburg, § 97, 2.

- Gedike, § 154, 3.

- Gedimin, § 93, 14.

- Geibel, § 174, 6.

- Geier, § 159, 4.

- Geiler of Kaisersb., § 115, 2, 11.

- Geisa, § 93, 8.

- Geismar, § 78, 4.

- Geissel, § 194, 1.

- Gelasius, I., § 46, 8; 47, 22; 59, 6.

- Gelasius, II., § 96, 11.

- Gelimar, § 76, 3.

- Gellert, § 171, 11; 172, 1.

- Genesis, The little, § 32, 2.

- Genesius, § 71, 1.

- Geneva, § 138; 199, 1, 2, 5.

- Genghis-Khan, § 72, 1.

- Gennadius, § 47, 16; 48, 3.

- Gennadius, Patr., § 68, 5; 67, 7.

- Genseric, § 76, 3.

- Gentile Christians, § 18.

- Gentilis, § 148, 3.

- Gentilly, Synod of, § 91, 2; 92, 1.

- Genuflectentes, § 35, 1.

- George Acyndynos [Acindynos], § 69, 1.

- George of Brandenburg, § 127, 3; 132, 6.

- George of Saxony, § 122, 4; 126, 5; 128; 134, 2.

- George Bishop of the Arabs, § 72, 2.

- George of Trebizond, § 68, 2.

- Gerbert, § 96, 2; 100, 2.

- Gereuth, § 188, 6.

- Gerhard Groot, § 112, 9.

- Gerhard John, § 159, 4; 160, 1.

- Gerhard Segarelli, § 108, 8.

- Gerhard Zerbolt, § 112, 9.

- Gerhardt, Paul, § 154, 4; 160, 4.

- Gerike, P., § 139, 18.

- Gerlach, L. v., § 175, 1; 176, 1.

- Gerlach, Otto v., § 181, 4.

- Gerlach, Stephen, § 139, 26.

- St. Germains, Peace of, § 139, 15.

- German Empire, § 192; 197.

- German Catholics, § 187, 6.

- Germany, Young, § 174, 5.

- Germanus, Patr., § 66, 1.

- Gerson, § 110, 6, 7; 112, 6; 113, 3; 118, 4; 119, 5.

- Gertrude the Great, § 107, 1.

- Gertrude of Hackeborn, § 107, 1.

- Gesenius, W., § 182, 3.

- Gesenius, Just., § 160, 3.

- Gewilib of Mainz, § 78, 4.

- Geysa, § 93, 2.

- Gfrörer, § 5, 4; 175, 7.

- Ghazali, § 103, 1.

- Ghent, Pacific. of, § 139, 12.

- Ghetto, § 95, 3; 185, 1.

- Ghiberti, § 115, 13.

- Gichtel, § 163, 9.

- Gieseler, § 5, 4.

- Giessen, University of, § 154, 1; 196, 1, 5.

- Gil, Juan, § 139, 21.

- Gilbertines, § 98, 2.

- Gilbertus Porretanus, § 102, 3.

- Gildas, § 90, 8.

- Giotto, § 115, 13.

- Gisela, § 93, 8.

- Gladstone, § 202, 10.

- Glass, Painting on, § 104, 14; 174, 9.

- Glassius, § 159, 4.

- γλωσσαῖς λαλεῖν, § 17, 1.

- Gnesen, Archbishopric of, § 93, 2.

- Gnosimachians, § 62, 3.

- Gnosticism, § 18, 3; 26-28.

- Goar, St., § 78, 3.

- Gobat, Bishop, § 184, 8, 9.

- Gobel, § 165, 15.

- Goch, John of, § 119, 10.

- God, Friends of, § 116, 4.

- Godfrey of Bouillon, § 94, 1.

- Godfrey of Strassburg, § 105, 6.

- Goethe, § 171, 11.

- Goetze, § 171, 8.

- Gomarus, § 161, 2.

- Gonzago, Cardinal, § 149, 2.

- Gonzalo of Berceo, § 105, 6.

- Good Friday, § 56, 4.

- Goodwin, § 161, 6.

- Gordianus, § 22, 4.

- Görg, Junker, § 123, 8.

- Gorm the Old, § 93, 2.

- Görres, Jos., § 174, 4; 181, 1; 5, 6.

- Göschel, § 179, 1, 2; 182, 6, 15.

- Gossler, § 193, 6; 197, 11.

- Gossner, § 187, 2; 184, 1.

- Gothic Architecture, § 104, 12.

- Goths, § 76.

- Gotter, § 167, 6.

- Gottschalk, Prince of Wends, § 93, 9.

- Gottschalk, Monk, § 91, 5, 6.

- Goudimel, § 143, 2; 149, 15.

- Grabau, § 208, 2.

- Grabow, § 210, 10.

- Graf, § 182, 18.

- Graffiti, § 38, 1; 39, 5.

- γράμματα τετυπωμένα, § 34, 6.

- Grammont, Order of, § 98, 2.

- Grant, § 184, 9.

- Granvella, § 135, 1, 2, 3.

- Gratian, Emperor, § 42, 4.

- Gratian, Canonist, § 99, 5; 104, 4.

- Gratius Ortuinus, § 120, 5.

- Graumann, § 142, 3.

- Grebel, § 130, 5.

- Greece, § 207.

- Greeks, United, § 151; 206, 2.

- Green, § 202, 3.

- Greenland, § 93, 1; 167, 9; 184, 2.

- Gregentius, § 48, 3.

- Gregoire, Bishop, § 165, 15.

- Gregory I., § 46, 10; 47, 22; 57, 4; 58, 3; 59, 5, 6, 9; 61, 4; 76, 8; 77, 4.

- Gregory II., III., § 66, 1; 78, 4; 82, 1.

- Gregory IV., § 82, 4.

- Gregory V., § 96, 2.

- Gregory VI., § 96, 4.

- Gregory VII., § 96, 7-9; 94; 101, 2.

- Gregory VIII., § 96, 16; 94, 3.

- Gregory IX., § 96, 19; 99, 4; 109, 2.

- Gregory X., § 96, 21; 67, 4.

- Gregory XI., § 110, 5; 114, 4; 117, 2.

- Gregory XII., § 110, 6, 7.

- Gregory XIII., § 139, 17; 149, 3, 4, 17.

- Gregory XIV., § 149, 3.

- Gregory XV., § 156, 1, 4, 5.

- Gregory XVI., § 185, 1.

- Gregory Abulfarajus, § 72, 2.

- Gregory Acindynos, § 69, 2.

- Gregory of Constantinople, § 207, 1.

- Gregory of Heimburg, § 118, 5.

- Gregory Illuminator, § 64, 3.

- Gregory Palamas, § 69, 2.

- Gregory Scholaris, § 68, 5.

- Gregory Thaumaturgus, § 31, 6.

- Gregory Nazianzen, § 47, 4; 48, 5, 8; 59, 4.

- Gregory of Nyssa, § 47, 4.

- Gregory of Tours, § 90, 2.

- Gregory of Utrecht, § 78, 3.

- Gregorian Chant, § 59, 3.

- Gretna-Green, § 202, 6.

- Grévy, § 203, 5.

- Grey, Lady Jane, § 139, 5.

- Griesbach, § 171, 7.

- Groot, Gerh., § 112, 9.

- Gropper, § 135, 3, 7.

- Grosseteste, § 97, 4.

- Grotius, § 153, 7; 161, 2, 6, 7.

- Gruber, § 170, 1, 2.

- Gruet, Jac., § 138, 4.

- Grundtvig, § 201, 1.

- Grunthler, § 139, 24.

- Grynäus, § 133, 8.

- Gualbertus, § 98, 1.

- Guardian, § 98, 5.

- Guatemala, § 209, 2.

- Guelphs, § 96, 7.

- Guericke, § 5, 5; 176, 1; 177, 2; 182, 13.

- Guerin, § 98, 2.

- Guevara, § 209, 2.

- Guiana, § 184, 2.

- Guibert, Archbishop, § 203, 5.

- Guibert of Nogent, § 101, 1.

- Guido of Arezzo, § 104, 11.

- Guido de Castello, § 102, 2; 108, 7.

- Guido of Siena, § 104, 9, 14.

- Guigo, § 98, 2.

- Guise, Dukes of, § 139, 13-17.

- Guizot, § 185, 3; 203, 2, 8.

- Gundiberge, § 76, 8.

- Gundioch, § 75, 5.

- Gundobald, § 76, 5.

- Gundulf, § 108, 2.

- Gunpowder Plot, § 153, 6.

- Gunthamund, § 76, 3.

- Gunther of Cologne, § 82, 7.

- Günther, Ant., § 191, 3.

- Günther, Cyriacus, § 160, 4.

- Günzburg, Eberlin of, § 125, 1.

- Gury, § 191, 9.

- Gustavus Adolphus, § 153, 2; 160, 7.

- Gustavus Adolphus, Society, § 178, 1.

- Gützlaf, § 184, 6.

- Guyon, § 157, 3.

- Gylas, § 93, 8.

- Gyrovagi, § 44, 7.

- Haag, Pastor, § 196, 3.

- Haas, Jos., § 210, 2.

- Haas, Charles, § 175, 7.

- Haco the Good, § 93, 4.

- Hadrian, Emperor, § 28, 3; 25; 39, 6.

- Hadrian I., § 66, 3; 82, 2; 91, 1.

- Hadrian II., § 67, 1; 79, 2; 82, 7; 83, 2.

- Hadrian III., § 82, 8.

- Hadrian IV., § 96, 14.

- Hadrian V., § 96, 22.

- Hadrian VI., § 149, 1; 126, 1.

- Hagenau, § 135, 2.

- Hagenbach, § 182, 9; 5, 5.

- Hahn, Aug., § 176, 1.

- Hahn, Michael, § 172, 3.

- Hahn, Missionary, § 184, 3.

- Hahn-Hahn, Ida, § 175, 7.

- Hakem, § 95, 2.

- Haldane, § 199, 5.

- Haldanites, § 170, 6.

- Halle, University of, § 167, 1.

- Haller, Alb., § 171, 8.

- Haller, Berth., § 130, 4.

- Haller, L. v., § 175, 7.

- Hamann, § 171, 11.

- Hamburg, Bishopric, § 80, 1.

- Hamilton, Patrick, § 139, 8.

- Hammerschmidt, § 160, 5.

- Handel, § 167, 7.

- Haneberg, § 189, 4; 197, 6.

- Hanne, Dr., § 180, 3.

- Hannington, Bishop, § 184, 4.

- Hanover, § 193, 8; 194, 3.

- Hans, Brother, § 115, 11.

- Harald the Apostate, § 80.

- Harald Blaatand, § 93, 2.

- Hardenberg, § 144, 2.

- Hard-Shell Baptists, § 170, 6.

- Hardouin, § 165, 11.

- Hare, § 211, 17.

- Harless, § 182, 13; 195, 4.

- Harmonites, § 211, 6.

- Harmonius, § 27, 5.

- Harms, Claus, § 176, 1.

- Harms, Louis, § 184, 1.

- Harnack, Th., § 182, 13.

- Hartmann, E. v., § 174, 2.

- Hase, § 5, 4; 176, 1; 182, 5.

- Hasse [Hase], § 5, 5.

- Hassun, § 207, 4.

- Hattemists, § 170, 8.

- Hatto of Reichenau, § 90, 3.

- Hatto I. of Mainz, § 83, 3.

- Hatty-Humayun, § 207.

- Hätzer, § 130, 5; 148, 1.

- Haug, § 170, 1.

- Hauge, § 201, 3.

- Hauser, § 188, 5.

- Hausmann, Nich., § 133, 4.

- Hausrath, § 182, 17.

- Haydn, § 174, 10.

- Haymo of Halberstadt, § 90, 5.

- Hebel, § 171, 11.

- Heber, Bishop, § 184, 5.

- Hebræans, Sect of, § 170, 8.

- Hebrews, Gospel of the, § 32, 4.

- Heddo of Strassburg, § 84, 2.

- Hedinger, § 170, 1.

- Hedio, § 130, 3.

- Hedwig of Poland, § 93, 14.

- Hedwig St. of Silesia, § 105, 3.

- Heermann, § 160, 3.

- Hefele, § 189, 3, 4; 191, 7.

- Hefter, § 184, 8.

- Hegel, § 174, 1.

- Hegesippus, § 31, 7.

- Hegius, § 120, 3.

- Heidanus, § 161, 5, 7.

- Heidegger, § 161, 3.

- Heidelberg Catechism, § 144, 1.

- Heidelberg University, § 120, 3.

- Heine, § 174, 5.

- Heinrichs, § 171, 5.

- Hejira, § 65.

- Held, H., § 159, 3.

- Held, Imperial Orator, § 134, 2.

- Helding, § 136, 5.

- Helena, Empress, § 57, 5, 6.

- Helena of Russia, § 73, 4.

- Heliand, § 89, 3.

- Hell, § 106, 3.

- Hellenists, § 10, 1.

- Helmstedt [Helmstadt], § 159, 2.

- Heloise, § 102, 1.

- Helvetius, § 165, 12.

- Helvidius, § 62, 2.

- Hemero-baptists, § 25, 1.

- Hemmerlin, § 118, 5.

- Hemming of Upsala, § 93, 11.

- Hemming Professor, § 141, 10.

- Hengstenberg, § 176, 1; 182, 4.

- Henke, § 5, 3; 171, 7.

- Henoticon, § 52, 2.

- Henricians, § 108, 7.

- Henry I., Emperor, § 93, 2; 96, 1.

- Henry II., § 96, 4.

- Henry III., § 96, 4; 97, 1.

- Henry IV., § 96, 6.

- Henry V., § 96, 11, ff.

- Henry VI., § 96, 16.

- Henry VII., § 110, 2.

- Henry I. of England, § 96, 12.

- Henry II. of England, § 96, 16; 94, 3.

- Henry VIII. of England, § 125, 3; 139, 4, 7, 8.

- Henry II. of France, § 139, 13.

- Henry III. of France, § 139, 17, 18.

- Henry IV. of France, § 139, 17.

- Henry of Brunswick, § 126, 5; 135, 6, 10.

- Henry of Saxony, § 134, 4.

- Henry de Hessia, § 118, 5.

- Henry of Langenstein, § 118, 5.

- Henry of Lausanne, § 108, 7.

- Henry of Nördlingen, § 114, 6.

- Henry of Upsala, § 93, 11.

- Henry the Lion, § 93, 9.

- Henry Wendish Prince, § 93, 9.

- Henry of Zütphen, § 128, 1.

- Hensel, Louise, § 174, 6.

- Heppe, § 170, 3; 182, 16.

- Heracleon, § 27, 5.

- Heraclius, § 52, 8; 57, 5; 64, 2.

- Herbart, § 174, 2.

- Herder, § 171, 11.

- Heretic’s Baptism, § 35, 5.

- Hergenröther, § 5, 6; 191, 7.

- Heriger, § 80, 1.

- Hermann von Fritzlar, § 114.

- Hermann Premonstrat., § 95, 3.

- Hermann of Cologne, § 133, 5.

- Hermann von Wied, § 133, 5; 135, 7; 136, 2.

- Hermannsburg, § 184, 1; 193, 8.

- Hermas, § 30, 4.

- Hermes, § 191, 1.

- Hermias, § 30, 10.

- Hermogenes, § 27, 13.

- Herrero de Mora, § 205, 5.

- Herrmann, § 182, 20.

- Herrnhut, § 168; 169, 3.

- Hervæus, § 102, 8.

- Herzog, Old Catholic Bishop, § 190, 3; 199, 3.

- Herzog, Prelate, § 197, 10, 11.

- Herzog, J. J., § 5, 5.

- Hess, J. Jac., § 171, 6.

- Hesse, § 127, 2.

- Hesse, Darmstadt, § 196, 4; 197, 15.

- Hesse, Cassel, § 154, 1; 193, 9; 194, 4.

- Hesshus, § 144, 1, 2.

- Hesychasts, § 69, 2.

- Hetæræ, § 22, 2.

- Hettinger, § 191, 6.

- Heubner, § 184, 5.

- Heumann, § 167, 4.

- Hexapla, § 31, 5.

- Hibbert Trust, § 202, 4.

- Hicks, § 211, 3.

- Hieracas, § 39, 3.

- Hierocles, § 23, 3.

- Hieronomites, § 112, 8.

- High-Churchmen, § 202, 1.

- Hilarion, § 44, 3.

- Hilary of Arles, § 46, 7.

- Hilary of Poitiers, § 47, 14.

- Hildebert of Tours, § 101, 1; 104, 4, 10.

- Hildebrand, § 96, 4, ff.; 101, 2.

- Hildegard, § 97; 107, 1; 109.

- Hilderic, § 76, 9.

- Hilduin, § 90, 8.

- Hilgenfeld, § 182, 7.

- Hilgers, § 191, 6.

- Hiller, § 167, 6.

- Hinemar of Laon, § 83, 2.

- Hinemar of Rheims, § 82, 7; 83, 2; 87, 3; 90, 5; 91, 5.

- Hippolytus, § 31, 3; 33, 5; 40, 2; 41, 1.

- Hirschberger Bible, § 167, 8.

- Hirscher, § 187, 3; 191, 6.

- Hitzig, § 182, 3.

- Hobbes, § 164, 3.

- Hoe v. Hoenegg, § 154, 4; 159, 1.

- Hofacker, § 211, 4.

- Hoffmann, Christ., § 211, 8.

- Hoffmann, Fr., § 191, 2.

- Hoffmann, G., W., § 196, 5.

- Hoffmann, Melch., § 147, 1.

- Hoffmann, Chr. K., v., § 182, 14.

- Hoffmann, Dan., § 141, 15.

- Hofmeister, Seb., § 130, 4.

- Hofstede de Groot, § 200, 2.

- Hohenlohe, § 188, 2.

- Hohenlohe, Card., § 189, 1; 197, 7.

- Holbach, § 165, 12.

- Holbein, § 115, 6, 13; 113, 5; 142, 2.

- Holland, § 165, 7; 200, 2, 3.

- Hollaz, § 167, 4, 8.

- Holtzmann, § 182, 17.

- Homberg, Synod of, § 127, 2.

- Homoians, § 50, 3.

- Homoiousians, § 50, 3.

- Homologoumena, § 36, 8.

- Homoousians, § 33, 1; 50, 1.

- Hönigern, § 177, 2.

- Honorius, Emperor, § 42, 4; 53, 4.

- Honorius, I., § 46, 11; 52, 8, 9.

- Honorius, II., § 96, 13.

- Honorius, III., § 96, 19.

- Honorius, IV., § 96, 22.

- Honter, Jac., § 139, 20.

- Hontheim, § 165, 10.

- Hoogstraten, § 120, 4; 122, 3.

- Hooper, § 139, 5.

- Hormisdas of Rome, § 46, 8; 52, 5, 6.

- Horsley, § 171, 1.

- Hosius, Bishop, § 50, 1, 2, 3.

- Hosius, Cardinal, § 139, 18.

- Hospinian, § 161, 7.

- Hospital Brothers, § 98, 8.

- Hossbach, § 180, 4.

- Host, § 104, 2.

- Höting, § 197, 10.

- Hottinger, § 5, 2; 161, 6.

- Howard, Catherine, § 139, 4.

- Huber, J., § 189, 1; 190, 1; 191, 7.

- Huber, Sam., § 141, 14.

- Hubmeier, § 130, 5; 147, 3.

- Huebald, § 104, 11.

- Huetius, § 158, 1.

- Hug, § 191, 8.

- Hugh Capet, § 96, 2.

- Huguenots, § 139, 14, ff.; 153, 4; 165, 5.

- Hugo a St., Caro, § 103, 9.

- Hugo of St., Victor, § 102, 4; 104, 2, 4.

- Hugo de Payens, § 98, 8.

- Hülsemann, § 153, 7; 159, 2.

- Humanists, § 120.

- Humbert, § 67, 3; 101, 2.

- Humboldt, Alex. v., § 174, 3.

- Hume, § 171, 1.

- Humiliates, § 98, 7; 101, 2.

- Hundeshagen, § 196, 3.

- Hungary, § 93, 8; 139, 20; 153, 3; 198, 6.

- Hunneric, § 76, 3; 54, 1.

- Hunnius, Ægid. [Ægidius], § 141, 13.

- Hunnius, Nich., § 159, 5.

- Huntingdon, Lady, § 169, 3.

- Hupfeld, § 182, 3; 194, 4.

- Hurter, § 175, 1.

- Husig, § 64, 3.

- Huss, § 113, 7; 119, 3-6.

- Hutten, Ulr. v., § 120, 2, 3; 122, 4.

- Hy, § 77, 2.

- Hyacinth, § 93, 13.

- Hylists, Anc. Materialists, § 26, 2.

- Hymn Music, § 142, 3; 171, 1; 180, 1.

- Hymnology, § 17, 7; 36, 10; 59, 4; 89, 2; 104, 10; 115, 7.

- Hymns, Catholic, § 149, 15.

- Hymns, Protestant, § 142, 3; 143, 2; 160, 3; 162, 6; 167, 6; 175, 10.

- Hypatia, § 42, 4.

- Hyperius, § 143, 5; 154, 1.

- Hypophonic singing, § 59, 5.

- Hypostasianism, § 33, 1.

- Hypsistarians, § 42, 6.

- Hystaspes, § 32, 1.

- Iamblichus, § 24, 2.

- Ibas, § 47, 13; 52, 3.

- Iberians, § 64, 4.

- Icarians, § 212, 3.

- Iceland, § 93, 5; 139, 2.

- Idacius, § 54, 2.

- Iglesia Española, § 205, 4.

- Ignatius of Antioch, § 22, 2; 30, 5; 34, 1, 7.

- Ignatius Patr. of Constant., § 67, 1.

- Ignatius Loyola, § 149, 8.

- Ignorantins, § 165, 2.

- Ijejasu, § 150, 2; 156, 11.

- Ildefonsus, § 90, 2, 9.

- Illuminati, § 165, 11.

- Illyria, § 46, 5, 9.

- Images, § 38, 4.

- Images, Controversy about, § 66; 92, 1.

- Image-worship, § 57, 4; 89, 4.

- Immaculate Conception, § 104, 7; 112, 4; 113, 2; 149, 13; 156, 6; 185, 2.

- Immanuel Synod, § 177, 3.

- Immunity, § 84, 1.

- Impostores tres, § 148, 4.

- Incense, § 59, 8.

- Inclusi, § 85, 6.

- In Cœna Domini, § 117, 3.

- In commendam, § 85, 5; 110, 15.

- Independents, § 143, 4; 155, 1; 162, 1.

- Index prohibitorius, § 149, 14.

- Indulgences, § 106, 2; 117, 1.

- Ineffabilis, § 185, 2.

- In eminenti, § 157, 5.

- Infallibility, § 96, 23; 110, 14; 149, 4; 165, 8; 189, 3.

- Infant Baptism, § 35, 3; 58, 1.

- Infralapsarianism, § 161, 1.

- Infula, § 84, 1.

- Inge, § 93, 3.

- Ingolstadt, § 120, 3.

- Innocentum festum, § 57, 1; 105, 2.

- Innocent I., § 46, 5; 51, 3; 53, 4; 61, 2, 3.

- Innocent II., § 96, 13.

- Innocent III., § 96, 17, 18; 94, 4; 102, 9; 108, 10; 109, 1.

- Innocent IV., § 96, 20; 73, 6.

- Innocent V., § 96, 22.

- Innocent VI., § 110, 4, 5.

- Innocent VII., § 110, 6.

- Innocent VIII., § 110, 11; 115, 4.

- Innocent IX., § 149, 3.

- Innocent X., § 156, 1; 153, 2; 157, 5.

- Innocent XI., § 156, 1, 3; 157, 2.

- Innocent XII., § 156, 1, 3; 157, 3.

- Innocent XIII., § 165, 1.

- In partibus infidelium, § 97, 3.

- Inquisition, § 109, 2; 117, 2; 139, 22; 149, 2; 151; 156, 3.

- Inspiration, Doctrine of, § 36, 9.

- Insula sanctorum, § 77, 1.

- Intentionalism, § 149, 10.

- Interdict, § 106, 1.

- Interim, The Augsburg, § 136, 5, 6.

- Interim, The Leipzig, § 136, 7.

- Interim, The Regensburg, § 135, 3.

- International, § 212, 4.

- Interpreters, § 34, 3.

- Investiture, § 45, 1; 84; 96, 7, 11, 12.

- Iona, § 77, 2.

- Ireland, § 77, 1; 139, 7; 153, 6; 202, 9.

- Irenæus, § 31, 2; 33, 9; 34, 8; 40, 2.

- Irene, § 66, 3.

- Irish Massacre, § 153, 6.

- Irvingites, § 211, 10.

- Isaac, the Great, § 64, 3.

- Isaac, of Antioch, § 48, 7.

- Isabella of Castile, § 95, 2; 117, 2; 118, 7.

- Isabella II. of Spain, § 205, 2.

- Isenberg, § 184, 9.

- Isidore the Gnostic, § 28, 2.

- Isidore of Pelusium, § 47, 6; 44, 3.

- Isidore the Presbyter, § 51, 2, 3.

- Isidore Russ. Metropol., § 73.

- Isidore of Seville, § 90, 2.

- Islam, § 65; 81; 95.

- Issy, Conference of, § 157, 3.

- Itala, § 36, 8.

- Italy, § 139, 22; 187, 7; 204.

- Ithacius, § 54, 2.

- Ivo of Chartres, § 99, 5.

- Jablonsky, § 168, 3.

- Jacob el Baradai, § 52, 7.

- Jacob Basilicus, § 139, 26.

- Jacob a Benedictis, § 104, 10.

- Jacob of Brescia, § 112, 3.

- Jacob ben Chajim, § 120, 8.

- Jacob the Conqueror, § 95.

- Jacob of Edessa, § 47, 13.

- Jacob of Harkh, § 71, 2.

- Jacob of Jüterbegk [Jüterbock], § 118, 5.

- Jacob of Maerlant, § 105, 5.

- Jacob of Marchia, § 112, 4.

- Jacob of Misa, § 119, 7.

- Jacob of Nisibis, § 47, 13.

- Jacob of Sarug, § 48, 7.

- Jacobi, § 171, 10.

- Jacobini, § 197, 9, 12.

- Jacobites, § 52, 7; 72, 2.

- Jacopone da Todi, § 104, 10.

- Jaldabaoth, § 27, 7.

- James the Just, § 16, 3.

- James V. of Scotland, § 139, 8.

- James I. of England, § 117, 4; 139, 11; 153, 6; 155, 1.

- James II. of England, § 153, 6; 155, 3.

- James III. of Baden, § 153, 1.

- James Molay, § 112, 7.

- James a Voragine, § 104, 8.

- Jansen, Cornel., § 157, 5.

- Jansenists, § 157, 5; 165, 6.

- Januarius, St., § 188, 10.

- Janus, § 189, 1.

- Japan, § 150, 2; 156, 11; 184, 6; 186, 7.

- Jaroslaw I., § 72, 4.

- Jaroslaw II., § 73, 6.

- Jason and Papiscus, § 30, 8.

- Java, § 184, 5.

- Jay, le, § 158, 1.

- Jazelich, § 52, 3.

- Jena, Univ. of, § 141, 1, 6.

- Jeremias II., § 73, 4; 139, 26.

- Jerome, § 17, 6; 33, 9; 47, 16; 48, 1; 51, 2; 53, 4; 59, 3.

- Jerome, of Prague, § 119, 4, 5.

- Jerusalem, Bishopric, § 184, 8.

- Jerusalem, Church of the New, § 170, 4.

- Jesuates, § 112, 8.

- Jesuits, § 149, 8-12; 150; 151; 156, 2-9; 157, 2, 5; 165, 7-9; 186, 1; 197, 4; 199, 1.

- Jewish Christians, § 18; 28; 211, 9.

- Jewish Missions, § 167, 9; 184, 8.

- Jews in Middle Ages, § 90, 9; 95, 3.

- Joachim of Floris, § 108, 5.

- Joachim of Brandenburg, § 128, 1; 134, 5.

- Joachim II. of Brandenburg, § 134, 5; 136, 5.

- Joan of Arc, § 116, 2.

- Joanna, Popess, § 82, 6.

- Joanna, of Valois, § 112, 8.

- John I., Pope, § 46, 8.

- John VIII. and IX., § 82, 8; 79, 2; 67, 1.

- John X.,, XII.,, XIII., § 96, 1.

- John XIV., XV., XVI., § 96, 2.

- John XVII., XVIII., § 96, 4.

- John XIX., § 96, 4; 57, 1.

- John XXI., § 96, 22; 82, 6.

- John XXII., § 110, 3; 112, 2; 113, 1; 114, 1.

- John XXIII., § 110, 7; 119, 4.

- John the Constant, § 124, 5.

- John Frederick, the Magnanimous, § 133, 2; 136, 3; 137, 3.

- John Lackland, § 96, 18.

- John VII. of Portugal, § 205, 4.

- John Sigismund, § 154, 3.

- John the Apostle, § 16, 2.

- John of Antioch, § 52, 3.

- John Beccos [Beccus], § 67, 3.

- John of Capistrano, § 112, 3.

- John of Climacus, § 47, 12.

- John of the Cross, § 149, 6, 16.

- John of Damascus, § 66, 1; 68, 2-5.

- John of Ephesus, § 5, 1.

- John of God, § 149, 7.

- John of Hagen, § 112, 1.

- John of Jandun, § 118, 1.

- John Jejunator, § 46, 10; 61, 1.

- John of Leyden, § 133, 6.

- John de Monte Corvino, § 93, 15.

- John Moschus, § 47, 12.

- John of Nepomuc, § 116, 1.

- John Ozniensis, § 72, 2.

- John V., Paläologus, § 67, 5.

- John VII., Paläologus § 67, 6.

- John of Paris, § 118, 1.

- John of Parma, § 108, 5.

- John Philoponus, § 47, 11.

- John the Presbyter, § 16, 3; 30, 6.

- John Prester, § 72, 4.

- John of Ravenna, § 83, 3.

- John of Salisbury, § 102, 9.

- John Scholasticus, § 43, 3.

- John Scotus Erigena, § 90, 7; 91, 5.

- John Talaja, § 52, 5.

- John of Trani, § 67, 3.

- John of Turrecremata, § 110, 15.

- John Tzimiskes [Tzimisces], § 71, 1.

- John of Wesel, § 119, 10.

- John, St., Festival of, § 57, 1.

- John, Disciples of, § 25, 1.

- John, Knights of, § 98, 8.

- Jonas of Bobbio, § 77, 3.

- Jonas of Orleans, § 90, 4; 92, 2.

- Jonas Justus, § 123, 7; 134, 5; 142, 2.

- Jones, § 182, 3.

- Jordanes, § 90, 8.

- Joris, David, § 148, 1.

- Joseph, Patr., § 67, 4; 70, 1.

- Joseph I., Emperor, § 165, 1.

- Joseph II., § 165, 10; 186, 2.

- Josephus, § 10, 2; 13, 2.

- Jovi, § 80, 1.

- Jovinian, § 62, 2.

- Juarez, § 209, 1.

- Jubilee Year, § 117, 1.

- Jubilees, Book of, § 32, 2.

- Jubili, § 85, 2.

- Judä, Leo, § 130, 2; 143, 5.

- Judson, § 184, 5.

- Julia Mammæa, § 22, 4; 31, 5.

- Juliana, § 104, 7.

- Julianists, § 52, 7.

- Julian, Emperor, § 42, 3, 5; 63, 1.

- Julian, of Eclanum, § 47, 21; 53, 4.

- Julian, of Toledo, § 90, 2, 9.

- Julian, St., § 188, 8.

- July Law, Pruss., § 197, 10, 11.

- Julius I., § 46, 3; 50, 2.

- Julius II., § 110, 13.

- Julius III., § 149, 2.

- Julius Africanus, § 31, 8.

- Jumpers, § 170, 7.

- Jung-Stillung, § 171, 11.

- Junilius, § 48, 1.

- Junius, Fr., § 143, 5.

- Jurieu, § 161, 7.

- Jus circa sacra, § 43, 1; 167, 3.

- Jus primarum prec., § 165, 1.

- Jus regaliæ, § 156, 1.

- Jus spoliorum, § 110, 15.

- Justin I., § 52, 5.

- Justin Martyr, § 30, 9; 33, 9; 36, 3, 7.

- Justin the Gnostic, § 27, 6.

- Justina, St., § 48, 8.

- Justina, Empress, § 50, 4.

- Justinian I., § 42, 4; 45, 2; 46, 9; 52, 6.

- Justinian II., § 46, 11.

- Juvenal of Jerusalem, § 53, 3.

- Juvencus, § 48, 6.

- Kähler, § 176, 3.

- Kahnis, § 182, 15.

- Kaiser, § 128, 1.

- Kaiserwerth, § 183, 1.

- Kamehameha, § 184, 7.

- Kamel, Sultan, § 94, 4, 5.

- Kanitz, § 176, 3.

- Kant, § 171, 10.

- Karaites, § 72, 1.

- Kardec, § 211, 17.

- Karg, Controversy of, § 141, 3.

- Katerkamp, § 5, 6.

- Kaulen, § 191, 8.

- Keil, § 182, 13.

- Keim, § 182, 17.

- Keller, Bishop, § 196, 6.

- Kellner, § 177, 2.

- Kempen, Stephen, § 125, 1.

- Kempis, Thomas à, § 112, 9; 114, 7.

- Kenrick, § 189, 3.

- Kerner, Just., § 176, 2.

- Kessler, § 124, 1; 130, 4.

- Ketteler, § 175, 2; 187, 3; 189, 3; 196, 1-4; 197, 1, 4, 15.

- Kettler, § 139, 3.

- Kierkegaard, § 201, 1.

- Kiev, § 73, 4.

- Kilian, § 78, 2.

- Kings, § 160, 4.

- Kings, the Three Holy, § 56, 5.

- Klebitz, § 144, 1.

- Klee, § 191, 6.

- Kleuker, § 171, 8.

- Kleutzen, § 191, 9.

- Kliefoth, § 181, 3; 182, 14; 194, 6.

- Klopstock, § 171, 11.

- Knapp, A., § 181, 1.

- Knapp, G., Ch., § 171, 8.

- Knights, Teutonic, § 98, 8; 93, 13.

- Knights of St. John, § 98, 8.

- Knox, § 139, 9, 11.

- Knutzen, § 164, 4.

- Kohlbrügge, § 179, 3.

- Kohler, § 170, 4.

- Köllner, § 5, 5.

- Königsberg, Relig. Process., § 176, 3.

- Köppen, § 171, 8.

- Körner, § 141, 12.

- Kornthal, § 196, 5.

- Krafft, § 195, 2.

- Kraus, Xav., § 5, 6.

- Krüdener, § 176, 2; 199, 5.

- Krummacher, G., D., § 179, 3.

- Krummacher, F., W., § 178, 2.

- Kübel, § 196, 2.

- Kublai-Khan, § 93, 15.

- Kuenen, § 182, 20.

- Kuhn, § 191, 6.

- “Kulturkampf,” German, § 197.

- “Kulturkampf,” Belgian, § 200, 5.

- “Kulturkampf,” French, § 203, 6.

- Kuyper, § 200, 2.

- Labadie, § 163, 7, 8.

- Labarum, § 22, 7.

- Labrador, § 184, 2.

- Labyrinth, The Little, § 31, 3.

- Lachat, § 199, 3.

- Lacordaire, § 187, 4; 188, 1.

- Lactantius, § 31, 12; 33, 9.

- Ladislaus, St., § 93, 2.

- Ladislaus, of Naples, § 110, 7.

- Laforce, § 183, 1.

- Lainez, § 149, 8.

- Laity, § 34, 4.

- Lamartine, § 174, 7.

- Lambert le Begue [Bèghe], § 98, 7.

- Lambert of Avignon, § 127, 2; 130, 2.

- Lambeth Articles, § 143, 5.

- Lamennais, § 187, 4; 188, 1.

- Lämmer, § 175, 2.

- Lammists, § 163, 1.

- Lampe, § 169, 2, 6.

- Lancelot, § 159, 5.

- Landulf, § 97, 5.

- Lanfranc, § 96, 8; 101, 1, 2.

- Lang, H., § 199, 4.

- Lange, Joach., § 167, 1, 4.

- Lange, J. Pet., § 182, 9.

- Langen, Rud. v., § 120, 3.

- Laplace, § 161, 2.

- Lapland, § 93, 11; 163, 4; 184, 2.

- Lapsi, § 22, 5.

- Lardner, § 171, 1.

- Lasalle, § 165, 2; 212, 5.

- Lasaulx, Am. v., § 188, 4.

- Las Casas, § 150, 3.

- Lasco, J. a, § 139, 18.

- Lateran, § 110, 15.

- Lateran, Synods I., § 52, 8; 96, 11.

- Lateran, Synods II., § 96, 13.

- Lateran, Synods III., § 96, 15.

- Lateran, Synods IV., § 96, 18; 101, 2; 104, 3-5; 106, 1; 109, 2.

- Latimer, § 139, 5.

- Latitudinarians, § 161, 3.

- Latter-day Saints, § 211, 10, 12-14.

- Laud, § 155, 1.

- Laurence, Martyr, § 22, 5.

- Laurence, Bishop, § 46, 8.

- Laurence, Archbishop, § 77, 4.

- Laurentius Valla, § 120, 1.

- Lausanne, § 196, 5.

- Lauterbach, § 129, 1.

- Lavater, § 171, 11.

- Lay Abbots, § 85, 5.

- Lay Brethren, § 98.

- Lazarists, § 156, 8.

- Leade, Jane, § 163, 9.

- Leander of Seville, § 76, 2; 90, 2.

- Lectionaries, § 33; 59, 3.

- Ledochowski, § 197, 3, 6, 7, 12.

- Lee, Anna, § 170, 7.

- Lee, Bishop, § 211, 14.

- Lefebvre, § 188, 4.

- Legates, § 96, 23.

- Legenda aurea, § 104, 8.

- Legends, § 57, 1.

- Legio fulminatrix, § 22, 3.

- Legio Thebaica, § 22, 6.

- Lehnin, Prophecy of, § 153, 8.

- Leibnitz, § 153, 7; 160, 7; 164, 2.

- Leidecker, § 161, 5.

- Leidrad of Lyons, § 90, 3; 91, 1.

- Leipzig Disputation, § 123, 4.

- Leipzig Relig. Conference, § 154, 4.

- Leland, § 169, 6; 171, 1.

- Lenau, Nich. v., § 174, 6.

- Lentulus, § 13, 2.

- Leo I., the Great, § 45, 2; 46, 7; 47, 22; 52, 4; 54, 1, 2; 61, 1.

- Leo II., § 46, 11.

- Leo III., § 82, 3; 91, 2.

- Leo IV., § 82, 5.

- Leo VIII., § 96, 1.

- Leo IX. § 67, 6; 96, 5.

- Leo X., § 110, 14; 121, 1; 122, 2, 3; 194, 4.

- Leo XI., § 149, 3.

- Leo XII., § 185, 1.

- Leo XIII., § 175, 2; 185, 5; 188, 8, 9; 191, 12; 197, 9; 200, 5; 203, 6.

- Leo of Achrida, § 67, 3.

- Leo the Armenian, § 66, 4.

- Leo Chazarus, § 66, 3.

- Leo the Isaurian, § 66, 1; 71, 1.

- Leo the Philosopher, § 67, 2; 68, 1.

- Leo the Thracian, § 52, 5.

- Leo Henry, § 175, 1.

- Leonardo da Vinci, § 115, 13.

- Leonidas, § 22, 4.

- Leonistæ, § 108, 10.

- Leontius of Byzant., § 47, 12.

- Leopardi, § 174, 7.

- Leopold I., Emperor, § 153, 3, 7.

- Leopold of Tuscany, § 165, 9.

- Leovigild, § 76, 2.

- Leporius, § 52, 2.

- Lessing, § 171, 6, 8, 11.

- Lestines, Synod of, § 78, 5; 86, 2.

- Lestrange, § 186, 2.

- Leucius, § 32, 4, 5.

- Levellers, § 162, 2.

- Leyser, § 141, 14; 142, 6.

- Libanius, § 42, 4.

- Libellatici, § 22, 5.

- Libelli pacis, § 39, 2.

- Liber confirmitat., § 98, 3.

- Liber diurnus, § 46, 11; 52, 9.

- Liber paschalis, § 56, 3.

- Liber pontificalis, § 90, 6.

- Liberal Arts, § 90, 8.

- Liberation Society, § 202.

- Liberatus of Carthage, § 52, 6.

- Liberius of Rome, § 46, 4; 50, 2, 3.

- Libertins, § 146, 4.

- Libri Carolini, § 92, 1.

- Licet ab initio, § 139, 23.

- Licinius, § 22, 7.

- Lightfoot, § 161, 6.

- Light, Friends of, § 176, 1.

- Liguorians, § 165, 2; 186, 1.

- Limborch, § 161, 7.

- Limbus infantium, § 106, 3.

- Limbus patrum, § 106, 3.

- Limina apostt., § 57, 6.

- Linus, § 17, 1.

- Linz, Peace of, § 153, 3.

- Lippe, Princes’ Diet of, § 154, 2; 194, 5.

- Lipsius, § 182, 19.

- Liptinä, Synod of, § 78, 5; 86, 2.

- Lisco, § 181, 4.

- Litany, § 59, 9.

- Lithuanians, § 93, 14.

- Litteræ formatæ, § 34, 6.

- Liturgical dress, etc., § 59, 7; 60, 3.

- Liturgy, § 36, 1; 59, 6; 89, 1; 104, 1.

- Liudger, § 78, 3.

- Liutprand, § 82, 1.

- Livingstone, § 184, 4.

- Livinus, § 78, 3.

- Livonia, § 93, 12; 139, 3; 153, 3; 168, 5; 206, 3.

- Locke, § 164, 2.

- Lodges, Free Masons’, § 104, 3.

- Löhe, § 175, 1; 183, 1; 208, 2.

- Lola Montez, § 195, 2.

- Lollards, § 116, 3; 119, 1.

- Lombardus [Lombard], § 102, 7.

- Longobards, § 76, 8.

- Lope de Vega, § 158, 3.

- Loretto, § 115, 9.

- Löscher, § 167, 1, 2, 4.

- Louis the Bavarian, § 110, 3, 4.

- Louis the German, § 82, 5, 7.

- Louis the Pious, § 82, 4; 90, 1.

- Louis II., Emperor, § 82, 5.

- Louis VII. of France, § 94, 2.

- Louis IX., the Saint, § 93, 15; 94, 6; 96, 21.

- Louis XI., § 110, 13.

- Louis XII., § 110, 13, 14.

- Louis XIII., § 153, 4.

- Louis XIV., § 153, 4; 156, 3; 157, 2, 3, 5.

- Louis I. of Bavaria, § 195, 2.

- Louis II. “ § 195, 3.

- Louis V. of Hesse, § 154, 1.

- Louis VI. of Palatinate, § 143, 6.

- Lourdes, § 188, 14; 203, 5.

- Lothair I., Emperor, § 82, 5.

- Lothair II., of Lothringia, § 82, 5, 7.

- Lothair III., the Saxon, § 96, 13.

- Lotze, § 174, 2.

- Low Churchmen, § 202, 1.

- Loyola, § 149, 8.

- Loyson, § 187, 8.

- Lübeck, § 127, 4.

- Lübker, § 174, 4.

- Lucar, Cyr., § 152, 2.

- Lucerne, § 199, 1.

- Lucian, Martyr, § 31, 9.

- Lucian, of Samosata, § 23, 1.

- Lucidus, § 53, 5.

- Lucifer of Calaris, § 47, 14; 50, 2, 8.

- Luciferians, § 50, 8.

- Lucilla, § 63, 1.

- Lucius II., Pope, § 96, 13.

- Lucius III., § 96, 16.

- Lucrezia Borzia, § 110, 10.

- Ludmilla, § 79, 3; 93, 6.

- Luis de Leon, § 149, 14, 15.

- Luke of Prague, § 115, 7; 119, 8; 139, 19.

- Lullus of Mainz, § 78, 7.

- Lullus Raimund, § 93, 16; 103, 7.

- Lüneburg, § 127, 3.

- Luthardt, § 182, 14, 21; 194, 1.

- Luther, § 122-135.

- Lutherans, Separatists, Pruss., § 177, 2, 3.

- Luther-Memorial, § 178, 1.

- Luther Jubilee, § 175, 10.

- Lütkemann Controversy, § 159, 1.

- Lutz, Minister, § 195, 3; 197, 4.

- Luxeuil, § 78, 1.

- Lyons, Council of, § 67, 4; 96, 20, 21.

- Lyra, Nich. v., § 113, 7.

- Mabillon, § 158, 2.

- Macarius the Elder, § 47, 7.

- Macarius Magnes, § 47, 6.

- Maccabees, Fest. of, § 57, 1.

- Macedonius, § 50, 5.

- Macchiavelli, § 120, 1.

- Maccovius, § 161, 7.

- MacConochie, § 202, 3.

- Macmahon, § 203, 5, 6.

- Macrae, § 202, 8.

- Macrianus, § 22, 5.

- Macrina, § 47, 5.

- Madagascar, § 184, 3.

- Madiai, § 204, 3.

- Maerlant, § 105, 5.

- Magdeburg, § 127, 4; 137, 1.

- Magister historiarum, § 105, 3.

- Magister sententiarum, § 102, 4.

- Magna Charta, § 96, 18.

- Magnoald, § 78, 1.

- Magnus the Good, § 93, 4.

- Magnus of Mecklenburg, § 134, 5.

- Magnus of Upsala, § 139, 1.

- Mai, Cardinal, § 191, 7.

- Maid of Orleans, § 116, 2.

- Maimbourg, § 158, 2.

- Maimonides, § 103, 1.

- Mainau Law, § 197, 11.

- Maintenon, § 157, 3.

- Mainz Cath. Union, § 186, 4; 197, 1.

- Majorist Controversy, § 141, 6, 10.

- Maistre, § 188, 1.

- Malachi, Proph. of, § 149, 5.

- Malakanians, § 166, 2.

- Malan, § 199, 5.

- Malchion, § 33, 8.

- Maldonatus, § 149, 14.

- Maltese, § 98, 8.

- Mamertus, § 59, 9.

- Mandæans, § 25, 1; 28, 2.

- Mandeville, § 171, 1.

- Manfred, § 96, 20.

- Manichæans, § 29; 54, 1.

- Manning, § 189, 3; 202, 2, 11.

- Mansi, § 165, 15.

- Mantua, Council of, § 96, 6.

- Mantua, Congress of, § 110, 10.

- Manuel Comnenus, § 69, 1.

- Manzoni, § 174, 7.

- Maphrian, § 52, 7.

- Mara, § 13, 2.

- Marburg Bible, § 170, 1.

- Marburg Church Order, § 127, 2.

- Marburg Colloquy, § 132, 4.

- Marcellus of Ancyra, § 50, 2.

- Marcellus II., § 149, 2.

- Marcia, § 22, 3; 41, 1.

- Marcian, § 52, 4.

- Marcion, § 27, 11.

- Marcionites, § 27, 12; 54, 1; 64, 3.

- Marco Polo, § 93, 15.

- Marcosians, § 27, 5.

- Marcus Aurelius, § 22, 3.

- Marcus Eremita, § 47, 7.

- Marcus Eugenicus, § 67, 6; 68, 5.

- Maresius, § 161, 3, 7.

- Margaret of Navarre, § 120, 6; 146, 4.

- Marheincke, § 182, 6.

- Maria Theresa, § 165, 9.

- Mariana, § 149, 10, 14.

- Marinus, § 63, 1.

- Mariolatry, § 57, 2; 104, 8.

- Marius Mercator, § 47, 20.

- Marius Victorinus, § 47, 14.

- Marloratus, § 143, 3.

- Marnix, Ph. v., § 139, 12.

- Maronites, § 52, 8; 72, 3.

- Marot, § 143, 2.

- Marozia, § 96, 1.

- Marriage, Christian, § 39, 1; 61, 2; 70, 2; 88, 3; 89, 4; 104, 6.

- Marsden, § 184, 7.

- Marsilius of Inghem, § 113, 3.

- Marsilius of Padua, § 118, 1.

- Martensen, § 182, 10.

- Martin I., § 46, 11; 52, 8.

- Martin IV., § 96, 22.

- Martin V., § 110, 6.

- Martin of Braga, § 76, 4; 90, 2.

- Martin of Mainz, § 114, 4.

- Martin of Paderborn, § 175, 2; 189, 3; 197, 6.

- Martin of Tours, § 47, 14; 54, 2.

- Martin, St., § 165, 14.

- Martyrs, § 22, 5.

- Martyrs, Acts of, § 32, 8.

- Martyrs, Veneration of, § 39, 5.

- Martyrologies, § 57, 1; 90, 9.

- Marx, § 212, 4.

- Mary of England, § 139, 5.

- Mary of Guise, § 139, 8.

- Mary of Jesus, § 156, 5.

- Mary of Scotland, § 139, 6, 8, 10.

- Maryland, § 208, 5.

- Mass, Canon of, § 59, 6.

- Mass, Sacrifice of, § 36, 6; 58, 3; 88, 3.

- Massacre, Irish, § 153, 6.

- Massacre of St. Bartholomew, § 139, 16.

- Massacre of Stockholm, § 139, 1.

- Massacre of Thorn, § 165, 4.

- Massilians, § 53, 5.

- Massillon, § 158, 2.

- Mastricht, § 161, 7.

- Matamoros, § 205, 4.

- Maternus, Jul. Firm., § 47, 14.

- Maternus, Pistorius, § 120, 2.

- Mathesius, § 142, 2, 3.

- Matilda, Margravine, § 96, 8, 10.

- Matthias, Emperor, § 153, 2.

- Matthys, Jan., § 147, 8, 9.

- Maulbronn, Formula, § 141, 12.

- Maulbronn, Conference, § 144, 1.

- Maur, Monks of St., § 156, 7.

- Maur, St., § 85.

- Maurice of Hesse, § 154, 1.

- Maurice of Orange, § 139, 12; 161, 2.

- Maurice of Saxony, § 136; 137.

- Mauritius, St., § 22, 6.

- Mauritius, Emperor, § 46, 10.

- Maxentius, § 22, 7.

- Maximianus [Maximian] Herculius, § 22, 6.

- Maximilian I., § 110, 13.

- Maximilian II, § 137, 8; 139, 9.

- Maximilian I., Duke of Bavaria, § 151, 1.

- Maximilian III., Elector of Bavaria, § 165, 10.

- Maximilian I., King of Bavaria, § 195, 1.

- Maximilian II., King of Bavaria,

- Maximilian, Francis of Cologne, § 165, 13.

- Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, § 209, 1.

- Maximilla, § 40, 1.

- Maximinus Daza, § 22, 6, 7.

- Maximinus Thrax, § 22, 4.

- Maximus, Emperor, § 54, 2.

- Maximus, Confessor, § 47, 12; 52, 8.

- Mayer, Seb., § 130, 4.

- May Laws, Prussian, § 197, 5, 6.

- May Laws, Austrian, § 198, 6.

- Maynooth Bill, § 202, 9.

- Mayhew, § 162, 7.

- Mechitarists, § 165, 2.

- Mechthild, § 107, 2.

- Mecklenburg, § 134, 5; 194, 6.

- Medici, § 110, 11.

- Meinhart, § 93, 12.

- Meinrad, § 85, 6.

- Mel, Conrad, § 169, 1.

- Melanchthon, § 122, 5; 139, 13; 141, 7, 9.

- Melchers, § 188, 12; 189, 3; 197, 6, 12.

- Melchiades, § 46, 3; 63, 1.

- Melchionites, § 147, 1.

- Melchisedecians, § 33, 3.

- Melchites, § 52, 7.

- Meletius of Antioch, § 50, 8.

- Meletius of Lycopolis, § 41, 4.

- Melissander, § 142, 3.

- Melito, § 30, 8; 36, 8; 40, 1.

- Memnon of Ephesus, § 52, 5.

- Menander, § 25, 2.

- Mendelssohn, § 171, 3.

- Mendelssohn, Bartholdy, § 174, 10.

- Mendez, § 152, 1.

- Mendicant Friars, § 98, 3.

- Menius, § 141, 6.

- Menken, § 172, 3.

- Mennas, § 52, 6.

- Mennonites, § 147, 2; 163, 1.

- Menologies, § 57, 1.

- Menot, § 115, 2.

- Mensurius, § 63, 1.

- Mercedarians, § 98, 9.

- Mercerus, § 143, 5.

- Merlan, § 170, 1.

- Merle d’Aubigné, § 178, 2.

- Mermillod, § 189, 3; 199, 2.

- Mersen, Treaty of, § 82, 5.

- Merswin, § 114, 2, 4.

- Mesmer, § 174, 2.

- Mesrop, § 64, 3.

- Messalians, Christian, § 44, 7.

- Messalians, Pagan, § 42, 6.

- Meth, § 163, 9.

- Methodists, § 169, 4, 5; 208, 1; 211, 1.

- Methodius, § 73, 3; 79, 2.

- Methodius, of Olympus, § 31, 9; 33, 9.

- Metraphanes, § 67, 6.

- Metraphanes, Critop., § 152, 2.

- Metropolitans, § 34, 3; 83, 3.

- Mettrie, la, § 165, 12.

- Mexico, § 209, 1; 190, 3.

- Meyer, H., A., W., § 182, 11.

- Meyffart, § 160, 3.

- Michael, Archangel, § 88, 4.

- Michael, Acominatus, § 68, 5.

- Michael, Balbus, § 66, 4.

- Michael, of Bradacz, § 119, 8.

- Michael, Cærularius, § 119, 8.

- Michael, of Cesnea, § 112, 2.

- Michael, the Drunkard, § 67, 1.

- Michael, Palæologus, § 67, 6.

- Michael Angelo, § 149, 15.

- Michaelis, Chr. Ben., § 167, 3.

- Michaelis, J., D., § 171, 6.

- Michaelis, J., H., § 167, 3.

- Michaelmas, § 57, 3.

- Michaud, § 190, 3.

- Michelians, § 171, 3.

- Michelis, § 190, 1; 191, 6.

- Micislas, § 93, 7.

- Milicz, § 119, 2.

- Militia Christi, § 37.

- Mill, Walter, § 139, 8.

- Millennium, § 33, 9.

- Milman, § 182, 4.

- Miltiades of Athens, § 30, 8; 37, 3.

- Miltiades of Rome, § 46, 3.

- Miltiz, § 122, 3.

- Milton, § 172, 3.

- Minimi, § 112, 8.

- Minnesingers, § 105, 6.

- Minorites, § 98, 3.

- Minster, § 84, 4.

- Minucius Felix, § 31, 12.

- Minucius Fundanus, § 22, 2.

- Missa Catechum. et fidelium, § 36, 2, 3; 58, 4.

- Missa Solitaria, § 58, 3.

- Missa Sponsorum, § 61, 2; 88, 3; 104, 6.

- Missa Marcelli, § 149, 15.

- Missale Rom., § 149, 14.

- Missionary Societies, § 172, 5; 5; 184, 1; 186, 6.

- Missions, Foreign, § 75-78; 93.

- Missions, Foreign, Catholic, § 150; 156, 10, 12; 165, 3; 186, 7.

- Missions, Foreign, Protest., § 142, 8; 143, 7; 160, 7; 162, 7; 167, 9; 168, 11: 184.

- Missions, Home, Catholic, § 149, 7; 156, 4; 186, 4, 5.

- Missions, Home, Protest., § 183.

- Missions, Priests of the, § 156, 8.

- Missouri Synod, § 208, 2, 3.

- Mistewoi, § 93, 9.

- Mitre, § 84, 1.

- Mizetius, § 91, 1.

- Modalists, § 33.

- Moderates, § 202, 7.

- Mogilas, § 152, 3.

- Mogtasilah, § 28, 2.

- Mohammed, § 65.

- Mohammed II., § 67, 7; 110, 10.

- Mohammedans, § 184, 9.

- Möhler, § 191, 4, 5, 6.

- Molanus, § 153, 7.

- Molay, § 112, 7.

- Moleschott, § 174, 3.

- Molina, § 149, 13.

- Molinæus, § 161, 3.

- Molinos, § 157, 2.

- Momiers, § 199, 5.

- Mommers, § 169, 2.

- Mömpelgard, Relig. Confer., § 138, 8.

- Monarcha theologor., § 103, 3.

- Monarchians, § 33.

- Monasterium Clericor., § 45, 1.

- Monasticism, § 44; 70; 85; 98; 112; 149; 156; 165; 186.

- Mongols, § 93, 15.

- Monica, § 47, 13.

- Monita Secreta, § 149, 9.

- Monod, § 203, 4.

- Monogram, § 38, 4.

- Monophysites, § 52, 5, 7; 72, 2.

- Monothelites, § 52, 8.

- Montalembert, § 188, 1; 189, 1.

- Montalte, § 157, 5.

- Montalto, § 149, 3.

- Montanists, § 40.

- Montanus, Arias, § 149, 14.

- Monte, del, § 149, 2.

- Monte Cassino, § 85.

- Monte Corvino, § 93, 15.

- Montesquieu, § 165, 14.

- Montfaucon, § 165, 11.

- Montfort, Sim. de, § 109, 1.

- Montmorency, § 139, 13, 14.

- Moody, § 211, 1.

- Moors, § 81; 95.

- Moralities, § 105, 5.

- Morata, § 139, 24.

- Moravia, § 79, 2.

- Moravian Brethren, § 119, 5.

- Moray, The Regent, § 139, 11.

- More, Sir Thomas, § 120, 7; 139, 4.

- Morel, § 139, 25.

- Moreno, § 209, 2.

- Morgan, § 171, 1.

- Morinus, § 158, 1.

- Moriscoes, § 95, 2.

- Morland, § 153, 5.

- Mormons, § 211, 12-14.

- Morone, § 135, 2; 137, 5; 139, 22.

- Morison, § 184, 6.

- Mortara, § 175, 8.

- Morton, § 139, 11.

- Morus, § 171, 8.

- Mosaics, § 60, 6; 104, 14.

- Moser, J. F. v., § 167, 6, 8.

- Moser, K. F. v., § 171, 10; 172, 2.

- Moses of Chorene, § 64, 3.

- Mosheim, § 5, 3; 167, 4; 169, 1.

- Moslems, § 65.

- Moulin, du, § 161, 3.

- Mouls, § 190, 3.

- Movers, § 191, 8.

- Mozarabians, § 81, 1.

- Mozarabic Liturgy, § 88, 1; 104, 1.

- Mozart, § 174, 10.

- Mtesa, § 184, 4.

- “Mucker,” § 176, 3.

- Mühlenberg, § 208, 2.

- Mühler, v., § 193, 4; 197, 2.

- Müller, Ad., § 175, 7.

- Müller, Bem., § 211, 6.

- Müller, G., § 183, 1.

- Müller, H., § 160, 1.

- Müller, J. v., § 171, 11.

- Müller, J. G., § 171, 8.

- Müller, Jul., § 182, 10.

- Münster, City, § 133, 6.

- Münster, Seb., § 143, 5.

- Münzer, Thos., § 124, 4, 5.

- Muratori, § 165, 12.

- Muratorian Canon, § 36, 8.

- Murillo, § 158, 3.

- Murner, Thos., § 125, 4; 130, 6.

- Murrone, § 112, 4.

- Musæus, § 141, 7; 144, 2.

- Musculus, Andr., § 141, 12.

- Musculus, Wolfg., § 141, 14.

- Music, § 59, 3; 104, 11; 115, 8; 149, 15; 158, 3; 172, 1; 174, 10.

- Muspilli, § 89, 3.

- Mutianus, § 120, 2, 3.

- Mwanga, § 184, 4.

- Myconius, § 125, 1.

- Myconius, Oswald, § 133, 8.

- Mysos, § 139, 26.

- Mysteries, § 105, 5; 115, 12.

- Mystics, Eastern, § 92; 102; 103; 107; 114.

- Mystics, Grecian, § 47, 7, 11; 68, 3.

- Mystics, Catholic, § 149, 16; 156, 1-4.

- Mystics, Protest., § 146; 160, 2; 169, 3.

- Naassenes, § 27, 6.

- Nägelsbach, § 174, 4.

- Namszanowski, § 197, 2.

- Nantes, Edict of, § 139, 17; 153, 4.

- Napoleon I., § 165, 5; 185, 1; 203, 1.

- Napoleon III., § 185, 3; 203, 3, 4; 209, 1.

- Narthex, § 60, 1.

- Nassau, § 193, 6; 196, 4.

- Natales episc., § 45, 1.

- Natales Martyrum, § 39, 5.

- Natalis, Alexander, § 5, 2; 157, 2.

- Natalius, § 33, 3.

- National Assembly, French, § 165, 15.

- National Convention, § 165, 15.

- Natorp, § 181, 2.

- Naumburg, Bishopric of, § 135, 5.

- Naumburg, Princes’ Diet, § 141, 11.

- Nauplia, Syn., § 207, 1.

- Nauvoo, § 211, 10.

- Naylor, § 163, 4.

- Nazareans, § 28, 1.

- Neander, § 5, 5; 182, 4.

- Neander, Joach., § 162, 6.

- Nectarius, § 61, 1.

- Nemesius, § 47, 6.

- Nennius, § 90, 8.

- Neophytes, § 34, 3.

- Neo-Platonists, § 24, 2; 42.

- Nepomuk, § 116, 1.

- Nepos of Arsinoë [Arsinoe], § 33, 9.

- Nepotism, § 110.

- Neri, Philip, § 149, 7; 158, 3.

- Nero, § 22, 1.

- Nerses I., § 64, 3.

- Nerses IV., Clajensis, § 72, 2.

- Nerses of Lampron, § 72, 2.

- Nerva, § 22, 1.

- Nestor, § 73, 4.

- Nestorians, § 52, 3; 64, 2; 72, 1; 150, 4; 184, 9.

- Nestorius, § 52, 3.

- Netherlands, § 139, 12; 162, 4; 169, 2; 184, 5; 200.

- Neuendettelsau, § 183, 1.

- Neumann, § 160, 4.

- Neumark, § 160, 4.

- Newman, § 202, 2.

- New Year, § 56, 5.

- Nicæa, Council of, § 40, 1; 41, 4; 46, 3; 50, 1; 56, 3.

- Nicephorus Gregoras, § 69, 2.

- Nicephorus Callisti, § 5, 1.

- Nicetas Acominatus, § 68, 5.

- Nicetas of Nicomedia, § 67, 4.

- Nicetas Pectoratus, § 67, 3.

- Nicholas I., § 67, 1; 73, 3; 82, 7; 83, 3; 91, 5.

- Nicholas II., § 96, 6.

- Nicholas III.,, IV., § 96, 22.

- Nicholas V., § 110, 9, 10.

- Nicholas of Basel, § 114, 4.

- Nicholas Cabasilas, § 68, 5; 70, 4.

- Nicholas of Clemanges, § 118, 4.

- Nicholas of Cusa, § 113, 6.

- Nicholas v. d. Flüe, § 116, 1.

- Nicholas of Lyra, § 113, 7.

- Nicholas of Methone, § 68, 5.

- Nicholas Mysticus, § 67, 2.

- Nicholas of Pisa, § 110, 12.

- Nicholas I., Czar, § 206, 1, 2; 210, 2.

- Nicolai, Publisher. § 171, 4.

- Nicolai, Henry, § 146, 5.

- Nicolai, Philip, § 142, 4.

- Nicolaitanism, § 96, 5.

- Nicolaitans, § 18, 3; 27, 8.

- Nicole, § 158, 1.

- Niebuhr, § 193, 1.

- Niedner, § 5, 4.

- Niemeyer, § 171, 7.

- Nightingale, § 183, 1.

- Nihilism, § 102, 8.

- Nihilists, § 212, 6.

- Nikon, § 163, 10.

- Nilus Sinaiticus, § 44, 3; 47, 10.

- Nilus the Younger, § 100.

- Nimbus, § 60, 6.

- Ninian, § 77, 2.

- Niphon, Monk, § 70, 4.

- Niphon, Patriarch, § 70, 1.

- Nismes, Edict of, § 154, 4.

- Nitschmann, § 168, 3, 11.

- Nitzsch, § 182, 10; 193, 3, 4.

- Noailles, § 165, 7.

- Nobili, § 156, 11.

- Nobla leiczon, § 108, 14 (vol. ii., p. 471).

- Nobreja, § 150, 3.

- Nobunaja [Nobunaga], § 150, 2.

- Noetus, § 33, 5.

- Nogaret, § 110, 1.

- Nolasque, § 98, 9.

- Nominalists, § 99, 2; 113, 3.

- Nomo-Canon, § 43, 3.

- Nonæ, § 86, 2.

- Non-Intrusionists, § 202, 7.

- Nonconformists, § 143, 2, 3; 155, 1, 2.

- Nonna, § 47, 4.

- Nonnus of Panopolis, § 48, 5.

- Norbert, § 98, 2; 96, 13.

- Normans, § 93, 1; 95, 1.

- North African School, § 31, 1.

- North America, § 208.

- Norwegians, § 93, 4; 139, 2; 201, 3.

- Nösselt, § 171, 8.

- Noting of Verona, § 91, 5.

- Notker Balbulus, § 88, 2.

- Notker Labeo, § 100, 1.

- Novalis, § 174, 5.

- Novatian, § 31, 12; 41, 3.

- Novatus, § 38, 2, 3.

- Noviciate, § 44, 2; 86, 1.

- Noyes, § 211, 6.

- Nuñez de Arca, § 175, 2.

- Nunia, § 64, 4.

- Nuns, § 44, 5.

- Nuntio, § 151, 1.

- Nuremberg, Relig. Peace of, § 133, 2.

- Nuremberg, Diet of, § 126, 1, 2.

- Oak, Synod of the, § 51, 3.

- Oates, Titus, § 153, 6.

- Oberammergau, § 174, 10.

- Oberlin, § 172.

- Oblati, § 85, 1.

- Oblations, § 36; 39, 5; 61, 4.

- Obotrites, § 93, 9.

- Observants, § 112, 2; 149, 6.

- Occam, § 112, 2; 113, 3; 118, 2.

- Occultists, § 211, 18.

- Ochino, § 139, 24; 147, 6; 149, 6.

- O’Connell, § 202, 9.

- Octaves, § 56, 4.

- October Assembly, § 178, 3.

- Odensee, Diet of, § 139, 2.

- Odilo of Bavaria, § 78, 5.

- Odo of Clugny, § 98, 1; 100, 2; 104, 10, 11.

- Odoacer, § 46, 8.

- Œcolampadius, § 130, 3, 6; 131, 1.

- Œcumenius, § 68, 4.

- Oersted, § 174, 3.

- Oetingen, § 182, 15.

- Oetinger, § 170, 5; 171, 9.

- Oehler, § 182, 14.

- Œuvres, § 186, 4.

- Officium S. Mariæ, § 104, 8.

- Οἰκόνομοι, § 45, 3.

- Oischinger, § 191, 6.

- Oktai-Khan, § 93, 15.

- Olaf, § 80, 1.

- Olaf, Haraldson, § 93, 4, 5.

- Olaf, Schosskönig, § 93, 3.

- Olaf, Trygvason, § 93, 4, 5.

- Olaf, St., § 93, 4.

- Olcott, § 211, 18.

- Oldcastle, § 119, 1.

- Oldenbarneveldt, § 161, 2.

- Oldenburg, § 194, 5.

- Olevian, § 144, 1; 161, 4.

- Olga, § 73, 4.

- Olgerd, § 93, 14.

- Oliva, § 108, 6.

- Olivet, Monks of Mount, § 112, 1.

- Olivetan, § 138, 1; 143, 5.

- Olshausen, § 176, 3.

- Ommaiades, § 81; 95, 2.

- Oncken, § 211, 3.

- Oneida-sect, § 211, 6.

- Onochoetes Deus, § 23, 2.

- Oosterzee, § 200, 2.

- Ophites, § 27, 6, 7.

- Opitz, § 160, 3.

- Optatus of Mileve, § 63, 1.

- Opzoomer, § 200, 3.

- Orange, Synod of, § 53, 5.

- Oratories, § 84, 2.

- Oratory of Divine Love, § 139, 22.

- Oratory, Fathers of the, § 156, 7.

- Oratory, Priests of the, § 149, 7.

- Ordeals, § 89, 5.

- Ordericus Vitalis, § 5, 1.

- Ordination, § 45, 1.

- Ordines majores et minores, § 34, 3.

- Ordo Romanus, § 59, 6.

- Organs, § 88, 2; 104, 11; 115, 8; 154, 3.

- Origen, § 31, 5; 33, 6-9; 36, 9; 61, 4.

- Origenist Controversy, § 51.

- Original Sin, Controversy about, § 141, 8.

- Orosius, § 47, 19.

- Ortlibarians, § 103, 4.

- Ortuinus Gratus, § 120, 5.

- Osculum pacis, § 35.

- Osiander, Andr., § 126, 4; 135, 6; 141, 2.

- Osiander, Luc., § 159, 1.

- Osiandrian Controversy, § 141, 2.

- Ostiarii, § 34, 3.

- Ostrogoths, § 76, 7.

- Oswald, § 77, 5.

- Oswy, § 77, 5, 6.

- Ota, § 78, 2.

- Otfried, § 89, 3.

- Otgar of Mainz, § 87, 3.

- Otternbein, § 208, 4.

- Ottheinrich, § 135, 6.

- Otto I., § 93, 2, 8; 96, 1.

- Otto II., III., § 96, 2, 3.

- Otto IV., § 96, 17.

- Otto of Bamberg, § 93, 10.

- Otto of Passau, § 114, 6.

- Overbeek, Painter, § 174, 9.

- Overbeek, Dr., § 175, 5.

- Overberg, § 172, 2.

- Owen, Rob., § 212, 3.

- Oxford, § 202, 2.

- Oxford, Movement, § 211, 1.

- Pabst, § 191, 3.

- Pabulatores, § 44, 7.

- Paccanari, § 186, 1.

- Pachomius, § 44, 1, 3, 5.

- Pacianus, § 47, 15.

- Pacifico, Fra, § 104, 10.

- Pack, O. v., § 132, 1.

- Paderborn, § 133, 5.

- Paez, § 152, 1.

- Pagani, § 42, 4.

- Pagi, § 158, 2; 5, 2.

- Pagninus, § 149, 14.

- Pajon, § 161, 3.

- Palamas, § 69, 2.

- Palatinate, § 135, 6; 144, 1; 153, 1, 3; 196, 4.

- Paleario, § 139, 22, 23.

- Palestrina, § 149, 15.

- Paley, § 171, 8.

- Palladius, § 47, 10.

- Pallium, § 46, 1; 59, 7; 97, 3.

- Palm Sunday, § 56, 4.

- Pamphilus, § 31, 6.

- Pan-Anglicanism, § 202, 1.

- Pandulf, § 96, 18.

- Pan-Presbyterianism, § 179, 3.

- Pantänus, § 31, 4.

- Pantheon, § 46, 10.

- Papa, § 46, 1.

- Papacy, § 34, 8; 46, 2; 82; 96; 110; 149; 156; 165; 185.

- Papal Elections, § 46, 8, 11; 82, 4; 96, 6, 15, 21.

- Papebroch, § 155, 2.

- Paphnutius, § 45, 2.

- Papias, § 30, 6; 33, 9.

- Parabolani, § 45, 3.

- Paracelsus, § 146, 2.

- Paraguay, § 156, 10; 165, 3.

- Pareus, § 159, 5.

- Parker, Matt., § 139, 6.

- Parker, Theodore, § 211, 4.

- Parnell, § 202, 10.

- Parochia, § 84, 2.

- Parochus, § 84, 2.

- Parsimonius, § 141, 8.

- Pasagians, § 108, 3.

- Pascal, § 157, 5; 158, 1.

- Pascale, § 139, 25.

- Πάσχα σταυρώσιμων and ἀναστάσιμον, § 56, 4.

- Paschal Controversy, § 37, 2.

- Paschalis I., § 82, 4.

- Paschalis II., § 96, 11.

- Paschalis III., § 96, 15.

- Paschasius, § 99, 5; 91, 3.

- Paschkow, § 206, 1.

- Pasquino, § 149, 1.

- Passaglia, § 187, 5.

- Passau, Treaty of, § 137, 3.

- Passion Play, § 105, 5; 115, 12; 174, 10.

- Pastor, § 84, 2.

- Pastor æternus, § 189, 3.

- Patareni, § 108, 1.

- Pataria, § 97, 5.

- Patent, Austrian, § 198, 3.

- Patent, Hungarian, § 198, 6.

- Pater Orthodoxiæ, § 47, 4.

- Patriarchs, § 46.

- Patriciate, Roman, § 82, 1.

- Patrick, St., § 77, 1.

- Patrimonium pauperum, § 45, 4.

- Patrimonium Petri, § 46, 10; 82, 1.

- Patripassians, § 33, 4.

- Patronage, § 84.

- Patronus, § 57, 1.

- Paul, the Apostle, § 15.

- Paul, Burgensis, § 113, 7.

- Paul, Diaconus [Warnefrid], § 90, 3.

- Paul, Orosius, § 47, 20.

- Paul the Persian, § 48, 1.

- Paul of Samosata, § 33, 8; 39, 3.

- Paul Silentiarius, § 48, 5.

- Paul of Thebes, § 39, 4.

- Paul Warnefried, § 90, 3.

- Paul I., § 82, 1.

- Paul II., § 110, 11, 15; 119, 4.

- Paul III., § 149, 2; 134, 1; 139, 23.

- Paul IV, § 149, 2.

- Paul V., § 156, 1, 2, 4; 149, 13.

- Paul I. of Russia, § 186, 2.

- Paula, St., § 44, 5.

- Paula, Francis de, § 112, 8.

- Paula, Vinc. de, § 156, 8.

- Pauli, Greg., § 148, 3.

- Paulicians, § 71, 1.

- Paulinus of Antioch, § 50, 8.

- Paulinus of Aquileia, § 90, 3.

- Paulinus of Milan, § 47, 20; 53, 4.

- Paulinus Missionary, § 77, 4.

- Paulinus of Nola, § 48, 6; 60, 5.

- Paulus, Dr., § 182, 2.

- Pauperes de Lugduno, § 108, 10.

- Pauperes Catholici, § 108, 10.

- Payens, § 98, 7.

- Pax dissid., § 139, 18.

- Pearson, § 161, 6, 7.

- Peasants’ War, § 124, 5.

- Pectorale, § 59, 7.

- Pelagius, § 47, 21; 53, 3, 4.

- Pelagius I., Pope, § 46, 9; 52, 6.

- Pelagius II., Pope, § 46, 9.

- Pelayo, § 81, 1.

- Pellicanus, § 120, 4, note.

- Pellico, Silvio, § 174, 7.

- Penance, § 104, 4.

- Penda, § 77, 4.

- Penitential Books, § 61, 1; 89, 6; 103, 6.

- Penn, § 163, 5.

- Pentecost, § 37, 1; 56, 4.

- Pepin, § 78, 5; 82, 1.

- Pepucians, § 40, 1.

- Peraldus, § 103, 9.

- Perates, § 27, 6.

- Peregrinus Proteus, § 23, 1.

- Pères de la foi, § 186, 1.

- Perfectionists, § 211, 6.

- Perfectus, § 81, 1.

- Pericopes, § 59, 2; 167, 2.

- Peristerium, § 60, 5.

- Perkins, § 143, 5.

- Peroz, § 64, 2.

- Perpetua, § 22, 5.

- Perrone, § 175, 2; 191, 9.

- Persecution of Christians, § 23; 64.

- Persia, § 64, 2; 93, 15.

- Perthes, § 183, 1.

- Peschito, § 36, 8.

- Pestalozzi, § 171, 12.

- Petavius, § 158, 1.

- Peter the Apostle, § 16, 1.

- Peter d’Ailly, § 118, 4.

- Peter of Alcantara, § 149, 5, 16.

- Peter of Alexandria, § 41, 4.

- Peter of Amiens, § 94, 1.

- Peter of Aragon [Arragon], § 96, 18.

- Peter of Bruys, § 108, 7.

- Peter Cantor, § 103, 3.

- Peter of Castelnau, § 109, 1.

- Peter of Chelczic, § 119, 7.

- Peter of Clugny, § 96, 13.

- Peter Chrysolanus, § 67, 4.

- Peter Chrysologus, § 47, 16.

- Peter Comestor, § 105, 5.

- Peter Damiani, § 97, 4; 104, 10; 106, 4.

- Peter Dresdensis, § 115, 7.

- Peter of Dubois, § 118, 1.

- Peter Fullo, § 52, 5.

- Peter Hispanus, § 96, 22.

- Peter the Lombard, § 102, 5; 104, 2, 4.

- Peter Mongus, § 52, 5.

- Peter of Murrone, § 98, 2.

- Peter of Pisa, § 90.

- Peter of Poitiers, § 102, 5.

- Peter Siculus, § 71, 1.

- Peter the Venerable, § 98, 1; 102, 2; 109.

- Peter I. of Russia, § 166.

- Peter and Paul, Festival of, § 57, 1.

- Peter, Fest. of Chair of St., § 57, 1.

- Peter, Church of St., § 115, 13.

- Peter’s Pence, § 82.

- Petersen, § 170, 1.

- Peterson, § 139, 1.

- Petilian, § 63, 1.

- Petrarch, § 115, 10.

- Petrejus, § 120, 2.

- Petrikan, Synod, § 139, 18; 148, 3.

- Petrobrusians, § 108, 7.

- Petrow, § 163, 10.

- Petrucci, § 157, 2.

- Peucer, § 141, 10; 144, 3.

- Peyrerius, § 161, 7.

- Peysellians, § 170, 6.

- Pfaff, § 167, 4, 5, 8.

- Pfefferkorn, § 120, 4.

- Pfeffinger, § 141, 7.

- Pfeiffer, Aug., § 159, 4.

- Pfenninger, § 171, 8.

- Pfleiderer, § 182, 19.

- Pflugk, § 135, 3, 5; 136, 5; 137, 6.

- Pharensis Syn., § 77, 6.

- Pharisees, § 8, 4.

- Philadelphia, § 60, 4.

- Philadelphian Churches, § 170, 1.

- Philadelphian Period, § 168, 4.

- Philadelphian Sect, § 163, 8.

- Philaster, § 47, 14.

- Philip, § 14; 17, 2.

- Philip the Arabian, § 22, 4.

- Philip I. of France, § 96, 8, 10.

- Philip II., Aug., § 94, 3; 96, 18.

- Philip the Fair, § 110, 1, 2; 112, 7.

- Philip II. of Spain, § 139, 12, 21.

- Philip of Swabia, § 96, 17.

- Philip the Magnanimous, § 126, 4, 5; 135, 1, 3; 137, 3.

- Philippi, § 182, 13.

- Philippists, § 141, 4 ff.

- Philippones, § 163, 10.

- Philippopolis, Synod of, § 50, 2.

- Philipps, § 175, 7; 191, 7.

- Phillpotts, § 202, 2.

- Philo, § 10, 1.

- Philopatris, § 42, 5.

- Philoponus, § 47, 11.

- Philosophical Sin, § 149, 10.

- Philosophoumena, § 31, 3.

- Philostorgius, § 4, 1.

- Philoxenus, § 59, 1.

- Philumena, § 27, 12.

- Phocas, § 46, 10.

- Phœbe, § 17, 4.

- Photinus, § 50, 2.

- Photius, § 67, 1; 68, 5.

- Phyletism, § 207, 3.

- Φωτιζόμενοι, § 35, 1.

- Φθαρτολάτραι, § 52, 7.

- Piacenza, Council, § 94.

- Piarists, § 156, 7.

- Picards, § 116, 5; 119, 8.

- Pichler, § 191, 7.

- Pick, § 211, 8.

- Picts, § 77, 2.

- Picus of Mirandola, § 120, 1.

- Pideritz, § 133, 5.

- Piedmont, § 204, 3.

- Pietism, Lutheran, § 159, 3; 167, 1.

- Pietism, Reformed, § 162, 3, 4.

- Pietism, in 19th Century, § 176, 2.

- Pilate, Acts of, § 13, 2; 31, 2.

- Pilgrim of Passau, § 93, 8.

- Pilgrim Fathers, § 143, 4; 208, 1.

- Pilgrimages, § 57, 6; 89, 4; 104, 8; 115, 9; 188, 5, 6.

- Pin, du, § 158, 2.

- Pionius, § 30, 5.

- Pirkheimer, § 120, 3.

- Pirminius, § 78, 1, 5.

- Pirstinger, § 125, 5; 149, 14.

- Pisa, Council of, § 110, 6.

- Piscator, § 143, 5.

- Pistis, Sophia, § 27, 7.

- Pistoja, Synod of, § 165, 10.

- Pistorius, § 135, 3.

- Pistorius, Maternus, § 120, 2.

- Pius II., § 110, 10; 118, 6; 119, 4.

- Pius III., § 110, 13.

- Pius IV., § 149, 2.

- Pius V., § 149, 3; 139, 23.

- Pius VI., § 165, 9, 10, 15.

- Pius VII., § 185, 1; 203, 1.

- Pius VIII., § 184, 1; 193, 1.

- Pius IX., § 185, 2 ff.; 175, 2; 188, 8; 189, 3; 197, 7; 202, 11.

- Placæus, § 161, 3.

- Planck, § 171, 8.

- Planeta, § 59, 7.

- Plastic Arts, § 60, 6; 89, 6; 104, 14; 115, 13.

- Plato, § 7, 4; 47, 5; 68, 3; 99, 2.

- Platon, § 166, 1.

- Platter, § 130, 4.

- Plebani, Plebs, § 84, 2.

- Plenaries, § 115, 4.

- Pleroma, § 26, 2.

- Pletho, § 68, 2; 120, 1.

- Pliny the Younger, § 22, 2.

- Plotinus, § 24, 2.

- Plotizin, § 210, 4.

- Plutschau, § 167, 9.

- Plymouth Brethren, § 211, 11.

- Pneumatomachians, § 50, 5.

- Pobedonoszew, § 206, 1.

- Poblenz, § 184, 5.

- Pocquet, § 146, 4.

- Pococke, § 161, 6.

- Podiebrad, § 119, 7, 8.

- Poetry, Christian, § 48, 5, 6; 105, 4; 174, 6.

- Poggio, § 120, 1; 119, 5.

- Poiret, § 163, 9.

- Poissy, Relig. Confer., § 139, 14.

- Poland, § 93, 7; 139, 18; 165, 4; 206, 2, 3.

- Pole, § 139, 5, 22.

- Polemon, § 47, 6.

- Polenz of Samland, § 125, 1.

- Poliander, § 142, 3.

- Polo, Marco, § 93, 15.

- Polozk, Synod of, § 206, 2.

- Polycarp, § 22, 3; 30, 6; 37, 2.

- Polychronius, § 47, 9.

- Polycrates, § 37, 2.

- Polyglott, Antwerp, § 149, 14.

- Polyglott, Complutensian, § 120, 8.

- Polyglott, London, § 161, 6.

- Polyglott, Paris, § 158, 1.

- Pomare, § 184, 7.

- Pombal, § 165, 9.

- Pommerania, § 93, 10; 134, 4.

- Pomponazzo, § 120, 1.

- Ponce de la Fuente, § 139, 21.

- Pœnitentiaria Rom., § 110, 16.

- Pontianus, § 38, 1.

- Ponticus, § 22, 3.

- Pontius, § 98, 1.

- Popiel, § 206, 1.

- Popular Philosophy, § 171, 4.

- Pordage, § 163, 9.

- Porphyry, § 23, 3; 24, 2.

- Portig, § 180, 3.

- Portiuncula, § 98, 3.

- Port Royal, § 157, 5.

- Portugal, § 165, 9; 205, 5.

- Positivism, § 174, 2; 210, 1.

- Possessor of Carthage, § 53, 5.

- Possevin, § 139, 1; 151, 2, 3.

- Possidius, § 47, 18.

- Post-Apostolic Age, § 20, 1.

- Postilla, § 103, 9; 108, 6.

- Potamiæna, § 22, 4.

- Pothinus, § 22, 3.

- Præceptor Germaniæ, § 122, 5.

- Præpositi, § 84, 2.

- Prætorius, § 160, 1.

- Praxeas, § 33, 4.

- Prayer, § 37; 39, 1.

- Preaching, § 36, 2; 59, 3; 89, 1; 104, 1; 115, 2; 142, 2.

- Preaching Orders, § 98, 5; 112, 4.

- Pre-Adamites, § 161, 4.

- Prebends, § 84, 4.

- Precaria, § 86, 1.

- Precists, § 96, 23.

- Predestination, § 53; 91, 4; 125, 3; 141, 12; 161, 2, 3; 168, 1; 208, 3.

- Prepon, § 27, 12.

- Presburg, Peace of, § 192.

- Presbyter, § 17, 2, 5; 34, 3; 45.

- Presbyterians, § 143, 3; 162, 1; 202, 4; 208, 1.

- Prierias, § 122, 3.

- Priestley, § 211, 4.

- Primacy, Papal, § 34, 8; 46, 2, 3.

- Primasius, § 48, 1.

- Primian, § 63, 1.

- Prisca, § 40, 1.

- Priscillianists, § 54, 2.

- Probabilism, § 149, 10; 113, 4.

- Procession of Holy Spirit, § 50, 6; 67, 1; 91, 2.

- Processions, § 59, 9.

- Prochorus, § 32, 6.

- Procidians, § 27, 8.

- Proclus, Montanist, § 31, 7; 40, 2.

- Proclus, Neoplaton., § 24, 2; 42, 5.

- Procopius of Gaza, § 48, 1.

- Procopius the Great, § 119, 7.

- Procopowicz, § 166.

- Professio fid. Trid., § 149, 14.

- Proles, § 112, 5.

- Proli, § 211, 16.

- Propaganda, § 156, 9; 204, 2.

- Prophecy, § 143, 3, 5.

- Propositt. Cleri Gallicani, § 156, 3; 203, 1.

- Proselytes of Gate and Righteousness, § 10, 2.

- Πρόσκλαυσις, § 39, 2.

- Προσφοραί, § 36.

- Prosper Aquit., § 47, 20; 48, 6; 53, 5.

- Proterius, § 52, 5.

- Protestants, § 132, 3.

- “Protestantenverein,” § 180.

- Proudhon, § 212, 1.

- Provida sollersque, § 196, 1.

- Prudentius, Poet, § 48, 6.

- Prudentius of Troyes, § 91, 5.

- Psellus, § 68, 5; 71, 3.

- Pseudepigraphs, § 32.

- Pseudo-Basilideans, § 27, 3.

- Pseudo-Clement, § 28, 3; 43, 4.

- Pseudo-Cyril, § 96, 23.

- Pseudo-Dionysius, § 47, 11.

- Pseudo-Ignatius, § 43, 5.

- Pseudo-Isidore, § 87, 2.

- Pseudo-Tertullian, § 31, 3.

- Psychians, § 26, 2; 40, 5.

- Publicani, § 108, 1.

- Pufendorf, § 167, 5.

- Pulcheria, § 52, 4.

- Pullus, Rob., § 102, 5.

- Punctation of Ems, § 165, 10.

- Purcell, § 186, 5.

- Purgatory, § 61, 4; 67, 6; 104, 4; 106, 2, 3.

- Purists, § 159, 4.

- Puritans; § 143, 3, 4; 155.

- Puseyites, § 202, 2.

- Puttkamer, v., § 174, 8; 193, 6; 197, 10.

- Quadragesima, § 37, 1; 56, 4, 5, 7.

- Quadratus, § 30, 8.

- Quadrivium, § 90, 8.

- Quakers, § 163, 4, 5, 6; 211, 3.

- Quanta cura, § 185, 2.

- Quartodecimans, § 37, 2; 56, 3.

- Quenstedt, § 159, 5.

- Quercum, Synod ad, § 51, 3.

- Quesnel, § 165, 7.

- Quicunque, § 50, 7.

- Quietists, § 157.

- Quinisextum, § 63, 2.

- Quinquagesima, § 37, 1; 56, 4.

- Quintin, § 146, 4.

- Quod numquam, § 197, 7.

- Rabanus, § 90, 4; 91, 3, 5.

- Rabaut, § 165, 5.

- Rabinowitz, § 211, 9.

- Rabulas, § 52, 3; 48, 7.

- Racovian Catechism, § 148, 4.

- Radama I., II., § 184, 3.

- Radbertus, § 90, 5; 91, 3, 4.

- Radbod, § 78, 3.

- Radewins, Flor., § 112, 9.

- Radstock, § 206, 1.

- Raimund Lullus, § 93, 16; 103, 7.

- Raimund Martini, § 103, 9.

- Raimund of Pennaforte, § 93, 16; 99, 5; 113, 4.

- Raimund du Puy, § 93, 8.

- Raimund of Sabunde, § 113, 5.

- Rakoczy, § 153, 3.

- Rambach, § 167, 6, 8.

- Ramus, § 143, 6.

- Ranavalona, § 184, 3.

- Rancé, de, § 156, 8.

- Raphael, § 115, 13.

- Raphael, Union, § 186, 4.

- Rapp, § 211, 6.

- Raskolniks, § 163, 10; 210, 3.

- Rasoherina, § 184, 3.

- Raspe, § 105, 3.

- Räss, Bishop, § 196, 7.

- Rastislaw, § 79, 2.

- Ratherius, § 100, 2.

- Rationalism, § 171; 176, 1; 182, 2, 3.

- Ratramnus, § 67, 1; 90, 5; 91, 3, 4, 5.

- “Rauhes Haus,” § 183, 1.

- Rauscher, Card., § 189, 3; 198, 2.

- Ravaillac, § 139, 17.

- Raymond IV., Count of Toulouse, § 109, 1.

- Raynaldi, Oderic, § 5, 2.

- Realism and Nominalism, § 99, 2; 113, 2.

- Recafrid, § 81, 1.

- Reccared, § 76, 2.

- Rechiar, § 76, 4.

- Reclusi, § 85, 6.

- Recognit. Clem., § 27, 4.

- Reconciliatio, § 39, 2.

- Recursus ab abusu, § 185, 4; 192, 4; 194, 9; 197, 9.

- Redemptions, § 88, 5.

- Redemptorists, § 165, 2; 186, 1.

- Reformation in head and members, § 118, 3.

- Refugees, French Huguenot, § 153, 4.

- Regensburg Colloquy, § 130, 3, 10.

- Regensburg Convention, § 126, 3.

- Regensburg Declaration, § 135, 4.

- Regensburg Diet, § 133, 2; 135, 3.

- Regensburg Reformation, § 135, 6.

- Regensburg Synod, § 91, 1.

- Regino of Prüm, § 90, 5.

- Reginus, § 104, 11.

- Regionary Bishops, § 84.

- Regula fidei, § 35, 2.

- Reichenau, § 78, 1.

- Reimarus, § 171, 6.

- Reinerius Sachoni, § 108, 1.

- Reinhard, Mart., § 139, 2.

- Reinhard, Fr. Volk., § 171, 8.

- Reinkens, § 190, 1.

- Reiser, Fred., § 119, 9; 118, 5.

- Reland, § 169, 6.

- Relics, Worship of, § 39, 5; 57, 5; 88, 4; 104, 8; 115, 9.

- Religiosi, § 44.

- Remigius of Auxerre, § 90, 5.

- Remigius of Lyons, § 91, 5.

- Remigius of Rheims, § 76, 9.

- Remismund, § 76, 4.

- Remoboth, § 44, 7.

- Remonstrants, § 161, 2.

- Renaissance, § 115, 13; 149, 15.

- Renan, § 182, 8.

- Renata of Ferrara, § 138, 2; 139, 22.

- Renaudot, § 165, 11.

- Reni, Guido, § 149, 15.

- Reparatus of Carthage, § 52, 6.

- Repeal Association, § 202, 9.

- Reservatio mentalis, § 149, 10.

- Reservations, § 110, 15.

- Reservatum ecclest., § 137, 5.

- Restitution Edict, § 153, 2.

- Reuchlin, § 120, 3, 4.

- Reuss, § 182, 18.

- Revenues of the Church, § 45, 6; 86, 1.

- Reversurus, § 207, 4.

- Revivals, § 208, 1.

- Revolution, French, § 165, 14.

- Revolution, English, § 155.

- Rex Christianiss., § 110, 13.

- Rhaw, § 142, 5.

- Rhegius Urbanus, § 120, 3; 127, 3; 125, 1.

- Rheinwald, § 83, 2.

- Rhenius, § 184, 5.

- Rhense, Elector. Union of, § 110, 4.

- Rhetorians, § 62, 3.

- Rhine League, § 192.

- Rhodoald, § 67, 1; 82, 7.

- Rhodon, § 27, 12.

- Rhyming Bible, § 105, 5.

- Rhyming Legends, § 105, 5.

- Riccabona, § 175, 2.

- Ricci, Laur., § 165, 9.

- Ricci, Matt., § 150, 1.

- Ricci, Scipio, § 165, 10.

- Richard Cœur de Leon, § 94, 3.

- Richard of Cornwallis, § 94, 5.

- Richard of St. Victor, § 102, 4; 104, 4.

- Richelieu, § 153, 4.

- Richter, C. F., § 167, 6.

- Richter, Emil, § 182, 22.

- Richter, Greg., § 160, 2.

- Richter, Jean Paul, § 171, 11.

- Richter, Louis, § 174, 9.

- Ridley, § 139, 5.

- Rieger, § 167, 8.

- Rienzi, § 110, 5.

- Rietschel, § 174, 9.

- Riga, § 93, 12; 139, 3.

- Rigdon, Sidney, § 211, 12, 13.

- Riley, § 209, 1.

- Rimbert, § 80, 2.

- Rimini, Syn., § 50, 3.

- Rinck, Melch., § 147, 1.

- Ring and Staff, § 96, 6, 7.

- Ringold, § 93, 14.

- Rinkart, § 160, 3.

- Rist, § 160, 3.

- Risus Paschales, § 105, 2.

- Ritschl, § 182, 7, 20.

- Ritter, Erasm., § 130, 4, 8.

- Ritter, J. J., § 5, 6.

- Ritter, Carl, § 174, 4.

- Ritualists, § 199, 2.

- Rizzio, § 139, 10.

- Robber Synod, § 52, 4.

- Robert of Arbrissel, § 98, 2.

- Robert of Citeaux, § 98, 1.

- Robert Grosseteste, § 103, 1.

- Robert Guiscard, § 95, 1; 98, 6, 8.

- Robert Pullus, § 102, 5.

- Robert of the Sorbonne, § 103, 9.

- Robert of France, § 104, 10.

- Robespierre, § 165, 15.

- Robinson, § 143, 4.

- Rodigast, § 160, 4.

- Rodriguez, § 149, 8; 150, 4.

- Roëll, § 161, 5.

- Roger of Sicily, § 95, 1; 96, 13.

- Röhr, § 176, 1; 182, 2.

- Rokycana, § 119, 7.

- Rollo, § 93, 1.

- Romanz, § 174, 2.

- Roman Architecture, § 104, 12.

- Romanus, Pope, § 96, 1.

- Romuald, § 98, 1.

- Ronge, § 187, 6.

- Roos, § 171, 8.

- Rosary, § 104, 8; 115, 1.

- Roscelinus [Roscelin], § 101, 3.

- Rose, The Consecrat. Golden, § 96, 23.

- Rosenkranz, § 182, 6.

- Rosicrucians, § 160, 1.

- Rossi de, § 191, 7; 38, 1.

- Röstar, § 211, 5.

- Roswitha, § 100, 1.

- Rota Romana, § 110, 16.

- Rothad of Soissons, § 83, 2.

- Rothe, A., § 167, 6; 168, 2.

- Rothe, Rich., § 5, 4; 180, 1; 182, 10.

- Rothmann, § 147, 9.

- Röublin, § 130, 5; 147, 3.

- Roundheads, § 155, 1.

- Rousseau, § 165, 14.

- Rubianus Crotus, § 120, 2, 5.

- Rückert, § 174, 6.

- Rudelbach, § 182, 13; 194, 1.

- Rudolph of Hapsburg, § 96, 21, 22.

- Rudolph II., § 139, 19; 137, 8.

- Rudolph of Swabia, § 96, 8.

- Ruet, § 205, 4.

- Rufinus, § 5, 1; 47, 17; 48, 2; 51, 2.

- Ruge, § 174, 1.

- Rügen, § 93, 10.

- Rugians, § 76, 6.

- Ruinart, § 158, 2.

- Rulman Merswin, § 114, 2, 4.

- Rupert, § 78, 2.

- Rupert, of Deutz, § 102, 8.

- Rupp, § 176, 1; 178, 1.

- Russel, Lord, § 202, 1, 5.

- Russia, § 73, 5-6; 151, 3; 163, 8; 166; 206; 210, 3, 4; 212, 6.

- Rust, § 195, 5.

- Ruysbroek, John of, § 114, 7.

- Ruysbroek, William of, § 93, 15.

- Sabatati, § 108, 10.

- Sabbath, § 56, 1.

- Sabbatarians, § 163, 3; 211, 5.

- Sabeans, § 22, 1.

- Sabellius, § 33, 5, 7.

- Sabinianus, § 60, 5.

- Sacco di Roma, § 132, 2.

- Sachs, Hans, § 142, 3, 7.

- Sack, K. H., § 182, 9.

- Sacramentalia, § 58; 104, 2.

- Sacraments, § 58; 70, 2; 104, 2-5.

- Sacramentarium, § 59, 6.

- Sacrificati, § 22, 5.

- Sacrum rescript., § 53, 3.

- Sacy, de, § 158, 1.

- Sadducees, § 8, 4.

- Sadolet, § 138, 3; 139, 22.

- Sagittarius, § 159, 4.

- Sailer, § 165, 12; 187, 1.

- Saints, Worship of, § 57, 1; 88, 4; 104, 8.

- Saladin, § 94, 3.

- Sales, Francis de, § 156, 7; 157, 1.

- Sales, Nuns of, § 156, 7.

- Salisbury, John of, § 102, 9.

- Salmeron, § 149, 8.

- Salt Lake, § 211, 10.

- Salvation Army, § 211, 2.

- Salvianus, § 47, 21.

- Salzburg, § 78, 2; 79.

- Salzburg, Emigrants of, § 164, 4.

- Samaritans, § 10; 22.

- Sampseans, § 28, 2.

- Sanbenito, § 117, 2.

- Sanchez, § 149, 10.

- Sanction, Pragmatic, § 96, 21; 110, 9, 14.

- Sanctissimum, § 104, 3.

- Sandwich Islands, § 182, 7.

- Sankey, § 211, 1.

- Sapor I., § 29, 1.

- Sapores [Sapor], § 64, 2.

- Sarabaites, § 44, 7.

- Saracens, § 81; 95.

- Sardica, Council of, § 46, 3; 50, 2.

- Sardinia, § 204, 1, 3.

- Sarmatio, § 62, 2.

- Sarpi, § 156, 2; 158, 2.

- Sartorius, § 182, 13.

- Saturnalia, § 56, 5.

- Saturninus, § 27, 9.

- Saunier, § 138, 1; 139, 25.

- Saurin, § 169, 6.

- Savonarola, § 119, 11.

- Savonières [Savonnières], Syn. of, § 91, 5.

- Sbynko, § 119, 3, 4.

- Scala santa, § 115, 9.

- Schaffhausen, § 130, 8.

- Schelling, § 171, 10; 174, 1.

- Schenkel, § 182, 17; 196, 3, 4; 180, 1.

- Schiller, § 171, 11.

- Schirmer, § 160, 4.

- Schism, Papal, § 110, 6.

- Schism, between East and West, § 67.

- Schisms in the Ancient Church, § 41; 50, 8; 52, 5; 63.

- Schlegel, Fr., § 174, 5; 175, 7.

- Schlegel, J. Ad., § 172, 1.

- Schleiermacher, § 5, 4; 182, 1; 174, 3.

- Schleswig-Holstein, § 127, 3; 156, 2; 201, 1; 193, 7.

- Schlichting, § 148, 4.

- Schmalcald Articles, § 134, 1.

- Schmalcald League, § 133, 1, 7.

- Schmalcald War, § 136.

- Schmerling, § 198, 3, 4.

- Schmid, Leop., § 187, 3; 191, 2; 196, 4.

- Schmidt, Erasm., § 159, 4.

- Schmidt, Lor., § 171, 3.

- Schmidt, Seb., § 159, 4.

- Schmolck, § 167, 6, 8.

- Schnepf, § 122, 2; 131, 1; 133, 3.

- Schnorr, § 174, 9.

- Schöberlein, § 181, 3.

- Schola palatina, § 90, 1.

- Schola Saxonica, § 82.

- Scholastica, St., § 85, 3.

- Scholasticism, Greek, § 47, 6; 68, 3.

- Scholasticism, Latin, § 99 ff.; 113.

- Scholasticus, John, § 43, 3.

- Scholten, § 200, 2.

- Schools.

- Schopenhauer, § 174, 2.

- Schortinghuis, § 169, 3.

- Schroeckh [Schröckh], § 5, 3; 171, 8.

- Schubert, § 174, 3, 8.

- Schultens, § 169, 6.

- Schultz, Herm., § 182, 20.

- Schulz, Dav., § 183, 3.

- Schwartz, § 167, 9.

- Schwarzenberg, § 189, 3.

- Schweizer, § 182, 9.

- Schwenkfeld, § 146, 1.

- Scotists, § 113, 2.

- Scotland, § 77, 2; 139, 8; 202, 7, 8, 11.

- Scots, § 77, 2.

- Scottish Cloister, § 98, 1; 112.

- Scotus, John Duns, § 113.

- Scotus, Erigena, § 90, 7; 91, 5.

- Scriver, § 160, 1.

- Scythianus, § 29, 1.

- Seculum obscurum, § 100.

- Secundus, § 50, 1.

- Sedes Apostolicæ, § 34.

- Sedulius, § 48, 6.

- Segarelli, § 108, 8.

- Segneri, § 157, 2.

- Seiler, § 171, 8.

- Selden, § 161, 6.

- Selnecker, § 141, 12; 142, 4.

- Sembat, § 71, 2.

- Semi-arians, § 50, 3.

- Semi-jejunia, § 37, 2.

- Semi-pelagians, § 53, 5.

- Semler, § 171, 6; 5, 3.

- Sendomir Compact, § 139, 18.

- Seneca’s Correspondence, § 32, 7.

- Sententiarists, § 102, 5.

- Sepp, § 191, 8; 174, 4.

- Septimius Severus, § 22, 4.

- Septuagint, § 10, 2; 36, 8; 48, 1.

- Sequences, § 88, 2.

- Serapeion, § 42, 4.

- Seraphic Order, § 98, 3.

- Serenius Granian., § 22, 2.

- Serenus of Marsilia, § 57, 4.

- Sergius of Constantinople, § 52, 8.

- Sergius of Ravenna, § 83, 2.

- Sergius I. of Rome, § 46, 11; 63, 2.

- Sergius II., § 82, 5.

- Sergius III., § 96, 1.

- Sergius IV., § 96, 4.

- Serrarius, § 149, 14.

- Servatus Lupus, § 90, 5; 91, 5.

- Servetus, § 148, 2.

- Servites, § 98, 6.

- Servus servorum Dei, § 46, 10.

- Sethians, § 27, 6.

- Seventh-Day Adventists, § 211, 1.

- Seventh-Day Baptists, § 163, 3.

- Severa, § 22, 4; 26.

- Severians, § 52, 7.

- Severina, § 28, 4.

- Severinus, Missionary, § 76, 6.

- Severinus, Pope, § 46, 11.

- Severus, Emperor, § 22, 6.

- Severus, Wolfg., § 137, 8.

- Shaftesbury, § 171, 1.

- Shakers, § 170, 7.

- Sherlock, § 171, 1.

- Shiites, § 65, 1.

- Ship of the Church, § 60, 1.

- Sibylline Books, § 32, 1.

- Sicily, § 81; 95.

- Sickingen, § 120, 4; 122, 4; 123, 7; 124, 2.

- Siena, Syn., § 110, 7.

- Sieveking, § 183, 1.

- Sigfrid, § 93, 1.

- Sigillaria, § 56, 5.

- Sigismund of Burgundy, § 76, 5.

- Sigismund, Emperor, § 110, 7, 8; 119, 5.

- Sigismund I. of Poland, § 139, 18.

- Sigismund Aug. of Poland, § 139, 18.

- Sigismund III. of Poland, § 139, 18.

- Sigurd, § 93, 3.

- Silesia, § 127, 3; 153, 2; 165, 4.

- Silesius, Angelus, § 157, 4; 160, 4.

- Silverius, § 46, 9.

- Simeon of Jerusalem, § 22, 2.

- Simeon Stylites, § 44, 6.

- Simeon called Titus, § 71, 1.

- Simeon, Czar, § 73, 3.

- Simeon Metaphrastes, § 68, 4.

- Simeon of Thessalonica, § 68, 5.

- Simeon of Tournay, § 103, 2.

- Simeon VI., VII.; Counts of Lippe, § 154, 2.

- Simeoni, § 205, 4.

- Simon Magus, § 25, 2.

- Simon Rich., § 158, 2.

- Simon, St., § 212, 2.

- Simonians, § 27, 8.

- Simons, Menno, § 147, 2.

- Simony, § 96, 5.

- Simplicius, § 42, 5.

- Siricius, § 45, 2; 46, 4.

- Sirmium, Syn., § 50, 2, 3.

- Sirmond, § 158, 2.

- Sisters of Mercy, § 156, 8; 186, 2.

- Sixtus II., § 22, 5.

- Sixtus III., § 46, 6.

- Sixtus IV., § 110, 11; 112, 3; 115, 1.

- Sixtus V., § 149, 3, 4, 14.

- Sixtus of Siena, § 149, 14.

- Skeleton Army, § 211, 2.

- Smith, Jos., § 211, 10.

- Smith, Pearsall, § 211, 1.

- Smith, Robertson, § 202, 8.

- Socialism, § 212.

- Socinians, § 148, 4; 202, 5.

- Soissons, Syn., § 78, 4; 102, 8.

- Sollicitudo omnium, § 185, 1.

- Somerset, § 139, 5.

- Sophia, Church of, § 60, 3.

- Sophronius, § 52, 8.

- Sorbonne, § 103, 9.

- Soter, § 36, 8.

- Southcote, Joanna, § 211, 5.

- Spain, § 76, 2, 3; 95, 2; 139, 21; 205.

- Spalatin, § 122, 6.

- Spalding, Bishop, § 189, 3.

- Spangenberg, John, § 142, 6.

- Spangenberg, Bishop, § 168, 7.

- Spanheim, § 5, 2; 161, 3, 7.

- Speaker’s Bible, § 202, 1.

- Spencer, John, § 161, 6.

- Spencer, Herbert, § 174, 2.

- Spener, § 158, 3; 167, 5.

- Spiera, Fr., § 139, 2, 4.

- Spinoza, § 164, 1.

- Spires, Diet, § 126, 6; 132, 3; 135, 9; 147, 4.

- Spirit, Sect of the New, § 108, 2.

- Spiritales, § 40, 5.

- Spirituals, § 164, 1.

- Spirituels, § 146, 4.

- Sponsors, § 35, 5; 58, 1.

- Sufis, § 61, 1.

- Stackhouse, § 168, 6.

- Stahl, § 182, 15; 193, 6.

- Stancarns, § 141, 2.

- Stanislaus, St., § 93, 2.

- Stanislaus, Znaim, § 119, 4.

- Stanley, § 184, 4.

- Stapfer, § 169, 6.

- Stapulensis, § 120, 7, 8.

- Starck, § 175, 7.

- Starowerzi, § 163, 10; 210, 3.

- Staudenmaier, § 191, 6.

- Stäudlin, § 171, 8.

- Staupitz, § 112, 6; 122, 1.

- Stedingers, § 109, 3.

- Steffens, § 174, 3; 177, 2.

- Stein, Baron v., § 176, 1.

- Steinbart, § 171, 4, 6.

- Steinmetz, § 167, 8.

- Stephan I., § 35, 3.

- Stephan II., § 66, 2; 78, 7; 82, 1.

- Stephan III., § 60, 2; 82, 1.

- Stephan IV., § 82, 4.

- Stephan V., VI., § 82, 8.

- Stephan IX., § 96, 6.

- Stephan, St., § 93, 8; 96, 3.

- Stephan of Palecz, § 119, 4, 5.

- Stephan of Sunik [Sünik], § 72, 2.

- Stephan of Tigerno, § 98, 2.

- Stephan, Mart., § 194, 1.

- Stephanas, § 17, 4.

- Stephen Langton, § 96, 18.

- Stier, § 181, 1; 183, 4.

- Stigmatization, § 105, 4; 188, 3.

- Stirner, Max., § 212, 1.

- Stolberg, § 5, 6; 165, 6.

- Storch, Nich., § 124, 1.

- Storr, § 171, 8.

- Strassburg, § 125, 1.

- Strassburg, Minster, § 104, 13.

- Strauss, Dav. Fr., § 174, 1; 182, 6, 8; 199, 4.

- Streoneshalch, Syn., § 77, 6.

- Strossmayer, § 189, 3, 4.

- Stuart, Mary, § 139, 5.

- Studites, § 44, 4.

- Sturm of Fulda, § 78, 4, 5.

- Stylites, § 44, 6; 78, 3; 85, 6.

- Suarez, § 149, 14.

- Subintroductæ, § 39, 3.

- Subordinationists, § 33, 1.

- Suevi, § 76, 4.

- Suffragan Bishops, § 84.

- Sully, § 139, 17.

- Sulpicius Severus, § 47, 17.

- Summa of Holy Scripture, § 125, 2.

- Summaries, Württemb., § 160, 6.

- Summis desiderantes, § 117, 4.

- Summists, § 102, 4.

- Summus Episcopus, § 167, 3.

- Sun, Children of, § 71, 2.

- Sunday, Fest. of, § 17, 7; 37; 56, 1.

- Sunnites, § 65, 1.

- Supplicationes, § 59, 9.

- Supralapsarians, § 161, 1.

- Supernaturalists, § 171, 8; 182, 4, 5.

- Suso, H., § 114, 5.

- Sutri, Syn., § 96, 4.

- Swabian Articles, § 132, 5.

- Swabian Halle, Sect in, § 108, 6.

- Sweden, § 80; 93, 3; 139, 1; 201, 2.

- Swedenborgians, § 170, 5; 211, 4.

- Sweyn, § 93, 2.

- Switzerland, § 78, 1; 130; 138; 162, 6; 169, 2; 190, 3; 199.

- Sydow, § 180, 4.

- Syllabus, § 185, 2.

- Sylvester I., § 42, 1; 46, 3; 59, 5; 82, 2.

- Sylvester II., § 94; 96, 3.

- Sylvester III., § 96, 4.

- Sylvester, Bern., § 102, 9.

- Symbolum Apost., § 35, 2; 59, 2.

- Symbolum Athan., § 59, 2.

- Symbolum Nic. Constant., § 59, 2.

- Symbolum Nicænum, § 50, 1.

- Symmachus, Pope, § 46, 8.

- Symmachus, Prefect, § 42, 4.

- Sympherosa, § 32, 8.

- Synagogues, § 8, 3.

- Syncretist Controv., § 159, 3.

- Synergists, § 53, 1.

- Synesius, § 47, 7; 59, 4.

- Syngramma Suevic., § 131, 1.

- Synod, Holy Russian, § 166.

- Synod, The Holy Athens, § 207, 1.

- Synods, § 34, 5; 43, 2.

- Synodus palmaris, § 46, 8.

- Syrians, § 184, 9; 207, 2.

- Syzigies, § 27, 3; 28, 3.

- Tabernaculum, § 104, 3.

- Taborites, § 119, 7.

- Taepings, § 211, 15.

- Tafel, Imm., § 211, 4.

- Tahiti, § 184, 6.

- Talmud, § 25.

- Tamerlane, § 72, 1; 93, 15.

- Tamuls, § 184, 5.

- Tanchelm, § 108, 9.

- Tartars, § 73, 1.

- Tasso, § 149, 15.

- Tatian, § 27, 10; 30, 10.

- Tauler, § 114, 2.

- Teellinck, § 161, 4.

- Teetotallers, § 202, 9.

- Telesphorus, § 22, 2.

- Teller, § 171, 4, 7.

- Templars, § 98, 8; 112, 7.

- Terminants, § 98, 3.

- Terminism, § 167, 2.

- Territorial System, § 167, 5.

- Tersteegen, § 169, 1.

- Tertiaries, § 93, 3, 5.

- Tertullian, § 31, 10; 33, 4, 9; 34, 8; 40, 3.

- Tertullianists, § 40, 3.

- Tessareskaidecatites, § 37, 2.

- Test Act, § 153, 6; 155, 3; 202, 5.

- Testam. of XII. Patri., § 32, 3.

- Tetzel, § 122, 2.

- Teutonic Knights, § 98, 8; 93, 13.

- Theatines, § 149, 7.

- Thecla, § 32, 6.

- Theiner, § 186, 1; 187, 4; 191, 7.

- Theodelinde, § 76, 8.

- Theodemir, § 92, 2.

- Theodo I., II., § 78, 2.

- Theodora, § 46, 9; 52, 6; 71, 1.

- Theodore of Abyssinia, § 182, 9.

- Theodoret, § 47, 9; 52, 3, 4.

- Theodoric, § 46, 8; 76, 7.

- Theodoric, of Freiburg, § 103, 10.

- Theodoric, of Niem, § 118, 5.

- Theodorus, Pope, § 52, 1.

- Theodorus, Ascidas, § 52, 8.

- Theodorus, Balsamon, § 43, 3.

- Theodorus, Lector, § 5, 1.

- Theodorus of Mopsuestia, § 47, 9; 48, 1; 52, 3; 53, 4.

- Theodorus Studita, § 66, 4.

- Theodorus of Tarsus, § 90, 8.

- Theodosius the Great, § 42, 4; 47, 15; 50, 4.

- Theodosius II., § 42, 4.

- Theodotians, § 33, 3.

- Theodulf of Orleans, § 89, 2; 90, 2.

- Theognis of Nicæa, § 50, 1.

- Theonas, § 50, 1.

- Theopaschites, § 52, 6.

- Theophanies, § 96, 2.

- Theophilus, Emperor, § 66, 4.

- Theophilus of Alexandria, § 42, 4; 51, 2, 3.

- Theophilus of Antioch, § 30, 10.

- Theophilus of Din, § 64, 4.

- Theophilus of Moscow, § 166, 1.

- Theophylact, § 68, 5.

- Θεοτόκος, § 52, 2, 3.

- Therapeutæ, § 10, 1.

- Theresa, St., § 149, 6, 15, 16.

- Thesaurus supererogat., § 106, 2.

- Thiers, § 203, 5.

- Thiersch, § 211, 10.

- Thietberga, § 82, 7.

- Thietgaut of Treves, § 82, 7.

- Thilo, § 160, 3.

- Tholuck, § 182, 4.

- Thomas Aquinas, § 103, 6; 96, 23; 104, 4, 10.

- Thomas Becket, § 96, 16.

- Thomas Bradwardine, § 113, 2.

- Thomas of Celano, § 104, 10.

- Thomas à Kempis, § 112, 9; 114, 7.

- Thomas Christians, § 52, 3.

- Thomasius, Chr., § 117, 4; 159, 3; 167, 4, 5.

- Thomasius, Gottfr., § 182, 13.

- Thomassinus, § 158, 1.

- Thomists, § 113, 3.

- Thontracians, § 71, 2.

- Thorn, Declarat., § 153, 7.

- Thorn, Massacre, § 165, 4.

- Thorn, Relig. Confer., § 153, 7; 154, 4.

- Thorwaldsen, § 174, 9.

- Thrasimund, § 76, 3.

- Thuribulum, § 60, 5.

- Thurificati, § 22, 5.

- Tiara, Papal, § 96, 23.

- Tiberius, § 22, 1.

- Tieck, § 174, 5.

- Tieftrunk, § 171, 7.

- Tillemont, § 158, 2; 5, 2.

- Tillotson, § 161, 3.

- Timotheus Älurus [Aëlurus], § 52, 5.

- Tindal, Matt., § 171, 1.

- Tindal, William, § 139, 4.

- Tiridates III., § 64, 3.

- Tischendorf, § 182, 11.

- Titian, § 115, 13; 149, 11.

- Tituli, § 84, 2.

- Titus of Bostra, § 54, 1.

- Toland, § 171, 1.

- Toledo, Syn., § 76, 2.

- Toleration Acts, English, § 155, 3; 202, 5.

- Toleration Edict, Austr., § 165, 10.

- Toleration Patent, Pruss., § 193, 3.

- Tolomeo of Lucca, § 5, 1.

- Tolstoi, § 206, 1.

- Tonsure, § 45, 1; 77, 3.

- Tooth, Arth., § 202, 3.

- Torgau, Articles of, § 132, 7.

- Torgau, Book of, § 141, 12.

- Torgau, League of, § 126, 5.

- Torquemada, John, § 110, 15; 112, 4.

- Torquemada, Thomas, § 117, 2.

- Toulouse, Syn., § 105, 5; 108, 2; 109, 2.

- Tours, Syn., § 101, 2; 110, 13.

- Tractarianism, § 202, 2.

- Tradition, § 33, 4.

- Traditors, § 22, 6.

- Traducianism, § 53, 1.

- Trajan, § 22, 2.

- Tranquebar, § 167, 9.

- Translations, § 57, 1.

- Transept, § 60, 1.

- Transubstantiation, § 58, 2; 104, 3.

- Transylvania, § 139, 20.

- Trappists, § 156, 8.

- Tremellius, § 143, 5.

- Trent, Council of, § 149, 2; 136, 4.

- Treuga Dei, § 105, 1.

- Tribur, Princes’ Diet, § 96, 7.

- Tribur, Syn., § 83, 3.

- Trinitarian Controversy, § 32; 50.

- Trinitarian, Order, § 98, 2.

- Trinity, Festival of the, § 104, 7.

- Trinity, Order of the Holy, § 149, 4.

- Trishagion, § 52, 5, 6.

- Trithemius, § 113, 7.

- Trivium, § 90, 8.

- Troparies, § 59, 4.

- Troubadours, § 105, 6.

- Trullanum, I. Conc., § 52, 8.

- Trullanum, II. Conc., § 63, 2; 45, 2.

- Tübingen, § 120, 3.

- Turkey, § 207.

- Turrecremata [Torquemada], John, § 110, 15; 112, 4.

- Turrecremata [Torquemada], Thos., § 117, 2.

- Turretin, J. A., § 169, 2, 6.

- Turribius, § 54, 2.

- Tutilo, § 88, 6.

- Twesten, § 182, 10.

- Tychonius, § 48, 1.

- Typus, § 52, 8.

- Tyrol, § 193, 4.

- Tyre, Syn., § 50, 2.

- Ubertino de Casale, § 108, 6.

- Ubiquitas Corp. Chr., § 141, 9.

- Udo, § 62, 1.

- Ugolino, § 165, 12.

- Uhlhorn, § 193, 8.

- Uhlich, § 176, 1.

- Ulenberg, § 149, 15.

- Ulfilas, § 76, 1.

- Ullmann, § 182, 10; 196, 3.

- Ulrich of Augsb., § 84, 3.

- Ulrich of Württemb., § 133, 3.

- Ulrici, § 174, 2; 211, 17.

- Ultramontanism, § 188; 197.

- Umbreit, § 182, 11.

- Unam Sanctam, § 110, 1.

- Unctio extrema, § 61, 3; 70, 2; 104, 5.

- Uniformity, Act of, § 139, 6; 155, 3.

- Unigenitus, § 165, 7.

- Union Attempts in the Eastern Church, § 67, 4, 5; 152, 2; 175, 4-6.

- Union, Catholic Protestant, § 137, 8; 153, 7.

- Union, Lutheran Reformed, § 154, 4; 167, 4; 169, 1, 2.

- Union, Prussian, § 177, 1.

- Unitarians, § 148; 163, 1; 211, 4.

- United Brethren, § 119, 8.

- United Greeks, § 72, 4; 151, 3; 206, 2.

- Universities, § 99, 3.

- Universities, Bill, § 199, 5.

- Urban II., § 96, 10; 94.

- Urban III., § 96, 16.

- Urban IV., § 96, 20.

- Urban V., § 110, 5; 117, 2.

- Urban VI., § 110, 6.

- Urban VII., § 149, 3.

- Urban VIII., § 156, 1, 4, 9; 157, 5.

- Urbanus Rhegius, § 127, 3.

- Ursacius, § 50, 3.

- Ursinus of Rome, § 46, 4.

- Ursinus, Zach., § 144, 1; 169, 1.

- Ursula, St., § 104, 9.

- Ursuline Nuns, § 149, 7.

- Ussher, § 161, 6, 7.

- Utah, § 211, 10.

- Utraquists, § 119, 6.

- Utrecht, Church of, § 165, 7.

- Utrecht, Union of, § 139, 12.

- Vadian, § 130, 4.

- Valdez, § 108, 10.

- Valence, Syn., § 91, 5.

- Valens, Emperor, § 50, 4; 42, 4.

- Valentinian I., § 42, 4.

- Valentinian II., § 42, 4.

- Valentinian III., § 46, 3; 46, 7.

- Valentinus, § 27, 4.

- Valerian, § 22, 5.

- Valla, § 120, 1.

- Vallombrosians, § 98, 1.

- Valsainte, § 186, 2.

- Valteline Massacre, § 153, 3.

- Vandals, § 76, 3.

- Vanne, Congreg. of, § 156, 7.

- Varanes I., § 29, 1.

- Varanes III., § 64, 2.

- Variata, § 141, 4.

- Vasa, Gustavus, § 139, 1; 142, 8.

- Vasquez, § 149, 10.

- Vatican, § 110, 15.

- Vatican, Council, § 189.

- Vatke, § 182, 18.

- Vaud, Canton, § 199, 5.

- Vega, Lope de, § 158, 3.

- Velasquez, § 98, 8.

- Venantius Fortunatus, § 48, 6.

- Venema, § 169, 6.

- Venezuela, § 209, 2.

- Vercelli, Syn., § 101, 2.

- Verdun, Treaty of, § 82, 5.

- Vergerius, § 134, 1; 139, 24.

- Vermilius, Pet. Mart., § 139, 5, 24.

- Veronica, § 18, 2.

- Versailles, Edict of, § 165, 5.

- Vespers, Sicilian, § 96, 22.

- Vestibulum, § 60, 1.

- Vestments, Ecclest., § 59, 7.

- Veuillot, § 188, 1; 203, 3.

- Viaticum, § 104, 5.

- Vicelinus, § 93, 9.

- Victor I., § 33, 3, 4; 37, 2; 40, 2; 41, 1.

- Victor II., § 96, 5.

- Victor III., § 96, 10.

- Victor IV., § 96, 15.

- Victor of Vita, § 48, 2.

- Victor Emmanuel I., § 204, 1.

- Victor Emmanuel II., § 185, 3; 204, 1, 2.

- Victor, St., Monastery of, § 102, 4, 8.

- Victorinus, Marius, § 47, 14.

- Victorinus, of Pettau, § 31, 12; 33, 9.

- Victorius, § 56, 3.

- Vienna, Congress of, § 192, 3.

- Vienna, Peace of, § 139, 20.

- Vienne, Council of, § 110, 2; 112, 1, 2, 7.

- Vigilantius, § 62, 2.

- Vigilius, § 46, 9; 52, 6.

- Vigils, § 35; 56, 4.

- Vikings, § 93, 1.

- Villegagnon, § 143, 7.

- Vilmar, § 182, 14; 194, 4.

- Vincent of Beauvais, § 99, 6.

- Vincent Ferrari, § 115, 2; 110, 6.

- Vincent of Lerins, § 47, 21; 53, 5.

- Vincent de Paula, § 156, 8.

- Vinci, Leon. da, § 115, 13.

- Vinet, § 199, 5.

- Viret, § 138, 1.

- Virgilius of Salzburg, § 78, 6.

- Virgins, The 11,000, § 104, 9.

- Visigoths, § 76, 2.

- Visitation, Articles of, § 141, 13.

- Vita quadragesimalis, § 112, 8.

- Vitalis Ordenicus, § 5, 1.

- Vitus, § 46, 3.

- Vitringa, § 161, 6.

- Vladimir, § 73, 4.

- Vladislaw, § 119, 7.

- Vladislaw, IV., § 153, 7.

- Voetius, § 161, 4, 5, 7; 162, 4; 163, 7.

- Volkmann, § 169, 1.

- Voltaire, § 165, 5, 14, 15.

- Vorstius, § 161, 2.

- Vossius, § 171, 11.

- Vulgate, § 59, 1; 136, 4; 149, 14.

- Waddington, § 203, 5, 8.

- Wafers, § 104, 3.

- Wagner, Rich., § 174, 10.

- Wala, § 82, 5.

- Walafrid Strabo, § 90, 4; 91, 3.

- Walch, J. G., § 167, 4.

- Walch, Fr., § 171, 8.

- Waldemar I., § 93, 10.

- Waldemar II., § 93, 12.

- Waldensians, § 108, 10-12; 119, 9, 10; 139, 25; 153, 5; 204, 4.

- Waldrade, § 82, 8.

- Wallace, § 211, 17.

- Walter of Habenichts, § 94, 1.

- Walter of St. Victor, § 102, 9.

- Walter v. d. Vogelweide, § 105, 6.

- Walther, Hans, § 142, 5.

- Walther, Mich., § 159, 4.

- Walther, Dr., § 208, 2, 3.

- Walton, Brian, § 161, 6.

- Warburton, § 171, 1.

- Ward, § 156, 8.

- Warnefried, § 90, 3.

- Wartburg, § 123, 8.

- Watts, Isaac, § 169, 6.

- Wazo of Liege, § 109.

- Wearmouth, § 85, 4.

- Weber, F. W., § 174, 6.

- Wecelinus, § 95, 3.

- Wechabites, § 65, 1.

- Wegelin, § 160, 3.

- Wegscheider, § 182, 2.

- Weigel, Val., § 146, 2.

- Weingarten, § 5, 5.

- Weiss, Bern., § 182, 11.

- Weissel, § 160, 3.

- Wellhausen, § 182, 18.

- Wends, § 93, 9.

- Wendelin, § 161, 7.

- Wenilo, § 91, 5.

- Wenzel, § 119, 3.

- Wenzeslaw, § 93, 6.

- Wertheimer Bible, § 171, 2.

- Wesel, John of, § 119, 10.

- Wesley, § 169, 3, 4.

- Wessel, § 119, 10.

- Westeräs, Diet of, § 139, 1.

- Westminster Assembly, § 155, 1.

- Westphal, § 141, 10.

- Westphalia, Peace of, § 153, 2.

- Westphalia, Reform, § 133, 5.

- Wette, de, § 182, 3.

- Wetterau, § 170.

- Wettstein, § 169, 6.

- Whitaker, § 143, 5.

- Whitefield, § 169, 3, 4.

- Whitgift, § 143, 5.

- Wibert, § 96, 6, 8.

- Wichern, § 183, 1.

- Wiclif, § 119, 1.

- Wido of Milan, § 97, 5.

- Wied, H. v., § 133, 5; 135, 7.

- Wieland, § 171, 11.

- Wigand, § 141, 10.

- Wilberforce, § 184.

- Wilfrid, § 77, 6; 78, 3; 83, 3.

- Wilgard, § 100.

- Wilibrord, § 78, 3.

- Willehad, § 78, 3.

- William of St. Amour, § 103, 3.

- William of Aquitaine, § 98, 1.

- William of Champeaux, § 101, 1.

- William of Conches, § 102, 9.

- William the Conqueror, § 96, 8, 12.

- William Durandus, § 113, 3.

- William of Modena, § 93, 13.

- William of Nogaret, § 110, 1.

- William of Occam, § 112, 2; 113, 3; 118, 2.

- William Rufus, § 96, 12.

- William Ruysbroek, § 93, 15.

- William of Thierry, § 102, 2, 9.

- William of Tyre, § 94, 3.

- William of Bavaria, § 135, 8; 136, 2, 6; 151, 1.

- William IV., V., of Hesse, § 154, 1.

- William I. of Orange, § 139, 12.

- William III. of Orange, § 153, 6; 155, 3.

- William I., German Emperor, § 193; 197.

- Williams, John, § 184, 7.

- Williams, Roger, § 162, 2; 163, 3.

- Willigis, § 96, 2; 97, 2.

- Wilsnack, Mirac, host of, § 119, 3.

- Wilson, § 172, 5.

- Winckelmann, § 165, 6; 174, 9.

- Windesheim, § 112, 9.

- Windthorst, § 197, 1, 6; 188, 3.

- Winer, § 182, 4.

- Winfrid, § 78, 4-8.

- Wion, § 149, 3.

- Wiseman, § 202, 11.

- Wishart, § 139, 8.

- Wislicenus, § 176, 1.

- Witch Hammer, § 117, 4.

- Witch Process, § 117, 4.

- Witsius, § 161, 7; 169, 4.

- Wittenberg, § 120, 3.

- Wittenberg, Catech., § 141, 10.

- Wittenberg, Concord., § 133, 8.

- Wittenberg, Sketch of Reform, § 135, 9.

- Witzel, § 137, 8; 149, 15.

- Wolf, J. Chr., § 167, 4.

- Wolfenbüttel Fragments, § 171, 6.

- Wolff, Chr. v., § 167, 4; 171, 10.

- Wolfgang, William, of Palatine Neuburg, § 153, 1.

- Wolfram of Eschenb., § 105, 6.

- Wöllner, § 171, 5.

- Wolmar, Melch., § 138, 2, 8.

- Wolsey, § 120, 7.

- Woltersdorf [Woltersdorff], § 167, 6, 8.

- Woolston, § 171, 1.

- Worms Edict, § 123, 7.

- Worms Concordat, § 96, 11.

- Worms Consultation, § 137, 6.

- Worms Relig. Confer., § 135, 2.

- Wratislaw, § 79, 3.

- Wulflaich, § 78, 3.

- Wulfram, § 78, 3.

- Württemberg, § 133, 3; 193, 5, 6; 197, 14.

- Würzburg, Bish. Congress, § 192, 4.

- Wyttenbach, Dan., § 169, 6.

- Wyttenbach, Thomas, § 130, 1.

- Xavier, § 119, 8; 150, 1.

- Xenaias, § 59, 1.

- Ximenes, § 117, 2; 118, 7; 120, 8, 9.

- Young, Brigham, § 211, 12.

- Yvon, § 163, 8.

- Zacharias, Pope, § 78, 5, 6; 82, 1.

- Zacharias, of Anagni, § 67, 1.

- Zapolya, § 139, 20.

- Zelatores, § 98, 4.

- Zell, Matt., § 125, 1.

- Zeller, Ed., § 182, 9; 199, 4.

- Zelus domus Dei, § 153, 2.

- Zeno, Philos., § 8, 4.

- Zeno, Emp., § 52, 5.

- Zeno, of Verona, § 47, 14.

- Zenobia, § 32, 8.

- Zephyrinus, § 33, 3, 5; 41, 1.

- Zeschwitz, § 182, 14.

- Ziegenbalg, § 167, 9.

- Zillerthal, § 198.

- Zimmermann, § 178, 1; 182, 2.

- Zinzendorf, § 168; 170, 2, 3; 171, 3.

- Zionites, § 170, 4.

- Ziska, § 119, 7.

- Zollikofer, § 171, 7.

- Zosimus, § 46, 5; 53, 4.

- Zschokke, § 176, 1.

- Zulu Kaffres, § 184, 3.

- Zürich, § 130, 2; 199, 4.

- Zwick, § 143, 2.

- Zwickau, Prophets of, § 124, 1.

- Zwingli, § 130; 131, 1; 132, 4.

Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.

Footnotes.

1  —

Dowling, “Introduction to Study of Eccl. Hist.; its Progress and Sources.” Lond., 1838.

Smedt, “Introd. generalis ad Hist. Eccl. critice tractandam.” Gandavi, 1876.

2  —

See Sermon on The Pharisees in Mozley’s “Univ. Sermons.” Lond., 1876; also

Schürer, Div. II., vol. ii., pp. 1-43, “Pharisees and Sadducees.”

3  —

See Lightfoot, Ep. to the Col., 5th ed., Lond., 1880, Diss. on “Essenes, their Name, Origin, and Relation to Christianity.” pp. 349-419; also

Schürer, Div. II., vol. ii., pp. 188-218, “The Essenes.”

4  —

Nutt,    Sketch of Samaritan History, Dogma, and Literature. Lond., 1874.

5  —

On Philo, see Schürer, Div. II., vol. iii., pp. 321-381.

6  —

J. Bannerman, “The Church of Christ.” 2 vols., Edin., 1868.

Jacob, “Ecclesiastical Polity of the New Testament.” Lond., 1871.

Hatch, “The Organization of the Early Chr. Churches.” Lond., 1881; 2nd ed., 1883.

D. D. Bannerman, “The Doctrine of the Church.” Edin., 1887.

Hodge, “The Church and its Polity.” Edin., 1879.

Binnie, “The Church.” Edin., 1882.

Pressensé, “Life and Pract. of Early Church.” Lond., 1879.

Lightfoot, “Comm. on Philip.” “Essay on Christian Ministry.” 6th ed., Lond., 1881, pp. 181-269.

7  —

Mommsen, “De collegiis et sodaliciis Rom.” Kiel, 1843.

Foucart, “Les associat. relig. chez les Grecs.” Paris, 1873.

Hatch, “Organization of Early Chr. Churches.” pp. 26-39.

8  —

Lightfoot, “Epistle to Phil.” 6th ed., Lond., 1881, p. 95. Detached notes on the synonyms “bishop” and “presbyter.” “Diss. on Christian Ministry.” pp. 187-200.

9  —

Blondel, “Apologia pro sententia Hieron. de episcop. et presbyt.” Amst., 1646.

10  —

The φίλημα ἅγιον of Rom. xvi. 16; 1 Cor. xvi. 20.

11  —

Of these we probably find fragments in Eph. ii. 14; 1 Tim. iii. 16; 2 Tim. ii. 11-13; and perhaps also in 1 Tim. iii. 1, 16; Jas. i. 17; Rev. i. 4; iv. 11; v. 9; xi. 15; xv. 3; xxi. 1; xxii. 10.

12  —

Acts ii. 4, 6; xx. 7.

13  —

John xx. 26; Acts xx. 7; 1 Cor. xvi. 2; Rev. i. 10.

14  —

Acts ii. 39; xvi. 33; 1 Cor. vii. 14.

15  —

Acts viii. 17; vi. 6; xiii. 3; 1 Tim. iv. 14.

16  —

On the subject of this section consult:

Pressensé, “Early Years of Christianity.” Vol. 2, “Apostolic Age.” Lond., 1879, pp. 361-381.

Lechler, “Apostolic and Post Apostolic Times.” 2 vols., Edin., 1886; Vol. i., pp. 37-67, 130-144.

17  —

Burton, “Heresies of the Apostolic Age.” Oxford, 1829.

18  —

As authorities for this period consult:

Moshemii, “Commentarii de reb. Christianor. ante Constant.” Helmst., 1753.

Baur, “First Three Centuries of the Christian Church.” Lond., 1877.

Milman, “Hist. of Chr. to Abol. of Pag. in Rom. Emp.” 3 vols., Lond., 1840.

Pressensé, “Early Years of Christianity.” 4 vols., Lond., 1879.

19  —

Consult:

Killen, “The Ancient Church.” Edin., 1859; “The Old Catholic Church.” Edin., 1871.

Lechler, “Apost. and Post-Apost. Times.” 2 vols., Edin., 1886; Vol. ii., pp. 260-379.

Robertson, “Hist. of Chr. Church.” Vol. i., (   A.D. 64-590), Lond., 1858.

20  —

Although the Post-Apostolic and Old Catholic Ages are sharply enough distinguished from one another in point of time and of contents along many lines of historical development, and are rightly partitioned off from each other, so that they might seem to require treatment as independent periods; yet, on the one hand, passing over from the one to the other is so frequent and is for the most part of so liquid and incontrollable a nature, while on the other hand, the opposition of and the distinction between these two periods and the œcumenical Catholic Imperial Church that succeeds are so thorough-going, that we prefer to embrace the two under one period and to point out the boundary lines between the two wherever these are clearly discernible.

21  —

Inge, “Society in Rome under the Cæsars.” Lond., 1887.

22  —

Uhlhorn, “Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism.”

Steere, “Account of the Persecutions of the Church under the Roman Emperors.”

23  —

Renan, “Antichrist.” Lond., 1874.

Merivale, “Hist. of Rom. Emp.” Vols. v. vi., Lond., 1856, 1858.

Farrar’s “Early Days of Christianity.” Lond., 1884; Bk. I., pp. 1-44.

Mommsen, “Hist. of Rome.” 6 vols., Lond., 1875 ff.

24  —

Renan, “Marcus Aurelius.” Lond., 1883.

Lightfoot, “Ignatius and Polycarp.” 3 vols., Lond., 1885.

25  —

Lightfoot, “Ignatius.” Vol. i., pp. 469-476.

26  —

“Kirchengesch. v. Dtschl.” I. 94.

27  —

Mason, “The Persecution of Diocletian.” Cambridge, 1876.

28  —

Cotterill, “Peregrinus Proteus.” Edin., 1879; Engl. Transl. of Lucian’s works, by Dr. Francklin, 4 vols., Lond., 1781.

29  —

Baur, “Christian Church in First Three Centuries.” Lond., 1877.

“Celsus and Origen.” in vol. iv. of Froude’s “Short Studies.”

30  —

Philostratus, “Life of Apollonius of Tyana.” First 2 bks., Transl. by Blount, Lond., 1680.

Newman, “Hist. Sketches.” Vol. i., chap. ii., “Apollonius of Tyana.”

31  —

The works of Plotinus consist of 54 treatises arranged in 6 Enneads, “Opera Omnia.” ed. Creuzer, 3 vols., Oxon., 1835. Several of the treatises transl. into English by H. Taylor, Lond., 1794 and 1817.

32  —

Zeller, “History of Eclecticism in Greek Philosophy.” Lond., 1831.

Ueberweg, “Hist. of Phil.” Lond., 1872; Vol. i., pp. 240-252.

33  —

“Narratio orig. rituum et error. Christianor. S. Joannis.” Rom., 1652.

34  —

Ewald, “Hist. of Israel.” Lond., 1886; Vol. viii., p. 120.

35  —

In de Sacy’s “Chrestom. Arabe.” 2 ed., I. 333.

36  —

1 Cor. xvi. 3; 2 Cor. viii. 19; Gal. ii. 9.

37  —

Burton, “Heresies of the Apostolic Age.” Oxford, 1829.

Zeller, “Acts of the Apostles.” 2 vols., London, 1875, 1876.

Pressensé, “Apostolic Age.” London, 1879, pp. 66-73; 318-330.

38  —

Neander’s “First Planting of Christianity and Antignostikus.” (Bohn), 2 vols., Lond., 1851.

Mansel, “Gnostic Heresies of First and Second Centuries.” Ed. by Bishop Lightfoot, Lond., 1875.

King, “Remains of the Gnostics.” Lond., 1864; new ed., 1887.

Ueberweg, “Hist. of Phil.” 2 vols., Lond., 1872, Vol. i., pp. 280-290.

39  —

These are published among the works of Origen. Recently Caspari discovered an admirable Latin translation of them made by Rufinus, and published it in his “Kirchenhist. Anecdota.” I., (Christ., 1883).

40  —

Lipsius, “Valentinus and his School.” in Smith’s “Dict. of Biography.” Vol. iv., Lond., 1887.

41  —

In Cureton’s “Spicil. Syr.” Lond., 1855.

42  —

In its extant Coptic form, ed. by Petermann, Brl., 1851.

In a Latin transl. by Schwartze, Brl., 1853.

In English transl. in King’s “Remains of the Gnostics.” Lond., 1887.

43  —

Yet the school of Baur regard this Gospel of Marcion as the original of Luke. Hilgenfeld thinks that both our Luke and Marcion drew from one earlier source. Hahn has sought to restore the Marcionite Gospel in Thilo’s “Cod. Apoc. N.T.” I. 401.

Sanday, “Gospels in the Second Century.” London, 1876.

44  —

Salmon, “Introd. to the N.T.” London, 1885, pp. 242-248.

Reuss, “Hist. of N.T.” Edin., 1884, §§ 291, 246, 362, 508.

45  —

Lightfoot, “Comm. on Galatians.” Camb., 1865; Diss. “St. Paul and the Three.”

46  —

Lechler, “Apost. and Post-Apostol. Times.” Vol. ii., p. 263 ff.

Ewald, “Hist. of Israel.” Lond., 1886, Vol. viii., p. 152.

47  —

Ewald, “Hist. of Israel.” Vol. viii., p. 122.

48  —

We possess this work in the original Greek. The first complete edition was that of Cotelerius in his “Pp. Apost.” The latest and most careful separate ed., is by Lagarde, Lps., 1865; Eng. transl. in Ante Nicene Lib., Edin., 1871.

49  —

Existing only in the Latin transl. of Rufinus. Published in Cotelerius, “Pp. Apost.”

Separate ed. by Gersdorf, Lps., 1838; Eng. transl. Ante-Nicene Lib., Edin., 1867.

50  —

See de Sacy, “Mem. sur diverses antiqu. de la Perse.” Par., 1794.

The most important of these Arabic works are the Literary History of An-Naddim, Kitab al Fihrist, ed. Flügel and Roediger, Lps., 1871; then

Al-Shurstani’s “Hist. of relig. and phil. sects.” ed. Cureton, Lond., 1842; and

Al-Biruni’s “Chron. d. Orient Völker.” ed. Sachau, Lps., 1878.

51  —

Among the Mandeans    mana rabba means one of the highest æons, and is thus perhaps identical with the name Paraclete borrowed from the Christian terminology, which Manes assumed.

52  —

Ueberweg, “Hist. of Phil.” 2 vols., Lond., 1872, Vol. i., pp. 290-325. Patristic. Phil. down to Council of Nicæa.

53  —

Donaldson, “Apostolic Fathers.” Lond., 1874.

Lightfoot, “Clement of Rome.” 2 vols., Lond., 1869, 1877; Ignatius and Polycarp, 3 vols., Lond., 1885.

Sanday, “The Gospels in the Second Century.” Lond., 1876.

54  —

Luke i. 1; §    32, 4; 36, 7; 59, 1.

55  —

“Patrum Apost. Opera.” Ed. Gebhardt, Harnack and Zahn, 3 vols., Lps., 1876 ff.

“Apostolic Fathers.” Engl. transl. in Ante-Nicene Library, Edin., 1867.

Donaldson, “Apostolic Fathers.” Edin., 1874.

56  —

At Constantinople, 1875.

57  —

Comp. Lightfoot, “St. Clement of Rome, An Appendix.” etc., Lond., 1877.

58  —

Donaldson, “History of Christian Literature.” Vol. i., Lond., 1864.

Cunningham, “Dissertation on Epistle of St. Barnabas.” Lond., 1877.

59  —

“Hermæ Pastor.” ed. Hilgenfeld, 2 ed., Lps., 1881. Down to the middle of the 19th century it was known only in a Latin translation, but since then the Greek original has been accessible in two recensions, as well as in an ancient Ethiopic translation (ed. d’Abbadie, Lps., 1860). One of the Greek recensions almost complete was found in the monastery of Athos; and an older, but less perfect one, was found in the Codex Sinaiticus.

Schodde, “Hermâ Nabî; The Ethiopic version of Pastor Hermæ examined.” Lps., 1876.

60  —

Comp.

Harnack in Expositor for March, 1886, pp. 185-192.

Lightfoot, “Ignatius and Polycarp.” Lond., 1885, vol. ii., pp. 433-470.

61  —

Cureton, “Corpus Ignatianum.” (Rom., Eph., and Ep. to Polyc.), Lond., 1819.

62  —

Against their genuineness:

Dallæus, “De scrr. quæ sub Dionysii et Ignatii nom. circumfer.” Gen., 1666.

Killen, “Ignatian Epistles entirely Spurious.” Edin., 1886.

In favour:

Pearson, “Vindiciæ St. Ignat.” Cantab., 1672.

Lightfoot, “Ignatius and Polycarp.” 3 vols., Lond., 1885.

63  —

Salmon, “Introd. to the New Testament.” Lond., 1885, pp. 104-126.

Sanday, “Gospels in Second Century.” Lond., 1876.

64  —

Schaff, “The Oldest Church Manual.” Edin., 1886.

Hitchcock and Brown, “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles.” New York, 1884.

Taylor, “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles with Illus. from the Talmud.” Cambr., 1886.

Expositor, April and June, 1886, pp. 319 f. and 401 ff.; Nov., 1887, pp. 359-371.

65  —

Donaldson, “Hist. of Chr. Lit. from death of App. to Nic. Council.” 3 vols., Lond., 1864, Vols. ii. and iii., “The Apologists.”

66  —

The Syriac translation of a treatise of Melito’s given in Cureton’s “Spicileg. Syr.” Lond., 1853, which gives itself out as an address delivered before Antoninus Cæsar, is not identical with his Apology to Antoninus Pius, of which Eusebius has preserved three fragments, as these passages are not found in it.

67  —

The fragments of Melito’s works are collected by Routh, “Reliquiæ Sacr.” L., Oxon., 1814.

68  —

“Opera.” ed. Otto, 3 vols., Jena, 1876; Engl. transl. in Ante-Nicene Library, Edin., 1867.

Semisch, “Just. Mart.” 2 vols., Edin., 1843.

Kaye, “Writings and Opin. of Just. Mart.” Lond., 1853.

69  —

Salmon, “Introd. to New Test.” On Tatian, pp. 96-104.

Wace on “Zahn’s Tatian’s Diatessaron.” in    Expositor for Sept. and Oct., 1882.

70  —

Bigg, “The Christian Platonists of Alexandria.” Bampton Lect. for 1886, Oxf., 1886.

Kingsley, “Alexandria and her Schools.” Camb., 1854.

71  —

“Opera.” ed. Harvey, Cantab., 1857; Introd. II.

“Life and Wr. of Irenæus.” Engl. transl. in Ante-Nicene Lib., 2 vols., Edin., 1868, 1869.

Lightfoot, “Churches of Gaul.” in Contemp. Review, Aug. 1876.

Lipsius, “Irenæus.” in Smith’s “Dict. of Chr. Biog.” III., pp. 253-279.

72  —

Many works ascribed to him have been lost; whatever fragments of these exist have been collected by Fabricius and Lagarde. These were:

Exeget., a Com. on Daniel;

Apolog., Πρὸς Ἰουδαίους;

Polem.,

against Gnostics and Monarchians,

against the Asiatic Observance of Easter (§ 37, 2);

Dogmat.,

Περὶ τῆς τοῦ πάντος οὐσίας,

Περὶ τοῦ Ἀντιχρίστου,

Περὶ τῆς ἀναστάσεως (§ 22, 4),

Περὶ χαρισμάτων;

Hist.-chron., Chronicle, and Easter-Canon.

On Philosophoumena:

Döllinger, “Hippolytus and Callistus.” Edin., 1876.

73  —

“Opera.” ed. Dindorf, 4 vols., Oxon., 1868.

“Supplementum Clementinum, in Zahn’s Forsch.” Vol. iii., Engl. transl. in Ante-Nicene Lib., 2 vols., Edin., 1867.

Bigg, “Chr. Plat. of Alex.” Lectt. II. III., Oxf., 1886.

Kaye, “Clement of Alexandria.” London, 1855.

Reuss, “Hist of Canon.” Edin., 1884, pp. 112-116.

74  —

Jerome reckons them at 2,000; Epiphanius at 6,000; these must include the thousands of separate epistles and homilies.

Bigg, “Chr. Platonists of Alex.” Lectt. IV.-VI., Oxf., 1886.

75  —

Hexaplorum quæ supersunt. Ed. Field, Oxon., 1871.

76  —

Ed. Selwyn, Cantab., 1876; Engl. transl. of C. Celsum and De Principiis, in Ante-Nicene Library, 2 vols., Edin., 1869-1872.

77  —

“Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius of Alex. and Archelaus.” transl. by Prof. Salmond, Edin., 1871.

78  —

Neander, “Antignosticus, or the Spirit of Tertull.” appended to “Hist. of Planting of Chr. Church.” 2 vols., Lond., 1851.

Kaye, “Eccles. Hist. of 2nd and 3rd Cents. illustr. from Wr. of Tertull.” 2 ed., Camb., 1829.

Tertullian, “Works.” 3 vols., Ante-Nicene Lib., Edin., 1869.

79  —

“Cyprian’s Treatises and Epistles.” Lib. of Fathers, 2 vols., Oxf., 1839, 1844.

“Writings of Cyprian.” Ante-Nicene Lib., 2 vols., Edin., 1868.

Poole, “Life and Times of C.” Oxf., 1840.

Pressensé, “Martyrs and Apologists.” Lond., 1879, pp. 414-438.

80  —

Dillmann, “Pseudepigraph. des A. Ts.” Herzog, xii. 341.

Reuss, “Hist. of the N. T.” Edin., 1884.

Salmon, “Introd. to N. T.” 2nd ed., Lond., 1886.

81  —

“Fabricius, Codex pseudepigr. V.T.” Ed. 2., Hamb., 1722.

82  —

Drummond, “Jewish Messiah.” Lond., 1877.

Lawrence, “Book of Enoch.” Oxf., 1821.

Schodde, “Bk. of Enoch.” Andover, 1882.

Schurer, “Hist. of Jew. Peo. in Times of J. Chr.” Div. II., Vol. 3., pp. 59 ff., 73 ff., 93 ff., 134 ff.; (Enoch, Assumptio, Ezra, Bk. of Jub.).

Bensly, “Missing Fragment of Lat. Transl. of 4th Bk. of Ezra.” Cambr., 1875.

83  —

Sinker, “Test. XII. Patriarchum.” Cambr., 1869; Appendix, 1879.

Malan, “Book of Adam and Eve.” Lond., 1882.

Hort on Bks. of Adam, in Smith’s “Dict. of Chr. Biog.” Lond., 1877.

84  —

Salmon, “Introd. to N.T.” Lond., 1885; Lect. XII., “Apoc. and Her. Gospels.” pp. 226-248.

85  —

Nicholson, “The Gosp. acc. to the Hebrews.” Lond., 1879.

86  —

Giles, “Cod. Apoc. N. T.” 2 vols., Lond., 1852.

Tischendorf, “Evv. Apocr.” Ed. 2, Lps., 1876.

87  —

Wright, “Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles.” Syriac and English, 2 vols., Lond., 1871.

Malan, “The Conflicts of the Holy Apostles.” Lond., 1871.

Tischendorf, “Acta app. Apocr.” Lps., 1851.

88  —

Phillips, “Addai the Apostle.” Syriac and English, Lond., 1876.

89  —

Lightfoot, “Comm. on Phil.” 6th ed., Lond., 1881; “Diss. on Paul and Seneca.” pp. 270-328; “Letters of Paul and Seneca.” pp. 329-333.

Lightfoot, “Comm. on Col.” 5 ed., Lond., 1880; pp. 274-300, “The Epistle from Laodicea.”

90  —

Dorner, “Hist. of Dev. of Doctr. of Person of Chr.” 5 vols., Edin., 1862.

Pressensé, “Heresy and Christian Doctrine.” Lond., 1879.

91  —

Deut. xviii. 15; Isa. liii. 3; Matt. xii. 32; Luke i. 35; John viii. 40; Acts ii. 22; 1 Tim. ii. 5.

92  —

Tertullian says:    Ita duo negotia diaboli Praxeas Romæ procuravit, prophetiam expulit et hæresim intulit, paracletum fugavit et patrem crucifixit.—Ps.-Tertull.: Hæresim introduxit, quam Victorinus corroborare curavit.

93  —

Dorner, “Person of Christ.” Vol. ii.

94  —

Pressensé, “Life and Practice in the Early Church.” Lond., 1872.

95  —

Hatch, “The Organization of the Early Christian Churches.” Lond., 1881; “The Growth of Church Institutions.” Lond., 1887.

Bannerman, “Doctr. of the Church.” 2 vols., Edin., 1858; espec. vol. i., pp. 277-480.

Lightfoot, “Comm. on Phil.” 6th ed., Lond., 1881: “Dissertat. on Chr. Ministry.”

Papers in    Expositor, 1887, on “Origin of Chr. Ministry.” by Sanday, Harnack and others.

96  —

We are not carried further than this by Irenæus, iii. 3. Similarly, too, Cyprian, De Unitate Ecclesiæ, iv. Tertullian also does not accept the Roman tradition as of supreme authority, but prefers that of Asia Minor in regard to the Easter Controversy, and, in the De Pudicitia, he opposes with bitter invective the penitential discipline of the Roman bishop Zephyrinus or Callistus. So, too, Cyprian repudiates the Roman practice in regard to heretics’ baptism (§ 35, 5); and on the same subject Firmilian of Cæsarea in Cappadocia hesitates not to write: Non pudet Stephanum, Cyprianum pseudo-christum et pseudo-apostolum et dolosum operarium dicere: qui omnia in se esse conscius prævenit, ut alteri per mendacium objiceret, quæ ipse ex merito audire deberet.—Consult:

Blondel, “Traité hist. de la primauté.” Gen., 1641.

Salacious, “De Primatu Papæ.” Lugd. Bat., 1645.

Kenrick, “The Primacy of the Apostolic See Vindicated.” New York, 1848.

“The Pope and the Council.” by Janus, Lond., 1869.

97  —

Wall, “Hist. of Infant Baptism.” with Gale’s Reflections, and Wall’s Defence, 4 vols., Oxf., 1836.

Wilberforce, “Doctr. of Holy Baptism.” Lond., 1849.

98  —

Funk’s assertion that the ἀκροᾶσθαι and the γονυκλίνειν were not stages in the Catechumenate, but penal ranks in which offending Catechumens were placed, and that there was only one order of Catechumens is untenable for these reasons:

1. Because the penitential institution presupposes a falling away from the grace of baptism;

2. Because the Canon of Neo-Cæsarea with its κατηχούμενος ἁμαρτάνων, ἐὰν μὲν γονυκλίνων, ἀκροάσθω, necessarily implies that γονυκλίνειν is a stage in the Catechumenate;

3. Because this Canon provides that after the first penal procedure, not after passing through two penitential orders, the sinner will be expelled;

4. Finally, because the γονυκλίνειν of the Catechumens, just like that of the congregation in prayer, is even in expression something quite different from the ὑπόπτωσις of the penitents.—Consult:

Pressensé, “Life and Practice in the Early Church.” Lond., 1879, pp. 5-36, 333.

99  —

Pressensé, “Life and Practice in the Early Church.” pp. 201-216, 263-286.

Lechler, “Apostolic and Post-Apost. Times.” 2 vols., Edin., 1886; Vol. ii. 298.

Jacob, “Ecclest. Polity of N. T.” Lond., 1871, pp. 187-319.

100  —

Jacob, “Ecclest. Polit. of N.T.” Lond., 1871, Lect. vii., “The Lord’s Supper.”

Waterland, “Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist.” Lond., 1737.

101  —

See,    De Doctr. Christiana. II. ii. 15.—“Old Latin Biblical Texts.” Edited by John Wordsworth, Bp. of Salisbury, Oxford, 1885, etc.

102  —

Lechler, “Apostolic and Post-Apostolic Times.” Edin., 1886, Vol. ii., pp. 301-310.

103  —

Bosio, “Roma Sotteranea.” Rom., 1632.

De Rossi, “Roma sott. crist.” 3 vols., Rome, 1864-1877.

Northcote and Brownlow, “Roma Sotteranea.” Lond., 1869.

Withrow, “The Catacombs of Rome.” Lond., 1876.

104  —

Marriott, “Testimony of the Catacombs.” Lond., 1877.

105  —

Zöckler, “The Cross of Christ.” Lond., 1877.

Allen, “Early Christian Symbolism.” Lond., 1887.

Didson, “Chr. Iconography.” 2 vols., Lond., 1886.

106  —

Schmidt, “The Social Results of Early Christianity.” Lond., 1886.

Brace, “Gesta Christi.” Lond., 1883.

Uhlhorn, “Chr. Charity in the Ancient Church.” Edin., 1883.

Pressensé, “Life and Practice in Early Church.” Lond., 1879, pp. 345-477.

Ryan, “Hist. of the Effects of Relig. upon Mankind.” Dublin, 1820.

107  —

Morinus, “De discipl. in administr. s. pœnitentiæ.” Par., 1651.

Marshall, “Penitential Discipline of the Prim. Church for the First Four Centuries.” Lond., 1844 (1st ed., 1718).

Tertullian, “De Pœnitentia.” See Transl. in Library of Fathers, Tertullian, vol. i., “Apologetic and Practical Treatises.” Oxf., 1843; XI. Of Repentance, with long and valuable notes by Dr. Pusey, pp. 349-408.

108  —

J. de Soyres, “Montanism and the Primitive Church.” Cambr., 1878.

Cunningham, “The Churches of Asia.” Lond., 1880, p. 159 ff.

109  —

Bunsen, “Hippolytus and his Age.” Lond., 1854.

Wordsworth, “St. Hippolytus and the Church of Rome.” Lond., 1852.

Döllinger, “Hippolytus and Callistus.” Edin., 1876 (orig. publ. 1853).

110  —

“Library of Fathers.” Oxf., 1843, Cyprian’s Treatises: v. “On Unity of the Church.” vi. “On the Lapsed.” with prefaces.

Also, “Epp. of S. Cyprian.” (1844) xli.-xlv., lii. and lix.

111  —

“Library of Fathers.” Oxf., 1844; “Epp. of S. Cyprian.” Ep. lii., also Ep. lv.

112  —

Merivale, “Conversion of the Roman Empire.” Lond., 1864.

Milman, “Hist. of Christianity to Abol. of Pag. in Rom. Emp.” 3 vols., Lond.

Lecky, “Hist. of Eur. Morals.” Vol. ii., “From Constantine to Charlemagne.”

113  —

Döllinger, “Fables respecting the Popes of the Middle Ages.” Lond., 1871.

114  —

Original source is Eusebius, “Life of Constantine.” Trans. Lond., 1842.

See interesting lect. on Constantine in Stanley’s “Hist. of Eastern Church.” Lond., 1861.

Madden, “Christian Emblems on Coins of Constantine I.” Lond., 1878.

115  —

Neander, “The Emperor Julian and his Generation.” Lond., 1850.

G. H. Rendall, “The Emperor Julian.” Lond., 1879.

Newman, “Miracles in Eccl. Hist.” Oxf., 1842.

Bp. Wordsworth, “Julian.” in Smith’s Dict. of Biog., vol. iii., pp. 484-523.

116  —

On this whole period consult: Histories of Theodoret, Sozomen, Socrates, and Evagrius (containing much fabulous matter, but useful as contemporary records extending down to A.D. 594). Transl. in 4 vols., Lond., 1812-1846.

For Theodosius I. see Hefele, “Hist. of Councils.” vol. ii., p. 341 ff., Edin., 1876.

117  —

A careful reconstruction of the whole as far as possible has been attempted by Neumann (Leipz., 1880), accompanied by prolegomena and a German translation.

118  —

Hefele, “Hist. of Church Councils.” Edin., 1872, Vol. i., pp. 1-48.

Pusey, “Councils of Ch. from    A.D. 51 to A.D. 381: their constit., obj., and history.” Oxf., 1857.

119  —

Its original form is probably preserved in a Syriac translation; see Bunsen’s “Analecta Antenicæna.” ii. 45-338, Lond., 1854.

120  —

First published in the Greek original by Bickell under the title, inapplicable to the first part: Αἱ διαταγαὶ αἱ διὰ Κλήμεντος καὶ κανόνες ἐκκλησιαστικοὶ τῶν ἁγίων ἀποστόλων.

121  —

Maitland, “The Dark Ages.” Lond., 1844.

Ozanam, “Hist. of Civilization in 5th Cent.” Transl. by Glyn, 2 vols.

Montalembert, “Monks of the West, from Benedict to Bernard.” 7 vols., Edin., 1861 ff.

122  —

Stephens, “Chrysostom: his Life and Times.” 3rd ed., London, 1883, pp. 59 ff., 294 ff.

123  —

Hatch, “Organization of the Early Christian Churches.” London, 1881, pp. 124-139.

Hatch, “Ordination.” in Smith’s “Dict. of Bibl. Antiq.” Vol. ii.

124  —

Hatch, “Organization of Chr. Ch.” p. 161.

Bede, “Eccles. Hist.” iv. 1.

125  —

Dale, “Synod of Elvira, and Christ. Life in the 4th cent.” London, 1882.

Lea, “Hist. of Sacerdotal Celibacy.” Philad., 1867.

Lecky, “Hist. of Europ. Morals.” London, 1877, Vol. ii., pp. 328 ff.

Hefele, “Hist. of Christ. Councils.” Edin., 1872, Vol. i., pp. 150, 380, 435.

126  —

Neale, “Hist. of the Holy Eastern Church.” 5 vols., London, 1847-1873.

Stanley, “Lect. on the Eastern Church.” London, 1861.

127  —

Greenwood, “Cathedra Petri: Pol. Hist. of Great Latin Patriarchate from 1st to 16th cent.” 6 vols., London, 1856 ff.

128  —

Hefele, “Hist. of Councils.” Vol. ii., Edin., 1876, pp. 231 ff., 483 ff.

129  —

Comp. Döllinger, “Fables Respecting the Popes of the Middle Ages.” Lond.,  1871.

130  —

Milman, “Latin Christianity.” Vol. i.

131  —

Bright, “Hist. of Church from A.D. 313-451.” 2 ed., Cambr., 1869.

Milman, “Latin Christianity.” Vol. i.

132  —

Kellett, “Pope Gregory the Great and his Relations with Gaul.” (Cambridge Essays, No. ii.), Cambridge, 1889.

133  —

Engl. Transl.:

“Eccles. Hist. with Life of Euseb. by Valesius.” Lond., 1843.

“Theophania, or Div. Manifest. of the Lord.” from Syr. by Dr. Sam. Lee, Lond., 1843.

“Life of Constantine.” Lond., 1844.

“Life of Eusebius.” by Bright, prefixed to Oxf. ed. of Eccl. Hist. of 1872.

134  —

“Festal Epp. of Athanasius.” (transl. from Syriac discovered in 1842 by Tattam, and first edited by Cureton in 1848), Oxf., 1854.

135  —

“Treatises against Arians.” 2 vols., Oxf., 1842 (new ed., 1 vol., 1877).

“Historical Tracts.” Oxf., 1843; “Select Tracts,” with Newman’s Notes, 2 vols., Lond., 1881.

136  —

Newman’s, “Hist. Sketches.” Vol. ii., chap. v; Sketches of Basil, Gregory, etc. Originally publ. under title “Church of the Fathers.” Lond., 1842.

137  —

Ullmann, “Gregory Nazianzen.” Oxford, 1855; and Newman “Church of the Fathers.”

138  —

Cyril’s Comm. on Luke is transl. from the Syriac by Dr. Payne Smith, Oxf., 1859.

139  —

A very full and admirable account of Synesius and his writings is given by Rev. T. R. Halcomb in Smith’s “Dict. of Chr. Biog.” Vol. iii., pp. 756-780.

140  —

Neander, “Life of Chrysostom.” Lond., 1845.

Stephens, “Life of Chrysostom.” 3rd ed., Lond., 1883.

Chase, “Chrysostom: a Study.” Cambr., 1887.

His Homilies and Addresses are transl. in 15 vols. in the “Lib. of the Fathers.” Oxf., 1839-1851.

Various Eng. translations of the tract “On the Priesthood.”

141  —

Newman’s “Historical Sketches.” Vol. ii., chap. i., “Theodoret.”

142  —

Translated by Dean Church in “Lib. of the Fathers.” Oxf., 1838; with interesting and instructive Preface by Newman.

143  —

Ueberweg, “Hist. of Philosophy.” Lond., 1872, Vol. i., pp. 349-352.

Colet, “On the Hierarchies of Dionysius.” ed. by Lupton, Lond., 1869.

Wescott, “Dionysius the Areopagite.” in    Contemp. Review for May, 1867.

144  —

Etheridge, “The Syrian Churches: their Early Hist., Liturg. and Lit.” Lond., 1846.

145  —

Morris, “Select Writings of Ephraim the Syrian.” Oxford, 1817.

Burgess, “Repentance of Nineveh, Metrical Homily by Ephraem.” Lond., 1853.

“Select Metrical Hymns and Homilies of Eph. Syr.” Lond., 1853.

146  —

Newman, “Church of the Fathers.” 2nd ed., London, 1842. Reprinted in Hist. Sketches, vol. ii.

Gilly, “Vigilantius and his Times.” London, 1844.

147  —

“Lib. of Fathers.” in vol. of Cyprian’s Epps., Oxf., 1844, pp. 318-384. For phrase quoted, see p. 322.

148  —

A good account of the writings of Jerome is given by the late Prof. William Ramsay in Smith’s “Dict. of Grk. and Rom. Biogr.” Vol. ii., p. 460.

Milman, “Hist. of Chr.” Vol. iii., ch. xi.

Cutts, “St. Jerome.” Lond., 1877.

Gilly, “Vigilantius and his Times.” Lond., 1844.

149  —

Gilly, “Vigilantius and his Times.” London, 1844.

150  —

Newman’s “Arians of the 4th Century.” London, 1838.

Gwatkin, “Studies of Arianism.” Camb., 1882.

Hefele, “Hist. of Councils.” Vols. i. ii., Edin., 1872, 1876.

Newman’s “Tracts Theolog. and Eccles.” Chap. ii.; Doctrinal Causes of Arianism.

“Select Treatises of Athanasius.” Ed. by Newman, 2 vols., London, 1881, Vol. 2 containing notes on Arius, Athanasius, etc.

151  —

Hefele, “Hist. of Councils.” I., pp. 231-447.

Kaye, “Hist. of Council of Nicæa.” London, 1853.

Tillemont, “Hist. of Arians and Council of Nice.” London, 1721.

152  —

Newman’s “Select Treat. of Athanasius.” Vol. ii., p. 196 f.

Hefele, “Hist. of Councils.” Vol. ii., Edin., 1876, p. 193.

153  —

Newman’s “Select Treat. of Athanasius.” Vol. ii., p. 282 ff.

Hefele, “Hist. of Councils.” ii., p. 217.

154  —

Hefele, “Hist. of Councils.” ii., pp. 340-373.

Hort, “Two Dissertations.” ii., On the Constantinople Creed and other Eastern Creeds of the 4th cent., Camb., 1874.

155  —

Swete, “The Hist. of the Doctr. of the Procession of the Holy Spirit from Apost. Age to Death of Charlemagne.” Cambr., 1876.

Pusey, “On the clause ‘And the Son.’” Oxf., 1876.

156  —

Hefele, “Hist. of Councils.” ii., p. 348 ff., § 97, The Tome and the Creed.

157  —

Stephens, “Chrysostom.” pp. 287-305.

Hefele, “Hist. of Councils.” ii., p. 430 ff.

158  —

The most useful and complete account of Chrysostom is that of Stephens. Consult also Milman, “Hist. of Chr.” Vol. iii., pp. 206 ff.

159  —

Dorner, “Hist. of the Development of the Doctr. of the Person of Christ.” 5 vols., Edin., 1861.

160  —

Newman, “Tracts Theological and Ecclesiastical.” Chap. iii., Apollinarianism.

161  —

Hefele, “Hist. of Councils.” Vol. iii., pp. 1-156.

162  —

Most informing about all these transactions is Hefele, “Hist. of Councils.” iii., Edin., 1883; (Robber Synod, p. 241 ff.; Chalcedon, p. 451 ff.).

Perry, “Second Council of Ephesus.” London, 1877.

Bright, “Hist. of Church from    A.D. 313-451.” Cambr., 1869.

163  —

Butler, “Ancient Coptic Churches.” 2 vols., London, 1884.

164  —

Döllinger, “Fables respecting the Popes of the Middle Ages.” Lond., 1871.

Willis, “Pope Honorius and the New Roman Dogma.” Lond., 1879.

Bottalla, “Pope Honorius before the Tribunal of Reason and History.” London, 1868.

165  —

Wiggers, “Augustinianism and Pelagianism.” Andover, 1840.

Müller, “Chr. Doctrine of Sin.” 2 vols., Edin., 1868.

Ritschl, “Hist. of Chr. Doctr. of Justific. and Reconciliation.” Edin., 1872.

166  —

Laidlaw, “The Bible Doctrine of Man.” Edin., 1879.

Heard, “Tripartite Nat. of Man.” 3rd ed., Edin., 1870, pp. 189-200.

Delitzsch, “Biblical Psychology.” 2nd ed., Edin., 1869, pp. 128-142.

Beck, “Outlines of Biblical Psychology.” Edin., 1877, p. 10.

167  —

For an entirely different representation of the Augustinian system see Cunningham, “S. Austin and his Place in Hist. of Chr. Thought.” Lond., 1886; esp. chaps. ii. and iii., pp. 45-107.

A good outline and defence in Hodge’s “System. Theol.” Edin., 1874, Vol. ii., pp. 333-353.

Mosheim, “Eccl. Hist.” ed. by Dr. J. S. Reid, Lond., 1880, p. 210, notes 3 and 4; (pt. II., chap. v., § 25.)

Mozley, “Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination.” Lond., 1855.

168  —

Hodge, “Systematic Theology.” Vol. ii., pp. 166-168.

169  —

Lardner, “Credibility of the Gospel Hist.” Vol. iv., London, 1743.

170  —

Butcher, “The Ecclesiastical Calendar.” London.

Hampson, “Medii Ævi Kalend.”

171  —

Gieseler, “Ecclesiastical History.” Edinburgh, 1848, Vol. ii., pp. 141-145.

172  —

Tyler, “Image Worship of Ch. of Rome contrary to Scripture and the Prim. Ch.” London, 1847.

173  —

Tyler, “Worship of Virgin Mary contrary to Script. and Faith of Ch. of first 5 Cents.” London, 1851.

Clagett, “Prerogatives of Anna the Mother of God.” London, 1688. Also by same: “Discourse on Worship of Virgin and Saints.” London, 1686.

174  —

Cosin, “Scholastic History of Popish Transubstantiation.” Lond., 1676.

175  —

Reuss, “History of the N.T. Scriptures.” Edin., 1884, § 377.

Keil, “Introduction to the O.T.” Edin., 1870, Vol. ii., pp. 201-203.

176  —

Swainson, “The Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds.” Camb., 1875.

Westcott, “The Historic Faith.” Lond., 1883, note iii., the Creeds.

Harvey, “Hist. and Theology of the three Creeds.” Camb., 1854.

Hort, Two Dissertations: II. “The Constantinopolitan Creed and the Eastern Creeds of 4th cent.” Camb., 1876.

Schaff, “Creeds of Christendom.” Edin., 1877, vol. i.

Lumby, “History of the Creeds.” Camb., 1873.

Waterland, “Crit. Hist. of Athanasian Creed.” Camb., 1724.

Heurtley, “The Athanasian Creed.” Oxf., 1872.

Ommaney, “Ath. Creed: an Exam. of Recent Theories respecting its Date and Origin.” Lond., 1875.

177  —

Neale, “Hymns of the Eastern Church.” Lond., 1863.

“Mediæval Hymns and Sequences.” Lond., 1863.

Gieseler, “Ecclesiastical History.” Vol. iii., p. 353.

178  —

Hawkins, “History of Music.” Lond., 1853.

179  —

Hammond, “Ancient Liturgies.” Oxf., 1878.

Neale and Littledale, “Translations of Primitive Liturgies.” Lond., 1869.

Neale, “Essays on Liturgiology.” Lond., 1867.

180  —

Marriott, “Vestiarium Christianum: Origin and gradual development of Dress of Holy Ministry of Church.” Lond., 1868.

181  —

Woltmann and Woermann, “History of Painting.” 2 vols., Lond., 1886; vol. i., “Anc., Early Chr. and Mediæval Painting.” ed. by Prof. Sidney Colvin.

“Handbook of Painting: Italian Schools. Based on Kügler’s Handbook.” by Eastlake; new ed. by Layard, 2 vols., Lond., 1886.

182  —

Ozanam, “Hist. of Civilization during the 5th Century.” 2 vols.

Lecky, “Hist. of European Morals.” Vol. ii.

183  —

Smith’s “Dictionary of Christian Biography.” vol. iii., p. 367.

184  —

Gilly, “Vigilantius and his Times.” Lond., 1840.

185  —

Gieseler, “Eccl. Hist.” ii. 148.

186  —

Ludolphus, “History of Ethiopia.” London, 1684.

187  —

Malan, “Gregory the Illuminator: his Life and Times.” London, 1868.

Article by Lipsius on Eznik in Smith’s “Dictionary of Chr. Biography.” Vol. ii., p. 439.

188  —

Muir, “Life of Mohammed and Hist. of Islam.” 4 vols., Lond.

Bosworth Smith, “Mohammed and Mohammedanism.” Lond., 1874.

Mühleisen-Arnold, “Islam, its Hist., Chr. and Rel. to Christianity.” 3rd ed., Lond., 1874.

Deutsch, “Literary Remains: Islam.” Lond., 1874.

Stephens, “Christianity and Islam.” Lond., 1877.

Mills, “Hist. of Mohammedanism.” Lond., 1817.

189  —

Muir, “Annals of the Earlier Khalifate.”

190  —

Finlay, “Hist. of Greece from Rom. Conquest.” 7 vols., Lond., 1864, new ed., 1877; vols. ii. and iii.

Bower’s “Lives of Popes.” Vols. iii. and iv., Lond., 1754.

Comber, “Disc. on 2nd Council of Nicæa.” Reprinted in Gibson’s “Preserv. from Popery.” Lond., 1848.

Didron, “Christian Iconography.” 2 vols., Lond., 1886.

191  —

Mendham, “The Seventh General Council, the Second of Nicæa.” in which the worship of images was established.

192  —

Allatius, “De eccl. occid. et orient. perpetua consensione.” Colon., 1669.

Swete, “Hist. of the Procession of the Holy Spirit.” Camb., 1876.

Ffoulkes, “Christendom’s Divisions.” London.

Neale, “Holy Eastern Church.” 5 vols., London, 1847.

193  —

Popoff, “Hist. of Council of Florence.” Transl. from Russian by Neale, London, 1861.

194  —

Lupton, “St. John of Damascus.” London, 1882.

195  —

Badger, “The Nestorians and their Rituals.” 2 vols., London, 1852.

196  —

Baring-Gould, “Curious Myths of the Middle Ages.” Lond., 1881.

197  —

Murawieff, “Hist. of the Church of Russia.” Trans. from the Russ., Lond., 1842.

Romanoff, “Sketches of the Rites and Customs of the Græco-Russian Church.” Lond., 1869.

198  —

Potthast, “Biblioth. Hist. Modii Ævi.” Berol., 1862, with suppl. in 1868.

D’Achery, “Vett. Script. Spicilegium.” (1655), 3 vols., Par., 1783.

Eccard, “Corpus Hist. Medii Ævi.” 2 vols., Lps., 1723.

Du Chesne, “Hist. Francorum Serr.” 5 vols., Par., 1636.

Parker, “Rer. Brit. Serr. Vetust.” Lugd. B., 1587.

Gale, “Hist. Brit., Saxon., Anglo-Dan. Scrr.” 2 vols., Oxf., 1691.

Wharton, “Anglia Sacra.” 2 vols., Lond., 1691.

Wilkins, “Conc. Brit. et Hib.” 4 vols., Lond., 1737.

Haddan and Stubbs, “Councils and Eccles. Documents.” (Revision of Wilkins), Lond., 1879 ff.

Maitland, “The Dark Ages: Essays on the State of Relig. and Lit. in 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th Centuries.” Lond., 1844.

199  —

Bryce, “The Holy Roman Empire.” Lond., 1866.

Ranke, “History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations.” Lond., 1886.

200  —

Ebrard, “Christian Apologetics.” 3 vols., Edin., 1886-1887, Vol. ii., p. 407; “The Religion of the Germans and that of the Slavs.”

201  —

Mallet, “Northern Antiquities.” London, 1848.

Hallam, “Europe during the Middle Ages.”

Guizot, “Hist. of Civiliz. in Europe.”

202  —

Hodgkin, “Italy and her Invaders:    A.D. 376-476.” 2 vols., London, 1880.

203  —

Scott, “Ulfilas, the Apostle of the Goths.” Cambr., 1885.

Douse, “Introduction to the Gothic of Ulfilas.” London, 1886.

Bosworth’s “Gothic and Anglo-Saxon Gospels.” Oxf., 1874.

204  —

Gibbon, “Decline and Fall of Roman Empire.” Chaps. xxxiii., xxxvi., xxxvii.

205  —

Freeman, “Historical Essays.” 3rd series, Lond.; “The Goths at Ravenna.”

206  —

Ussher, “Brit. Eccl. Antiqu.” Lond., 1639.

Perry, “Hist. of English Church.” i., Lond., 1882.

Lanigan, “Eccl. Hist. of Ireland.” 4 vols., 2nd ed., Dublin, 1829.

Stokes, “Ireland and the Celtic Ch.” Lond., 1886.

Lingard, “Hist. and Antiqu. of Anglo-Sax. Ch.” 2 vols., Lond., 1845.

Maclauchlan, “Early Scottish Church.” Edinb., 1865.

Reeves, “The Culdees of the British Islands.” Dublin, 1864.

Skene, “Celtic Scotland.” 3 vols., Edin., 1876; 2 ed., 1886.

Bright, “Chapters of Early Eng. Ch. Hist.” Oxf., 1878.

Pryce, “Ancient British Church.” Lond., 1886.

207  —

Todd, “Life of St. Patrick.” Dublin, 1864.

Cusack, “Life of St. Patrick.” Lond., 1871.

O’Curry, “Lects. on Anc. Irish History.” Dublin, 1861.

Writings of St. Patrick. Transl. and ed. by Stokes and Wright, Lond., 1887.

208  —

Maclauchlan, “Early Scottish Church.” Pp. 145-205.

Adamnan, “Life of Columba.” Ed. by Dr. Reeves, Dublin, 1857.

Smith, “Life of Columba.” Edin., 1798.

Forbes, “Lives of Ninian, Columba, Kentigern.” in series of Historians of Scotland.

209  —

Ussher, “Discourse of the Religion anciently Professed by the Irish and British.” Lond., 1631.

Maclauchlan, “Early Scottish Church.” Pp. 239-250.

Warren, “Ritual and Liturgy of the Celtic Church.” Oxf., 1881.

210  —

Soames, “The Anglo-Saxon Church.” 4th ed., Lond., 1856.

Stanley, “Historical Memorials of Canterbury.” Lond., 1855.

Hook, “Lives of Archbishops of Canterbury.” Vol. i.

Sharon Turner, “Hist. of Anglo-Saxons to the Roman Conquest.” 6 ed., 3 vols., Lond., 1836.

211  —

Lappenburg, “Anglo-Saxon Kings.” Lond., 1845.

Bede, “Eccles. History.” Book III.

Maclauchlan, “Early Scottish Church.” Pp. 217-238.

212  —

Gildas († A.D. 570), “De excidio Britanniæ.” Engl. transl. by Giles, London, 1841.

Bede (†    A.D. 735), “Eccles. Hist. of Engl.” Transl. by Giles, London, 1840.

213  —

Lanigan, “Eccl. Hist. of Ireland.” iii., ch. 13.

Innes, “Ancient Inhab. of Scotland.” in the Series of Historians of Scotland.

214  —

Maclauchlan, “Early Scottish Church.” p. 435.

Reeves, “The Culdees of the British Islands.” Dublin, 1864.

Robertson, “Scotland under her Early Kings.” Edin., 2 vols., 1862.

215  —

Merivale, “Conversion of the Northern Nations.” London, 1866.

Maclear, “Apostles of Mediæval Europe.”

216  —

That he first received the Latin name after his consecration as bishop in A.D. 723 is rendered more than doubtful by the fact that it is found in letters of earlier date. It is probably only a Latinizing of the Anglo-Saxon Winfrid or Wynfrith (from Vyn=fortune, luck, health; frid or frith=peace; therefore: peaceful, wholesome fortune) into the name, widely spread in Christian antiquity, of Bonifatius (from bonumfatum   , Greek: Eutyches, good luck). But the transposition into the form Bonifacius which might seem the equivalent of the Anglo-Saxon word “Benefactor” of the German people, is first met with, although even then only occasionally, in the 8th century, but afterwards always more and more frequently, and then is given to the popes and other earlier bearers of the name. By the 15th century the original and etymological style of writing the name and that used in early documents had been completely discarded and forgotten, till modern philology, diplomatics and epigraphies have again clearly vindicated the earlier form.

217  —

Wright, “Biog. Britannica Literaria.” Lond., 1842.

Cox, “Life of Boniface.” Lond., 1853.

Hope, “Boniface.” London, 1872.

Maclear, “Apostles of Mediæval Europe.”

218  —

Trench, “Lectures on Mediæval Church History.” Lond., 1877.

Hardwick, “History of Christian Church during Middle Ages.”

219  —

Mosheim, “Eccl. Hist.” Ed. by Reid, London, 1880, p. 285, Cent. viii., pt. ii., ch. 5.

Wright, “Biographia Brit. Literaria.” London, 1842.

220  —

Milman, “Hist. of Latin Christianity.” Vol. ii., Trench’s “Lectures on Mediæval Church History.”

221  —

“William of Malmesbury’s Chronicle of Kings of England.” Bk. I., ch. 4.

222  —

Freeman, “Historical Essays.” 2nd series: “The Southern Slavs.”

223  —

Adam of Bremen, “Gesta Hammaburgensia.” A.D. 788-1072.

Pontoppidan, “Annales Eccles. Danicæ.” Copenhag., 1741.

Merivale, “Conversion of the Northern Nations.” London, 1865.

224  —

Geijer, “History of the Swedes.” Transl. by Turner, Lond., 1847.

225  —

Muir, “Annals of Early Khalifate.”

Ockley, “Hist. of Saracens and their Conquests in Syria, Persia and Egypt.”

226  —

Condé, “History of Dominion of Arabs in Spain.” 3 vols.

Freeman, “Hist. and Conquests of the Saracens.” 2nd ed., Lond., 1876.

Abd-el-Hakem, “History of the Conquest of Spain.” Tr. from Arabic by Jones, Gött., 1858.

227  —

Kingsley, “Roman and Teuton.” Lectures in Univ. of Cambr.: “The Popes and the Lombards.”

228  —

Crakenthorp, “The Defence of Constantine, with a Treatise on the Pope’s Temporal Monarchy.” Lond., 1621.

229  —

Platina, “Lives of Popes.” Under John VII.

Bower, “Lives of Popes.” Vol. iv.

Blondel, “Joanna Papissa.” Amst., 1657.

Hase, “Church History.” New York, 1855, p. 186.

230  —

Cunningham, “Discussions on Church Principles.” Edin., 1863, pp. 101-163; “Temporal Supremacy of the Pope and Gallican Liberties.”

Barrow, “Pope’s Supremacy.” London, 1683.

231  —

Hatch, “Growth of Church Institutions.” ch. viii., National Churches, pp. 139-154.

232  —

Hefele, “History of Councils.” iii. 69, 131, 149.

Field, “Of the Church.” Reprint by Eccl. Hist. Society, 5 vols., London, 1847; vol. iii., pp. 7, 245 ff.

Hatch, “Growth of Church Institutions.” ch. vii., The Metropolitan, pp. 128-135.

233  —

Lea, “Studies in Church History.” Philad., 1869.

Lecky, “History of European Morals.” 3rd ed., 2 vols., London, 1877.

234  —

Hatch, “Growth of Church Institutions.” London, 1887, p. 43.

235  —

Marriott, “Vestiarium Christianum.” P. 187 ff., London, 1868.

236  —

Hatch, “Growth of Church Institutions.” Ch. v., The Parish, pp. 89-97.

237  —

Hatch, “Growth of Church Institutions.” Ch. ix., The Canonical Rule, pp. 157-172; Ch. x., The Cathedral Chapter, pp. 175-190.

238  —

Hatch, “Growth of Ch. Instit.” Ch. xi., The Chapter of the Diocese, pp. 193-208.

Stubbs, “Constit. Hist. of England.” Vol. iii.

239  —

Walcott, “Cathedralia.”

Ibid., “Sacred Archæology.”

Hatch, “Growth of Church Institutions.” Ch. iii., Fixed Tenure of Parish Priest; Ch. iv., The Benefice.

240  —

Lecky, “Hist. of Europ. Morals.” ii., 183-248.

Montalembert, “Monks of West from Benedict to Bernard.” 7 vols., Edin., 1861 ff.

241  —

Hatch, “Growth of Church Institutions.” Ch. vi., Tithes and their Distribution, pp. 101-117.

242  —

Roth, however, regards this divisio    as putting a complete stop to the secularization of church property.

243  —

Hatch, “Growth of Ch. Institutions.” Ch. iv., The Benefice, pp. 61-77.

Art. “Benefice.” in Smith’s “Dict. of Chr. Antiquities.”

244  —

Ayliffe, “Parergon Juris Canonici.” Lond., 1726.

Guizot, “Hist. of Civilization.” Transl. by Hazlitt, Lond., 1846.

Walcott, “Sacred Archæology.”

245  —

Blondel, “Pseudo-Isid. et Turrianus vapulantes.” Genev., 1628.

246  —

Hopkins, “The Organ, its hist. and construct.” Lond., 1855.

247  —

Guest, “History of English Rhythms.” Vol. ii., London, 1838.

Wright, “Biogr. Brit. Lit. Anglo-Saxon Period.” London, 1842.

Thorpe, “Cædmon’s Paraphrase in Anglo-Saxon with Engl. Transl.” London, 1832.

Conybeare, “Illustr. of Anglo-Saxon Poetry.” London, 1827.

248  —

Evans, “Treatise on Chr. Doct. of Marriage.” New York, 1870.

Hammond, “On Divorces.” In his Works, vol. i., London, 1674.

Cosin, “Argument on the Dissolution of Marriage.” Works, vol. iv., Oxf., 1854.

Tertullian, Treatise in “Lib. of Fath.” Oxf., 1854, with two Essays by Pusey, “On Second Marriages of the Clergy.” and “On Early Views as to Marriage after Divorce.”

249  —

Babington, “Influence of Chr. in promoting the Abolition of Slavery in Europe.” London, 1864.

Edwards, “Inquiry into the State of Slavery in the Early and Middle Ages of the Christian Era.” Edin., 1836.

250  —

Smith’s “Dict. of Chr. Antiq.” Vol. i., pp. 785-792; Arts.: “Hospitality, Hospitals, Hospitium.”

251  —

Haddan and Stubbs, “Councils and Eccl. Documents.” Vol. iii., Oxf., 1871.

252  —

Barington, “Lit. Hist. of the Middle Ages.” Lond., 1846.

Hallam, “Europe in Middle Ages.” 2 vols., Lond., 1818.

Trench, “Lect. on Med. Ch. Hist.” Lond., 1877.

253  —

Lorentz, “Life of Alcuin.” Transl. by Slee, Lond., 1837.

254  —

Kingsley, “Roman and Teuton: Paulus Diaconus.”

255  —

Hampden, “The Scholastic Philosophy in its rel. to Chr. Theology.” Oxf., 1833.

Ueberweg, “Hist. of Philosophy.” Vol. i., pp. 358-365.

256  —

Mullinger, “Schools of Charles the Great and Restoration of Education in the 9th cent.” Cambr., 1877.

257  —

Cassiodorus’ work in 12 bks.,    De rebus gestes Gotorum, has indeed been lost, but about A.D. 550 Jornandes, who also used other documents, embodied this work in his De Getarum orig. et reb. gestis.

258  —

Gildas wrote about    A.D. 560 his: Liber querulis de excidio Britanniæ (Eng. transl. in “Six Old English Chronicles.” London, Bohn).

259  —

Nennius wrote about    A.D. 850 his: Eulogium Britanniæ s. Hist. Britonum (Engl. transl. in “Six Old Engl. Chron.”).

260  —

Collected Ed. of Alfred’s works, by Bosworth, 2 vols., Lond., 1858.

Fox, “Whole Wks. of Alfred the Great, with Essays on Hist., Arts and Manners of 9th cent.” 3 vols., Oxf., 1852.

Spelman, “Life of Alfred the Great.” Oxf., 1709.

Pauli, “Life of Alfred the Gt.” transl. with Alfred’s Orosius, Lond., 1853.

Hughes, “Alfred the Great.”

Giles, “Life and Times of King Alfred the Great.” Lond., 1848.

261  —

Robertson, “Hist. of Chr. Church.” Vol. ii., London, 1856; pp. 154 ff.

Dorner, “Hist. Development of Person of Chr.” Div. II., vol. i.

262  —

Ussher, “Gotteschalci et controv. ab eo motæ hist.” Dubl., 1631.

263  —

Principal authorities for last two sections:

Adam of Bremen, “Gesta Hamburg eccl. Pontificum.” and

Saxo Grammaticus, “Hist. Danica.”

264  —

Snorro Sturleson’s, “Heimskringla, or Chronicle of the Kings of Norway.” Transl. from the Icelandic by Laing, 3 vols., London, 1844.

265  —

Cosmas of Prague [†    A.D. 1125], “Chronicon Prag.”

266  —

“The Book of Ser Marco Polo the Venetian.” Edited with Commentary by Col. Yule, 2 vols., London, 1871.

267  —

Michaud, “History of the Crusades.” Transl. by Robson, 3 vols., London, 1852.

Mill, “History of the Crusades.” 2 vols., London, 1820.

“Chronicles of the Crusades: Contemporary Narratives of Richard Cœur de Lion, by Richard of Devizes and Geoffrey de Vinsauf, and of the Crusade of St. Louis, by Lord John de Joinville.” London (Bohn).

Gibbon, “History of Crusades.” London, 1869.

268  —

Pulleni dicuntur, vel quia recentes et novi, quasi pulli respectu Surianorum reputati sunt, vel quia principaliter de gente Apuliæ matres habuerunt. Cum enim paucas mulieres adduxissent nostri, qui in terras remanserunt, de regno Apuliæ, eo quod propius esset aliis regionibus, vocantes mulieres, cum eis matrimonia contraxerunt.

269  —

Stubbs, “Chronicle and Memorials of Richard I.” London, 1864.

270  —

Prescott, “History of Ferdinand and Isabella.” Good edition by Kirk, in 1 vol., London, 1886.

Geddes, “History of Expulsion of Moriscoes.” In “Miscell. Tracts.” Vol. i., London, 1714.

McCrie, “Hist. of Prop. and Suppr. of Reformation in Spain.” London, 1829.

Ranke, “History of Reformation.” Transl. by Mrs. Austin, vol. iii., London, 1847.

271  —

Milman, “History of the Jews.” Book xxiv. 1, “The Feudal System.”

272  —

“De sua conversione.” In Carpzov’s edit. of the “Pugio Fidei” of Raimund Martini, §    103, 9.

273  —

Milman, “History of the Jews.” 3 vols., London, 1863; bks. xxiv., xxvi.

Prescott, “Ferdinand and Isabella.” Pt. I., ch. xvii.

274  —

Bryce, “The Holy Roman Empire.” London, 1866.

O’Donoghue, “History of Church and Court of Rome, from Constantine to Present Time.” 2 vols., London, 1846.

Bower’s “History of the Popes.” Vol. v.

275  —

For Lanfranc, see Hook, “Lives of Archbishops of Canterbury.” Vol. ii., London, 1861.

276  —

Bowden, “Life and Pontificate of Gregory VII.” 2 vols., London, 1840.

Villemain, “Life of Gregory VII.” Transl. by Brockley, 2 vols., London, 1874.

Stephen, “Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography.” 2 vols., London, 1850.

Hallam, “Middle Ages.” Vol. i., London, 1840.

Milman, “Latin Christianity.” Vol. iii., London, 1854.

277  —

Church, “St. Anselm.” London, 1870.

Rule, “Life and Times of St. Anselm.” 2 vols., London, 1883.

Hook, “Lives of Archb. of Canterbury.” Vol. ii., London, 1879, pp. 169-276.

278  —

“Vita et Epistolæ Thomæ Cantuari.” Edited by Giles, 4 vols., London, 1846.

Morris, “Life and Martyrdom of Thomas à Becket.” London, 1859.

Robertson, “Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury.” London, 1859.

“Materials for Life of Thomas à Becket.” 2 vols., London, 1875.

Hook, “Lives of Archbishops of Canterbury.” Vol. ii., London, 1879, pp. 354-507.

Stanley, “Memorials of Canterbury.” London, 1855.

Freeman, “Historical Essays.” First Series, Essay IV.

279  —

On Stephen Langton see

Pearson, “History of England during Early and Middle Ages.” Vol. ii.

Milman, “History of Latin Christianity.” Vol. iv., London, 1854.

Hook, “Lives of Archbishops of Canterbury.” Vol. ii., 4th edition, London, 1879, pp. 657-761.

Maurice, “Lives of English Popular Leaders. 1. Stephen Langton.” London.

280  —

Kingston, “History of Frederick II., King of the Romans.” London, 1862.

281  —

Stubbs, “Memorials of St. Dunstan. Collection of six Biographies.” London, 1875.

Soames, “Anglo-Saxon Church.” London, 1835.

Hook, “Lives of Archb. of Canterbury.” Vol. i., pp. 382-426, London, 1860.

282  —

Luard, “Roberti Grosseteste, Episcopi quondam Lincolniensis Epistolæ.” London, 1862.

283  —

According to Giordano of Giano, who himself was there, the number of brothers present was about 3,000, and the people of the neighbourhood supplied them so abundantly with food and drink that they had at last to put a stop to their bringing. But soon the tradition of the order multiplied the 3,000 into 5,000, and transformed the quite natural account of their support into a “miraculum stupendum   ,” parallel to the feeding of the 5,000 in the wilderness (Matt. xiv. 15-21).

284  —

Trench, “The Mendicant Orders.” in “Lectures on Mediæval Church History.” London, 1878.

285  —

Milman, “History of Latin Christianity.” Vol. v.

Wadding, “Annales Minorum Fratrum.” 8 vols., Lugd., 1625.

Stephen, “St. Francis of Assisi.” In “Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography.” London, 1860.

286  —

“Annales Ordinis Prædicatorum.” Vol. i., Rome, 1746.

287  —

Gieseler, “Ecclesiastical History.” § 72, Edin., 1853, vol. iii., pp. 268-276.

288  —

Addison, “History of the Knights Templars.” etc., London, 1842.

289  —

Taafe, “Order of St. John of Jerusalem.” 4 vols., London, 1852.

290  —

Ueberweg, “History of Philosophy.” Vol. i., pp. 355-377.

Hampden, “The Scholastic Philosophy considered in its relation to Christian Theology.” Oxford, 1832.

Maurice, “Mediæval Philosophy.” London, 1870.

Harper, “The Metaphysics of the School.” London, 1880 f.

291  —

Kirkpatrick, “The Historically Received Conception of a University.” London, 1857.

Hagenbach, “Encyclopædia of Theology.” Transl. by Crooks and Hurst, New York, 1884, § 18, pp. 50, 51.

292  —

Cunningham, “Historical Theology.” Edinburgh, 1870, vol. i., ch. xv., “The Canon Law.” Pp. 426-438.

293  —

Räbiger, “Theological Encyclopædia.” Vol. i., p. 28, Edin., 1884.

294  —

Maitland, “The Dark Ages: a Series of Essays, to Illustrate the State of Religion and Literature in the Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Centuries.” London, 1844.

295  —

The Aelfric Society founded in 1842 has edited his Anglo-Saxon writings and those of others. The Homilies were edited by Thorpe in 2 vols., in 1843 and 1846. “Select Monuments of Doctrine and Worship of Catholic Church in England before the Norman Conquest, consisting of Aelfric’s Paschal Homily.” Etc., London, 1875.

On Aelfric and Ethelwold see an admirable sketch, with full references to and appropriate quotations from early chronicles, in Hook’s “Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury.” Vol. i., pp. 434-455.

296  —

Macpherson on “Anselm’s Theory of the Atonement; its Place in History.” In    Brit. and For. Evang. Review for 1878, pp. 207-232.

297  —

Church, “St. Anselm.” London, 1870.

Rule, “Life and Times of St. Anselm.” 2 vols., London, 1883.

298  —

On Anselm’s and Abælard’s theories of atonement, see Ritschl, “History of Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation.” Pp. 22-40., Edin., 1872.

299  —

Berington, “History of the Lives of Abælard and Heloise.” London, 1787.

Ueberweg, “History of Philosophy.” Vol. i., pp. 386-397, London, 1872.

300  —

Neander, “St. Bernard and his Times.” London, 1843.

Morison, “Life and Times of St. Bernard.” London, 1863.

301  —

Räbiger “Theological Encyclopædia.” Vol. i., p. 27, Edin., 1884.

302  —

Westcott, “Epistles of St. John.” London, 1883.

Dissertation on “The Gospel of Creation.” Pp. 277-280.

Bruce, “Humiliation of Christ.” Edin., 1876, pp. 354 ff., 487 f.

303  —

This work is entitled    Contra quatuor labyrinthos Franciæ, Seu contra novas hæreses, quas Abælardus, Lombardus, Petrus Pictaviensis, et Gilbertus Porretanus libris sententiarum acuunt limant, roborant Ll. IV.

304  —

Ueberweg, “History of Philosophy.” London, 1872, Vol. i., pp. 405-428.

Ginsburg, “The Kabbalah, its doctrines, development, and literature.” London, 1865.

Palmer, “Oriental Mysticism.” A treatise on the Suffistic and Unitarian Theosophy of the Persians, compiled from native sources, London, 1867.

305  —

Sighart, “Albert the Great: his Life and Scholastic Labours.” Translated from the French by T. A. Dixon, London, 1876.

306  —

Hampden, “Life of Thomas Aquinas: a Dissertation of the Scholastic Philosophy of the Middle Ages.” London, 1848.

Cicognani, “Life of Thomas Aquinas.” London, 1882.

Townsend, “Great Schoolmen of the Middle Ages.” London, 1882.

Vaughan, “Life and Labours of St. Thomas of Aquino.” 2 vols., London, 1870.

307  —

“Monumenta Franciscana.” in “Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland.” Edited for the “Master of the Rolls Series.” By Brewer, London, 1858.

In addition to the    Opus Majus referred to above, Brewer has edited Fr. Rogeri Bacon Opera quædum inedita, vol. i., containing Opus Tertium, Opus Minus, and Compendium Philosophiæ.

308  —

Neubauer, “Jewish Controversy and the ‘Pugio Fidei.’” In    Expositor for February and March, 1888.

309  —

Hodge, “Systematic Theology.” Vol. iii., pp. 492-497.

310  —

Preuss, “The Romish Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception traced from its Source.” Edinburgh, 1867.

311  —

Maccall, “Christian Legends of Middle Ages, from German of von Bulow.” London.

Cox and Jones, “Popular Romances of the Middle Ages.” London.

Baring Gould, “Curious Myths of the Middle Ages.” London, 1884.

“The Legend of St. Ursula and the Virgin Martyrs of Cologne.” London, 1860.

312  —

“Liturgical Poetry of Adam of St. Victor.” With transl. into English, and notes, by Wrangham, 3 vols., London, 1881.

Bird, “The Latin Hymns of the Church.” In the Sunday Magazine for 1865, pp. 530 ff., 679 ff., 776 ff.

Trench, “Sacred Latin Poetry.” London, 1849.

Neale, “Mediæval Hymns.”

313  —

“Christus ist erstanden von der Marter Banden.”

314  —

Eastlake, “History of the Gothic Revival.” London, 1872. Norton, “Historical Studies of Church Building in the Middle Ages.” New York, 1880.

Didron, “History of Christian Art in the Middle Ages.” London, 1851.

315  —

Kügler, “Handbook of Painting: Italian Schools.” Translated by Eastlake, London, 1855.

Warrington, “History of Stained Glass.” London, 1850.

316  —

Kingsley, “The Saint’s Tragedy.” London, 1848. A dramatic poem founded on the story of St. Elizabeth’s life.

317  —

On Hilarius, an English monk, author of several plays, see Morley’s “Writers before Chaucer.” London, 1864, pp. 542-552.

318  —

Delepierre, “History of Flemish Literature from the 12th Century.” London, 1860.

319  —

Cooper, “Flagellation and the flagellants.” London, 1873.

320  —

Perrin, “History of the Vaudois.” London, 1624.

Muston, “Israel of the Alps.” 2 vols., Glasgow, 1858.

Monastier, “History of the Vaudois Church from its Origin.” New York, 1849.

Peyran, “Historical Defence of the Waldenses or Vaudois.” London, 1826.

Todd, “The Waldensian Manuscripts.” London, 1865.

Wylie, “History of the Waldensians.” London, 1880.

Comba, “History of the Waldenses.” London, 1888.

321  —

Sismondi, “History of Crusades against the Albigenses of the 13th Century.” London, 1826.

322  —

Limborch, “History of the Inquisition.” 2 vols., London, 1731.

Lea, “History of the Inquisition.” 3 vols., Philad. and London, 1888.

Baker, “History of Inquisition in Portugal, Spain, Italy.” Etc., London, 1763.

Prescott, “History of Ferdinand and Isabella.” Pt. i., ch. vii.

Llorente, “Histoire critique de l’Inquisition d’Espagne.” Paris, 1818.

Rule, “History of Inquisition.” 2 vols., London, 1874.

323  —

Creighton, “History of the Papacy during the Reformation.” Vols. i.-iv., A.D. 1378-1518, London, 1882 ff.

Gosselin, “The Power of the Popes during the Middle Ages.” 2 vols., London, 1853.

Reichel, “See of Rome in the Middle Ages.” London, 1870.

324  —

On Boniface VIII. see a paper in Wiseman’s “Essays on Various Subjects.” London, 1888.

325  —

Lenfant, “History of the Council of Constance.” 2 vols., London, 1730.

326  —

Jenkins, “The Last Crusader; or, The Life and Times of Cardinal Julian of the House of Cesarini.” London, 1861.

Creighton, “History of the Papacy.” Vol. ii., “The Council of Basel: the Papal Restoration,    A.D. 1418-1464.”

327  —

Creighton, “History of the Papacy.” Vols. iii. and iv., “The Italian Princes,    A.D. 1464-1518.”

328  —

Roscoe, “Life and Pontificate of Leo X.” 4 vols., Liverpool, 1805.

329  —

Salmon, “The Infallibility of the Church.” London, 1888.

330  —

Haye, “Persecution of the Knights Templars.” Edin., 1865.

331  —

Kettlewell, “Thomas à Kempis and the Brothers of the Common Life.” 2 vols., London, 1882.

332  —

Hook, “Lives of Archbishops of Canterbury.” Vol. iv., “Bradwardine.”

333  —

Ueberweg, “History of Philosophy.” Vol. i., pp. 460-464.

334  —

Luther’s Catholic opponents said,    Si Lyra non lyrasset, Lutherus non saltasset. This saying had an earlier form: “Si Lyra non lyrasset, nemo Doctorum in Biblia saltasset;” “Si Lyra non lyrasset, totus mundus delirasset.”

335  —

Dalgairns, “The German Mystics in the 14th Century.” London, 1850.

Vaughan, “Hours with the Mystics.” 3rd ed., 2 vols., London, 1888.

336  —

See an admirable account of Eckhart by Dr. Adolf Lasson in Ueberweg’s “History of Philosophy.” Vol. i., pp. 467-484.

337  —

Winkworth, “Life and Times of Tauler, with Twenty-five Sermons.” London, 1857.

Herrick, “Some Heretics of Yesterday.” London, 1884.

338  —

Kettlewell, “The Authorship of the ‘Imitation of Christ.’” London, 1877.

Kettlewell, “Thomas à Kempis and the Brothers of the Common Life.” 2 vols., London, 1882.

Ullmann, “Reformers before the Reformation.” Vol. ii., Edin., 1855.

Cruise, “Thomas à Kempis: Notes of a Visit to the Scenes of his Life.” London, 1887.

339  —

Baring-Gould, “Mediæval Preachers: Some Account of Celebrated Preachers of the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries.” London, 1865.

340  —

“Biblia Pauperum.” Reproduced in facsimile from MS. in British Museum, London, 1859.

341  —

Douce, “The Dance of Death.” London, 1833.

342  —

Symonds, “Renaissance in Italy.” 2 vols., London, 1881.

343  —

Church, “Dante and other Essays.” London, 1888.

Plumptre, “Commedia, etc., of Dante, with Life and Studies.” 2 vols., London, 1886-1888.

Oliphant, “Dante.” Edinburgh, 1877.

Ozanam, “Dante and the Catholic Philosophy of the 13th Century.” London, 1854.

Barlow, “Critical, Historical, and Philosophical Contributions to the Study of the Divina Commedia.” London, 1884.

Botta, “Dante as Philosopher, Patriot, and Poet.” New York, 1865.

M. F. Rossetti, “A Shadow of Dante.” Boston, 1872.

344  —

Reeve, “Petrarch.” Edinburgh, 1879.

Simpson, article on Petrarch in    Contemporary Review for July, 1874.

345  —

Wratislaw, “Life and Legend of St. John Nepomucen.” Lon., 1873.

346  —

Gairdner and Spedding, “Studies in English History.” I., “The Lollards.”

347  —

Baker, “History of the Inquisition in Portugal, Spain, Italy.” Etc., London, 1763.

Llorente, “History of the Inquisition from its Establishment to Ferdinand VII.” Philadelphia, 1826.

Mocatta, “Jews in Spain and Portugal, and the Inquisition.” London, 1877.

348  —

Lewis, “Hist. of Life and Sufferings of John Wiclif.” Lond., 1720.

Vaughan, “John de Wycliffe. A Monograph.” London, 1853.

Lechler, “John Wiclif and his English Precursors.” 2 vols., London, 1878.

Buddensieg, “John Wyclif, Patriot and Reformer; his Life and Writings.” London, 1884.

Burrows, “Wiclif’s Place in History.” London, 1882.

Storrs, “John Wycliffe and the first English Bible.” New York, 1880.

349  —

Gillet, “Life and Times of John Huss.” Boston, 2 vols., 1870.

Wratislaw, “John Huss.” London, 1882.

350  —

Palacky, “Documenta Mag. J. H., Vitam, Doctrinam, Causam.” Etc., illust., Prag., 1869.

Gillett, “Life and Times of John Huss.” 2 vols., Boston, 1863.

Loserth, “Wiclif and Huss.” London, 1884.

351  —

On these three consult

Ullmann, “Reformers before the Reformation.” 2 vols., Edin., 1855.

Brandt, “History of the Reformation in the Low Countries.” Vol. i., London, 1720.

352  —

Heraud, “Life and Times of Savonarola.” London, 1843.

Villari, “History of Savonarola.” 2 vols., London, 1888.

Madden, “The Life and Martyrdom of Savonarola.” 2 vols., London, 1854.

MacCrie, “History of Reformation in Italy.” Edin., 1827.

Roscoe, “Lorenzo de Medici.” London, 1796.

See also chapters on Savonarola in Mrs. Oliphant’s “Makers of Florence.” London, 1881.

Milman, “Savonarola, Erasmus.” Etc., Essays, London, 1870.

353  —

Roscoe, “Leo X.” London, 1805.

354  —

Villari, “Niccolo Macchiavelli, and his Times.” 4 vols., Lond., 1878.

355  —

Strauss, “Ulrich von Hutten.” Trans. by Mrs. Sturge, London, 1874.

Hausser, “Period of the Reformation.” 2 vols., London, 1873.

356  —

A young Minorite, Conrad Pellicanus of Tübingen, had as early as A.D. 1501 composed a very creditable guide to the study of the Hebrew language, under the title De modo legendi et intelligendi Hebræum, which was first printed in Strassburg in A.D. 1504. Amid inconceivable difficulties, purely self taught, and with the poorest literary aids, he had secured a knowledge of the Hebrew language which he perfected by unwearied application to study and by intercourse with a baptized Jew. He attained such proficiency, that he won for himself a place among the most learned exegetes of the Reformed Church as professor of theology at Basel in A.D. 1523 and at Zürich from A.D. 1525 till his death, in A.D. 1556. His chief work is Commentaria Bibliorum   , 7 vols. fol., 1532-1539.

357  —

Strauss, “Ulrich von Hutten.” London, 1874, pp. 120-140.

358  —

Erasmus, “Colloquies.” Trans. by Bailey, ed. by Johnson, Lond., 1877.

“Praise of Folly.” Trans. by Copner, Lond., 1878.

Seebohm, “Oxford Reformers of 1498: Colet, Erasmus, and More.” Lond., 1869.

Drummond, “Erasmus, His Life and Character.” 2 vols., Lond., 1873.

Pennington, “Life and Character of Erasmus.” Lond., 1874.

Strauss, “Ulrich von Hutten.” Lond., 1874, pp. 315-346.

Dorner, “Hist. of Prot. Theology.” 2 vols., Edin., 1871, vol. i., p. 202.

359  —

Seebohm, “Oxford Reformers.” Lond., 1869.

Walter, “Sir Thomas More.” Lond., 1840.

Mackintosh, “Life of Sir Thomas More.” Lond., 1844.

360  —

Beard, “The Reformation of the 16th Cent. in its Relation to Modern Thought and Knowledge.” Lond., 1883.

Wylie, “History of Protestantism.” 3 vols., Lond., 1875.

Merle d’Aubigné, “History of Reformation in the 16th Cent. in Switzerland and Germany.” 5 vols., Lond., 1840.

D’Aubigné, “History of Reformation in Times of Calvin.” 8 vols., Lond., 1863.

Ranke, “History of Reformation in Germany.” 3 vols., Lond., 1845.

Häusser, “The Period of the Reformation.” 2 vols., Lond., 1873.

Hagenbach, “History of the Reformation.” 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1878.

Köstlin, “Life of Martin Luther.” Lond., 1884.

Bayne, “Martin Luther: his Life and Work.” 2 vols., Lond., 1887.

Rae, “Martin Luther, Student, Monk, Reformer.” Lond., 1884.

Dale, “Protestantism: Its Ultimate Principle.” Lond., 1875.

Dorner, “History of Protestant Theology.” 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1871.

Cunningham, “Reformers and the Theology of the Reformation.” Edinburgh, 1862.

Tulloch, “Leaders of the Reformation.” Edinburgh, 1859.

361  —

Ledderhose, “Life of Melanchthon.” Trans. by Krotel, Philad., 1855.

362  —

Dorner, “History of Protestant Theology.” Vol. i., pp. 98-113.

“The First Principles of the Reformation Illustrated in the Ninety-five Theses and Three Primary Works of Martin Luther.” Edited with historical and theological introductions by Wace and Bucheim, Lond., 1884.

363  —

Morris, “Luther at the Wartburg and Coburg.” Philad., 1882.

364  —

Weber, “Luther’s Treatise,    De Servo Arbitrio.” In Brit. and For. Evan. Review, 1878, pp. 799-816.

365  —

Myconius, “Vita Zwinglii.” Basel, 1536.

Hess, “Life of Zwingli, the Swiss Reformer.” London, 1832.

Christoffel, “Zwingli; or, The Rise of the Reformation in Switzerland.” Edin., 1858.

Blackburn, “Ulrich Zwingli.” London, 1868.

366  —

Blackburn, “William Farel (1487-1531): The Story of the Swiss Reformation.” Edin., 1867.

367  —

Burrage, “History of the Anabaptists in Switzerland.” Philad., 1882.

368  —

Cunningham, “Reformers and Theology of the Reformation.” Edin., 1862, pp. 212-291; “Zwingli and the Doctrine of the Sacraments.”

369  —

Calvin, “Tracts relating to the Reformation, with Life of Calvin by Beza.” 3 vols., Edinburgh, 1844-1851.

Henry, “Life of John Calvin.” 2 vols., London, 1849.

Audin (Cath.), “History of Life, Writings, and Doctrines of Calvin.” 2 vols., London, 1854.

Dyer, “The Life of John Calvin.” London, 1850.

Bungener, “Calvin: his Life, Labours, and Writings.” Edinburgh, 1863.

370  —

M’Crie, “The Early Years of John Calvin,    A.D. 1509-1536.” Ed. by W. Fergusson, Edinburgh, 1880.

371  —

“English Translation of Calvin’s Works.” By Calvin Translation Society, in 52 vols., Edinburgh, 1842-1853.

For a more sympathetic and true estimate of Calvin as a commentator, see Farrar, “History of Interpretations.” London, 1886.

Also papers by Farrar on the “Reformers as Commentators.” In    Expositor, Second Series.

372  —

See Dorner, “History of Protestant Theology.” Vol. i., pp. 384-414, for a much truer outline of Calvin’s doctrine from another Lutheran pen.

373  —

Cunningham, “Reformers and Theology of the Reformation.” Essay vii., “Calvin and Beza.” Pp. 345-412, Edin., 1862.

374  —

Butler, “The Reformation in Sweden, its Rise, Progress, and Crisis, and its Triumph under Charles IX.” New York, 1883.

Geijer, “History of the Swedes.” Trans. from the Swedish by Turner, Lond., 1847.

375  —

Pontoppidan, “Annales eccles. Dan.” ii., iii., Han., 1741.

Ranke, “History of the Reformation.” Vol. iii.

376  —

The chief documentary authorities for the whole period are the State Papers edited by Brewer and others. See also

Froude, “History of England from Fall of Wolsey till Death of Elizabeth.” 12 vols., Lond., 1856-1869.

Burnet, “History of Reformation of Church of England.” 2 vols., Lond., 1679.

Blunt, “Reformation of the Church of England.” 4th ed., Lond., 1878.

Strype, “Ecclesiastical Memorials.” 3 vols., Lond., 1721.

“Annals of the Reformation.” 4 vols., 1709-1731.

Foxe, “Acts and Monuments.” (Pub.    A.D. 1563), 8 vols., Lond., 1837-1841.

377  —

Demaus, “Life of William Tyndal.” London, 1868.

Fry, “A Bibliographical Description of the Editions of the N.T., Tyndale’s Version in English, etc., the notes in full of the Edition of 1534.” London, 1878.

“Facsimile Edition of Tyndale’s first printed N.T.” Edited by Arber, London, 1871.

378  —

Gasquet, “Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries.” 2 vols., London, 1888.

379  —

Hook, “Lives of Archb. of Canterbury.” Vols. vi., vii.

Bayly, “Life and Death of Fisher, Bishop of Rochester.” London, 1655.

Dixon, “History of Church of England.” London, 1878, vol. i., “Henry VIII.”

Froude, “History of England.” Vols. i.-iii.

380  —

Heppe, “The Reformers of England and Germany in the Sixteenth Century; their Intercourse and Correspondence.” London, 1859.

381  —

Phillip, “History of the Life of Reg. Pole.” 2 vols., London, 1765.

Hook, “Lives of Archb. of Cant.” Vol. viii.

Lee, “Reginald Pole, Cardinal-Archbishop of Canterbury: an Historical Sketch.” London, 1888.

382  —

Demaus, “Life of Latimer.” London, 1869.

383  —

Hayward, “Life of Edward VI.” London, 1630.

Hook, “Lives of Archb. of Cant.” Vols. vii. and viii.

Froude, “History of Eng.” Vols. iv. and v.

Strype, “Life of Cranmer.” London, 1694.

Norton, “Life of Archb. Cranmer.” New York, 1863.

Foxe, “Acts and Monuments.”

Maitland, “Essays on the Reformation in England.” London, 1849.

384  —

Procter, “History of Book of Common Prayer.” Cambr., 1855.

Hole, “The Prayer Book.” London, 1887.

Hardwick, “History of the Articles of Religion.” Cambr., 1851.

Stephenson, “Book of Common Prayer.” 3 vols., London, 1854.

Burnet, “Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles.” London, 1699.

Browne, “Exposition of Thirty-Nine Articles.” London, 1858.

385  —

Froude, “History of England.” Vols. vi.-xii.

Hook, “Lives of Archb. of Cant.” Vol. ix.

386  —

Killen, “Ecclesiastical History of Ireland from Earliest to Present Times.” 2 vols., Lond., 1875.

Mant, “Hist. of Church of Ireland from Reformation.” London, 1839.

Ball, “Hist. of the Church of Ireland.”

387  —

Lorimer, “Patrick Hamilton, First Preacher and Martyr of the Scottish Reformation.” Edinburgh, 1857.

388  —

It was certainly at St. Andrews that the execution took place. The best and fullest account of Walter Mill is given by Mr. Scott, of Arbroath, in his “Martyrs of Angus and Mearns.” London, 1885, pp. 210-271.

For George Wishart, see same book, pp. 99-209; and

Rogers, “Life of George Wishart.” Edinburgh,  1876.

389  —

Strickland, “Life of Mary Stuart.” 5 vols., Lond., 1875.

Hosack, “Mary Queen of Scots and Her Accusers.” 2 vols., Lond., 1874.

Schiern, “Life of James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, from the Danish.” Edin., 1880.

Skelton, “Maitland of Lethington and the Scotland of Mary Stuart.” 2 vols., Edin., 1887 f.

390  —

“The Works of John Knox.” Collected and edited by David Laing, 7 vols., Edin., 1846-1864.

M’Crie, “Life of Knox.” 2 vols., Edin., 1811.

Lorimer, “John Knox and the Church of England.” Lond., 1875.

Calderwood, “History of Church of Scotland.” Lond., 1675.

Stuart, “History of Reformation in Scotland.” Lond., 1780.

Cook, “History of Church of Scot. from Ref.” 3 vols., Edin., 1815.

M’Crie, “Sketches of Scottish Church History.” 2 vols., Lond., 1841.

Cunningham, “History of the Church of Scotland.” 2 vols., Edin., 1859.

Lee, “Lectures on History of Church of Scotland from Ref. to Rev.” 2 vols., Edin., 1860.

General Histories of Scotland:

“Robertson.” 2 vols., Edin., 1759.

“Tytler.” 9 vols., Edin., 1826.

“Burton.” 8 vols., Edin., 1873.

“Mackenzie.” Edin., 1867.

391  —

Brandt, “History of the Reformation in the Low Countries.” 4 vols., Lond., 1720.

Motley, “Rise of the Dutch Republic.” 3 vols., Lond., 1856.

392  —

Bersier, “Coligny: the Earlier Life of the Great Huguenot.” Lond., 1884.

White, “The Massacre of St. Bartholomew.” 2 vols., London, 1868.

Lord Mahon, “Life of Louis, Prince of Condé.” New York, 1848.

Baird, “History of the Rise of the Huguenots.” 2 vols., London and New York, 1880.

393  —

The following have been translated into English:

“Treatise on the Church.” London, 1579.

“The Truth of the Christian Religion, partly by Sir Phil. Sydney.” London, 1587.

“On the Eucharist.” London, 1600.

394  —

De Felice, “History of Protestants in France from Beginning of Reformation to the Present Time.” London, 1853.

Jervis, “History of the Gallican Church from A.D. 1516 to the Revolution.” 2 vols., London, 1872.

Baird, “Huguenots and Henry of Navarre.” 2 vols., New York, 1886.

Ranke, “Civil Wars and Monarchy in France in the 16th and 17th Centuries.” 2 vols., London, 1852.

Smedley, “History of the Reformation in France.” 3 vols., London, 1832.

Weiss, “History of the Protestant Reformation in France.” 2 vols., London and New York, 1854.

“Memoirs of Duke of Sully, Prime Minister to Henry IV.” 4 vols., London (Bohn).

395  —

Dalton, “John à Lasco: His Earlier Life and Labours.” London, 1886.

Krasinski, “Historical Sketch of the Rise, Progress, and Decline of the Reformation in Poland.” 2 vols., London, 1838.

396  —

“History of Persecutions in Bohemia from    A.D. 894 to A.D. 1632.” London, 1650.

397  —

Bauhoffer, “History of the Protestant Church of Hungary, from the beginning of the Reformation to 1850, with Reference also to Transylvania.” Trans. by Dr. Craig of Hamburg, with introd. by D’Aubigné, Lond., 1854.

398  —

Bochmer, “Spanish Reformers, Lives and Writings.” 2 vols., Strassburg, 1874.

M’Crie, “History of the Progress and Suppression of Reformation in Spain.” Edin., 1829.

De Castro, “The Spanish Protestants, and their Persecutions by Philip II.” Lond., 1852.

Prescott, “History of the Reign of Philip II.” 3 vols., Boston, 1856.

399  —

M’Crie, “History of the Progress and Suppression of the Reformation in Italy.” 2nd ed., Edinburgh, 1833.

Wiffen, “Life and Writings of Juan Valdez.” London, 1865.

Young, “Life and Times of Aonio Paleario.” 2 vols., London, 1860.

400  —

Benrath, “Bernardius Ochino of Siena.” London, 1876.

Gordon, “Bernardius Tommassini (Ochino).” In    Theological Review for October, 1876, pp. 532-561.

401  —

Bonnet, “Life of Olympia Morata: an Episode of the Renaissance and the Reformation in Italy.” Edin., 1854.

402  —

Krauth, “The Conservative Reformation and its Theology.” Philadelphia, 1872.

Döllinger, “The Church and the Churches.” Lond., 1862.

403  —

Dorner, “History of Protestant Theology.” Vol. i., pp. 338-383.

404  —

Calvin, “Institutes.” Bk. iii., ch. xi. 5-12.

Ritschl, “History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation.” Edin., 1872, pp. 214-233.

405  —

All the hymns of Luther quoted above are translated by George Macdonald in his “Luther the Singer.” Contributed to the    Sunday Magazine for 1867.

406  —

On Speratus, Decius, and Eber, see an interesting paper by the late Dr. Fleming Stevenson in    Good Words for 1863, p. 542.

407  —

All the hymns referred to above, as well as those which are given in the next paragraph, are translations by Miss Winkworth in “Lyra Germanica.” New edition, London, 1885.

408  —

Warneck, “Outlines of the History of Protestant Missions from the Reformation to the Present Time.” Edinburgh, 1884.

409  —

Hodge, “The Church and its Polity.” Edin., 1879, page 114.

410  —

Morley, “Clement Marot.” London, 1871.

411  —

Lee, “The Church under Queen Elizabeth.” 2 vols., London, 1880.

M’Crie, “Annals of English Presbytery from the Earliest Period to the Present Time.” London, 1872.

412  —

Neal, “History of the Puritans.” 4 vols., London, 1731.

Paul, “Life of Whitgift.” London, 1699.

Brook, “Lives of the Puritans.” 3 vols., London, 1813.

Marsden, “The Early Puritans.” London, 1852; “The Later Puritans.” London, 1853.

Hopkins, “The Puritans.” 3 vols., London, 1860.

Walker, “History of Independency.” 3 vols., London, 1648.

Hanbury, “Memorials relating to the Independents.” 3 vols., London, 1839.

Fletcher, “History of Independ. in England.” 4 vols., London, 1862.

Waddington, “Congregational History.” London, 1874.

Dexter, “The Congregationalism of the last Three Hundred Years, as seen in its Literature.” London, 1880.

Marshall, “History of the Mar-Prelate Controversy.” London, 1845.

Robinson, “Apologie, or Defence of Christians called Brownists.” 1604.

Ashton, “Works of John Robinson, Pastor of Pilgrim Fathers, with Memoir and Annotations.” 3 vols., London, 1851.

Mather, “Ecclesiastical History of New England, from its Planting in 1620 till 1698.” London, 1702.

Doyle, “The English in America: The Puritan Colonies.” 2 vols., London, 1888.

Bancroft, “History of the United States.”

413  —

Parkman, “Pioneers of France in the New World.” London, 1885.

Baird, “Rise of the Huguenots of France.” Vol. i., p. 291 ff.

414  —

The “Heidelberg Catechism” was translated into English, and published at Oxford, 1828.

Ursinus’ expositions of the catechism have been translated: “The Summe of Christian Religion.” Etc., Lond., 1611.

415  —

An English translation of Erastus’ treatise was published in 1699, and re-issued with a preface by Dr. Rob. Lee, Edin., 1844.

One of the fullest and ablest statements on “The Erastian Controversy” is that given in chap. xxvii. of Principal Cunningham’s “Historical Theology.” (Edin., 1870), vol. ii., pp. 557-587.

416  —

Dorner, “History of Protestant Theology.” Vol. i., pp. 182-189: “The False Theoretical Mystics: Schwenkfeld.”

Ritschl, “History of the Chr. Doctr. of Justification and Reconciliation.” Edinburgh, 1872, p. 292.

417  —

Morley, “Life of Agrippa von Nettesheim.” 2 vols., London, 1856.

418  —

Symmonds, “The Age of the Despots.”

Dorner, “History of Protestant Theology.” Vol. i., pp. 191-195.

See also two articles in the July and October parts of the    Scottish Review for 1888, pp. 67-107, 244-270: “Giordano Bruno before the Venetian Inquisition,” and “The Ultimate Fate of Giordano Bruno.”

419  —

More, “Mystery of Godliness.” Bk. vi., chaps. xii.-xviii. Also Enthusiasmus Triumphatus in his “Coll. Phil. Works.” London, 1662.

Rutherford, “A Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist, opening the Secrets of Familism and Antinomianism.” London, 1648.

420  —

Mosheim, “Ecclesiastical History.” Cent. xvi., sect. iii., part ii., chap. iii.

Ranke, “History of the Reformation.” Vol. iii., bk. vi., chap. ix.

Brandt, “History of the Reformation in the Low Countries.” Vol. i.

421  —

Burrage, “History of the Anabaptists in Switzerland.” Philadelphia, 1882.

422  —

Wallace, “Antitrinitarian Biography.” 3 vols., London, 1850.

Dorner, “Hist. Dev. of Doctr. of Person of Christ.”

Ritschl, “Hist. of Chr. Doctr. of Justification.” P. 289.

423  —

The sketch of Servetus given above is based upon the one-sided and wholesale eulogies of his resolute apologist Tollin.

A thoroughly impartial and objective statement of his doctrinal system is given by Dorner, “History of Prot. Theology.” Vol. i., pp. 189-191.

Principal Cunningham, in a very thorough manner, examines the grounds upon which his enemies seek to fix upon Calvin the odium of Servetus’ death in “Reformers and Theology of Reformation.” Essay VI., pp. 314-333.

Rilliet, “Calvin and Servetus.” Trans. by Dr. Tweedie, Edinburgh, 1846.

Drummond, “Life of Servetus.” London, 1848.

Willis, “Servetus and Calvin.” London, 1876.

424  —

Aretius, “History of Val. Gentilis, the Tritheist, put to Death at Bern.” London, 1696.

425  —

Toulmin, “Memoirs of the Life, Char., etc., of Faustus Socinus.” London, 1777.

426  —

Ritschl, “Hist. of Chr. Doctr. of Justification.” Pp. 298-309.

Cunningham, “Historical Theology.” Chap. xxiii., “The Socinian Controversy,” pp. 155-236.

Stillingfleet gives an account of the Racovian Catechism in the preface to his work on “Christ’s Satisfaction.” 2nd ed., London, 1697.

427  —

Ranke, “History of the Popes.” Bk. ii., “Beginnings of a Regeneration of Catholicism.”

428  —

Pasquino was a statue which shortly before had been dug up and placed on the spot where formerly had stood the booth of a cobbler of that name, dreaded for his pungent wit. It was used for the posting up of “pasquins” of every sort, especially about the popes and the curia.

429  —

An admirable paper by Hase on Theiner’s “Acts of the Council of Trent” has been translated in the Brit. and For. Evan. Review for 1876, pp. 358-369.

Mendham, “Memoirs of the Council of Trent.” London, 1834.

Father Paul Sarpi’s “History of the Council of Trent.” 3rd ed. fol., London, 1640.

Bungener, “History of the Council of Trent.” Edin., 1852.

Buckley, “Canons and Decrees of Council of Trent.” London, 1851.

Buckley, “Catechism of Council of Trent.” London, 1852.

430  —

Mendham, “The Life and Pontificate of Pius V.” London, 1832.

431  —

Hübner, “The Life and Times of Sixtus V.” Trans. by Jerningham, 2 vols., London, 1872.

432  —

In “Spanish Mystics.” (London, 1886), there is an admirable sketch of Theresa, pp. 39-86, and of John of the Cross, pp. 106-113.

433  —

“Spanish Mystics.” P. 7, note.

434  —

“Life of St. Philip Neri, Apostle of Rome, and Founder of the Congregation of the Oratory.” 2 vols., London, 1847.

435  —

Coleridge, “Life of Ignatius Loyola.” London, 1872.

Ranke, “History of the Popes.” Vol. i.

436  —

Rose, “Ignatius Loyola, and the Early Jesuits.” London, 1870.

Nicolini, “History of the Jesuits.” Edin., 1853.

Sir James Stephens on “The Founders of Jesuitism.” In his “Essays on Ecclesiastical Biography.” Vol. i., p. 249.

437  —

Cartwright, “The Jesuits, their Constitution and Teaching.” London, 1876.

438  —

Griesinger, “The Jesuits: from the Foundation of the Order to the Present Time.” London, 1885.

Pascal, “Provincial Letters.” Translated by Dr. M’Crie, Edin., 1851.

“The Jesuits’ Morals, collected out of the Jesuit’s own Books.” London, 1670.

439  —

Gibbings, “An Exact Reprint of the Roman Index Expurgatorius.” The only Vatican Index of this kind ever published. Dublin, 1837.

440  —

Butler, “Life of Cardinal Borromeo.” London, 1835.

Martin, “Life of Borromeo.” London, 1847.

441  —

Venn, “Missionary Life and Labours of Xavier.” Lond., 1863.

442  —

Legge, “Christianity in China: Nestorianism, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism; with the Chinese and Syriac Texts of the Nestorian Monument of Hsi-an-Fû.” London, 1888.

443  —

Adams, “History of Japan from the Earliest Period.” 2 vols., London, 1874.

On the religion of Japan before the introduction of Christianity, see Ebrard, “Apologetics.” Vol. iii., pp. 66-73, Edin., 1887.

444  —

Helps, “Life of Barth. de las Casas.” 2nd ed., Lond., 1868.

Prescott, “History of Conquest of Mexico.” London, 1886, pp. 178-184.

445  —

Merimée, “The Russian Impostors: the False Demetrius.” London, 1852.

446  —

Neale, “History of the Holy Eastern Church.” Vol. ii., p. 356 ff.

Cyrillus Lucaris, “Confessio Christianæ Fidei.” Geneva, 1633.

Smith, “   Collectanea de Cyrillo Lucario.” London, 1707.

447  —

Stevens, “Life and Times of Gustavus Adolphus.” New York, 1884.

Trench, “Gustavus Adolphus in Germany, and other Lectures on the Thirty Years’ War.” London.

Gardiner, “The Thirty Years’ War” in “Epochs of Modern History.” London, 1881.

448  —

Bray, “Revolt of the Protestants of the Cevennes.” London, 1870.

Poole, “History of the Huguenots of the Dispersion.” London, 1880.

Agnew, “Protestant Exiles from France in the Reign of Louis XIV.” 3 vols., London, 1871.

Weiss, “History of French Protestant Refugees.” London, 1854.

449  —

Macaulay, “History of England from the Accession of James II.” London, 1846.

Hassencamp, “History of Ireland from the Reformation to the Union.” London, 1888.

Adair, “Rise and Progress of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland from 1623 to 1670.” Belfast, 1866.

Hamilton, “History of Presbyterian Church in Ireland.” Edin., 1887.

450  —

Butler, “Life of Hugo Grotius.” London, 1826.

Motley, “John of Barneveld.” Vol. ii., New York, 1874.

451  —

“An Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholic Church in Matters of Controversy.” London, 1685.

“Variations of Protestantism.” 2 vols., Dublin, 1836.

Butler, “Some Account of the Life and Writings of Bishop Bossuet.” London, 1812.

452  —

“The Work of John Durie in behalf of Christian Union in the Seventeenth Century.” By Dr. Briggs in    Presbyterian Review, vol. viii., 1887, pp. 297-300. To which is attached an account by Durie himself, never before published, of his own union efforts from July, 1631, till September, 1633. See pp. 301-309.

453  —

Clarendon, “History of the Rebellion in England, 1649-1666.” 3 vols., Oxford, 1667.

Burnet, “History of his Own Time, 1660-1713.” 2 vols., London, 1724.

Guizot, “History of English Revolution of 1640.” London, 1856.

Gardiner, “History of England, 1603-1642.” 10 vols., London, 1885.

Marsden, “History of Early and Later Puritans, down to the Ejection of the Nonconformists in 1662.” 2 vols., London, 1853.

Masson, “Life of Milton.” 4 vols., London, 1859 ff.

454  —

Mitchell, “The Westminster Assembly.” London, 1882.

Mitchell and Struthers, “Minutes of Westminster Assembly.” Edinburgh, 1874.

Macpherson, “Handbook to Westminster Confession.” 2nd ed., Edinburgh, 1882.

Hetherington, “History of Westminster Assembly.” 4th ed., Edinburgh, 1878.

455  —

Carlyle, “Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches.” 2 vols., London, 1845.

Guizot, “Life of Cromwell.” London, 1877.

Paxton Hood, “Oliver Cromwell.” London, 1882.

Picton, “Oliver Cromwell.” London, 1878.

Harrison, “Oliver Cromwell.” London, 1888.

Barclay, “The Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth.” London, 1877.

456  —

Guizot, “Richard Cromwell and the Restoration of Charles II.” 2 vols., London, 1856.

Macpherson, “History of Great Britain from the Restoration.” London, 1875.

457  —

Bargraves, “Alexander VII. and His Cardinals.” Ed. by Robertson, London, 1866.

458  —

Cunningham, “Discussions on Church Principles.” Edin., 1863, chap. v.: “The Liberties of the Gallican Church.” Pp. 133-163.

459  —

Von Gebler, “Galileo Galilei and the Roman Curia.” Transl. by Sturge, London, 1879.

Madden, “Galileo and the Inquisition.” London, 1863.

Brewster, “Martyrs of Science.” Edin., 1841.

Von Gebler denies that any condemnation    ex cathedra was given.

460  —

Wilson, “Life of Vincent de Paul.” London, 1874.

461  —

Marsolier, “Life of Francis de Sales.” Translated by Coombes, London, 1812.

462  —

“Golden Thoughts from the ‘Spiritual Guide’ of Molinos.” With preface by J. H. Shorthouse, London, 1883.

463  —

Upham, “Life, Religious Opinions, and Experience of Madame de la Mothe Guyon, with an account of Fénelon.” London, 1854.

Brooke, “Exemplary Life of the Pious Lady Guion.” Bristol, 1806.

Butler, “Life of Fénelon.” London, 1810.

464  —

Beard, “Port Royal.” 2 vols., London, 1861.

St. Amour, “Journal in France and Rome, containing Account of Five Points of Controversy between Jansenists and Molinists.” London, 1664.

Schimmelpenninck, “Select Memoirs of Port Royal.” Fourth edition, 2 vols., London, 1835.

465  —

Dorner, “History of Protestant Theology.” Vol. ii., pp. 98-251.

466  —

Bruce, “Humiliation of Christ.” P. 131, Edin., 1876.

467  —

Dowding, “German Theology during the Thirty Years’ War: Life and Correspondence of G. Calixt.” 2 vols., Oxford, 1863.

468  —

Wildenhahn, “Life of Spener.” Translated by Wenzel, Philadelphia, 1881.

Guericke, “Life of A. H. Francke.” London, 1847.

469  —

Jennings, “The Rosicrucians: their Rites and Mysteries.” London, 1887.

470  —

Martensen, “Life and Works of Jacob Boehme.” London, 1886.

471  —

All the translations of hymns referred to in this and the preceding section are from Miss Winkworth’s “   Lyra Germanica.” London, 1885.

472  —

The “Works of Arminius.” Transl. by Nicholls, to which are added Brandt’s “Life of Arminius.” Etc., 3 vols., London, 1825.

Scott, “Translation of Articles of Synod of Dort.” London, 1818.

Hales, “Letters from the Synod of Dort.” Glasgow, 1765.

Calder, “Life of Simon Episcopius.” New York, 1837.

Cunningham, “Reformation and Theology of Reformation.” Essay VIII., “Calvinism and Arminianism.” Pp. 412-470.

Motley, “John of Barneveldt.” 2 vols., London, 1874.

473  —

Barclay, “The Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth.” Second ed., London, 1877.

Dr. Stoughton’s “History of Religion in England from Opening of Long Parliament to End of Eighteenth Century.” London.

474  —

See Macpherson, “Presbyterianism.” (Edin., 1883), pp. 8-10, where charges of intolerance such as those made against Presbyterianism in the text are repudiated.

475  —

Masson, “Life of John Milton.” 4 vols., London, 1859.

Pattison, “Milton.” In “English Men of Letters” series, London, 1880.

476  —

“Relquiæ Baxterianæ: Baxter’s Narrative of most Memorable Passages in his own Life.” London, 1696.

Orme, “Life and Times of Richard Baxter, with Critical Examination of his Writings.” London, 1830.

Stalker, “Baxter” in “Evangelical Succession Lectures.” Second series, Edinburgh, 1883.

477  —

Froude disputes this, and says, p. 12, that probably he was on the side of the Royalists. Brown has shown it to be almost certain that in 1644, not 1642, Bunyan, then in his sixteenth year, joined the Parliamentary forces. See Brown’s “Life.” Pp. 42-52.

478  —

Brown, “Life of Bunyan.” London, 1885.

Autobiography in “Grace Abounding.” 1622.

Southey, “Life of John Bunyan.” London, 1830.

Macaulay, “Essay on Bunyan.” In Edinburgh Review, 1830.

Froude, “Bunyan,” in “English Men of Letters.” London, 1880.

Nicoll, “Bunyan,” in “Evangelical Succession Lectures.” Third series, Edinburgh, 1883.

479  —

“Life of John Eliot, Apostle of the Indians.” By John Wilson, afterwards of Bombay, Edin., 1828.

480  —

Crosby, “History of the English Baptists.” 4 vols., London, 1728.

Ivimey, “History of the English Baptists from 1688-1760.” 2 vols., London, 1830.

Cramp, “History of the Baptists to end of 18th Century.” 3 vols., London, 1872.

481  —

Backus, “History of the English-American Baptists.” 2 vols., Boston, 1777.

Cox and Hoby, “The Baptists in America.” New York, 1836.

Hague, “The Baptists Transplanted.” Etc., New York, 1846.

482  —

Of special importance for the early history of the Quakers are,

“Letters of Early Friends.” Edited by Robert Barclay, a descendant of the Quaker apostle, London, 1841.

“Fox’s Journal; or, Historical Accounts of his Life, Travels, and Sufferings.” London, 1694.

Penn, “Summary of History, Doctrines, and Discipline of Friends.” London, 1692.

Tallack, “George Fox; the Quakers and the Early Baptists.” London, 1868.

Bickley, “George Fox and the Early Quakers.” London, 1884.

Stoughton, “W. Penn, Founder of Pennsylvania.” London, 1883.

483  —

Sewel, “History of the Quakers.” 2 vols., London, 1834.

Cunningham, “The Quakers, from their Origin in 1624 to the Present Time.” London, 1868.

Barclay, “Apology for the True Christian Divinity: a Vindication of Quakerism.” 4th ed., London, 1701.

Clarkson, “A Portraiture of Quakerism.” 3 vols., London, 1806.

Rowntree, “Quakerism, Past and Present.” London, 1839.

484  —

Heard, “The Russian Church and Russian Dissent.” London, 1887.

Mackenzie Wallace, “Russia.” Chaps. xiv., xx., 2 vols., London, 1877.

Palmer, “The Patriarch and the Tsar.” 6 vols., London, 1871-1876.

485  —

Ueberweg, “History of Philosophy.” Vol. ii., pp. 31-135.

Pünjer, “History of the Christian Philosophy of Religion from the Reformation to Kant.” Edin., 1887.

Pfleiderer, “Philosophy of Religion.” Vol. i., London, 1887.

Erdmann’s “History of Philosophy.” 3 vols., London, 1889.

486  —

“Bacon’s Works.” Ed. by Spedding, Ellis, and Heath, 14 vols., London, 1870.

Spedding, “Letters and Life of Lord Bacon.” 2 vols., London, 1862.

Macaulay on Bacon in Edinburgh Review for 1837.

Church, “Bacon,” in vol. v. of “Collected Works.” London, 1888.

Nichol, “Bacon: Life and Philosophy.” 2 vols., Edin., 1888.

487  —

“Descartes’ Method, Meditations, and Principles of Philosophy.” Transl. by Prof. Veitch, Edin., 1850 ff.

Fischer, “Descartes and his School.” London, 1887.

488  —

Willis, “Spinoza: his Ethics, Life, and Influence on Modern Thought.” London, 1870.

Pollock, “Spinoza: his Life and Philosophy.” London, 1880.

Martineau, “Spinoza.” London, 1882.

“Spinoza, Four Essays by Land, Von Floten, Fischer, and Renan.” Edited by Prof. Knight, London, 1884.

489  —

“Locke’s Complete Works.” 9 vols., London, 1853.

Cousin, “Elements of Psychology: a Critical Examination of Locke’s Essay.” Edin., 1856.

Webb, “Intellectualism of Locke.” London, 1858.

490  —

Guhrauer, “Leibnitz: a Biography.” Transl. by Mackie, Boston, 1845.

491  —

Leland, “View of Principal Deistical Writers in England.” 2nd ed., 2 vols., London, 1755.

Halyburton, “Natural Religion Insufficient; or, A Rational Inquiry into the Principles of the Modern Deists.” Edin., 1714.

Tulloch, “Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in England in the 17th Century.” 2 vols., Edin., 1872.

Cairns, “Unbelief in the 18th Century.” Chap. ii., “Unbelief in the 17th Century.” Edin., 1881.

492  —

Lecky, “History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe.” 2 vols., London, 1873.

Hagenbach, “German Rationalism.” Edin., 1865.

Hagenbach, “History of Church in 18th and 19th Centuries.” 2 vols., London, 1870.

Leslie Stephen, “History of English Thought in the 18th Century.” 2 vols., London, 1876.

Cairns, “Unbelief in the 18th Century.” Edin., 1881.

493  —

Wilson, “The Christian Brothers, their Origin and Work. With a Sketch of the Life of their Founder, the Venerable Jean Baptiste de la Salle.” London, 1883.

494  —

Neale, “History of the so called Jansenist Church of Holland.” Oxford, 1858.

495  —

Cairns, “Unbelief in the Eighteenth Century.” Chap. iv., “Unbelief in France.” Edinburgh, 1881.

Morley, “Diderot and the Encyclopedists.” 2 vols., London, 1878.

Morley, “Voltaire.” London, 1872.

Lange, “History of Materialism.” 3 vols., London, 1877.

496  —

This saying is usually attributed to Voltaire. He used the expression in attacking Pierre Bayle.

Erdmann’s “Hist. of Phil.” Vol. ii., p. 158.

Ueberweg, “Hist. of Phil.” Vol. ii., p. 125.

497  —

Pressensé, “The Church and the Revolution.” London,  1869.

Jervis, “The Gallican Church and the Revolution.” London, 1882.

498  —

Hagenbach, “History of Church in the 18th and 19th Centuries.” Vol. i., pp. 109, 116; 2 vols., New York, 1869.

Dorner, “History of Protestant Theology.” Vol. ii., p. 208.

499  —

Dorner, “History of Protestant Theology.” Vol. ii., pp. 208-227.

500  —

Dorner, “History of Protestant Theology.” Vol. ii., pp. 266-279.

Hagenbach, “History of Church in 18th and 19th Centuries.” Vol. i., pp. 117-127.

501  —

Dorner, “History of Protestant Theology.” Vol. ii., pp. 259-261.

Geffcken, “Church and State.” 2 vols., Lon., 1887; vol. i., pp. 456-503.

502  —

Burney, “Life of Handel.” London, 1784.

503  —

Kelly, “Life and Work of Von Bogatsky: a Chapter from the Religious Life of the Eighteenth Century.” London, 1889.

504  —

Hough, “The History of Christianity in India.” 5 vols., London, 1839.

Sherring, “History of Missions in India.” Edited by Storrow. London, 1888.

Pearson, “Memoirs, Life, and Correspondence of Chr. Fr. Schwartz.” Etc., 2 vols., London, 1834.

505  —

Hagenbach, “History of the Christian Church in the 18th and 19th Centuries.” New York, 1869; Lectures XVIII. and XIX., pp. 398-445.

506  —

Spangenberg, “Life of Count Zinzendorf.” London, 1838.

507  —

Spangenberg, “Account of Manner in which the Unitas Fratrum Propagate the Gospel, and Carry on their Missions among the Heathen.” London, 1788.

Holmes, “Historical Sketch of the Missions of the United Brethren for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Heathen from their Commencement down to 1817.” London, 1827.

508  —

“Tersteegen: Life and Character, with Extracts from His Letters and Writings.” London, 1832.

Winkworth, “Christian Singers of Germany.” London, 1869.

509  —

For a slightly different account see Tyerman, vol. i., p. 66.

510  —

Wesley himself continued to preach in the open air till nearly the end of the year 1790.

511  —

Further details as to the organization of the societies are given in Tyerman, 1st ed., vol. i., pp. 444, 445.

512  —

Southey, “Life of John Wesley.” London, 1820.

Isaac Taylor, “Wesley and Wesleyanism.” London, 1851.

Tyerman, “Wesley’s Life and Times.” 2 vols., 4th ed., London, 1877.

Urlin, “Churchman’s Life of Wesley.” London, 1880.

Abbey and Overton, “English Church in 18th Century.” 2 vols., London, 1879.

Lecky, “History of England in the 18th Century.” 2 vols., London, 1878.

Stoughton, “History of Religion in England to End of 18th Century.” 6 vols., London, 1882.

Jackson, “Life of Charles Wesley.” 2 vols., London, 1841.

Tyerman, “Life of Whitefield.” 2 vols., London, 1877.

Macdonald, “Fletcher of Madeley.” London.

Smith, “History of Methodism.” 3 vols., London, 1857.

Stevens, “History of Methodism.” 3 vols., New York, 1858.

Stevens, “History of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States.” 4 vols., New York, 1864.

Bangs, “History of the Methodist Episcopal Church.” 4 vols., New York, 1839.

513  —

Hagenbach, “History of Church in 18th and 19th Centuries.” Vol. i., pp. 159-164.

514  —

Hagenbach, “History of the Church in the 18th and 19th Centuries.” Vol. i., pp. 168-175.

515  —

Tafel, “Documents concerning the Life and Character of Swedenborg.” 3 vols., London, 1875.

White, “Emanuel Swedenborg, his Life and Writings.” 2 vols., London, 1867.

516  —

Evans, “Shakers: Compendium of Origin, History, Principles, and Doctrines of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Coming.” New York, 1859.

Dixon, “New America.” 2 vols., 8th ed., London, 1869.

Nordhoff, “The Communistic Societies of the United States.” London, 1874.

517  —

Pusey, “Historical Inquiry into the Causes of the Prevalence of Rationalism in Germany.” London, 1828.

Rose, “The State of Protestantism in Germany.” Oxford, 1829.

Saintes, “A Critical History of Rationalism in Germany, from its Origin till the Present Time.” London, 1849.

Lecky, “History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe.” 2 vols., London, 1873.

Farrar, “Critical History of Free Thought in Reference to the Christian Religion.” London, 1863.

Hagenbach, “German Rationalism.” Edinburgh, 1865.

Hurst, “History of Rationalism.” New York, 1865.

Gostwick, “German Culture and Christianity, their Controversy, 1770-1880.” New York, 1882.

518  —

Stephen, “History of English Thought in the 18th Century.” 2 vols., London, 1876.

Cairns, “Unbelief in the 18th Century.” Edinburgh, 1881.

Pünjer, “History of Christian Philosophy of Religion from Reformation to Kant.” § 5, “The English Deists.” Edinburgh, 1887.

519  —

Halliwell, “The Early History of English Freemasonry.” London, 1840.

520  —

Ritschl, “History of Christian Doctr. of Justification and Reconciliation.” Pp. 347-426.

Dorner, “History of Protestant Theology.” Vol. ii., pp. 277-292.

Hagenbach, “History of The Church in The 18th and 19th Centuries.” Vol. i., pp. 251-321.

521  —

Chalybæus, “Historical Development of Speculative Philosophy, from Kant to Hegel.” Edin., 1854.

Räbiger, “Theological Encyclopædia.” Vol. i., pp. 73-76.

522  —

Stahr, “Lessing: his Life and Works.” Translated by G. Evans, 2 vols., Boston, 1866.

Sime, “Lessing, his Life and Writings.” 2 vols., London, 1877.

Zimmern, “G. E. Lessing: his Life and Works.” London, 1878.

Smith, “Lessing as a Theologian.” In the    Theological Review, July, 1868.

523  —

Russell, “A Short Account of the Life and History of Pestalozzi.” Based on De Guemp’s “   L’Histoire de Pestalozzi.” London, 1888. To be followed by a complete English translation of De Guemp’s work.

524  —

Marshman, “Life and Times of Marshman, Carey, and Ward.” 2 vols., London, 1859.

Smith, “Life of William Carey.” London, 1886.

Wilson, “Missionary Voyage of the Ship Duff.” London, 1799.

Morison, “Fathers and Founders of the London Missionary Society.” London, 1844.

525  —

Baur, “Religious Life in Germany.” London, 1872, pp. 177-196.

526  —

Kahnis, “Internal History of German Protestantism since the Middle of Last Century.” Edin., 1856.

527  —

Hagenbach, “History of Church in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.” Vol. ii., pp. 413-416.

528  —

Mombert, “Faith Victorious, being an Account of the Life, Labour, and Times of Dr. J. W. Ebel, 1714-1861, compiled from authentic sources.” London, 1882.

Dixon, “Spiritual Wives.” London, 1868.

529  —

Strack, “The Work of Bible Revision in Germany.” In    Expositor, third series, vol. ii., pp. 178-187.

530  —

See papers by Driver, Cheyne, Davidson, Kirkpatrick, in Expositor for 1886-1888, on various books in Revised Old Testament.

Westcott, “Some Lessons of Revised Version of New Testament.” In Expositor, third series, vol. v., pp. 81, 241, 453.

Jennings and Lowe, “Revised Version of Old Testament: a Critical Estimate.” In    Expositor, third Series, vol. ii., pp. 57, etc.

531  —

“Schleiermacher’s Life in Letters.” Translated by Rowan, London, 1860.

Baur, “Religious Life in Germany.” London, 1872, pp. 197 ff.

Dorner, “History of Protestant Theology.” Vol. ii., pp. 374-395.

532  —

Cheyne, “Life and Works of Heinrich Ewald.” In    Expositor, third series, vol. iv., pp. 241 ff., 361 ff.

533  —

There are English translations of his “Life of Christ.” “First Planting of Christianity.” “Antignostikus.” “History of Christian Dogmas.” “Christian Life in the Early and Middle Ages.” All published by Bohn.

534  —

Zeller, “David Frederick Strauss, in his Life and Writings.” London, 1874. Translations: “Life of Jesus Critically Treated.” 1846; “Life of Jesus for the German People.” 1865; “The Old Faith and the New.” 1874; “Ulrich von Hutten.” 1874.

535  —

Simon, “Isaac August Dorner.” In    Presbyterian Review for October, 1887, pp. 569-616.

536  —

Rothe, “Still Hours.” Translated by Miss Stoddart, with Introductory Essay on Rothe by Rev. J. Macpherson. London, 1886.

537  —

Galloway, “The Theology of Ritschl.” In    Presbyterian Review for April, 1889, pp. 192-209.

538  —

Series of papers in    Good Words for 1860, pp. 377 ff.

539  —

Fleming Stevenson, “The Blue Flag of Kaiserswerth.” In    Good Words for 1861, pp. 121 ff., 143 ff.

540  —

Owen, “History of the First Ten Years of the Bible Society.” 3 vols., London, 1816.

541  —

Wiseman, “Recollections of the Last Four Popes.” 3 vols., London, 1853.

Mendham, “Index of Prohibited Books by order of Gregory XVI.” London, 1840.

542  —

Legge, “Pius IX. to the Restoration of 1850.” 2 vols., London, 1872.

Trollope, “Life of Pius IX.” 2 vols., London, 1877.

Shea, “Life and Pontificate of Pius IX.” New York, 1877.

543  —

Geffcken, “Church and State.” Vol. ii., pp. 269-293: “The Italian Question and the Papal States.”

544  —

Geffcken, “Church and State.” Vol. ii., pp. 236-238.

545  —

Bridges, “Life of Martin Boos.” London, 1836.

546  —

Hamberger, “Sketch of the Character of the Theosophy of Baader.” Translated in    American Presbyterian and Theological Review, 1869.

547  —

Laing, “Notes on the Rise, Progress, etc., of the German Catholic Church of Ronge and Czerski.” London, 1845.

548  —

Manning, “The True History of the Vatican Council.” London, 1877.

Pomponio Leto, “The Vatican Council, being the impressions of a contemporary (Card. Vitelleschi), translated from the Italian with the original documents.” London, 1876.

Quirinus, “Letters from Rome on the Council.” London, 1870.

Janus, “The Pope and the Council.” London, 1869.

Bungener, “Rome and the Council in the Nineteenth Century.” Edinburgh, 1870.

Arthur, “The Pope, the Kings, and the People, a History of the Movement to make the Pope Governor of the World, 1864-1871.” 2 vols., London, 1877.

Acton, “History of the Vatican Council.” London, 1871.

Friedrich, “Documenta ad illum. Conc. Vat.” Nördling, 1871.

Martin (Bishop of Paderborn), “   Omnium Conc. Vat. quæ ad doctr. et discipl. pertin. docum. Collectio.” 1873.

549  —

Geffcken, “Church and State.” Vol. ii., pp. 501-531.

Smith, “The Falk Legislation from the Political Point of View.” In the    Theological Review for October, 1875.

550  —

Geffcken, “Church and State.” 2 vols., London, 1877; vol. ii., pp. 488-531.

551  —

The Austrian May Laws were in some respects more sweeping than the Prussian (§ 197, 5   ); but the former were framed with reference to the police, the latter with reference to the law. In Prussia the decision, judgment, and sentence in all cases of contravention and collision were assigned to the court of law; in Austria they were assigned to the court of administration, in the last instance to the minister. The Austrian laws could thus be urged and ignored at pleasure.

552  —

Geffeken, “Church and State.” Vol. ii., pp. 469-488.

553  —

R. J. Sandeman, “Alexander Vinet.” In “Evangelical Succession Lectures.” Third Series, Edinburgh, 1884.

Dorner, “History of Protestant Theology.” ii., 470, 478.

554  —

Cairns, “The Present Struggle in the National Church of Holland.” In Presbyterian Review for January, 1888, pp. 87-108.

Wicksteed, “The Ecclesiastical Institutions of Holland.” London.

555  —

Lumsden, “Sweden, its Religious State and Prospects.” London, 1855.

556  —

Stoughton, “Religion in England during the First Half of the Present Century, with a Postscript on Subsequent Events.” 2 vols., London, 1876.

Molesworth, “History of England from 1830 to 1874.” 3 vols., London.

557  —

Littledale, “Church Parties.” Art. in the Contemporary Review for July, 1874, pp. 287-320.

Mozley, “Reminiscences of Oriel College.” London, 1882.

558  —

Newman, “Apologia pro Vita Sua.” London, 1864.

Weaver, “Puseyism, a Refutation and Exposure.” London, 1843.

559  —

The very confused, wholly inadequate, and in some points positively incorrect statements in the above paragraph may be supplemented and amended by reference to the following literature:

Buchanan, “Ten Years’ Conflict.” 2 vols., Edin., 1852.

Moncrieff, “Vindication of the Claim of Right.” Edin., 1877.

Moncrieff, “The Free Church Principle: its Character and History.” Edin., 1883.

Mackerrow, “History of the Secession Church.” Glasgow, 1841.

560  —

Smith’s appointment was to the Lord Almoner’s Professorship, with a merely nominal salary; but he was afterwards elected to the more remunerative office of University librarian, and more recently has succeeded Prof. Wright in the Chair of Arabic in the University.

561  —

Jarvis, “The Gallican Church and the Revolution.” Pp. 324-395, London, 1882.

562  —

Borrow, “The Bible in Spain.” 2 vols., London, 1843.

563  —

Lendrum, “Ecclesia Pressa: or, the Lutheran Church in the Baltic Provinces.” In The Theological Review and Free Church College Quarterly, vol. ii., 310-330.

C. H. H. Wright, “The Persecution of the Lutheran Church in the Baltic Provinces of Russia.” In the    British and Foreign Evangelical Review, January, 1887.

564  —

Baird, “Religion in the United States.” Glasgow, 1844.

“Progress and Prospects of Christianity in the United States.” London, 1851.

Gorrie, “Churches and Sects in the United States.” New York, 1850.

565  —

Stevens, “History of the Episcopal Methodist Church in North America.” Philadelphia, 1868.

Gorrie, “History of the Episcopal Methodist Church in the United States.” New York, 1881.

566  —

A full account of the recent development of Protestantism in Brazil is given in an article in the    Presbyterian Review for January, 1889, pp. 101-106: “The Organization of the Synod of Brazil,” by Dr. J. Aspinwall Hodge.—On 15th November, 1889, the emperor was expelled and a republic proclaimed.

567  —

Hepworth Dixon, “Free Russia.” 2 vols., London, 1870.

Heard, “The Russian Church and Russian Dissent.” 2 vols., London, 1887.

568  —

Rowntree, “Quakerism Past and Present.” London, 1859.

569  —

Dixon, “New America.” 2 vols., 8th edition, London, 1869.

Nordhoff, “The Communistic Societies of the United States.” London, 1874.

570  —

Oliphant, “Life of Ed. Irving.” 3rd edition, London, 1865.

Carlyle, in “Miscellaneous Essays.”

Brown, “Personal Reminiscences of Ed. Irving.” in Expositor, 3 ser., vol. vi., pp. 216, 257.

Miller, “History and Doctrine of Irvingism.” 2 vols., London, 1878.

571  —

Darby, “Personal Recollections.” London, 1881.

572  —

Stenhouse, “An Englishwoman in Utah, the story of a Life’s Experience in Mormonism.” 2nd ed., London, 1880.

Gunnison, “The Mormons.” New York, 1884.

Burton, “The City of the Saints.” London, 1861.

573  —

Wilson, “The ‘Ever-Victorious Army:’ a History of the Chinese Campaign under Lieut.-Col. C. G. Gordon, and of the Suppression of the Taeping Rebellion.” Edinburgh.

574  —

Edmonds, “American Spiritualism.” 2 vols., New York, 1858.

Cox, “Spiritualism answered by Science.” London, 1872.

Crookes, “Spiritualism and Science.” London, 1874.

Wallace, “A Defence of Spiritualism.” London, 1874.

Owen, “The Debatable Land.” New York, 1872.

Carpenter, “Mesmerism, Spiritualism, etc., Historically and Scientifically Considered.” London, 1877.

Mahan, “The Phenomena of Spiritualism Scientifically Explained and Exposed.” London, 1875.

Horne, “Incidents in His Life.” London, 1863.

“Lights and Shadows of Spiritualism.” London, 1877.

575  —

Sinnett, “Esoteric Buddhism.” London, 1883.

576  —

Sargent, “Rob. Owen and his Social Philosophy.” London, 1860.

Nordhoff, “Communistic Societies in the United States.” London, 1875.

577  —

Onslow-Yorke, “The Secret History of the International Working-Men’s Association.” London, 1872.

Lissagaray, “History of the Commune of 1871.” Translated by Aveling, London, 1886.

578  —

From the fifteenth century the numbering of the General Councils is so variable and uncertain that even Catholic historians are not agreed upon this point. They are at one only about this, that the anti-papal councils claiming to be œcumenical, of Pisa A.D. 1409, Basel A.D. 1438, and Pisa A.D. 1511, should be designated schismatical “Conciliabula.” Hefele, in his “History of the Councils,” counts eighteen down to the Reformation. He makes the Constance Council in its first and last sessions the sixteenth, but does not count the middle session held without the pope. He makes that of Basel the seventeenth down to A.D. 1438 with its papal continuation at Ferrara and Florence. Finally, as eighteenth he gives the fifth Lateran Council of A.D.    1512-1517. But others strike Basel and Constance out of the list altogether; and many, especially the Gallicans, reject also the fifth Lateran Council, because occupied with matters of slight or merely local interest.

Transcriber’s Notes.

The following corrections have been made in the text:

1  —

added omitted Word ‘to’

(which seemed to establish)

2  —

‘ministery’ replaced with ‘ministry’

(and strengthened his own ministry)

3  —

‘23’ replaced with ‘13’

(1 Pet. v. 13)

4  —

‘beginings’ replaced with ‘beginnings’

(the beginnings of the church)

5  —

‘§ 183, 9’ replaced with ‘§ 182, 7’

(school of Baur (§    182, 7))

6  —

‘Hippolylus’ replaced with ‘Hippolytus’

(and of Hippolytus Ἔλεγχος)

7  —

‘Hebdomes’ replaced with ‘Hebdomas’

(the so-called Hebdomas)

8  —

‘gramatico’ replaced with ‘grammatico’

(grammatico-historical examination of scripture.)

9  —

‘Septimus’ replaced with ‘Septimius’

(campaign of Septimius Severus)

10  —

‘§ 12, 2’ replaced with ‘§ 13, 2’

(Christ’s promise (§    13, 2).)

11  —

‘immobolis’ replaced with ‘immobilis’

(immobilis et irreformabilis)

12  —

‘were’ replaced with ‘where’

(and spots where martyr’s relics)

13  —

‘ἐπστολή’ replaced with ‘ἐπιστολή’

(a Καθολικὴ ἐπιστολή,)

14  —

‘§ 57, 3’ replaced with ‘§ 37, 3’

(On    dies stationum (§ 37, 3) nothing)

15  —

‘portea’ replaced with ‘postea’

(esset postea gloriæ)

16  —

‘§ 47, 15’ replaced with ‘§ 47, 14’

(Martin of Tours (§    47, 14) established)

17  —

‘§ 85, 1’ replaced with ‘§ 86, 1’

(Carolingian legislation (§    86, 1).)

18  —

‘§ 53, 2’ replaced with ‘§ 50, 2’

(the Council of Sardica (§    50, 2),)

19  —

‘Ephesns’ replaced with ‘Ephesus’

(at the Council of Ephesus)

20  —

‘§ 69, 4-6’ replaced with ‘§ 59, 4-6’

(Hymn Composition, §    59, 4-6)

21  —

‘apocrisarius’ replaced with ‘apocrisiarius’

(a papal    apocrisiarius in Constantinople)

22  —

‘§ 57, 21h’ replaced with ‘§ 47, 21f’

(the author of    Prædestinatus (§ 47, 21f).)

23  —

‘Eutchyes’ replaced with ‘Eutyches’

(against Nestorius and Eutyches)

24  —

‘followship’ replaced with ‘fellowship’

(received back into church fellowship)

25  —

‘Eunonius’ replaced with ‘Eunomius’

(4 bks. against Eunomius)

‘Amphilochum’ replaced with ‘Amphilochium’

(Ad Amphilochium, against the)

26  —

‘§ 467’ replaced with ‘§ 46, 7’

(to    Leo the Great (§ 46, 7) at Rome)

27  —

‘Diophysites’ replaced with ‘Dyophysites’

(at the head of the Dyophysites)

28  —

‘Quadrigesma’ replaced with ‘Quadragesima’

(the whole Quadragesima season)

29  —

‘§ 160, 8’ replaced with ‘§ 161, 8’

(referred to by the Protestants (§    161, 8))

30  —

‘§ 71, 2’ replaced with ‘§ 70, 2’

(church service of Psalms (§    70, 2).)

31  —

‘§ 61, 7’ replaced with ‘§ 61, 1’

(and discipline (§    61, 1),)

32  —

‘divisons’ replaced with ‘divisions’

(holders of the four divisions)

33  —

‘Manichiæan’ replaced with ‘Manichæan’

(to a Manichæan family)

34  —

‘§ 162, 10’ replaced with ‘§ 163, 10’

(a new departure (§    163, 10))

35  —

‘694’ replaced with ‘604’

(Gregory the Great,    A.D. 590-604)

36  —

‘§ 23, 6’ replaced with ‘§ 22, 6’

(end of the 3rd century (§    22, 6))

37  —

removed duplicate ‘of’

(led a horde of Angles and Saxons)

38  —

‘decidly’ replaced with ‘decidedly’

(most decidedly preferred it)

39  —

‘forbiden’ replaced with ‘forbidden’

(and storks is absolutely forbidden)

40  —

‘ust’ replaced with ‘just’

(just as they chose)

41  —

‘§ 290, 5’ replaced with ‘§ 90, 5’

(to Servatus Lupus (§    90, 5))

42  —

‘Gentiliscum’ replaced with ‘Gentiliacum’

(At a Synod at Gentiliacum)

43  —

‘§ 166, 9’ replaced with ‘§ 167, 9’

(overthrow of the colony.—Continuation, §    167, 9.)

44  —

‘brillant’ replaced with ‘brilliant’

(gained a brilliant victory)

45  —

‘disagraceful’ replaced with ‘disgraceful’

(starts this disgraceful series.)

46  —

‘§ 83, 13’ replaced with ‘§ 93, 13’

(Adalbert in Gnesen (§    93, 13))

47  —

‘§ 100, 15’ replaced with ‘§ 110, 15’

(developed into the tiara (§    110, 15))

48  —

‘archepiscopal’ replaced with ‘archiepiscopal’

(exercise of the archiepiscopal office)

49  —

‘§ 192, 5’ replaced with ‘§ 112, 5’

(Holy Father (Continuation, §    112, 5))

50  —

‘profoundity’ replaced with ‘profundity’

(of acuteness and profundity)

51  —

‘reconcilation’ replaced with ‘reconciliation’

(effected his reconciliation with Bernard)

52  —

‘Badgad’ replaced with ‘Bagdad’

(of Bagdad and Cordova)

53  —

‘apolegetical’ replaced with ‘apologetical’

(polemical and apologetical purposes)

54  —

‘§ 61, 14’ replaced with ‘§ 61, 4’

(pains of purgatory (§    61, 4))

55  —

‘§ 173, 9’ replaced with ‘§ 174, 9’

(completed and consecrated in    A.D. 1322 (§ 174, 9))

56  —

‘§ 112, 27’ replaced with ‘§ 112, 2’

(controversies in the Franciscan order (§    112, 2))

57  —

‘§ 164, 13’ replaced with ‘§ 165, 13’

(the Roman court till    A.D. 1791 (§ 165, 13))

58  —

‘Mohammad’ replaced with ‘Mohammed’

(the Turks, under Mohammed II.,)

59  —

‘Mohammadanism’ replaced with ‘Mohammedanism’

(apostasy to Mohammedanism,)

60  —

‘subtlely’ replaced with ‘subtly’

(abstruse discussion on subtly devised cases)

61  —

‘Cevena’ replaced with ‘Cesena’

(his general, Michael of Cesena,)

62  —

‘§ 170, 10’ replaced with ‘§ 171, 10’

(a precursor of Kant (§    171, 10))

63  —

‘Reichersburg’ replaced with ‘Reichersberg’

(and the two divines of Reichersberg)

64  —

‘Kaisersburg’ replaced with ‘Kaisersberg’

(Geiler of Kaisersberg distinguished)

65  —

‘iniquisitorial’ replaced with ‘inquisitorial’

(the subject of inquisitorial interference)

66  —

‘orginal’ replaced with ‘original’

(drawn from original documents)

67  —

‘orginal’ replaced with ‘original’

(which contains the original reports)

68  —

‘orginated’ replaced with ‘originated’

(This movement originated with)

69  —

‘correpondence’ replaced with ‘correspondence’

(that his correspondence with Tucher)

70  —

‘1256’ replaced with ‘1526’

(the Swiss in    A.D. 1526)

71  —

‘160, 8’ replaced with ‘161, 8’

(The O.T. Apocrypha (§§    59, 1; 161, 8))

72  —

‘§ 154, 5’ replaced with ‘§ 153, 6’

(the title of James I.   [390]—Continuation, § 153, 6.)

73  —

‘§ 166, 5’ replaced with ‘§ 165, 5’

(convulsion and revolution.—Continuation, §    165, 5.)

74  —

‘§ 158, 4’ replaced with ‘§ 159, 4’

(the sixteenth century.—Continuation, §    159, 4.)

75  —

‘§ 154A’ replaced with ‘§ 154, 3’

(electoral dynasty of Brandenburg (§    154, 3).)

76  —

Ending quotation mark added.

(and love’ of God.”)

77  —

added omitted word ‘the’

(one of the noblest popes)

78  —

‘§ 132, 13’ replaced with ‘§ 139, 13’

(Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine (§    139, 13))

79  —

‘§ 164, 10, 13’ replaced with ‘§ 165, 10, 13’

(the misfortune of Pius VI. (§    165, 10, 13))

80  —

‘§ 155, 7’ replaced with ‘§ 156, 7’

(erected by them.   [434]—Continuation, § 156, 7.)

81  —

‘§ 155, 13’ replaced with ‘§ 156, 13’

(accomplishing their own ends (§    156, 13))

82  —

‘164, 9’ replaced with ‘165, 9’

(in 803 houses.   [436]—Continuation, §§ 151, 1; 165, 9.)

83  —

‘155, 12’ replaced with ‘156, 12’

(prosecution of foreign missions (§§    150; 156, 12))

84  —

‘§ 155, 13’ replaced with ‘§ 156, 13’

(and commercial activity (§    156, 13))

85  —

‘§ 186, 20’ replaced with ‘§ 186, 2’

(amulets, and talismans (§    186, 2))

86  —

‘§ 155, 6’ replaced with ‘§ 156, 6’

(the heart of Jesus (§    156, 6))

87  —

‘§ 155, 5’ replaced with ‘§ 156, 5’

(the other of heresy.—Continuation, §    156, 5.)

88  —

‘§ 155, 11, 12’ replaced with ‘§ 156, 11, 12’

(part of the land.   [442]—Continuation, § 156, 11, 12.)

89  —

‘§ 186, 16’ replaced with ‘§ 156, 11’

(and there crucified (§    156, 11))

90  —

‘superfluous reference - destination uncertain.

(in    A.D. 1590 (§ 144, 4))

91  —

‘§ 142, 9’ replaced with ‘§ 141, 9’

(ubiquitous Christology (§ 141, 9))

‘§ 142, 10’ replaced with ‘§ 141, 10’

(   Corpus Doctrinæ Philippicum (§ 141, 10))

92  —

‘§ 158, 5’ replaced with ‘§ 159, 5’

(treatise of Hutter (§    159, 5))

93  —

‘§ 131, 6’ replaced with ‘§ 139, 6’

(of the State church (§    139, 6))

94  —

‘164, 7’ replaced with ‘165, 7’

(against the Jansenists (§§    156, 5; 165, 7))

95  —

‘§ 166, 6’ replaced with ‘§ 167, 6’

(Danish national hymnology.   [471]—Continuation, § 167, 6)

96  —

Subsection caption added to text.

(§ 164.2.    John Locke, died)

97  —

‘§ 155, 12’ replaced with ‘§ 156, 12’

(dislike of the Jesuits (§    156, 12))

98  —

‘§ 188, 20’ replaced with ‘§ 186, 2’

(rosaries and scapularies (§    186, 2))

99  —

‘§ 166, 6’ replaced with ‘§ 167, 6’

(pastor of Berthelsdorf (§    167, 6))

100  —

‘§ 162, 9’ replaced with ‘§ 163, 9’

(Philadelphian societies (§    163, 9))

101  —

‘J. E. Eichhorn’ replaced with ‘J. G. Eichhorn’

(   J. G. Eichhorn of Göttingen)

102  —

‘§ 170, 10’ replaced with ‘§ 171, 10’

(   The German Philosophy (§ 171, 10))

103  —

‘§ 206, 6’ replaced with ‘§ 203, 6’

(authorized by the State (§    203, 6))

104  —

‘§ 111, 14’ replaced with ‘§ 110, 14’

(concordat of Francis I. (§    110, 14))

105  —

‘§ 63, 3’ replaced with ‘§ 63, 2’

((Trullanum II.), §    63, 2.)

106  —

‘§ 100, 3’ replaced with ‘§ 100, 2’

(Vercelli dies, §    100, 2.)

107  —

‘§ 100, 3’ replaced with ‘§ 100, 2’

(Verona dies, §    100, 2.)

108  —

‘§ 6, 15’ replaced with ‘§ 96, 15’

(Battle of Legnano, §    96, 15.)

109  —

‘§ 101, 11’ replaced with ‘§ 104, 13’

(Cologne laid, §    104, 13.)

110  —

‘§ 93, 17’ replaced with ‘§ 93, 16’

(Lullus dies, §    93, 16; 103, 5.)

111  —

‘§ 116, 6’ replaced with ‘§ 115, 10’

(Dante dies, §    115, 10.)

112  —

‘§ 121, 1’ replaced with ‘§ 124, 1’

(Melanchthon’s    Loci, § 124, 1.)

113  —

‘§ 193, 19’ replaced with ‘§ 139, 19’

(The Royal Letter, §    139, 19.)

114  —

‘§ 155, 4’ replaced with ‘§ 154, 4’

(Conference at Leipzig, §    154, 4.)

115  —

‘§ 190, 10’ replaced with ‘§ 191, 10’

(Scholars at Munich, §    191, 10.)

116  —

‘187, 19’ replaced with ‘184, 9’

(   152, 1; 160, 7; 166, 3; 184, 9.)

117  —

‘§ 155, 12’ replaced with ‘§ 156, 12’

(Accommodation Controversy, §    156, 12.)

118  —

‘§ 155, 14’ replaced with ‘§ 156, 14’

(Acosta, Uriel, §    156, 14.)

119  —

‘92, 12’ replaced with ‘93, 12’

(Suerbeer, §    73, 6; 93, 12.)

120  —

‘§ 208, 10’ replaced with ‘§ 211, 10’

(Alpers, §    211, 10.)

121  —

‘§ 164, 15’ replaced with ‘§ 165, 12’

(Amort, §    165, 12.)

122  —

‘Apocrisarians’ replaced with ‘Apocrisiarians’

(Apocrisiarians, §    46, 1.)

123  —

‘§ 23, 4’ replaced with ‘§ 23, 2’

(Asinarii, §    23, 2.)

124  —

‘§ 53, 6’ replaced with ‘§ 53, 5’

(Avitus, §    53, 5; 76, 5.)

125  —

‘58, 1, 5’ replaced with ‘58, 1, 4’

(Baptism, §    35, 2-4; 58, 1, 4; 141, 13.)

126  —

‘§ 102, 10’ replaced with ‘§ 102, 9’

(Bernard Sylvester, §    102, 9.)

127  —

‘§ 186, 9’ replaced with ‘§ 188, 1’

(Bonald, §    188, 1.)

128  —

‘§ 164, 5’ replaced with ‘§ 165, 5’

(Calas, §    165, 5.)

129  —

‘158, 2, 8’ replaced with ‘159, 2, 4’

(Calixt, Geo., §    153, 7; 159, 2, 4.)

130  —

‘79, 5’ replaced with ‘79, 1’

(Charlemagne, §    78, 9; 79, 1;)

131  —

‘92, 3’ replaced with ‘92, 2’

(Claudius of Turin, §    90, 4; 92, 2.)

132  —

‘§ 28, 7’ replaced with ‘§ 22, 7’

(Constantine the Great, §    22, 7;)

133  —

‘72, 5’ replaced with ‘73, 5’

(Sign of the, §    39, 1; 59, 8; 73, 5.)

134  —

‘§ 45, 5’ replaced with ‘§ 45, 3’

(   Defensores, § 45, 3.)

135  —

‘§ 139, 36’ replaced with ‘§ 139, 26’

(Demetrius Mysos, §    139, 26.)

136  —

‘§ 193, 11’ replaced with ‘§ 193, 1’

(   De salute animarum, § 193, 1.)

137  —

‘§ 173, 3; 180, 4’ replaced with ‘§ 174  8’

(Dinter, §    174, 8.)

138  —

‘§ 31, 6, 14’ replaced with ‘§ 31, 6; 32, 8;’

(Dionysius of Alexandria, §    31, 6; 32 8;)

139  —

‘§ 190, 5’ replaced with ‘§ 190, 1’

(Döllinger, §    190, 1;)

140  —

‘155, 11’ replaced with ‘156, 11’

(East Indies, §    64, 4; 150, 1; 156, 11;)

141  —

‘§ 150, 14’ replaced with ‘§ 149, 14’

(Estius, §    149, 14.)

142  —

‘§ 150, 14’ replaced with ‘§ 171, 8’

(Euler, §    171, 8.)

143  —

‘§ 170, 13’ replaced with ‘§ 171, 10’

(Fichte, J. G., §    171, 10.)

144  —

‘106, 5’ replaced with ‘105, 4’

(§    93, 16; 98, 3; 104, 10; 105, 4.)

145  —

‘§ 144, 11’ replaced with ‘§ 104, 11’

(Franco of Cologne, §    104, 11.)

146  —

‘§ 176, 11’ replaced with ‘§ 171, 11’

(Gellert, §    171, 11; 172, 1.)

147  —

‘100, 3’ replaced with ‘100, 2’

(Gerbert, §    96, 2; 100, 2.)

148  —

‘§ 129, 21’ replaced with ‘§ 139, 21’

(Gil, Juan, §    139, 21.)

149  —

Name not found—Invalid reference.

(Grabow, § 210, 10.)

150  —

Name not found—Invalid reference.

(Gundioch, § 75, 5.)

151  —

‘§ 31, 16’ replaced with ‘§ 32, 4’

(Hebrews, Gospel of the, §    32, 4.)

152  —

‘166, 5’ replaced with ‘165, 5’

(Huguenots, §    139, 14, ff.; 153, 4; 165, 5.)

153  —

‘§ 86, 5’ replaced with ‘§ 85, 5’

(   In commendam, § 85, 5; 110, 15.)

154  —

‘72, 6’ replaced with ‘73, 6’

(Innocent IV., §    96, 20; 73, 6.)

155  —

‘§ 66, 9’ replaced with ‘§ 66, 3’

(Irene, §    66, 3.)

156  —

‘189, 7’ replaced with ‘187, 7’

(Italy, §    139, 22; 187, 7; 204.)

157  —

‘§ 157, 15’ replaced with ‘§ 157, 5’

(Jansenists, §    157, 5; 165, 6.)

158  —

‘§ 49, 6, 16.’ replaced with ‘§ 149, 6, 16.’

(John of the Cross, §    149, 6, 16.)

159  —

‘§ 144, 5’ replaced with ‘§ 143, 5’

(Lambeth Articles, §    143, 5.)

160  —

‘§ 211, 74’ replaced with ‘§ 211, 14’

(Lee, Bishop, §    211, 14.)

161  —

‘§ 155, 4’ replaced with ‘§ 141, 14; 142, 6’

(Leyser, §    141, 14; 142, 6.)

162  —

‘§ 75, 5’ replaced with ‘§ 78, 5’

(Liptinä, Synod of, §    78, 5; 86, 2.)

163  —

‘§ 189, 8’ replaced with ‘§ 187, 8’

(Loyson, §    187, 8.)

164  —

‘§ 187, 9’ replaced with ‘§ 188, 1’

(Maistre, §    188, 1.)

165  —

‘64, 5’ replaced with ‘64, 3’

(Marcionites, §    27, 12; 54, 1; 64, 3.)

166  —

‘§ 32, 9’ replaced with ‘§ 32, 8’

(Martyrs, Acts of, §    32, 8.)

167  —

‘§ 189, 9; 190, 1’ replaced with ‘§ 188, 1; 189, 1’

(Montalembert, §    188, 1; 189, 1.)

168  —

‘§ 190, 4’ replaced with ‘§ 190, 3’

(Mouls, §    190, 3.)

169  —

‘§ 173, 4’ replaced with ‘§ 174, 4’

(Nägelsbach, §    174, 4.)

170  —

‘§ 61, 6’ replaced with ‘§ 61, 1’

(Nectarius, §    61, 1.)

171  —

‘201, 13’ replaced with ‘201, 3’

(Norwegians, §    93, 4; 139, 2; 201, 3.)

172  —

‘§ 208, 6’ replaced with ‘§ 211, 6’

(Noyes, §    211, 6.)

173  —

‘§ 199, 9’ replaced with ‘§ 202, 9’

(O’Connell, §    202, 9.)

174  —

‘§ 45, 5’ replaced with ‘§ 45, 3’

(Οἰκόνομοι, §    45, 3.)

175  —

‘§ 53, 6’ replaced with ‘§ 53, 5’

(Orange, Synod of, §    53, 5.)

176  —

‘§ 155, 7’ replaced with ‘§ 156, 7’

(Oratory, Fathers of the, §    156, 7.)

177  —

‘§ 155, 1, 2, 5’ replaced with ‘§ 156, 1, 2, 4’

(Paul V., §    156, 1, 2, 4; 149, 13.)

178  —

‘§ 173, 7’ replaced with ‘§ 174, 7’

‘Pellico-Silvio’ replaced with ‘Pellico, Silvio’

(Pellico, Silvio, §    174, 7.)

179  —

‘§ 21, 1’ replaced with ‘§ 81, 1’

(Perfectus, §    81, 1.)

180  —

‘§ 18, 4’ replaced with ‘§ 17, 4’

(Phœbe, §    17, 4.)

181  —

‘§ 14, 2’ replaced with ‘§ 13, 2’

(Pilate, Acts of, §    13, 2; 31, 2.)

182  —

‘173, 6’ replaced with ‘174, 6’

(Poetry, Christian, §    48, 5, 6; 105, 4; 174, 6.)

183  —

‘116, 6’ replaced with ‘108, 6’

(   Postilla, § 103, 9; 108, 6.)

184  —

‘§ 31, 18’ replaced with ‘§ 32, 6’

(Prochorus, §    32, 6.)

185  —

‘53, 8’ replaced with ‘53, 5’

(Prosper Aquit., §    47, 20; 48, 6; 53, 5.)

186  —

‘Raimund of Toulouse, § 109, 4.’ replaced with ‘Raymond IV., Count of Toulouse, § 109, 1.’

(Raymond IV., Count of Toulouse, §    109, 1.)

187  —

‘194, 9’—Invalid reference.

(   abusu, § 185, 4; 192, 4; 194, 9; 197, 9.)

188  —

‘45, 6’—Invalid reference.

(Revenues of the Church, § 45, 6;    86, 1.)

189  —

‘§ 129, 19’ replaced with ‘§ 139, 19’

(Rudolph II., §    139, 19; 137, 8.)

190  —

‘219, 3, 4’ replaced with ‘210, 3, 4’

(   163, 8; 166; 206; 210, 3, 4; 212, 6.)

191  —

‘63, 3’ replaced with ‘63, 2’

(Sergius I. of Rome, §    46, 11; 63, 2.)

192  —

‘§ 23, 4’ replaced with ‘§ 22, 4’

(Severa, §    22, 4; 26.)

193  —

‘§ 18, 4’ replaced with ‘§ 17, 4’

(Stephanas, §    17, 4.)

194  —

‘189, 7’ replaced with ‘169, 2’

(§    78, 1; 130; 138; 162, 6; 169, 2;)

195  —

‘§ 102, 10’ replaced with ‘§ 102, 9’

(Sylvester, Bern., §    102, 9.)

196  —

‘§ 32, 9’ replaced with ‘§ 32, 8’

(Sympherosa, §    32, 8.)

197  —

‘§ 173, 9’ replaced with ‘§ 174, 9’

(Thorwaldsen, §    174, 9).

198  —

‘112, 14’ replaced with ‘112, 4’

(John, §    110, 15; 112, 4.)

199  —

‘§ 164, 1, 6.’ replaced with ‘§ 169, 2, 6.’

(Turretin, J. A., §    169, 2, 6.)

200  —

‘§ 155, 4’ replaced with ‘§ 154, 4’

(Reformed, §    154, 4; 167, 4; 169, 1, 2.)

201  —

‘§ 139, 40’ replaced with ‘§ 139, 20’

(Vienna, Peace of, §    139, 20.)

202  —

‘§ 129, 5’ replaced with ‘§ 199, 5’

(Vinet, §    199, 5.)

203  —

‘§ 105, 5, 14, 15’ replaced with ‘§ 165, 5, 14, 15’

(Voltaire, §    165, 5, 14, 15.)

204  —

‘§ 65, 4’ replaced with ‘§ 65, 1’

(Wechabites, §    65, 1.)

205  —

‘§ 102, 10’ replaced with ‘§ 102, 9’

(William of Conches, §    102, 9.)

206  —

‘§ 102, 2, 10’ replaced with ‘§ 102, 2, 9’

(William of Thierry, §    102, 2, 9.)

207  —

‘§ 129, 12’ replaced with ‘§ 139, 12’

(William I. of Orange, §    139, 12.)

208  —

‘§ 135, 13’ replaced with ‘§ 135, 9’

(Wittenberg, Sketch of Reform, §    135, 9.)

209  —

‘§ 121, 1’ replaced with ‘§ 124, 1’

(Zwickau, Prophets of, §    124, 1.)

210  —

‘Assumtio’ replaced with ‘Assumptio’

(Enoch, Assumptio, Ezra, Bk. of Jub.)

211  —

‘Hadden’ replaced with ‘Haddan’

(Haddan and Stubbs)

212  —

‘Stoddard’ replaced with ‘Stoddart’

(Translated by Miss Stoddart,)

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Table of Contents

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Church History (Volumes 1-3), by J. H. Kurtz

CHURCH HISTORY.

PREFACE.

CONTENTS.

NOTE BY TRANSLATOR.

INTRODUCTION.

HISTORY OF THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY. The pre-Christian World preparing the way of the Christian Church.

THE HISTORY OF THE BEGINNINGS. The Founding of the Church by Christ and His Apostles.

I. THE LIFE OF JESUS.

II. THE APOSTOLIC AGE. A.D. 30-70.

FIRST DIVISION. History of the Development of the Church during the Græco-Roman and Græco-Byzantine Periods.

FIRST SECTION. History of the Græco-Roman Church during the Second and Third Centuries (A.D. 70-323).18

I. THE RELATIONSHIP OF EXTRA-CHRISTIAN PAGANISM AND JUDAISM TO THE CHURCH.21

II. DANGER TO THE CHURCH FROM PAGAN AND JEWISH ELEMENTS WITHIN ITS OWN PALE.

III. THE DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT AND APOLOGETICAL ACTIVITY OF THE CHURCH.52

1. Church Fathers Writing in Greek.

2. Church Fathers Writing in Latin.

IV. CONSTITUTION, WORSHIP, LIFE AND DISCIPLINE.94

SECOND SECTION. The History of the Græco-Roman Church from the 4th-7th centuries. A.D. 323-692.

I. CHURCH AND STATE.

II. MONASTICISM, CLERICALISM AND HIERARCHISM.

III. THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE AND LITERATURE.

1. THE MOST IMPORTANT TEACHERS OF THE EASTERN CHURCH.

2. THE MOST IMPORTANT TEACHERS OF THE WESTERN CHURCH.

IV. DOCTRINAL CONTROVERSIES AND HERESIES.

V. WORSHIP, LIFE, DISCIPLINE AND MORALS.

VI. THE CHURCH OUTSIDE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.185

THIRD SECTION. HISTORY OF THE GRÆCO-BYZANTINE CHURCH IN THE 8TH-15TH CENTURIES (A.D. 692-1453).

I. Developments of the Greek Church in Combination with the Western.

II. Developments in the Eastern Church without the Co-operation of the Western.

SECOND DIVISION. THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE GERMAN AND ROMAN CHURCH DURING THE MIDDLE AGES.198

FIRST SECTION. HISTORY OF THE GERMAN-ROMAN CHURCH FROM THE 4TH TO THE 9TH CENTURY (DOWN TO A.D. 911).

I. Founding, Spread, and Limitation of the German Church.199

II. THE HIERARCHY, THE CLERGY AND THE MONKS.

III. THE CHURCH AND THE PEOPLE.

IV. THEOLOGY AND ITS BATTLES.

SECOND SECTION. HISTORY OF THE GERMANO-ROMANIC CHURCH, FROM THE 10TH TO THE 13TH CENTURY. A.D. 911-1294.

I. The Spread of Christianity.

II.―The Hierarchy, the Clergy, and the Monks.

III. Theological Science and its Controversies.

IV. The Church and the People.

V. Heretical Opposition to Ecclesiastical Authority.

THIRD SECTION. HISTORY OF THE GERMANO-ROMANIC CHURCH IN THE 14th AND 15th CENTURIES (A.D. 1294-1517).

I. The Hierarchy, Clergy, and Monks.

II. Theological Science.

III. The Church and the People.

IV. Attempts at Reformation.

THIRD DIVISION. History of the Development of the Church under Modern European Forms of Civilization.

FIRST SECTION. CHURCH HISTORY OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

I. The Reformation.360

II. The Churches of the Reformation.

III. The Deformation.

IV. The Counter-Reformation.

SECOND SECTION. CHURCH HISTORY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

I. Relations between the Different Churches.

II. The Roman Catholic Church.

III. The Lutheran Church.

IV. The Reformed Church.

V. Anti- and Extra-Ecclesiastical Parties.

THIRD SECTION. CHURCH HISTORY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.492

I. The Catholic Church in East and West.

II. The Protestant Churches.

FOURTH SECTION. CHURCH HISTORY OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

I. General and Introductory.

II. Protestantism in General.526

III. Catholicism in General.

IV. Relation of Church to the Empire and to the States.

V. Opponents of Church and of Christianity.

INDEX.

Footnotes.

Transcriber’s Notes.

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