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Chapter Eleven |
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Renaissance
and Reformation |
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| I. | Introduction-- | ||||
| The end of the fifteenth century witnessed the appearance of modem nations which sought to be free from the powers of the papacy and the Germanic empire. This resulted in a profound cultural renewal which has been called the Renaissance. Printing was invented and thus the spread of sacred and secular works of the past to the general public became possible. By turning to the Bible and the early works of the Church Fathers many people sought to bring reform to the Church. Unfortunately this blew the Catholic Church apart at the seams. | |||||
| II. | Europe at the Time of the Renaissance | ||||
| A. | The birth of modern states: France, England, Spain--these European states had their own kings that had their own money and their own armies. These states are the result of the hundred years war which ended in 1453 A.D.. In France, the kings affirmed their authority and by 1516 A.D. the "Concordat of Bologna" Pope Leo X gave King Francis I the right to appoint all of his bishops and abbots in his kingdom. That gave him considerable power in the church of France. In England, King Henry VIII (1509-1547 A.D.) played a prominent role in the politics and religion of Europe. In Spain, the marriage of Isabella of Castille and Ferdinand of Aragon in 1469 A.D. set the seal on Spanish unity. The capture of Granada, the last outpost of the Arabs in 1492 A.D. marked the end of the moslem rule in Spain and total reunification ruled once again in Spain. These Catholic sovereigns took the church's interest to heart and set them alongside those of the state. In 1478 A.D. they reorganized the Inquisition, which became a national institution they used to profit from, and the court mercilessly hunted any Jews, Moslems or heretics. | ||||
| 1. | Northern and Eastern Europe--Poland with ill. defined borders that stretched from Lithuania to the Ukraine was the front line of Latin Christianity against the Orthodox Christian world. The Russians kings in Moscow, Ivan 1462-1504 A.D., and Ivan the Terrible 1530-1584 A.D. looked upon themselves as the sole heirs of Constantinople and viewed themselves as the third Rome. They had little to do with Western Europe. The Turks continued to advance into the Balkan states and though the Sultans allowed the Orthodox Christians to remain organized and practice their religion though they were forbidden to prostalitize Moslems and corruption in the Church was rampant. Sultans made and unmade Patriarchs and finally the Patriarch of Constantinople ended up recognizing the independence of the Russian Orthodox Church and consecrated their first Patriarch of Moscow in 1589 A.D. In Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania the Patriarch of Constantinople held strict control over these churches. | ||||
| 2. | The Germanic Holy Roman Empire--The emperor was elected by the seven ruling princes and did not have much power over them. Charles the V inherited the lands where most the emperors came from: i.e., Austria and thus ruled over the Germanic states including Spain. His vision was one of world wide domination but he came up against his neighbor France and the papacy. | ||||
| 3. | The papacy--after the great schism and the conciliar crisis, the papacy lost some of its prestige in the eyes of the world. The popes were Italian princes who became more and more involved in the affairs of Italy, the battle ground of the French and the Germans. The popes favored their families, nephews and their natural children. Their extravagant parties sometimes turned into orgies under Alexander VI Borgia (1492-1503 A.D.) (bald headed dude with a hooked nose). Pope Julius Il (1503-1513 A.D.) was the warrior pope who rode into battle killing and slaughtering. It was also a time when the popes supported the arts and literary revival of the Renaissance. | ||||
| See Handout #143 | |||||
| B. | The renewal of literature, arts and the sciences-A man of culture made the statement that "In one century, we have seen more progress made by men of science than our ancestors saw throughout the preceding fourteen centuries". In Italy, the place closest to the Latin past, educated people had a passionate interest in the ancient literature that was laying dormant in the old monasteries. Byzantine scholars stole numerous Greek manuscripts and fled Constantinople to the West. The invention of the printing press revolutionized communications and works reserved only for the privileged few became available to many. Religious books were the first to be published. | ||||
| See Handout #144 | |||||
| 1. | Humanism and Christian faith-the humanist, a Renaissance man par excellence, drew on good sources to direct his life and guide his fellow man. They sought to bring betterment to the Church and the faithful. Thomas More (1478-1535 A.D.) was "an uncloistered" Christian, a good family man, the Chancellor of England, a model of patience and kindness. His book, Utopia, in 1516 A.D. is a light hearted criticism of the political and religious society of his time. His steadfast loyalty to the Catholic Church led him to martyrdom. | ||||
| See Handout #145 | |||||
| See Handout #146 | |||||
| See Handout #147 | |||||
| 2. | Erasmus of Rotterdam (1469-1536)--was the "Prince of the humanists". An illegitimate son of a priest, became a religious and a priest, loved ancient literature and became a world traveler in search of others who shared is passion. He met and corresponded with Thomas More, princes, bishops etc... His most famous work In Praise of Folly is a biting satire on all classes of society with criticism of the Church holding high honor. He published several of the ancient Father's writings. He hoped that through research of study of the ancient Father's theology could a good interpretation of scripture be possible. He believed the Gospel should be available to everyone and in all languages. He believed that Christian princes fighting each other was scandalous and that Christian arbitration was needed. Violence won out and Erasmus' ideals lost. | ||||
| C. | A Church which did not live up to Christian expectations--as the fifteenth century approached the air was full of the end of the world talk and their existed a deep anxiety in the people. People feared a God who seemed arbitrary in his choices of life over death issues and the ever present danger of Satan lurking everywhere. During this Renaissance period witch hunting was revived. Pope Innocent VIII, a very sorry pope, gave official sanction to witch-hunting in 1484 A.D. He charged two Dominicans with the task and they in turn produced a handbook on demonology and how to extract a confession out of someone. This hunting down of warlocks and witches lasted until the middle of the seventeenth century. In two centuries over one hundred thousand men and women were burned at the stake. | ||||
| 1. | In Search of Good Shepherds-what was the answer to this anxiety--the Virgin Mary. This devotion became popularized with the Rosary. Because the church did not look like a Christian institution the devotion to scripture, confession and one's own spiritual life was most important. Priests were ignorant and viewed as the pawn of bishops and bishops were more interested in accumulating their own wealth than they were with salvation of souls. The pope was more interested in his building programs at the Vatican, especially St. Peter's basilica, that he gave bishops free latitude to move about wherever they felt like it and consequences many bishops did not live in their own dioceses, but still collected the revenues. They sold indulgences and gained considerable wealth. (Indulgence)--closely linked to the Sacrament of Penance--is the remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has been forgiven through the sacrament of Reconciliation. Plenary and partial indulgences in that it removes part or all of the punishment due to sin. It may be applied to the living or the dead. | ||||
| 2. | Criticisms and demands for reform-- in 1494-1498 A.D. Savonarola exercised a moral dictatorship over Florence in Italy railing against Alexander VI's abuse of the papacy, announced divine punishment and imposed monastic austerity on the Florentine peoples. Christians and princes called for church reform time and time again, but nothing happen from the Vatican. In 1517 A.D., on October 31,on the Church door of Wittenberg Germany, Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses against the abuses of Indulgences. | ||||
| See Handout #148 | |||||
| III. | The Reformers--In the Western church "reform"became synonymous with "break" from the church. There are many reasons why the Reformation took place, but probably the most overwhelming reason was that people in the Middle Ages wanted to return to the Jesus of the Gospels. Because emotions ran so high whenever Martin Luther's name was mentioned it had been impossible to look objectively at "why" the break occurred. The Protestants saw Martin Luther as a "humble doctor", "an angel raised up by providence to fight the Antichrist of Rome. For Catholics he was nothing more than a drunkard, liar and a sensualist who left the Church in order to be free to gratify his baser instincts. BUT! IT WAS NECESSARY FOR SOMEONE LIKE MARTIN LUTHER TO SHAKE UP THE SELF-COMPLACENT CATHOLIC CHURCH. | ||||
| See Handout #149 | |||||
| See Handout #150 | |||||
| See Handout #151 | |||||
| A. |
Luther's Approach--October 31,1517 A.D. is the official date of the Reformation, but many events took place before the actual split. Martin Luther was born in 1483 A.D. in Eisleben, Saxony in a family of peasants. It was a time of demons and witches. In 1505 A.D., fearing for his own very soul, he entered the Augustinian monastery and became a good monk and priest. He became a teacher of scripture, but he could not find peace of mind. He was tormented by sexual fantasy and a proneness to sin. One day reading scripture he found in the Epistle of Paul to the Romans "Man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law". Romans 3:28. A man is not saved by his efforts, but by God's grace alone. Man goes on being a sinner, but God comes to save him in his despair. There is where Luther found peace of mind. |
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| B. | Indulgences-- The matter of Indulgences gave Martin Luther his chance to become known. The Dominicans preached throughout Germany asking for an indulgence (remission for the living and for the dead of punishment incurred by sin) to cover the expenses of the Archbishop of Mainz, who had to pay tax because he had accumulated three sees, and to help in the building of the basilica of St. Peter in Rome. "ANOTHER SOUL TO HEAVEN SPRINGS WHEN IN THE BOX A SHILLING RINGS". Luther was incensed and nailed his 95 theses to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg. Luther never had it in mind to break with the church. He merely wanted to debate with the university professors over what he considered buying off God. | ||||
| C. | Towards the Break--Luther was accused before the Court in Rome as a heretic. For three years envoys from Rome tried to get him to stop his rantings, about Indulgences. The dispute arose German nationalism and Luther became the champion of the people. After much bickering Luther came to the conclusion that the pope was indeed the "Antichrist". In June of 1520 A.D. Luther was sent a bull Exsurge condemning forty one of his propositions and given two months to recant his position. He burned the bull on December 10, 1520 A.D. and was excommunicated in January 1521 A.D. He was forced into hiding (heretics were burned at the stake) and wrote the Bible in German. | ||||
| See Handout #152 | |||||
| See Handout #153 | |||||
| D. | Troubles and Controversies--Germany became a divided nation. Those for him had their own motives. The nobles threw their weight behind him because of the obvious stockpiling of church lands for themselves. The peasants were for him because it was their excuse to rise up against the nobles who exploited them for labor. Civil war broke out and it was a bloody one year. Luther unable to stop the peasants from rioting called on the nobles to massacre the rebels. In 1525 A.D. Luther married an ex-nun, Katherine von Bora, and condemned the papacy for forbidding priests to many. | ||||
| E. Lutheran Doctrine and the Lutheran Church--Luther had no intention of founding a new church. He really thought that if the church would return to the gospel it would reform itself. In 1529 A.D. Luther published a Lesser and Greater Catechism a literary genre destined to have great success. For Luther everything began with his experience. Conscious of being sinners, human beings discover from scripture that salvation comes to them from God through faith alone. Good works do not make people good, but once people have been justified by God they do good works. He turned his back on the ancient traditions of cult of the saints, indulgences, religious vows, and those sacraments not attested to in the New Testament. Anything not in scripture was worthless. All that counted was the universal priesthood of the faithful. The church, the community of believers, an invisible reality, had no business to give itself to external organization and to possess property. Martin Luther retained two sacraments, baptism and eucharist and admitted the possibility of confession. He celebrated eucharist in German. He resurrected the "sacrifice of the mass", but maintained the real presence of Christ. He gave a special place of honor to choral singing, the proclamation of the Word of God. Luther totally rejected ecclesiastical power gave that same power to the princes and therefore the churches became national churches. | |||||
| F. | A Rash of Reformers--After the news of Martin Luther splitting from the church, reformers from Switzerland, and other parts of Germany openly defied the Vatican. Most notable was Zwingli, a priest and monk, of Switzerland. He agreed with Luther on faith and scripture, but disputed Luther's view of the real presence. Zwingli was a humanist who imposed his views on the entire city of Zurich since he was the vicar of that city. He secularized the convents, liturgy was done in German and he destroyed all the statutes in the churches. He forced those who disagreed with his reformation efforts by killing them. Anabapistists who refused to allow their children to be baptized were drowned. He saw eucharist as only the symbolic presence of Christ and that sacraments were only memorials or simple promises. The Last Supper was celebrated only four times a year. He was killed in battle during the civil war of churches. | ||||
| See Handout #154 | |||||
| G. | Calvin and the French Reformation--John Calvin (1509-1564 A.D.), a layman from France who was learned in the letters and law, a theologian of sorts. He had a conversion experience and traveled throughout France setting up a model of the church that was to become widespread throughout the world. | ||||
| See Handout #155 | |||||
| H. | Geneva, the church town--Similar to Luther's in many ways, Calvin's doctrine was more systematic with particular emphases. Scripture and faith were the same as Luther's, but strongly stressed the sinfulness of men and women because of original sin, "We all ought to be damned, but God saves those he has chosen". Calvin wrote a moral code which confirmed that we are children of God by adoption as children. This moral code was a social code because we are social creatures. In order to follow this moral code we need the church. To offend the church was to offend God. The church is where the Word of God is preached with purity and the sacraments are the outward sign of God's grace to us and confirmation of our faith. He defended infant baptism. Eucharist for Calvin was that time in our life when Christ gave himself to us at that very moment. The church was organized along strict guidelines with four orders of ministry: pastors, doctors, twelve elders and deacons. Church life was governed by the pastors and the twelve elders from the community. The church had oversight over everything and the civil powers enforced its decisions. Church people were judged by their activity in the state and those who violated the petty rules were condemned to death. Michael Servetus was burned at the stake because he denied the Trinity. | ||||
| I. | The influence of the Calvinist Reformation--In 1559 A.D. the Academy of Geneva was founded by Theodore of Beza and contributed to the influence of Calvinism throughout the world. Here education from primary to graduate school afforded many to come and study theology and begin to establish more Calvinist churches, but also others. Presbyterianism took Calvin's twelve elders idea and created their own form of church governed by elders alone. In effect Calvin created a particular type of person and civilization. He broke away from the idea of lending without interest and legitimized banking with interest. Historians view him as the initiator of capitalism. | ||||
| IV. | Religious Confessions in Europe | ||||
| A. | Germany and Northern Europe--At the Diet of Speyer in 1526 A.D. princes were allowed to follow either the Catholic or the Reformation. Civil war was about to break out and Charles V, the emperor of Germany, withdrew the concession at the Diet of Speyer and the Reformer princes made a solemn protest before the emperor, thus they were called Protestants. The name came from these protests and has stuck ever since. A prince named Melanchthon drew up a memorandum under the title of the Augsburg Confession which remains the point of reference for all Lutherans. Other religions sprang up with even wider differences in Germany, i.e., The Anabaptists wanted to establish a kingdom of Christ founded on the Apocalypse with communism and polygamy. | ||||
| See Handout #156 | |||||
| B. | The British Isles--The king of England, Henry VIII couldn't get the pope to annul his marriage to Katherine of Aragon because she had not bore him a son, so he appealed to the English clergy, declared himself head of the Church of England and gave himself an annulment. Those who remained loyal to Rome were executed; i.e., Thomas More, Bishop Fisher and many others. Henry essentially retained everything Catholic about the church and in 1534 A.D. he wrote the Six Articles of faith. A young king Edward VI (1547-1558 A.D.) that followed him allowed Calvinism to creep into Book of Common Prayer and now there were forty two Articles of Faith. Mary Tutor, King Henry's daughter from Katherine who he divorced, became queen at the death of Edward and she restored Catholicism in England and executed over two hundred people in the name of the church. She became known as Bloody Mary. Next Elizabeth 1 (1558-1603 A.D.) was the real founder of Anglicanism. It was a mixture of Catholicism and Calvinism. Scotland adopted Calvinism through John Knox in 1513-1572 A.D.). Ireland would have none of the Reformation from anyone even though the English tried to impose it on them. | ||||
| C. | France--The Huguenots formed themselves into a political party ready to defend their freedom by force of arms. Catherine of Medici of Paris killed every last one of the Huguenots and when other French towns heard of the massacre they followed suit. Thousands of people were killed and France remained Catholic. | ||||
| D. The new religious geography--France was Catholic. Spain killed all of their reformers and remained Catholic. Northern Germany was Lutheran. Southern Germany was Catholic. The Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Norway and Denmark were Calvinists. And all of this led the Catholic church to stop and take a good look at itself. It was a wake up call to reform, now known as the Counter Reformation. | |||||
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Handouts |
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| 143 | The Renaissance Pope. A writer makes fun of the Holy Fathers of his time. | ||||
| See Full Text | |||||
| 144 | The religion of Erasmus. He writes from the original texts of scripture; i.e, Hebrew, Greek and Latin. | ||||
| See Full Text | |||||
| 145 | Erasmus writes a letter to a friend linking scripture to dogma and theology. | ||||
| See Full Text | |||||
| 146 | The militant for peace. Erasmus chastises the pope for making war. | ||||
| See Full Text | |||||
| 147 | A Church to reform. A scathing condemnation of the pope for abuses within the church. | ||||
| See Full Text | |||||
| 148 | Martin Luther speaks of "salvation by faith alone". | ||||
| See Full Text | |||||
| 149 | Martin Luther's ninety-five theses (31 October 1517 A.D.) | ||||
| See Full Text | |||||
| 150 | Martin Luther on faith and works. | ||||
| See Full Text | |||||
| 151 | Martin Luther faces the threat of death by the Vatican. | ||||
| See Full Text | |||||
| 152 | The Peasant's War or Different interpretations of scripture. | ||||
| See Full Text | |||||
| 153 | Martin Luther on peace. | ||||
| See Full Text | |||||
| 154 | Calvin: The institutes of the Christian Religion. | ||||
| See Full Text | |||||
| 155 | Calvin: The four ministries of the Church. | ||||
| See Full Text | |||||
| 156 | The execution of Thomas More. He faces death and laughs. | ||||
| See Full Text | |||||
