CRISTO RAUL.ORG ' |
THE UNIVERSAL HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY |
FROM JUSTINIAN TO LUTHER. AD 518-1517CHAPTER XVII.SCHISMS AND REFORMS
WE want a Roman, or anyhow an Italian. So shouted the
Roman mob, in their own dialect, as they surged over the piazza in front of the
basilica of St. Peter, the ancient basilica of the Emperor Constantine. It was
April the 7th, 1378, only a few days after the death of Pope Gregory XI, and
this was the cry that greeted the cardinals as they arrived at the Vatican. The
next day the door of the Vatican itself was forced by some of the bolder
spirits from among the crowd. Their wish was fulfilled. The cardinals elected
the Archbishop of Bari, Bartolomeo Prignano, who took the name of Urban VI.
Having elected him, they accepted his pontifical acts as valid and his personal
favors as their due.
Hard, sincere, and tactless to the verge of brutality,
the new Italian Pope exasperated the cardinals by his rough efforts in the
direction of reform. He persisted in spite of the warnings of St. Catherine of
Siena, and the cardinals one by one pleaded ill-health and asked leave of
absence. They speedily met at Anagni and conveniently remembered that though
they had really elected the Pope, they had not acted freely but under the
pressure of fear, fear of the Roman people. So on August the 9th, 1378, they proclaimed
that the election of Urban VI was null and void, and that the apostolic see was
vacant. The next month they elected Cardinal Robert of Geneva, who took the
name of Clement VII and went to reside at Avignon. In the meantime Urban
remained in Rome, appointed twenty-six new cardinals and excommunicated his
rival. A double papacy was the result. Thus was consummated the Great Schism
which divided Western Christendom for some fifty years. On the side of Clement
VII were France, Scotland, Spain, and southern Italy; on the side of Urban VI
were England, Hungary, Poland, the greater part of Germany, and the
Scandinavian countries.
Clement VII was young, aristocratic, ardent. He was
fired with the hope of taking Rome from his rival. In this hope he drew to his
side Louis, Duke of Anjou, offering him as a bait a new kingdom to be carved
out of the States of the Church.
Military expeditions in Italy were the result,
expeditions which cost Louis his life and Clement vast sums of money. Costly
wars, together with costly embassies and princely habits, did little to
strengthen his authority, and they led men to blame him for the schism which he
declined to discuss before a General Council. In the meantime Urban VI, by his
unscrupulous nepotism and violent self-will, undermined his position in Rome.
He deposed Joanna of Naples and gave her kingdom to Charles of Durazzo, who rewarded
him by interning him at Nocera. Urban escaped to Genoa and put to death several
cardinals whom he suspected of conspiring against him.
Could either of these popes be the real father of the
faithful, the vice-regent of Jesus Christ? Even cardinals were puzzled. And
some of the most serious and learned men, like Peter d'Ailly and John Gerson, asked whether the subordination of the Church to the Pope was
not something contingent upon historical circumstances only, and whether
authority in religion did not rest upon a wider and more solid basis, the
infallibility of the whole body of the faithful represented in a Council. So we
find two different means proposed for extricating the Church from its
difficulties. The first was to compel one pope, or both popes, to resign. The
second was to call a Council.
It was while such questions were agitating men's
minds, and the two rival popes were belabouring each
other 'with apostolic blows and knocks', that there died John Wycliffe
(1320-1384). Master of 'le Balliol halle', Oxford, in
136o, he became a Doctor of Theology in 1372, and in 1374 he went to Bruges to
discuss with the Pope's envoys some differences about ecclesiastical
appointments. On his return to England he disputed the justice of the Pope's
demand for the tribute promised by King John. He urged that the king held his
dominion directly from Christ and that the Pope had no claim to it. He
expounded his doctrine of the Church in numerous writings, including two
treatises, the de Ecclesi a Christi and the Dialogus sive speculum ecclesiae militantis.
He upheld St. Augustine's doctrine of predestination, and on that doctrine
attempted to build a great theory of the Church, the most elaborate theory then
opposed to the Catholic doctrine. The Church is the society of the predestined
of which Christ is the head, the Pope is only the head of the Church militant
if he is predestined. It is possible to know whether a man is predestined by
his obedience to the law of God, and the law of God is to be found in the
Gospel. Hence it is of the utmost necessity that all, both priests and laymen,
should study the Bible. According to his later and more developed doctrine, it
would be better for the Church to have no Pope, for the Pope is the vicar not
of Christ but of Antichrist. He is 'the man of sin'. He ought to have no temporal
power, for Christ has given all temporal power to Caesar. Ordination confers no
indelible character: a priest who is fallen into mortal sin cannot dispense
true sacraments. He also taught that a verbal confession of sins should be
optional, and he opposed indulgences. He denounced the cultus of the saints,
though not the cultus of the Blessed Virgin—'Worship we Jesus and Mary with all
our might'. He denied the doctrine of transubstantiation while strongly
asserting the presence of Christ's body in the sacrament and blaming those who
held that a priest might be excused from saying Mass, which God himself
commanded, and not excused from saying Mattins and Evensong. His most fixed
principles were his belief in nationalism and regal supremacy, his opposition
to ecclesiastical endowments, and, above all, his belief in the supreme
authority of the Bible.
Pope Gregory XI was much disturbed by the teaching of
Wycliffe, and at this point becomes of considerable importance for the history
of religion in England. In the spring of 1377 he issued three bulls which were
directed against Wycliffe's teaching. One accuses him of holding the errors of
Marsilius of Padua and John of Jandun, and calls upon
the Chancellor and the University of Oxford to arrest the heretic. A second
summons him to appear in person before the Pope. A third directs the Archbishop
of Canterbury and the Bishop of London to examine him themselves. These
contradictory bulls were probably intended to allow the English prelates to
take any means of suppressing Wycliffe which they considered most efficient.
They were also a deliberate attempt, an attempt which failed, to introduce into
England the papal inquisition. The influence which Wycliffe had acquired is
proved by the fact that some time after the bulls must have arrived in England,
he was formally consulted by the king's advisers and by Parliament as to
whether they might lawfully prevent money going out of the kingdom to foreign
and non-resident holders of English benefices. He replied boldly in the
affirmative. When Parliament was dissolved, Oxford received the papal bull.
Wycliffe was then merely required to confine himself to Black Hall. The
theologians, on the whole, took his part. The Chancellor and doctors affirmed
that his conclusions were true, although they 'sounded ill in the ears of their
hearers', a phrase in which moderation seems to be tempered with ambiguity.
To Wycliffe and his friends must be given the credit
of first publishing, between 1380 and 1384, the whole Bible in the English
tongue. The Anglo-Saxon Gospels were no longer intelligible and the
Anglo-French version of the Bible was read by few, for Anglo-French was dying.
By appealing to the Bible and by inspiring other men to translate it, Wycliffe
performed a work of great and permanent importance. It may be doubted whether
he had the saint's hatred of sin and passion for souls. He had nothing of the
mystical and lyrical spirit of his older contemporary, Richard Rolle, another
Yorkshireman, who translated the Psalms and found 'joy in God'. Wycliffe's
polemic was too negative and his ecclesiastical polity was too Erastian. But he
was as fearless as he was earnest, he was eminent in learning and filled with
sympathy for the oppressed. In the England of his age he stands alone as
theologian, preacher, and politician, and after his age his influence was a
force in England and beyond.
The Hussite movement in Bohemia was a result of
Wycliffe's influence in Oxford.
In the fourteenth century Bohemia, to some extent in
consequence of the infiltration of German settlers, made a very marked progress
in political and intellectual development. This development was aided by King
Charles (1346-1378) and his son Wenzel (1378-1419). In 1344 Prague was made an
archbishopric and separated from Mainz, and four years later the University of
Prague was founded. An increased patriotism and a desire to promote reforms in
the Church accompanied this new state of affairs. Some tentative efforts had
been made earlier, but the movement definitely began about 1401, when
Wycliffe's theological works were brought to Prague by Jerome of Prague, who
had been a student in Oxford. His philosophical works had been studied earlier.
Both Wycliffe's philosophy and his theology stirred the mind of John Hus, a
Master of Arts, who preached in Czech in the Bethlehem chapel at Prague and was
confessor of Queen Sophia of Bohemia. He soon became an intellectual leader of
the Czechs. His archbishop, Sbynko, appointed him
with others to investigate a pretended miracle at Wilsnack.
He proved that the miracle was a fraud, and pilgrimages to Wilsnack were forbidden by the archbishop. But about 1408 clouds began to thicken over
the head of Hus. Wenzel altered the constitution of the university, and the
German members withdrew from it and founded the University of Leipzig. The
University of Prague was now purely Slav, and Hus was its rector. But the
archbishop, drawn into the quarrel between the rival claimants to the papal
throne, and in obedience to a papal bull, burnt Wycliffe's books, and in 1411
put Hus under a ban. Nevertheless he became reconciled to Hus. It was Pope John
XXIII who made the real break between Rome and the Hussite party. In 1412 he
caused an indulgence to be preached in Bohemia for a crusade against Ladislaus
of Naples, who was a powerful supporter of the rival Pope, Gregory XII. Hus and
his friend Jerome of Prague wrote and spoke against this indulgence with such
effect that the populace fastened the Pope's bull on the breast of a prostitute
and led her through the city in contempt of Rome, 'the mother of harlots'. Hus
and his followers were then excommunicated and every place in which he resided
was put under an interdict. He left Prague and lived with various noble
patrons, writing vigorously in Latin and Czech.
The death of Pope Urban VI, in 1389, was followed by
that of Clement VII in 1394. In the see of Rome Urban was followed by Boniface
IX, Innocent VII, and then Gregory XII, who resigned in 1415. The first was
poorly educated but a man of good character, except in his propensity for
favoring his family and selling offices. Innocent VII had a wide knowledge of
canon and civil law. In 1404 he issued a summons for the meeting of a General
Council. It was hardly his fault that the Council did not meet. His nephew
murdered certain prominent Romans and thereby so infuriated the people that the
Pope had to flee to Viterbo and did not receive the submission of his subjects
until a short time before his death. Gregory XII, a weak old man who had been
Latin patriarch of Constantinople, was elected on condition that if the
antipope at Avignon should resign, he should do the same and thereby end the
schism.
But the antipope at Avignon was Benedict XIII, who
remained inflexibly opposed to the Roman popes. He was an Aragonese,
dignified, astute, and energetic. His claims were defended by persons whom Rome
regards as models of holiness, such as St. Vincent Ferrer, the missionary, St.
Colette, the reformer of a Franciscan religious order, and the Blessed Peter of
Luxemburg, an ascetic young cardinal at whose tomb the people of Avignon prayed
and sought for miracles. Two Councils held at Paris insisted that Benedict XIII
should resign, and in 1398 a third Council detached France from his obedience.
Western Christianity was now divided into three branches, the party of Rome,
the party of Avignon, and the party of France, which dispensed with the papacy
and maintained that as the Pope had only received his power in order to edify
the Church, he ought not to be obeyed when he destroyed it. Benedict, however,
promised in 1404 that he would abdicate if his rival died or abdicated, and for
a time secured obedience in France. His rival, Boniface IX, died soon
afterwards, but Benedict XIII gripped his tiara with the same tenacity as
before. His falsehood, and the heavy taxes which he levied in France, caused a
fourth Council to be held at Paris in 1406. He was denounced as a perjurer and
a schismatic, the doctrine that a pope is subject to the Church grew more and
more popular, and a bull from Benedict XIII was torn in pieces by the
University of Paris.
In the meantime the cardinals of both parties felt it
their duty to grasp the helm of the Church. With the approval of the
Universities of Oxford, Paris, and Bologna they determined to convoke a General
Council, holding that the Church must have a natural and divine right to find
within itself the means of reconstituting its unity. The result was the opening
of a Council at Pisa in March 1409. It was convoked by the cardinals alone in
spite of the formal opposition of both popes, Benedict XIII and Gregory XII.
Scotland, Spain, and parts of Germany and Italy were unrepresented at the
Council. The two popes were both deposed as heretics, and under the influence
of Cardinal Balthazar Cossa a third pope was chosen.
He took the name of Alexander V, but died the next year, urging upon the
cardinals the duty of concord. They then elected Balthazar Cossa himself, who took the name of John XXIII. The sincere Christian might well ask,
'Where is the Vicar of Christ?' If he were a Frenchman he would have had to
reply to himself that in the thirty-one years from 1378 to 1409 the Vicar of
Christ had for two short periods been at Avignon, that for two other short
periods he had been nowhere, and that he was now to be found at Pisa. The
marvel is, not that there was so much rebellion against Christian law and
order, but that so much fervent Christian piety survived.
As for John XXIII, it was notorious that he was no
model of a Christian pontiff, and the two other popes could not be expected to
efface themselves at his command. Let all three abdicate, was the cry of the
wise and far-sighted d'Ailly. So John was obliged to
appeal to the Emperor Sigismund for help, and to consent to his proposal to
summon a General Council. The Council met on November the 1st, 1414, at
Constance. The party of reform was led by d'Ailly,
Gerson, who was the delegate of the University of Paris, and Zabarella, legate of John XXIII, all illustrious, pious,
and imbued with the conviction that a Council has higher authority than a pope.
They soon came into conflict with John through their unwillingness to ratify
the deposition of his two rivals, as decreed at Pisa, an action which might
seem to question the plenary authority of the Pisan Council. John fled to
Schaffhausen in disguise and thus left the field clear for the Council to
assert its own authority. It did so in the vital words, maintained by many in
the communion of Rome until 187o: “The Council of Constance, legitimately
assembled in the Holy Spirit, forming a General Council and representing the
Catholic Church Militant, holds its authority immediately from Christ, and
every one, of whatever state or dignity, even the papal, is bound to obey it in
what concerns the faith, the extirpation of schism, and the reformation of the
Church in its head and in its members”.
Pope John XXIII had departed from Constance a few days
before this memorable decision had been formulated. The two other members of
the so-called “abominable trinity” wanted to retain their office for some time
longer. But Gregory XII, the Roman Pope, resigned in July 1415, and in 1417
Benedict XIII was deposed and retired to Spain. In November 1417 the Council
elected a new Pope, Otto Colonna, who took the name of Martin V. The Council
continued its sittings until April 1418. During this time there appeared to be
considerable danger of the papal monarchy being replaced by a kind of
intellectual republic, for not only the popes but also the bishops were thrown
into the shade by theologians from the leading universities. Seven decrees of
reform were promulgated, and concordats made with the Germans, the English,
and the three Latin nations
The name of the Council of Constance is forever
blackened by its treatment of John Hus.
Bohemia was seething with agitation against the
papacy, and the Emperor Sigismund summoned Hus to attend the Council, promising
him a safe-conduct. Hus reached Constance on November the 3rd, 1414, and was
thrown into prison three weeks later. Sigismund was told that, as Hus was
arraigned as a heretic before a General Council, it was beyond the authority of
the civil power to protect him. Hus was imprisoned for seven months and
frequently examined as to his opinions. He steadily repudiated the heretical propositions
which had been extracted from Wycliffe's writings and had already been
condemned by the University of Prague. He behaved with gentleness and courage.
His trial lasted three days, and judgment was pronounced against him in
Constance cathedral July the 6th, 1415. A bishop preached on Rom. VI. 6 and,
addressing Sigismund, said, “By destroying this heretic thou shalt obtain an
undying name to all ensuing generations”. Seven bishops dressed Hus in priestly
vestments, of which they then stripped him. They put on him a tall hat painted
with devils and said, “We give thy soul to the devil”. Hus replied, “I commend
it into the hands of our Saviour Jesus Christ”. He
was burnt the same day. His friend Jerome of Prague suffered at the stake with
equal courage on May the 30th, 1416.
It cannot be doubted that Hus died as a martyr both to
Slavdom and to reform. German national feeling was enraged by his devotion to
Bohemian interests and his opposition to the philosophy which was then in vogue
among the Germans. And on the other hand the papal party were indignant at his
opposition to indulgences and his teaching that originally the Bishop of Rome
was no more than other bishops, and that Christ is the only head of His Church.
He upheld the doctrine of transubstantiation and was inclined to favor the
practice of communion in one kind. Like the French Waldensians, he did not hold
that the sacraments were invalid if administered by an unworthy priest. Though
a less subtle theologian than Wycliffe he was more safe, and he deserves far
more admiration than most of the reformers of the next century.
After the death of Hus the Bohemian reformers became
divided into two parties. The first was that of the Taborites, a violent and
democratic party which opposed all peace with Rome. The second was that of the Calixtines, a more aristocratic party led by Rokyczan of Prague. They declared that they would be
satisfied with four reforms, one of which was the restoration of the chalice
(calix) to the laity. The Council of Basel, in 1433, granted these reforms,
though with certain restrictions, and the majority of the Calixtines then became reconciled with Rome. They became known as the Utraquists,
because they received the Eucharist in both kinds (sub utraque specie).
The later history of the Hussites is extremely
complicated and interwoven with that of the Waldensians and other religious
sects. They were involved in internecine wars, and the Taborites were heavily
defeated by the Utraquists at Lipan in 1434. King
George Podjebrad (d. 1471) and King Wladislaw II were
both in favor of Church unity, and for some time the Utraquist Church and that
of the more distinctly Latin rite existed side by side. Many others, including Rokyczan, now Archbishop-elect of Prague (d. 1471), were
not satisfied with such a compromise, and were in favor of a separation of
Church and State. They were led by a layman, Peter of Chelcic,
and about 1453 called themselves 'The Union of Brethren' (Unitas fratrum) or 'The Bohemian Brethren'. They were allowed by Podjebrad to settle in a deserted village, Kunwald, in the barony of Senftenberg,
and found a teacher in Michael of Bradacz, the local
priest. In 1467, at a synod held at Lhotka, they definitely separated from the
national Church, and Michael was consecrated bishop by a Waldensian bishop
named Stephen. For some time their faith and practice seem to have been
essentially Catholic. But a younger, less Catholic party arose under the
leadership of Luke of Prague, and in 1494 a synod at Reichenau rejected the
authority of Peter of Chelcic and adopted a more
Protestant position, making the Bible their only standard and affirming a
merely symbolic doctrine of the Eucharist. In spite of their divisions they
spread rapidly. Early in the sixteenth century they possessed hundreds of
churches in Bohemia and Moravia. On the appearance of Luther they approached
him with a view to union. He objected to the value which they attached to
episcopacy and celibacy, and also to their denial of the Real Presence. They
objected to his one-sided view of justification and his antinomian idea of
freedom. The two parties at last came to an agreement in 1542, and the
'Bohemian' or 'Moravian', Brethren became gradually infected with Lutheran
views, and even with those of the Calvinists. Their literary achievements were
remarkable, and their translation of the Bible into Czech was almost as
influential in shaping that language as Luther's translation was in influencing
the language of Germany. The persecution of the Moravians, which was one of the
results of the Counter-Reformation, and their revival in the eighteenth
century, fall outside the scope of the present volume.
According to the decisions reached at Constance, a
General Council should have met in 1423. This was not possible, but such a
Council met at Basel in December 1431. It was occupied with a prolonged
theological struggle with the new Pope, Eugenius IV (1431-1447). He attempted
to dissolve the Council; but the Fathers refused to be dissolved, renewed the
decrees of Constance as to the supremacy of a General Council, and passed
several practical reforms. At the end of 1433 the Pope gave way; he annulled
his previous dissolution and formally recognized the Council of Basel as a
General Council. Differences broke out anew, and in 1439 the Council made the
mistake of electing an antipope, Felix V. The latter gained very little support
outside Savoy. He soon abdicated, and he died with a reputation for his piety.
He was the last antipope. Before Eugenius was deposed and supplanted he had
ordered the transference of the Council to Ferrara. His followers met there
early in 1438 and concerned themselves with the urgent question of reunion with
the Greek Church, Greeks and Latins keenly discussing the points of difference,
especially the Filioque clause in the Nicene Creed. The next year their
deliberations were continued at the celebrated Council of Florence, where the
walls of division between the two Churches were apparently broken.
In the train of the Greek emperor there came to this
Council of Reunion two notable Eastern metropolitans, Isidore of Kiev and
Bessarion of Nicaea. It was agreed that it was true to say either that the Holy
Spirit proceeds 'from the Father and the Son' or that He proceeds 'from the
Father through the Son'. Both parties had the sense to see that it did not
matter whether leavened or unleavened bread was used in the liturgy. And the Easterns, knowing that the Turks were almost at their
doors, and hoping for Western help, admitted that the Pope was 'the Vicar of
Christ, Shepherd, and Teacher of all Christians to guide and rule the whole
Church of God', but added the ambiguous clause 'without prejudice to the rights
and privileges of the other Patriarchs'. The only Oriental bishop who refused
to sign was Mark of Ephesus.
Officially the union was complete. But Mark was
regarded in the East as a hero, and in 1472, when Constantinople was a Turkish
city, a synod at Constantinople rejected the Council of Florence with
anathemas. And when Isidore appeared again in Moscow, Basil III interned him in
a monastery. The Pope then nominated Isidore's friend Gregory as Uniate
Archbishop of Kiev, a city which was still within the borders of Lithuania and
therefore under Latin influence. The Russians retorted by raising an 'Orthodox'
prelate, Jonas, to the metropolitan see of Moscow. The difficulty was resolved
in 147o, when Gregory himself renounced his Uniate status and was accepted as
Orthodox metropolitan of Kiev. The successors of Jonas were content to be
called metropolitans of Moscow and all Russia, and a double line of
metropolitans, of Moscow and Kiev, respectively, lasted until 1589.
Before the Council of Basel had finished its prolonged
sittings, Charles VII, King of France, resolved to commence the reform of the
Church himself. He called together at Bourges, in 1438, the bishops of France
and the members of his Council to consider the decrees of Basel which limited
the power of the Pope, particularly in matters of finance, and the relation of
the Pope to the Council. The result was the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges,
which suppressed the payment of annates and other exactions and deprived the
Pope of the power of nominating to vacant bishoprics. It became a
foundation-stone of the liberties of the Galilean Church. It remained in force
until 1516, when Francis I and Pope Leo X signed the Concordat of Bologna, a
concordat which restored annates to the Pope but secured important rights for
the Crown.
The second half of the fifteenth century is a time of
transition, and its great attraction lies in the fact that we can see its
twofold character, which alternately faces the past and the future. Religion
is still medieval, but there are signs which point to both the Reformation and
the Counter-Reformation. The conciliar movement failed; the work done at
Constance and Basel did not alter Rome. Papalism defeated Episcopalianism.
The assertion of the Pope's primacy at Florence counterbalanced the efforts of
bishops and theologians, and in 1460 Pope Pius II, in his bull Exsecrabilis, forbade an appeal from the Pope to a
General Council. But the movement left its mark on history, and the desire for
reformation was not extinguished. The Catholic sovereigns, though unwilling to
proceed very far in the work of decentralizing religious authority, were
determined to claim in ecclesiastical affairs the rights which their
predecessors had exercised before the medieval papacy had matured. Moreover,
the movement had been supported by men of rare ability, deeply persuaded that
the authority of the Church resided in the consciousness of the whole body. The
two words Council and Reform remained wedded together, a double-edged weapon
against the papacy, and the outward expression of a moral discontent. We can
understand why Luther appealed to a General Council, and why his contemporary
Pope Clement VII dreaded the very name of it.
It was at this period of change that the idea of a
Western Roman empire declined; the last Roman emperor, Frederic III, was
crowned in Rome in 1452. The Eastern Roman empire fell for ever when the Turkish sultan, Muhammad the Conqueror, took Constantinople in 1453
and rode on horseback into Justinian's peerless church of St. Sophia. But a new
empire was won for Christendom when America was discovered, and when the
Spaniards took Granada from the Muslim Moors in 1492. Spain was marked out to
be the homeland of the new Catholicism of future generations.
CHAPTER XVIII.THE RENAISSANCE AND RELIGION
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