Part 17 (1/2)

(4) There were p.r.o.nounced differences in ecclesiastical government. All the Protestants considerably modified the Catholic system of a divinely appointed clergy of bishops, priests, and deacons, under the supreme spiritual jurisdiction of the pope. The Anglicans rejected the papacy, although they retained the orders of bishop, priest, and deacon, and insisted that their hierarchy was the direct continuation of the medieval Church in England, and therefore that their organization was on the same footing as the Orthodox Church of eastern Europe. The Lutherans rejected the divinely ordained character of episcopacy, but retained bishops as convenient administrative officers. The Calvinists did away with bishops altogether and kept only one order of clergymen-- the presbyters. Such Calvinistic churches as were governed by a.s.semblies or synods of presbyters were called Presbyterian; those which subordinated the ”minister” to the control of the people in each separate congregation were styled Independent, or Separatist, or Congregational. [Footnote: This latter type of church government was maintained also by the quasi-Calvinistic denomination of the Baptists.]

(5) In the ceremonies of public wors.h.i.+p the Protestant churches differed. Anglicanism kept a good deal of the Catholic ritual although in the form of translation from Latin to English, together with several Catholic ceremonies, in some places even employing candles and incense.

The Calvinists, on the other hand, wors.h.i.+ped with extreme simplicity: reading of the Bible, singing of hymns, extemporaneous prayer, and preaching const.i.tuted the usual service in church buildings that were without superfluous ornaments. Between Anglican formalism and Calvinistic austerity, the Lutherans presented a compromise: they devised no uniform liturgy, but showed some inclination to utilize forms and ceremonies.

[Sidenote: Significance of the Protestant Revolt]

Of the true significance of the great religious and ecclesiastical changes of the sixteenth century many estimates in the past have been made, varying with the point of view, or bias, of each author. Several results, however, now stand out clearly and are accepted generally by all scholars, regardless of religious affiliations. These results may be expressed as follows:

In the first place, the Catholic Church of the middle ages was disrupted and the medieval ideal of a universal theocracy under the bishop of Rome was rudely shocked.

In the second place, the Christian religion was largely nationalized.

Protestantism was the religious aspect of nationalism; it naturally came into being as a protest against the cosmopolitan character of Catholicism; it received its support from _nations_; and it a.s.sumed everywhere a national form. The German states, the Scandinavian countries, Scotland, England, each had its established state religion.

What remained to the Catholic Church, as we have seen, was essentially for national reasons and henceforth rested mainly on a national basis.

Thirdly, the whole movement tended to narrow the Catholic Church dogmatically. The exigencies of answering the Protestants called forth explicit definitions of belief. The Catholic Church was henceforth on the defensive, and among her members fewer differences of opinion were tolerated than formerly.

Fourthly, a great impetus to individual morality, as well as to theological study, was afforded by the reformation. Not only were many men's minds turned temporarily from other intellectual interests to religious controversy, but the individual faithful Catholic or Protestant was encouraged to vie with his neighbor in actually proving that his particular religion inculcated a higher moral standard than any other. It rendered the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries more earnest and serious and also more bigoted than the fifteenth.

Finally, the Protestant Revolution led immediately to important political and social changes. The power of secular rulers was immeasurably increased. By confiscation of church lands and control of the clergy, the Tudor sovereigns in England, the kings in Scandinavia, and the German princes were personally enriched and freed from fear of being hampered in absolutist tendencies by an independent ecclesiastical organization. Even in Catholic countries, the monarchs were able to wring such concessions from the pope as resulted in shackling the Church to the crown.

The wealth of the n.o.bles was swelled, especially in Protestant countries, by seizure of the property of the Church either directly or by means of bribes tendered for aristocratic support of the royal confiscations. But despite such an access of wealth, the monarchs took pains to see that the n.o.bility acquired no new political influence.

In order to prevent the n.o.bles from recovering political power, the absolutist monarchs enlisted the services of the faithful middle cla.s.s, which speedily attained an enviable position in the princ.i.p.al European states. It is safe to say that the Protestant Revolution was one of many elements a.s.sisting in the development of this middle cla.s.s.

For the peasantry--still the bulk of European population--the religious and ecclesiastical changes seem to have been peculiarly unfortunate.

What they gained through a diminution of ecclesiastical dues and taxes was more than lost through the growth of royal despotism and the exactions of hard-hearted lay proprietors. The peasants had changed the names of their oppressors and found themselves in a worse condition than before. There is little doubt that, at least so far as the Germanies and the Scandinavian countries are concerned, the lot of the peasants was less favorable immediately after, than immediately before, the rise of Protestantism.

ADDITIONAL READING

GENERAL. Good brief accounts of the whole religious revolution of the sixteenth century: Frederic Seebohm, _The Era of the Protestant Revolution,_ new ed. (1904); J. H. Robinson, _Reformation_, in ”Encyclopaedia Britannica,” 11th ed. (1911); A. H. Johnson, _Europe in the Sixteenth Century_ (1897), ch. iii-v and pp. 272 ff.; E. M. Hulme, _Renaissance and Reformation,_ 2d ed. (1915), ch. x-xviii, xxi-xxiii; Victor Duruy, _History of Modern Times_, trans. and rev. by E. A.

Grosvenor (1894), ch. xiii, xiv. More detailed accounts are given in the _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. II (1904), and in the _Histoire generate_, Vol. IV, ch. x-xvii, and Vol. V, ch. i. All the standard general histories of the Christian Church contain accounts of the rise of Protestantism, naturally varying among themselves according to the religious convictions of their authors. Among the best Protestant histories may be cited: T. M. Lindsay, _A History of the Reformation,_ 2 vols. (1906-1910); Wilhelm Moeller, _History of the Christian Church_, trans. and condensed by J. H. Freese, 3 vols. (1893-1900); Philip Schaff, _History of the Christian Church_, Vols. VI and VII; A.

H. Newman, A Manual of Church History, Vol. II (1903), Period V; G. P.

Fisher, _History of the Christian Church_ (1887), Period VIII, ch. i- xii. From the Catholic standpoint the best ecclesiastical histories are: John Alzog, _Manual of Universal Church History_, trans. from 9th German edition (1903), Vol. II and Vol. Ill, Epoch I; and the histories in German by Joseph (Cardinal) Hergen-rother [ed. by J. P. Kirsch, 2 vols. (1902-1904)], by Alois Knopfler (5th ed., 1910) [based on the famous _Conciliengeschichte_ of K. J. (Bishop) von Hefele], and by F.

X. von Funk (5th ed., 1911); see, also, Alfred Baudrillart, _The Catholic Church, the Renaissance and Protestantism_, Eng. trans. by Mrs. Philip Gibbs (1908). Many pertinent articles are to be found in the scholarly _Catholic Encyclopedia_, 15 vols. (1907-1912), in the famous _Realencyklopadie fur protestantische Theologie und Kirche_, 3d ed., 24 vols. (1896-1913), and in the (Non-Catholic) _Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics_, ed. by James Hastings and now (1916) in course of publication. For the popes of the period, see Ludwig Pastor, _The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages_, the monumental work of a distinguished Catholic historian, the twelfth volume of which (coming down to 1549) was published in English translation in 1912; and the older but still useful (Protestant) _History of the Papacy from the Great Schism to the Sack of Rome_ by Mandell Creighton, new ed. in 6 vols. (1899-1901), and _History of the Popes_ by Leopold von Ranke, 3 vols. in the Bonn Library (1885). Heinrich Denziger, _Enchiridion Symbolorum, Definitionum, et Declarationium de rebus fidei el morum,_ 11nth ed. (1911), is a convenient collection of official p.r.o.nouncements in Latin on the Catholic Faith. Philip Schaff, _The Creeds of Christendom,_ 3 vols. (1878), contains the chief Greek, Latin, and Protestant creeds in the original and usually also in English translation. Also useful is B. J. Kidd (editor), _Doc.u.ments Ill.u.s.trative of the Continental Reformation_ (1911). For additional details of the relation of the Reformation to sixteenth-century politics, consult the bibliography appended to Chapter III, above.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY. In the _Cambridge Modern History,_ Vol. I (1902), a severe indictment of the Church is presented (ch. xix) by H. C. Lea, and a defense is offered (ch. xviii) by William Barry. The former opinions are developed startlingly by H.

C. Lea in Vol. I, ch. i, of his _History of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages._ An old-fas.h.i.+oned, though still interesting, Protestant view is that of William Roscoe, _Life and Pontificate of Leo X,_ 4 vols. (first pub. 1805-1806, many subsequent editions). For an excellent description of the organization of the Catholic Church, see Andre Mater, _L'eglise catholique, sa const.i.tution, son administration_ (1906). The best edition of the canon law is that of Friedberg, 2 vols.

(1881). On the social work of the Church: E. L. Cutts, _Parish Priests and their People in the Middle Ages in England_ (1898), and G. A.

Prevost, _L'eglise et les campagnes au moyen age_ (1892). The most recent and comprehensive study of the Catholic Church on the eve of the Protestant Revolt is that of Pierre Imbart de la Tour, _Les origines de la Reforme,_ Vol. I, _La France moderne_ (1905), and Vol. II, _L'eglise catholique, la crise et la renaissance_ (1909). For the Orthodox Church of the East see Louis d.u.c.h.esne, _The Churches Separated from Rome,_ trans. by A. H. Mathew (1908).

MOHAMMEDANISM. Sir William Muir, _Life of Mohammed,_ new and rev. ed.

by T. H. Weir (1912); Ameer Ali, _Life and Teachings of Mohammed_ (1891), and, by the same author, warmly sympathetic, Islam (1914); D.

S. Margoliouth, _Mohammed and the Rise of Islam_ (1905), in the ”Heroes of the Nations” Series, and, by the same author, _The Early Development of Mohammedanism_ (1914); Arthur Gilman, _Story of the Saracens_ (1902), in the ”Story of the Nations” Series. Edward Gibbon has two famous chapters (1, li) on Mohammed and the Arabian conquests in his masterpiece, _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire._ The _Koran,_ the sacred book of Mohammedans, has been translated into English by E. H.

Palmer, 2 vols. (1880): entertaining extracts are given in Stanley Lane-Poole, _Speeches and Table Talk of the Prophet Mohammad._

LUTHER AND LUTHERANISM. Of innumerable biographies of Luther the best from sympathetic Protestant pens are: Julius Kostlin, _Life of Luther,_ trans. and abridged from the German (1900); T. M. Lindsay, _Luther and the German Reformation_ (1900); A. C. McGiffert, _Martin Luther, the Man and his Work_ (1911); Preserved Smith, _The Life and Letters of Martin Luther_ (1911); Charles Beard, _Martin Luther and the Reformation in Germany until the Close of the Diet of Worms_ (1889). A remarkable arraignment of Luther is the work of the eminent Catholic historian, F. H. S. Denifle, _Luther und Luthertum in der ersten Entwickelung,_ 3 vols. (1904-1909), trans. into French by J. Pasquier (1911-1912). The most available Catholic study of Luther's personality and career is the scholarly work of Hartmann Grisar, _Luther,_ 3 vols.

(1911-1913), trans. from German into English by E. M. Lamond, 4 vols.

(1913-1915). _First Principles of the Reformation,_ ed. by Henry Wace and C. A. Buchheim (1885), contains an English translation of Luther's ”Theses,” and of his three pamphlets of 1520. The best edition of Luther's complete works is the Weimar edition; English translations of portions of his _Table Talk,_ by William Hazlitt, have appeared in the Bonn Library; and _Luther's Correspondence and Other Contemporary Letters_ is now (1916) in course of translation and publication by Preserved Smith. J. W. Richard, _Philip Melanchthon_ (1898) is a brief biography of one of the most famous friends and a.s.sociates of Luther.