Admiration

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• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  A portion of this fund was the product of the sale of indulgences. He turned the forgiveness of sins for the present time and in purgatory into a matter of merchandise.844 In another place, Julius will be presented from the standpoint of art and culture, whose splendid patron he was. What man ever had the privilege of bringing together three artists of such consummate genius as Bramante, Michael Angelo and Raphael! His portrait in the Pitti gallery, Florence, forms a rich study for those who seek in the lines and colors of Raphael’s art the secret of the pontiff’s power.845 The painter has represented Julius as an old man with beard, and with his left hand grasping the arm of the chair in which he sits. His fingers wear jewelled rings. The forehead is high, the lips firmly pressed, the eyes betokening weariness, determination and commanding energy. In the history of the Western Continent, Julius also has some place. In 1504 he created an archbishopric and two bishoprics of Hispaniola, or Hayti. The prelates to whom they were assigned never crossed the seas. Seven years later, 1511, he revoked these creations and established the sees of San Domingo and Concepcion de la Vega on the island of Hayti and the see of San Juan in Porto Rico, all three subject to the metropolitan supervision of the see of Seville. § 56. Leo X. 1513–1521. The warlike Julius II. was followed on the pontifical throne by the voluptuary, Leo X.,—the prelate whose iron will and candid mind compel admiration by a prince given to the pursuit of pleasure and an adept in duplicity. Leo loved ease and was without high aims. His Epicurean conception of the supreme office of Christendom was expressed in a letter he sent a short time after his election to his brother Julian. In it were these words, "Let us enjoy the papacy, for God has given it to us."846 The last pontificate of the Middle Ages corresponded to the worldly philosophy of the pontiff. Leo wanted to have a good time. . The idea of a spiritual mission never entered his head. No effort was made, emanating from the Vatican, to further the interests of true religion. Born in Florence, Dec. 11, 1475, Giovanni de’ Medici, the second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, had every opportunity which family distinction, wealth and learned tutors, such as Poliziano, could give. At 7 he received the tonsure, and at once the world of ecclesiastical preferment was opened to the child. Louis XI. of France presented him with the abbey of Fonte Dolce, and at 8 he was nominated to the archbishopric of Aix, the nomination, however, not being confirmed.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  (Not in De Wette’s collection, because of its polemical character.) A defense of his version against the attacks of the Romanists. Mathesius, in his thirteenth sermon on the Life of Luther. II. On the merits and history of Luther’s version. The best works are by Palm (1772). Panzer (Vollständ. Gesch. der deutschen Bibelübers. Luthers, Nürnb. 1783, 2d ed. 1791), Weidemann (1834), H. Schott (1835), Bindseil (1847), Hopf (1847), Mönckeberg (1855 and 1861), Karl Frommann (1862), Dorner (1868), W. Grimm (1874 and l884), Düsterdieck (1882), Kleinert (1883), TH. Schott (1883), and the introduction to the Probebibel (1883). See Lit. in § 17, p. 103. III. On the pre-Lutheran German Bible, and Luther’s relation to it. Ed. Reuss: Die deutsche Historienbibel vor der Erfindung des Bücherdrucks. Jena, 1855. Jos. Kehrein (Rom. Cath.): Zur Geschichte der deutschen Bibelübersetzung vor Luther. Stuttgart, 1851. O. F. Fritzsche in Herzog, 2d ed., Bd. III. (1876), pp. 543 sqq. Dr. W. Krafft: Die deutsche Bibel vor Luther, sein Verhältniss zu derselben und seine Verdienste um die deutsche Bibelübersetzung. Bonn, 1883 (25 pages. 4°.) Also the recent discussions (1885–1887) of Keller, Haupt, Jostes, Rachel, Kawerau, Kolde, K. Müller, on the alleged Waldensian origin of the pre-Lutheran German version. The richest fruit of Luther’s leisure in the Wartburg, and the most important and useful work of his whole life, is the translation of the New Testament, by which he brought the teaching and example of Christ and the Apostles to the mind and heart of the Germans in life-like reproduction. It was a republication of the gospel. He made the Bible the people’s book in church, school, and house. If he had done nothing else, he would be one of the greatest benefactors of the German-speaking race.426 His version was followed by Protestant versions in other languages, especially the French, Dutch, and English. The Bible ceased to be a foreign book in a foreign tongue, and became naturalized, and hence far more clear and dear to the common people. Hereafter the Reformation depended no longer on the works of the Reformers, but on the book of God, which everybody could read for himself as his daily guide in spiritual life. This inestimable blessing of an open Bible for all, without the permission or intervention of pope and priest, marks an immense advance in church history, and can never be lost. Earlier Versions. Luther was not the first, but by far the greatest translator of the German Bible, and is as inseparably connected with it as Jerome is with the Latin Vulgate. He threw the older translation into the shade and out of use, and has not been surpassed or even equaled by a successor. There are more accurate versions for scholars (as those of De Wette and Weizsäcker), but none that can rival Luther’s for popular authority and use. The civilization of the barbarians in the dark ages began with the introduction of Christianity, and the translation of such portions of the Scriptures as were needed in public worship.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  As soon as they feel themselves caught up by the ever-extending enlightenment of the time, they must go on, do what they will, till at last the point is reached where all is but one." III. Heinrich Heine, of Jewish descent, poet, critic, and humorist, the Franco-German Voltaire, who, like Voltaire, ridiculed with irreverent audacity the most sacred things, and yet, unlike him, could pass from smiles to tears, and appreciate the grandeur of Moses and the beauty of the Bible, pays this striking tribute to the Reformer: — "Luther was not only the greatest, but also the most German man of our history; and in his character all the virtues and vices of the Germans are united in the grandest manner. He had also attributes which are rarely found together, and are usually regarded as hostile contradictions. He was at once a dreamy mystic, and a practical man of action. His thoughts had not only wings, but also hands; he spoke and he acted. He was not only the tongue, but also the sword of his age. He was both a cold scholastic stickler for words, and an inspired, divinely intoxicated prophet. After working his mind weary with his dogmatic distinctions during the day, he took his flute in the evening, looked up to the stars, and melted into melody and devotion. The same man who would scold like a fishwoman could also be as soft as a tender virgin. He was at times wild as the storm which uproots the oaks, and again as gentle as the zephyr which kisses the violets. He was full of the most awful fear of God, full of consecration to the Holy Spirit; he would be all absorbed in pure spirituality, and yet he knew very well the glories of the earth, and appreciated them, and from his mouth blossomed the famous motto: Who does not love wine, wife, and song, remains a fool his whole life long."1005 He was a complete man,—I might say, an absolute man,—in whom spirit and matter are not separated .... "Honor to Luther! Eternal honor to the dear man, to whom we owe the recovery of our dearest rights, and by whose benefit we live to-day! It becomes us little to complain about the narrowness of his views. The dwarf who stands on the shoulders of the giant can indeed see farther than the giant himself, especially if he puts on spectacles; but for that lofty point of intuition we want the lofty feeling, the giant heart, which we cannot make our own. It becomes us still less to pass a harsh judgment upon his failings: these failings have been of more use to us than the virtues of a thousand others. The polish of Erasmus, the gentleness of Melanchthon, would never have brought us so far as the divine brutality of Brother Martin.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  His voice was drowned, and his name forgotten, for two centuries, but is now again heard with increased force. I subscribe to the concluding words of my esteemed colleague, Dr. Briggs: "Like a mountain stream that disappears at times under the rocks of its bed, and re-appears deeper down in the valley, so these long-buried principles of peace have reappeared after two centuries of oblivion, and these irenical theologians will be honored by those who live in a better age of the world, when Protestant irenics have well-nigh displaced the old Protestant polemics and scholastics." The origin of the sentence was first discussed by a Dutch divine, Dr. Van der Hoeven of Amsterdam, in 1847; then by Dr. Luecke of Göttingen, Ueber das Alter, den Verfasser, die ursprungliche Form und den wahren Sinn des kirchlichen Friedenspruchs ’In necessariis unitas,’ etc., Göttingen, 1850 (XXII. and 146 pages); with supplementary remarks in the "Studien und Kritiken" for 1851, p. 905–938. Luecke first proved the authorship of Meldenius. The next steps were taken by Dr. Klose, in the first edition of Herzog’s "Theol. Encycl," sub Meltlenius, vol. IX. (1858), p. 304 sq., and by Dr. Carl Bertheau, in the second edition of Herzog, IX. (1881), p. 528–530. Dr. Brigas has furnished additional information in two articles in the "Presbyterian Review," vol. VIII., New York, 1857, pp. 496–499, and 743–746. § 109. Luther’s Last Attack on the Sacramentarians. His Relation to Calvin. We anticipate the concluding act of the sad controversy of Luther with his Protestant opponents. It is all the more painful, since Zwingli and Oecolampadius were then sleeping in the grave; but it belongs to a full knowledge of the great Reformer. The Marburg Conference did not really reconcile the parties, or advance the question in dispute; but the conflict subsided for a season, and was thrown into the background by other events. The persistent efforts of Bucer and Hedio to bring about a reconciliation between Wittenberg and Zuerich soothed Luther, and excited in him the hope that the Swiss would give up their heresy, as he regarded it. But in this hope he was disappointed. The Swiss could not accept the "Wittenberg Concordia" of 1536, because it was essentially Lutheran in the assertion of the corporal presence and oral manducation.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  He traversed the whole area of the physical sciences. No one for centuries had been such a student of nature. He wrote on the vegetable kingdom, geography, mineralogy, zoology, astronomy, and the digestive organs. The writings on these themes are full of curious items of knowledge and explanations of natural phenomena. His treatise on meteors, De meteororibus, for example, which in Borgnet’s edition fills more than three hundred pages (IV. 477–808), takes up at length such subjects as the comets, the milky way, the cause of light in the lower strata of air, the origin of the rivers, the winds, lightning, thunder and cyclones, the rainbow, etc. In the course of his treatment of rivers, Albert speaks of great cavities in the earth and spongy regions under its flat surface. To the question, why the sun was made, if the prior light was sufficient to render it possible to speak of "morning and evening" on the first days of creation, he replied, "that as the earlier light amply illuminated the upper parts of the universe so the sun was fitted to illuminate the lower parts, or rather it was in order that the day might be made still more bright by the sun; and if it be asked what became of the prior light, the answer is that the body of the sun, corpus solis, was formed out of it, or at any rate that the prior light was in the same part of the heavens where the sun is located, not as though it were the sun but in the sense that it was so united with the sun as now no more to be specially distinguished from it."1480 Albert saw into a new world. His knowledge is often at fault, but sometimes his statements are prophetic of modern discovery. For example, he said that the poles of the earth were too cold to be inhabited. He knew about the sleep of plants and many of the laws of the vegetable world. He was indefatigable in experimentation, the forerunner of the modern laboratory worker, and had much to do with arsenic, sulphur, and other chemical substances. He knew about gunpowder, but got his knowledge from others.1481 The succeeding age associated his name, as also the name of Roger Bacon, with magic and the dark arts, but probably without sufficient reason.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Monastic orders were dedicated to Mary, such as the Carthusian, Cistercian, and Carmelite, as were also some of the most imposing churches of Christendom, as the cathedrals at Milan and Notre Dame, in Paris. The titles given to Mary were far more numerous than the titles given to Christ and every one of them is extra-biblical except the word "virgin." An exuberant fancy allegorized references to her out of all sorts of texts, never dreamed of by their writers. She was found referred to in almost every figurative expression of the Old Testament which could be applied to a pure, human being. To all the Schoolmen, Mary is the mother of God, the queen of heaven, the clement queen, the queen of the world, the empress of the world, the mediatrix, the queen of the ages, the queen of angels, men and demons,2009 the model of all virtues, and Damiani even calls her is the mother of the eternal emperor."2010 Monks, theologians, and poets strain the Latin language to express their admiration of her beauty and benignity, her chastity and heavenly glory. Her motherhood and virginity are alike subjects of eulogy. The conception of physical grace, as expressed when the older Notker of St. Gall called her "the most beautiful of all virgins," filled the thought of the Schoolmen and the peasant. Albertus Magnus devotes a whole chapter of more than thirty pages of two columns each to the praise of her corporal beauty. In his exposition of Canticles 1:15, "Behold thou art fair, my love," he comments upon the beauty of her hair, her shoulders, her lips, her nose, her feet, and other parts of her body. Bonaventura’s hymns in her praise abound in tropical expressions, such as "she is more ruddy than the rose and whiter than the lily." Wernher of Tegernsee about 1178 sang:2011 — Her face was so virtuous, her eyes so Bright, Her manner so pure, that, among all women, None could with her compare. In a remarkable passage, Bernard represents her in the celestial places drawing attention to herself by her form and beauty so that she attracted the King himself to desire her.2012 Dante, a century and more later, enjoying paradise in the company of Bernard, thus represented the vision of Mary: — I saw the virgin smile, whose rapture shot Joy through the eyes of all that blessed throng: And even did the words that I possess Equal imagination, I should not Dare, the attempt her faintest charms to express. Paradiso, Canto XXXI.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  But these statements, however, are like the flecks on the marbles of the Parthenon. The author, Thomas à Kempis, 1380–1471, was born in Kempen, a town 40 miles northwest of Cologne, and died at Zwolle, in the Netherlands. His paternal name was Hemerken or Hämmerlein, Little Hammer. He was a follower of Groote. In 1395, he was sent to the school of Deventer, under the charge of Florentius Radewyn and the Brothers of the Common Life. He became skilful as a copyist, and was thus enabled to support himself. Later he was admitted to the Augustinian convent of Mt. St. Agnes, near Zwolle, received priest’s orders, 1413, and was made sub-prior, 1429. His brother John, a man of rectitude of life, had been there before him, and was prior. Thomas’ life seems to have been a quiet one, devoted to meditation, composition and copying. He copied the Bible no less than four times, one of the copies being preserved at Darmstadt. His works abound in quotations of the New Testament. Under an old picture, which is represented as his portrait, are the words, "In all things I sought quiet, and found it not save in retirement and in books."520 They fit well the author of the famous Imitation of Christ, as the world thinks of him. He reached the high age of fourscore years and ten. A monument was dedicated to his memory in the presence of the archbishop of Utrecht in St. Michael’s Church Zwolle, Nov. 11, 1897. The writings of à Kempis, which are all of a devotional character, include tracts and meditations, letters, sermons, a Life of St. Lydewigis, a steadfast Christian woman who endured a great fight of afflictions, and the biographies of Groote, Florentius and nine of their companions. Works similar to the are his prolonged meditation upon the Incarnation, and a meditation on the Life and Blessings of the Saviour,521 both of which overflow with admiration for Christ. In these writings the traces of mediaeval theology, though they are found, are not obtrusive. The writer followed his mediaeval predecessors in the worship of Mary, of whom he says, she is to be invoked by all Christians, especially by monastics.522 He prays to her as the "most merciful," the "most glorious" mother of God, and calls her the queen of heaven, the efficient mediatrix of the whole world, the joy and delight of all the saints, yea, the golden couch for all the saints. She is the chamber of God, the gate of heaven, the paradise of delights, the well of graces, the glory of the angels, the joy of men, the model of manners, the brightness of virtues, the lamp of life, the hope of the needy, the salvation of the weak, the mother of the orphaned.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The election of Julian Rovere, who assumed the name of Julius II., was accomplished with despatch October 31, 1503, after bribery had been freely resorted to. The Spanish cardinals, 11 in number and still in a measure under Caesar’s control, gave their votes to the successful candidate on condition that Caesar should be recognized as gonfalonier of the church. The faithful papal master-of-ceremonies, whose Diary we have had occasion to draw on so largely, was appointed bishop of Orta, but died two years later. Born in Savona of humble parentage and appointed to the sacred college by his uncle, Sixtus IV., Julius had recently returned to Rome after an exile of nearly 10 years. The income from his numerous bishoprics and other dignities made him the richest of the cardinals. Though piety was not one of the new pontiff’s notable traits, his pontificate furnished an agreeable relief from the coarse crimes and domestic scandals of Alexander’s reign. It is true, he had a family of three daughters, one of whom, Felice, was married into the Orsini family in 1506, carrying with her a splendid dowry of 15,000 ducats. But the marriage festivities were not appointed for the Vatican, nor did the children give offence by their ostentatious presence in the pontifical palace. Julius also took care of his nephews. Two of them were appointed to the sacred college, Nov. 29, 1503, and later two more were honored with the same dignity. For making the Spanish scholar, Ximenes, cardinal, Julius deserved well of other ages as well as his own. He was a born ruler. He had a dignified and imposing presence and a bright, penetrating eye. Under his white hair glowed the intellectual fire of youth. He was rapid in his movements even to impetuosity, and brave even to daring. Defeats that would have disheartened even the bravest seemed only to intensify Julius’ resolution. If his language was often violent, the excuse is offered that violence of speech was common at that time. As a cardinal he had shown himself a diplomat rather than a saint, and as pope he showed himself a warrior rather than a priest. When Michael Angelo, who was ordered to execute the pope’s statue in bronze, was representing Julius with his right hand raised, the pope asked, "What are you going to put into the left?" "It may be a book," answered the artist. "Nay, give me a sword, for I am no scholar," was the pope’s reply. Nothing could be more characteristic.826 Julius’ administration at once brought repose and confidence to the sacred college and Rome. If he did not keep his promise to abide by the protocol adopted in the conclave calling for the assembling of a council within two years, he may be forgiven on the ground of the serious task he had before him in strengthening the political authority of the papal see. This was the chief aim of his pontificate.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  worship, was born in Germany and brought to maturity with the Reformation and with the idea of the general priesthood of believers. The Latin Church had prepared the way, and produced some of the grandest hymns which can never die, as the "Dies Irae," the "Stabat mater," and the "Jesu dulcis memoria." But these and other Latin hymns and sequences of St. Hilary, St. Ambrose, Fortunatus, Notker, St. Bernard, St. Thomas Aquinas, Thomas a Celano, Jacobus de Benedictis, Adam of St. Victor, etc., were sung by priests and choristers, and were no more intelligible to the common people than the Latin Psalter and the Latin mass.639 The reign of the Latin language in public worship, while it tended to preserve the unity of the church, and to facilitate literary intercourse, kept back the free development of a vernacular hymnody. Nevertheless, the native love of the Germans for poetry and song produced for private devotion a large number of sacred lyrics and versified translations of the Psalms and Latin hymns. As there were German Bibles before Luther’s version, so there were also German hymns before his time; but they were limited in use, and superseded by the superior products of the evangelical church. Philip Wackernagel (the most learned German hymnologist, and an enthusiastic admirer of Luther) gives in the second volume of his large collection no less than fourteen hundred and forty-eight German hymns and sequences, from Otfrid to Hans Sachs (inclusive) or from A.D. 868 to 1518. Nor was vernacular hymnody confined to Germany. St. Francis of Assisi composed the "Cantico del Sol," and Jacopone da Todi (the author of the "Stabat Mater ") those passionate dithyrambic odes which "vibrate like tongues of fire," for private confraternities and domestic gatherings.640 German Hymnody before the Reformation. In order to form a just estimate of German Protestant hymnody, we must briefly survey the mediaeval German hymnody. The first attempts of Teutonic church poetry are biblical epics, and the leader of the Teutonic Christ-singers is the Anglo-Saxon monk Caedmon of Whitby (formerly a swineherd), about 680, who reproduced in alliterative verse, as by inspiration, the biblical history of creation and redemption, and brought it home to the imagination and heart of Old England.641 This poem, which was probably brought to Germany by Bonifacius and other English missionaries, inspired in the ninth century a similar production of an unknown Saxon (Westphalian) monk, namely, a poetic gospel harmony or life of Christ under the title "Heliand "(i.e., Heiland, Healer, Saviour).642 About the same time (c. 870), Otfrid of Weissenburg in the Alsace, a Benedictine monk, educated at Fulda and St.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  From the imperial Diet, where Luther denied the authority of the Pope, and openly declared ’that his doctrine must be refuted by the authority of the Bible, or by the arguments of reason,’ new age has begun in Germany. The chain wherewith the holy Boniface bound the German church to Rome has been hewn asunder .... Through Luther we attained the greatest freedom of thought; but this Martin Luther gave us not only liberty to move, but also the means of moving, for to the spirit he gave also a body. He created the word for the thought,—he created the German language. He did this by his translation of the Bible. The Divine author of this book himself chose him his translator, and gave him the marvellous power to translate from a dead language which was already buried into another language which did not yet live. How Luther came to the language into which he translated the Bible I cannot conceive to this day .... This old book is a perennial fountain for the renewal of the German language."—Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophie in Deutschland, 2nd ed. 1852, in Heine’s Sämmtl. Werke, vol. III. 29 sqq. IV. J. Döllinger, the most learned Catholic historian of the nineteenth century, in his Lectures on the Reunion of Christendom (Ueber die Wiedervereinigung der christlichen Kirchen, Nördlingen, 1888, p. 53), makes the following incidental remark on Luther and the Reformation: — "The force and strength of the Reformation was only in part due to the personality of the man who was its author and spokesman in Germany. It was indeed Luther’s overpowering mental greatness and wonderful manysidedness (überwältigende Geistesgrösse und wunderbare Vielseitigkeit) that made him the man of his age and his people. Nor was there ever a German who had such an intuitive knowledge of his countrymen, and was again so completely possessed, not to say absorbed, by the national sentiment, as the Augustinian monk of Wittenberg. The mind and spirit of the Germans was in his hand as the lyre is in the hand of a skillful musician. He had given them more than any man in Christian days ever gave his people,—language, Bible, church hymn. All his opponents could offer in place of it, and all the reply they could make to him, was insipid, colorless, and feeble, by the side of his transporting eloquence. They stammered, he spoke. He alone has impressed the indelible stamp of his mind on the German language and the German intellect; and even those among us who hold him in religious detestation, as the great heresiarch and seducer of the nation, are constrained, in spite of themselves, to speak with his words and think with his thoughts. "And yet still more powerful than this Titan of the world of mind was the yearning of the German people for deliverance from the bonds of a corrupted church system.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The former released him from his monastic vows; the latter invited him to Rome, and would have given him any thing if he had consented to remain. Adrian VI. asked his counsel how to deal with the Lutheran heresy (1523). Clement VII., in reply to a letter, sent him a present of two hundred florins. Paul III. offered him a cardinal’s hat to reward him for his attack on Luther (1536), but he declined it on account of old age. The humanists were loudest in his praise, and almost worshiped him. Eoban Hesse, the prince of Latin poets of the time, called him a "divine being," and made a pilgrimage on foot from Erfurt to Holland to see him face to face. Justus Jonas did the same. Zwingli visited him in Basel, and before going to sleep used to read some pages of his writings. To receive a letter from him was a good fortune, and to have a personal interview with him was an event. A man

• From How God Became King (2012)

  Engaging in this work does not mean, as some have supposed, that one must first accept the reductionist worldview of the Enlightenment. Plenty of people were doing history before the eighteenth century; the word “history” does not simply mean “what a good eighteenth-century skeptic would allow.” In the second reaction, many devout Christians, including many learned scholars and theologians, have held aloof from the “quest” and from any imperative toward actual historical inquiry concerning Jesus. Surely, they say, we simply have to go with what our great tradition has handed down to us, rather than play around with historical reconstructions offered by skeptics; we mustn’t try to go behind our God-given gospels and invent something different of our own. I still believe that the first of these positions is justifiable, though it is no part of the present book to argue the case for it. My problem with the second position is that it takes us back once again to the problem of creed and canon, or indeed “gospel” and “gospels.” How can we escape this trap? The Social Gospel of Jesus? At this point we should turn and examine the more positive side of this middle-without-edges picture. As I hinted a moment ago, many devout Christians, without actually denying the creedal elements (virgin birth, resurrection, and so on), have glimpsed in the things Jesus did a sight of what the “kingdom of God” might look like in practice. The poor are delivered from their plight; the hungry are fed; the widows and orphans are given justice; the sick are healed; and so on. Many Christians, sustained by prayer, the sacraments, and the fellowship of the church, have given themselves energetically to these and other causes in their own day. Sometimes they have integrated, at least, the doctrine of the incarnation into what they have been attempting. In Jesus, they have said, God came and got his hands dirty in the real world, and we are called to do the same. The movement that called itself “Christian socialism” at the end of the nineteenth century worked on exactly that basis, often with a rich blend of spirituality, sacramental practice, and biblical theology, and with remarkable effect. I think, for instance, of the great biblical scholar and Bishop of Durham Brooke Fosse Westcott, who combined ferociously detailed and exact textual scholarship with zealous commitment to the poorest of the poor in the northeast of England.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  So they will put all that to one side and read the canon of scripture as a whole. What’s more—this is a fairly new move, but it’s gaining ground in some circles—they will read the New Testament in the light of the church’s ancient creeds. “Nicene Christianity”—that’s the criterion. Nicaea, after all, clearly taught the incarnation of Jesus (challenged by many biblical scholars), his atoning death (questioned by many), his resurrection (denied by many), and so on. It represents a historic landmark; this is how our forebears understood the faith! Give us the canon, give us the creeds, and we will drive the old car down the road in fine style rather than handing it over to those mechanics who only want to take it apart. In this brave new posthistorical or even antihistorical world, canon and creed are supposed to be made for one another. One eloquent writer puts it like this, opposing the view that the creeds are simply the record of ancient squabbles now resolved: “Creed is more than putting out theological brushfires. It is letting Scripture come to its natural, two-testament expression. Just as the Old Testament leaves its father and mother and cleaves to the new, so the Scriptures cleave to the creed, and the creed to them, and they become one flesh.” * I understand the sentiment, and in many ways I applaud it. The creeds were remarkable, a unique postbiblical innovation to meet a fresh need. They have functioned as the badge and symbol of the Christian family (not for nothing is the creed referred to in Latin as a symbolum ) for a millennium and a half. They are more than merely a list of things we happen to believe. Saying we believe these things marks us out as standing in continuity with those who went before us as well as with those around the world who today, in other places very different from our own, share this common faith and life. And yet. As we observed in the first part of this book, it simply won’t do to say that the Bible and the creeds can come together in that ultimate, intimate way. The creeds simply do not “let Scripture come to its natural, two-testament expression.”

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Besides, it offered not the slightest favor, as Mohammedanism afterwards did, to the corrupt inclinations of the heart, but against the current ideas of Jews and heathen it so presented its inexorable demand of repentance and conversion, renunciation of self and the world, that more, according to Tertullian, were kept out of the new sect by love of pleasure than by love of life. The Jewish origin of Christianity also, and the poverty and obscurity of a majority of its professors particularly offended the pride of the Greeks, and Romans. Celsus, exaggerating this fact, and ignoring the many exceptions, scoffingly remarked, that "weavers, cobblers, and fullers, the most illiterate persons" preached the "irrational faith," and knew how to commend it especially "to women and children." But in spite of these extraordinary difficulties Christianity made a progress which furnished striking evidence of its divine origin and adaptation to the deeper wants of man, and was employed as such by Irenaeus, Justin, Tertullian, and other fathers of that day. Nay, the very hindrances became, in the hands of Providence, means of promotion. Persecution led to martyrdom, and martyrdom had not terrors alone, but also attractions, and stimulated the noblest and most unselfish form of ambition. Every genuine martyr was a living proof of the truth and holiness of the Christian religion. Tertullian could exclaim to the heathen: "All your ingenious cruelties can accomplish nothing; they are only a lure to this sect. Our number increases the more you destroy us. The blood of the Christians is their seed." The moral earnestness of the Christians contrasted powerfully with the prevailing corruption of the age, and while it repelled the frivolous and voluptuous, it could not fail to impress most strongly the deepest and noblest minds. The predilection of the poor and oppressed for the gospel attested its comforting and redeeming power. But others also, though not many, from the higher and educated classes, were from the first attracted to the new religion; such men as Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathaea, the apostle Paul, the proconsul Sergius Paulus, Dionysius of Athens, Erastus of Corinth, and some members of the imperial household. Among the sufferers in Domitian’s persecution were his own near kinswoman Flavia Domitilla and her husband Flavius Clemens. In the oldest part of the Catacomb of Callistus, which is named after St. Lucina, members of the illustrious gens Pomponia, and perhaps also of the Flavian house, are interred. The senatorial and equestrian orders furnished several converts open or concealed. Pliny laments, that in Asia Minor men of every rank (omnis ordinis) go over to the Christians. Tertullian asserts that the tenth part of Carthage, and among them senators and ladies of the noblest descent and the nearest relatives of the proconsul of Africa professed Christianity. The numerous church fathers from the middle of the second century, a Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Clement, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, excelled, or at least equalled in talent and culture, their most eminent heathen contemporaries.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Christianity, assumed the form of a new law leading them, as a schoolmaster, to the manhood of Christ. The missionaries of the middle ages were nearly all monks. They were generally men of limited education and narrow views, but devoted zeal and heroic self-denial. Accustomed to primitive simplicity of life, detached from all earthly ties, trained to all sorts of privations, ready for any amount of labor, and commanding attention and veneration by their unusual habits, their celibacy, fastings and constant devotions, they were upon the whole the best pioneers of Christianity and civilization among the savage races of Northern and Western Europe. The lives of these missionaries are surrounded by their biographers with such a halo of legends and miracles, that it is almost impossible to sift fact from fiction. Many of these miracles no doubt were products of fancy or fraud; but it would be rash to deny them all. The same reason which made miracles necessary in the first introduction of Christianity, may have demanded them among barbarians before they were capable of appreciating the higher moral evidences. I. THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND, IRELAND, AND SCOTLAND. § 7. Literature. I. Sources. Gildas (Abbot of Bangor in Wales, the oldest British historian, in the sixth cent.): De excidio Britanniae conquestus, etc. A picture of the evils of Britain at the time. Best ed. by Joseph Stevenson, Lond., 1838. (English Historical Society’s publications.) Nennius (Abbot of Bangor about 620): Eulogium Britanniae, sive Historia Britonum. Ed. Stevenson, 1838. The Works of Gildas and Nennius transl. from the Latin by J. A. Giles, London, 1841. *Beda Venerabilis (d. 734): Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum; in the sixth vol. of Migne’s ed. of Bedae Opera Omnia, also often separately published and translated into English. Best ed. by Stevenson, Lond., 1838; and by Giles, Lond., 1849. It is the only reliable church-history of the Anglo-Saxon period. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, from the time of Caesar to 1154. A work of several successive hands, ed. by Gibson with an Engl. translation, 1823, and by Giles, 1849 (in one vol. with Bede’s Eccles. History). See the Six Old English Chronicles, in Bohn’s Antiquarian Library (1848); and Church Historians of England trans. by Jos. Stevenson, Lond. 1852–’56, 6 vols. Sir. Henry Spelman (d. 1641): Concilia, decreta, leges, constitutiones in re ecclesiarum orbis Britannici, etc. Lond., 1639–’64, 2 vols. fol. (Vol. I. reaches to the Norman conquest; vol. ii. to Henry VIII). David Wilkins (d. 1745): Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae (from 446 to 1717), Lond., 1737, 4 vols. fol. (Vol. I. from 446 to 1265). *Arthur West Haddan and William Stubbs: Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland: edited after Spelman and Wilkins. Oxford (Clarendon Press), 1869 to ’78. So far 3 vols. To be continued down to the Reformation. The Penitentials of the Irish and Anglo-Saxon Churches are collected and edited by F. Kunstmann (Die Lat. Poenitentialbücher der Angelsachsen, 1844); Wasserschleben (Die Bussordnungen der abendländ. Kirche, 1851); Schmitz (Die Bussbücher u. d. Bussdisciplin d.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  letter and several letters to his mother, which are extant, is shown the young monk’s warm affection for his parents and his brothers and sisters. In the convent, the son studied Augustine and Thomas Aquinas and became familiar with the Scriptures, sections of which he committed to memory. Two copies of the Bible are extant in Florence, containing copious notes in Savonarola’s own handwriting, made on the margin, between the printed lines and on added leaves.1175 After his appointment as provincial, he emphasized the study of the Bible in Hebrew and Greek. In 1481, he was sent to Florence, where he became an inmate of St. Mark’s. The convent had been rebuilt by Cosimo de Medici and its walls illuminated by the brush of Fra Angelico. At the time of Savonarola’s arrival, the city was at the height of its fame as a seat of culture and also as the place of lighthearted dissipation under the brilliant patronage of Lorenzo the Magnificent. The young monk’s first efforts in the pulpit in Florence were a failure. The congregation at San Lorenzo, where he preached during the Lenten season, fell to 25 persons. Fra Mariano da Gennazzano, an Augustinian, was the popular favorite. The Dominican won his first fame by his Lenten sermons of 1486, when he preached at Brescia on the Book of Revelation. He represented one of the 24 elders rising up and pronouncing judgments upon the city for its wickedness. In 1489, he was invited back to Florence by Lorenzo at the suggestion of Pico della Mirandola, who had listened to Savonarola’s eloquence at Reggio. During the remaining nine years of his life, the city on the Arno was filled with Savonarola’s personality. With Catherine of Siena, he shares the fame of being the most religious of the figures that have walked its streets. During the first part of this short period, he had conflict with Lorenzo and, during the second, with Alexander VI., all the while seeking by his startling warnings and his prophecies to bring about the regeneration of the city and make it a model of civic and social righteousness. From Aug. 1, 1490, when he appeared in the pulpit of St. Mark’s, the people thronged to hear him whether he preached there or in the cathedral. In 1491, he was made prior of his convent. To preaching he added writings in the department of philosophy and tracts on humility, prayer and the love of Jesus. He was of middle height, dark complexion, lustrous eyes dark gray in color, thick lips and aquiline nose. His features, which of themselves would have been called coarse, attracted attention by the serious contemplative expression which rested upon them, and the flash of his eye. Savonarola’s sermons were like the flashes of lightning and the reverberations of thunder. It was his mission to lay the axe at the root of dissipation and profligacy rather than to depict the consolations of pardon and communion with God.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  im Verhältniss zur Wissenschaft (Academic oration). Berlin, 1883 (35 pp.). Ed. Reuss: Akad. Festrede zur Lutherfeier. Strassburg, 1883. Th. Brieger: Neue Mittheilungen über Luther in Worms. Marburg, 1883, and Luther und sein Werk. Marb., 1883. Ad. Harnack: M. Luther in seiner Bedeutung für die Gesch. der Wissenschaft und der Bildung. Giessen, 1883 (30 pp.). Vid Upsala Universitets Luthersfest, den 10 Nov., 1883, with an oration of K. H. Gez. von Scheele (Prof. of Theol. at Upsala, appointed Bishop of Visby in Gothland, 1885). Upsala, 1883. G. N. Bonwetsch: Unser Reformator Martin Luther. Dorpat, 1883. Appenzeller, Ruetschi, Oettli, and others: Die Lutherfeier in Bern. Bern, 1883. Prof. Salmond (of Aberdeen): Martin Luther. Edinburgh, 1883. J. M. Lindsay: M. Luther, in the 9th ed. of "Encyclop. Brit.," vol. XV. (1883), 71–84. Jean Monod: Luther j’usqu’en 1520. Montauban, 1883. J. B. Bittinger: M. Luth. Cleveland, 1883. E. J. Wolf, and others: Addresses on the Reformation. Gettysburg, 1884. The Luther Document (No. XVII.) of the American Evang. Alliance, with addresses of Rev. Drs. Wm. M. Taylor and Phillips Brooks. N. Y., 1883. Symposiac on Luther, seven addresses of the seven Professors of the Union Theol. Seminary in New York, held Nov. 19, 1883. Jos. A. Seiss: Luther and the Reformation (an eloquent commemorative oration delivered in Philad., and New York). Philad. 1884. S. M. Deutsch: Luther’s These vom Jahr 1519 über die päpstliche Gewalt. Berlin, 1884. H. Cremer: Reformation und Wissenschaft. Gotha, 1883 IX. Roman Catholic Attacks . The Luther-celebration gave rise not only to innumerable Protestant glorifications, but also to many Roman Catholic defamations of Luther and the Reformation. The ablest works of this kind are by Janssen (tracts in defence of his famous History of Germany, noticed in § 15), G. G. Evers, formerly a Lutheran pastor (Katholisch oder protestantisch? Hildesheim, 4th ed., 1883; Martin Luther’s Anfänge, Osnabrück, 3d ed., 1884; Martin Luther, Mainz, 1883 sqq., in several vols.), Westermayer. (Luther’s Werk im Jahr 1883), Germanus, Herrmann, Roettscher, Dasbach, Roem, Leogast, etc. See the "Historisch-politische Blätter" of Munich, and the "Germania" of Berlin, for 1883 and 1884 (the chief organs of Romanism in Germany), and the Protestant review of these writings by Wilh. Walther: Luther in neusten römischen Gericht. Halle, 1884 (166 pages). § 18. Luther’s Youth and Training. In order to understand the genius and history of the German Reformation we must trace its origin in the personal experience of the monk who shook the world from his lonely study in Wittenberg, and made pope and emperor tremble at the power of his word. All the Reformers, like the Apostles and Evangelists, were men of humble origin, and gave proof that God’s Spirit working through his chosen instruments is mightier than armies and navies. But they were endowed with extraordinary talents and energy, and providentially prepared for their work. They were also aided by a combination of favorable circumstances without which they could not have accomplished their work. They made the Reformation, and the Reformation made them.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  And it is that “much more” that the church has found so hard to grasp and express. Jesus the Moral Exemplar A third standard line people sometimes advance when wondering why the gospels tell their readers about what Jesus did in his public career is to suggest that he was offering an example of how to live. His utter, generous love and his fearless rebuke of wickedness and oppression make a formidable combination, especially when you add in his apparent fondness for parties, on the one hand, and prayer, on the other, and his remarkably shrewd ability to sum up situations, people, and problems in a pithy phrase or to tease out fresh meaning with a neat, telling story. What a man, we say to ourselves. Unlike many moralists then and now, his own life strikingly matched his own stringent teaching. People have sometimes accused Jesus of betraying his own standards (in cursing the fig tree, for example), but most people have accepted the gospels’ portrait of him as embodying that mixture of wisdom, love, holiness, and truth that he was urging as the proper standard for human life. The idea of Jesus as “teacher” is therefore sometimes elaborated further, and Jesus is seen as “moral exemplar.” Jesus came, many have said, to “show us the way,” to “show us how it’s done.” But that’s part of the problem—with this as a theory at all, and with this as a theory about why the gospels are what they are. As I have written elsewhere (in After You Believe), * it isn’t actually much of an encouragement to me to read the stories about Jesus. I might as well take encouragement from watching a great athlete run a four-minute mile. Sure, it’s a fine sight, but at my age and with my weight I would be lucky to do a mile in ten minutes, let alone four. I can watch a ballet dancer on stage with great delight, not because I think I can copy him, but precisely because I know I can’t. Have you ever tried to copy Jesus, not just in his amazing generosity and kindness, but in his sharp, brightly colored little stories? Very few people throughout history have been able to tell short stories like that, so brief yet so complete. The obvious answer to this proposal, then, is that just because I see someone, even Jesus, behaving in a particular way, that doesn’t necessarily make it any easier for me to do so.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Spanheim, Sale, and Gagnier began to take a broader and more favorable view. Gibbon gives a calm historical narrative; and in summing up his judgment, he hesitates whether "the title of enthusiast or impostor more properly belongs to that extraordinary man .... From enthusiasm to imposture the step is perilous and slippery; the daemon of Socrates affords a memorable instance how a wise man may deceive himself, how a good man may deceive others, how the conscience may slumber in a mixed and middle state between self-illusion and voluntary fraud." Dean Milman suspends his judgment, saying: "To the question whether Mohammed was hero, sage, impostor, or fanatic, or blended, and blended in what proportions, these conflicting elements in his character? the best reply is the reverential phrase of Islâm: God knows.’ "206 Goethe and Carlyle swung from the orthodox abuse to the opposite extreme of a pantheistic hero-worshiping over-estimate of Mohammed and the Koran by extending the sphere of revelation and inspiration, and obliterating the line which separates Christianity from all other religions. Stanley, R. Bosworth Smith, Emanuel Deutsch, and others follow more or less in the track of this broad and charitable liberalism. Many errors and prejudices have been dispelled, and the favorable traits of Islâm and its followers, their habits of devotion, temperance, and resignation, were held up to the shame and admiration of the Christian world. Mohammed himself, it is now generally conceded, began as an honest reformer, suffered much persecution for his faith, effectually destroyed idolatry, was free from sordid motives, lived in strict monogamy during twenty-four years of his youth and manhood, and in great simplicity to his death. The polygamy which disfigured the last twelve years of his life was more moderate than that of many other Oriental despots, Califs and Sultans, and prompted in part by motives of benevolence towards the widows of his followers, who had suffered in the service of his religion.207 But the enthusiasm kindled by Carlyle for the prophet of Mecca has been considerably checked by fuller information from the original sources as brought out in the learned biographies of Weil, Nöldeke, Sprenger and Muir. They furnish the authentic material for a calm, discriminating and impartial judgment, which, however, is modified more or less by the religious standpoint and sympathies of the historian. Sprenger represents Mohammed as the child of his age, and mixes praise and censure, without aiming at a psychological analysis or philosophical view. Sir William Muir concedes his original honesty and zeal as a reformer and warner, but assumes a gradual deterioration to the judicial blindness of a self-deceived heart, and even a kind of Satanic inspiration in his later revelations. "We may readily admit," he says, "that at the first Mahomet did believe, or persuaded himself to believe, that his revelations were dictated by a divine agency. In the Meccan period of his life, there certainly can be traced no personal ends or unworthy motives to belie this conclusion.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  An interesting point of a humane interest is his declaration that slavery is a dissolution, introduced by sin, of the original unity of human nature, and a denial of the original dignity of man, created after the image of God. § 144. John of Damascus. Cf. §§ 89 and 103. I. Joannes Damascenus: Opera omnia in Migne, Patrol. Gr. Tom. XCIV.-XCVI. (reprint, with additions, of Lequien’s ed. Paris, 1712. 2 vols. fol. 2d ed. Venice, 1748). II. John of Jerusalem: Vita Damasceni (Migne, XCIV. col. 429–489); the Prolegomena of Leo Allatius (l.c. 118–192). Perrier: Jean Damascène, sa vie et ses écrits. Paris, 1862. F. H. J. Grundlehner: Johannes Damascenus. Utrecht, 1876 (in Dutch). Joseph Langen (Old-Catholic professor at Bonn): Johannes von Damaskus. Gotha, 1879. J. H. Lupton: St. John of Damascus. London, 1882. Cf. Du Pin, V. 103–106; Ceillier, XII., 67–99; Schroeckh, XX., 222–230; Neander, iii. passim; Felix Nève: Jean de D. et son influence en Orient sous les premiers khalifs, in "Revue Belge et etrangère," July and August, 1861. I. Life. John of Damascus, Saint and Doctor of the Eastern Church, last of the Greek Fathers,875 was born in the city of Damascus in the fourth quarter of the seventh century.876 His common epithet of Chrysorrhoas (streaming with gold) was given to him because of his eloquence, but also probably in allusion to the river of that name, the Abana of Scripture, the Barada of the present day, which flows through his native city, and makes it a blooming garden in the desert. Our knowledge of his life is mainly derived from the semi-legendary account of John of Jerusalem, who used an earlier Arabic biography of unknown authorship and date.877 The facts seem to be these. He sprang from a distinguished Christian family with the Arabic name of Mansur (ransomed). His father, Sergius, was treasurer to the Saracenic caliph, Abdulmeled (685–705), an office frequently held by Christians under the caliphs. His education was derived from Cosmas, a learned Italian monk, whom Sergius had ransomed from slavery. He made rapid progress, and early gave promise of his brilliant career. On the death of his father he was taken by the caliph into his service and given an even higher office than his father had held.878 When the emperor Leo the Isaurian issued his first edict against images (726)879, he prepared a circular letter upon the subject which showed great controversial ability and at once raised him to the position of leader of the image worshippers. This letter and the two which followed made a profound impression. They are classical, and no one has put the case better.880 John was perfectly safe from the emperor’s rage, and could tranquilly learn that the letters everywhere stirred up the monks and the clergy to fanatical opposition to Leo’s decrees. Yet he may well have found his position at court uncomfortable, owing to the emperor’s feelings towards him and his attempts at punishment.