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• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  And it could quote St Paul: ‘For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself for the battle? So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken, for ye shall speak into the air? . . . For if I pray in an unknown tongue my spirit prayeth but my understanding is unfruitful...’ And so on. The problem, indeed, had arisen before, in the case of the Goths; and St John Chrysostom, the most revered of the eastern patriarchs, had given a notably liberal ruling, and rejoiced that the Goths chanted the litanies in their own language: ‘The teaching of fishermen and tentmakers shines in the language of barbarians more brightly than the sun.’ Moreover, the Byzantine government had a tradition of multilingual diplomacy, and employed a large number of high-born linguists in its civil service. In the 860s, Michael III selected for its Slav mission two brothers, Methodius, a provincial governor, and Constantine (who called himself Cyril after he became a monk), a state philosophy teacher. They were born in Thessalonica, the sons of a staff-officer, and had previously been on diplomatic assignments. When Michael decided to switch them to missionary work, in 862, he said to them: ‘You are both natives of Thessalonica, and all Thessalonicans speak pure Slav.’ He admitted that previous attempts to create a viable Slavonic alphabet had failed, for a variety of technical reasons. Constantine-Cyril, who was an accomplished linguist and bibliophile, appears to have invented a form of written Slav in less than a year, so that when the brothers left on mission in 863 they were able to take with them selections from the gospels already translated; and in due course Constantine translated into Slavonic, according to his contemporary biographer, ‘the whole ecclesiastical office, matins, the hours, vespers, compline and the mass’. He appears to have adapted the alphabet from his local dialect of southern Macedonia, then intelligible much further north. The oldest Slavonic manuscripts are in two scripts: what are termed Glagolitic and Cyrillic. Scholars now agree that it was Glagolitic that Constantine invented; Cyrillic, called after him, was developed later, by Methodius’s disciples, probably in Bulgaria, in the attempt to adapt Greek uncial writing of the ninth century to the phonetic peculiarities of Slavonic speech. Glagolitic is more complicated, and may have been developed from Greek minuscule script, plus adaptations from Semitic and perhaps Coptic. It was a highly distinct and original creation, entitling Constantine to rank among the great philologists. Cyrillic, except for half a dozen letters, is little more than an adaptation of the Greek alphabet; it thus had the merit of simplicity, and close connection with the script possessing the most prestige and widest range. Even today, the church-books of the Orthodox Slavs, Bulgarians, Serbs and Russians are printed in a slightly simplified form of Cyrillic, and of course their modern alphabets are based on it.

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

  In her correspondence and Dialogue we have the biography of Catherine’s soul. Nearly four hundred of her letters are extant.369 Not only have they a place of eminence as the revelations of a saintly woman’s thoughts and inner life, but are, next to the letters written by Petrarch, the chief specimens of epistolary literature of the fourteenth century. She wrote to persons of all classes, to her mother, the recluse in the cloister, her confessor, Raymund of Capua, to men and women addicted to the pleasures of the world, to the magistrates of cities, queens and kings, to cardinals, and to the popes, Gregory XI. and Urban VI., gave words of counsel, set forth at length measures and motives of action, used the terms of entreaty and admonition, and did not hesitate to employ threats of divine judgment, as in writing to the Queen of Naples. They abound in wise counsels. The correspondence shows that Catherine had some acquaintance with the New Testament from which she quotes the greater precepts and draws descriptions from the miracle of the water changed into wine and the expulsion of the moneychangers from the temple and such parables as the ten virgins and the marriage-feast. One of her most frequent expressions is the blood of Christ, and in truly mystical or conventual manner she bids her correspondents, even the pope and the cardinals, bathe and drown and inebriate themselves in it, yea, to clothe and fill themselves with it, "for Christ did not buy us with gold or silver or pearls or other precious stones, but with his own precious blood."370 To Catherine the religious life was a subjection of the will to the will of God and the outgoing of the soul in exercises of prayer and the practice of love. "I want you to wholly destroy your own will that it may cling to Christ crucified." So she wrote to a mother bereft of her children. Writing to the recluse, Bartolomea della Seta, she represented the Saviour as saying, "Sin and virtue consist in the consent of the will, there is no sin or virtue unless voluntarily wrought." To another she wrote, "I have already seen many penitents who have been neither patient nor obedient because they have studied to kill their bodies but not their wills."371

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

  A cantionale, dating from 1572, and preserved in the Prag library, contains a hymn to Huss’ memory and three medallions which well set forth the relation in which Wyclif and Huss stand to the Reformation. The first represents Wyclif striking sparks from a stone. Below it is Huss, kindling a fire from the sparks. In the third medallion, Luther is holding aloft the flaming torch. his is the historic succession, although it is true Luther began his career as a Reformer before he was influenced by Huss, and continued his work, knowing little of Wyclif. To the cause of religious toleration, and without intending it, John Huss made a more effectual contribution by his death than could have been made by many philosophical treatises, even as the deaths of Blandina and other martyrs of the early Church, who were slaves, did more towards the reduction of the evils of slavery than all the sentences of Pagan philosophers. Quite like his English teacher, he affirmed the sovereign rights of the truth. It was his habit, so he stated, to conform his views to the truth, whatever the truth might be. If any one, he said, "can instruct me by the sacred Scriptures or by good reasoning, I am willing to follow him. From the outset of my studies, I have made it a rule to joyfully and humbly recede from a former opinion when in any matter I perceive a more rational opinion."697 § 46. Jerome of Prag. A year after Huss’ martyrdom, on May 30, 1416, his friend Jerome of Prag was condemned by the council and also suffered at the stake. He shared Huss’ enthusiasm for Wyclif, was perhaps his equal in scholarship, but not in steadfast constancy. Huss’ life was spent in Prag and its vicinity. Jerome travelled in Western Europe and was in Prag only occasionally. Huss left quite a body of writings, Jerome, none. Born of a good family at Prag, Jerome studied in his native city, and later at Oxford and Paris. At Oxford he became a student and admirer of Wyclif’s writings, two of which, the Trialogus and the Dialogus, he carried with him back to Bohemia not later than 1402. In Prag, he defended the English doctor as a holy man "whose doctrines were more worthy of acceptance than Augustine himself," stood with Huss in the contest over the rights of the Bohemian nation, and joined him in attacking the papal indulgences, 1412.

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

  Mirandola had a decided influence on John Reuchlin, who saw him in 1490 and was persuaded by him of the immense wisdom hid in the Cabbala. He also was greatly admired by Zwingli. He was the only one, says Burckhardt, "who, in a decided voice, fought for science and the truth of all the ages against the one-sided emphasis of classic antiquity. In him it is possible to see what a noble change Italian philosophy would have undergone, if the counter-Reformation had not come in and put an end to the whole higher intellectual movement."1024 Giordano Bruno, one of the last representatives of the philosophical Renaissance, was condemned as a heretic by the Roman Inquisition and burnt on the Campo de’ Fiori in 1600. To the great annoyance of Pope Leo XIII., his admirers erected a statue to his memory on the same spot in 1889. § 66. The Artists. Haec est Italia diis sacra.—Pliny. Italian Humanism reproduced the past. Italian art was original. The creative productions of Italy in architecture, sculpture and painting continue to render it the world’s chief centre of artistic study and delight. Among Italian authors, Dante alone has a place at the side of Michelangelo, Raphael and Lionardo da Vinci. The cultivation of art began in the age of Dante with Cimabue and Giotto, but when Italian Humanism was declining Italian painting and sculpture were celebrating their highest triumphs. Such a combination and succession of men of genius in the fine arts as Italy produced, in a period extending over three centuries, has nowhere else been known. They divided their triumphs between Florence and Rome, but imparted their magic touch to many other Italian cities, including Venice, which had remained cold to the literary movement. Here again Rome drew upon Florence for painters such as Giotto and Fra Angelico, and for sculptors such as Ghiberti, Donatello, Brunelleschi and Michelangelo. While the Italy of the 15th century—or the quattrocento, as the Italians call it—was giving expression to her own artistic conceptions in color and marble and churchly dome, masterpieces of ancient sculpture, restless, in the graves where for centuries they had had rude sepulture, came forth to excite the admiring astonishment of a new generation. What the age of Nicolas V. was for the discovery of manuscripts, the age of Julius II. was for the discovery of classic Greek statuary. The extensive villa of the Emperor Hadrian at Tivoli, which extended over several miles and embraced a theatre, lyceum, temple, basilica, library, and race-course, alone furnished immense treasures of art. Others were found in the bed of the Tiber or brought from Greece or taken from the Roman baths, where their worth had not been discerned. In Alexander VI.’s pontificate the Apollo Belvedere was found; under Julius II. the torso of Hercules, the Laocoön group1025 and the Vatican Venus. The Greek ideals of human beauty were again revealed and kindled an enthusiasm for similar achievements.

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

  The exalted passion of these two women, widely as they differ in methods and ideals and in the close of their careers, diffuses a bright light over the selfish pursuits of their time, and makes the aims of many of its courts look low and grovelling. § 22. Peter d’Ailly, Ecclesiastical Statesman. One of the most prominent figures in the negotiations for the healing of the papal schism, as well as one of the foremost personages of his age, was Peter d’Ailly, born in Compiegne 1350, died in Avignon 1420. His eloquence, which reminds us of Bossuet and other French orators of the court of Louis XIV., won for him the title of the Eagle of France—aquila Francia.376 In 1372 he entered the College of Navarre as a theological student, prepared a commentary on the Sentences of the Lombard three years later, and in 1380 reached the theological doctorate. He at once became involved in the measures for the healing of the schism, and in 1381 delivered a celebrated address in the name of the university before the French regent, the duke of Anjou, to win the court for the policy of settling the papal controversy through a general council. His appeal not meeting with favor, he retired to Noyon, from which he wrote a letter purporting to come from the devil, a satire based on the continuance of the schism, in which the prince of darkness called upon his friends and vassals, the prelates, to follow his example in promoting division in the Church. He warned them as their overlord that the holding of a council might result in establishing peace and so bring eternal shame upon them. He urged them to continue to make the Church a house of merchandise and to be careful to tithe anise and cummin, to make broad the borders of their garments and in every other way to do as he had given them an example.377 In 1384 D’Ailly was made head of the College of Navarre, where he had Gerson for a pupil, and in 1389 chancellor of the university. When Benedict XIII. was chosen successor to Clement VII., he was sent by the French king on a confidential mission to Avignon. Benedict won his allegiance and appointed him successively bishop of Puy, 1395, and bishop of Cambray, 1397. D’Ailly was with Benedict at Genoa, 1405, and Savona, 1407, but by that time seems to have come to the conclusion that Benedict was not sincere in his profession of readiness to resign, and returned to Cambray. In his absence Cambray had decided for the subtraction of its allegiance from Avignon. D’Ailly was seized and taken to Paris, but protected by the king, who was his friend. Thenceforth he favored the assemblage of a general council. At Pisa and at Constance, D’Ailly took the position that a general council is superior to the pope and may depose him.

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

  In the second part of the De ecclesia, Huss pronounced the bulls of Alexander and John XXIII. anti-christian, and therefore not to be obeyed. Alexander’s bull, prohibiting preaching in Bohemia except in the cathedral, parish and monastic churches was against the Gospel, for Christ preached in houses, on the seaside, and in synagogues, and bade his disciples to go into all the world and preach. No papal excommunication may be an impediment to doing what Christ did and taught to be done.666 Turning to the pope’s right to issue indulgences, the Reformer went over the ground he had already traversed in his replies to John’s two bulls calling for a crusade against Ladislaus. He denied the pope’s right to go to war or to make appeal to the secular sword. If John was minded to follow Christ, he should pray for his enemies and say, "My kingdom is not of this world." Then the promised wisdom would be given which no enemies would be able to gainsay. The power to forgive sins belongs to no mortal man anymore than it belonged to the priest to whom Christ sent the lepers. The lepers were cleansed before they reached the priest. Indeed, many popes who conceded the most ample indulgences were themselves damned.667 Confession of the heart alone is sufficient for the soul’s salvation where the applicant is truly penitent. In denying the infallibility of the pope and of the Church visible, and in setting aside the sacerdotal power of the priesthood to open and shut the kingdom of heaven, Huss broke with the accepted theory of Western Christendom; he committed the unpardonable sin of the Middle Ages. These fundamental ideas, however, were not original with the Bohemian Reformer. He took them out of Wyclif’s writings, and he also incorporated whole paragraphs of those writings in his pages. Teacher never had a more devoted pupil than the English Reformer had in Huss. The first three chapters of De ecclesia are little more than a series of extracts from Wyclif’s treatise on the Church. What is true of this work is also true of most of Huss’ other Latin writings.668 Huss, however, was not a mere copyist. The ideas he got from Wyclif he made thoroughly his own. When he quoted Augustine, Bernard, Jerome and other writers, he mentioned them by name. If he did not mention Wyclif, when he took from him arguments and entire paragraphs, a good reason can be assigned for his silence. It was well known that it was Wyclif’s cause which he was representing and Wycliffian views that he was defending, and Wyclif’s writings were wide open to the eye of members of the university faculties. He made no secret of following Wyclif, and being willing to die for the views Wyclif taught. As he wrote to Richard Wyche, he was thankful that "under the power of Jesus Christ, Bohemia had received so much good from the blessed land of England."669

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

  By this means the literature of the old classical world has come down to us. And since the initiation of the movement was given by Cassiodorus he deserves to be honored as the link between the old thought and the new. His life thus usefully spent was unusually prolonged. The year of his death is uncertain, but it was between 570 and 580. The Works of Cassiodorus are quite numerous. They are characterized by great erudition, ingenuity and labor, but disfigured by an incorrect and artificial style. Some were written while a statesman, more while a monk.985 1. The most important is the Miscellany,986 in twelve books, a collection of about four hundred rescripts and edicts issued by Cassiodorus in the King’s name while Quaestor and Magister officiorum, and in his own name while Pretorian prefect. He gives also in the sixth and seventh books a collection of formulas for the different offices, an idea which found imitation in the Middle Age. From the Miscellany a true insight into the state of Italy in the period can be obtained. One noticeable feature of these rescripts is the amount of animation and variety which Cassiodorus manages to give their naturally stiff and formal contents. This he does by ingeniously changing the style to suit the occasion and often by interweaving a disquisition upon some relevant theme. The work was prepared at the request of friends and as a guide to his successors, and published between 534 and 538. 2. His Ecclesiastical History, called Tripartita,987 is a compilation. His own part in it is confined to a revision of the Latin condensation of Sozomen, Socrates and Theodoret, made by Epiphanius Scholasticus. It was designed by Cassiodorus to supply the omissions of Rufinus’ translation of Eusebius, and was indeed with Rufinus the monastic text-book on church history in the Middle Age. But it is by no means a model work, being obscure, inaccurate and confused. 3. The Chronicle,988 the earliest of his productions, dating from 519, is a consular list drawn from different sources, with occasional notes of historical events. Prefaced to the list proper, which goes from Junius Brutus to Theodoric, is a very defective list of Assyrian (!), Latin and Roman Kings. 4. The Computation of Easter, written in 562.989 5. Origin and History of the Goths, originally in twelve books, but now extant only in the excerpt of Jordanis.990 In it Cassiodorus reveals his great desire

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

  The last letter is only a fragment and is so different in style from the former that it probably is not by Amalaritius of Metz. § 164. Einhard. I. Einhardus: Opera in Migne, Tom. CIV. col. 351–610; and Vita Caroli in Tom. XCVII. col. 25–62; also complete Latin and French ed. by A. Teulet: OEuvres complètes d’Éginhard, réunies pour la première fois et traduites en français. Paris, 1840–43, 2 vols. The Annales and Vita of Migne’s ed. are reprinted from Pertz’s Monumenta Germaniae historica (I. 135–189 and II. 433–463, respectively); separate ed. of the Vita, Hannover, 1839. The best edition of the Epistolae and Vita, is in Philipp Jaffé: Monumenta Carolina, Berlin, 1867, pp. 437–541; and of the Passio Marcellini et Petri is in Ernest Dümmler; Poëtae Latini aevi Carolini, Tom. II. (Berlin, 1884), pp. 125–135. Teulet’s translation of Einhard’s complete works has been separately issued, Paris, 1856. Einhard’s Vita Caroli has been translated into German by J. L. Ideler, Hamburg, 1839, 2 vols. (with very elaborate notes), and by Otto Abel, Berlin, 1850; and into English by W. Glaister, London, 1877, and by Samuel Epes Turner, New York, 1880. Einhard’s Annales have been translated by Otto Abel (Einhard’s Jahrbücher), Berlin, 1850. II. Cf. the prefaces and notes in the works mentioned above. Also Ceillier, XII. 352–357. Hist. Lit. de la France, IV. 550–567. Bähr, 200–214. Ebert, II. 92– 104. Also J. W. Ch. Steiner: Geschichte und Beschreibung der Stadt und ehemal Abtei Seligenstadt. Aschaffenburg, 1820. Einhard (or Eginhard),1173 the biographer of Charlemagne and the best of the historians of the Carolingian age, was the son of Einhard and Engilfrita, and was born about 770, in that part of the Valley of the Main which belongs to Hesse-Darmstadt. His family was noble and his education was conducted in the famous Benedictine monastic school of St. Boniface at Fulda, to which his parents sent gifts.1174 About 792 the abbot Baugolf sent him to the court of Charlemagne, in order that his already remarkable attainments might be increased and his ability find ample scope. The favorable judgment and prophecy of Baugolf were justified by events. He soon won all hearts by his amiable disposition and applause by his versatile learning. He married Imma, a maiden of noble family, sister of Bernharius, bishop of Worms, and with her lived very happily for many years.1175 She bore him a son named Wussin who became a monk at Fulda. He enjoyed the Emperor’s favor to a marked degree,1176 and figured in important and delicate matters. Thus he was sent in 806 to Rome to obtain the papal signature to Charlemagne’s will dividing the empire among his sons.1177 Again in 813 it was he who first suggested the admission of Louis to the co-regency. He superintended the building operations of Charlemagne, e.g.

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

  CHAPTER V. INNOCENT III. AND HIS AGE. A.D. 1198–1216. § 35. Literature. Sources: Innocentii III. Opp. omnia, in Migne, 4 vols. 214–217; three vols. contain Innocent’s official letters; a 4th, his sermons, the de contemptu mundi, and other works.—S. Baluzius: Epistolarum Inn. III. libri undecim, 2 vols. Paris, 1682.—Böhmer: Regesta imperii 1198–1254, new ed. by J. Ficker, Innsbruck, 1881.—Potthast: Regesta, pp. 1–467, 2041–2056—Gesta Innoc. III. auctore anonymo sed coaevo (a contemporary Life, about 1220), in Migne, 214, pp. xvii-ccxxviii, and Baluzius.—Mansi, XXII.—Mirbt: Quellen, 125–136, gives some of the characteristic passages. For the older edd. of Inn.’s letters and other works, see Potthast, Bibliotheca med. aevi, I. 520, 650. Modern Works: Friedrich von Hurter (1787–1886): Geschichte Papst Innocenz des Dritten und seiner Zeitgenossen, 2 vols. Hamburg, 1833–1835; 3d ed. 4 vols. 1841–1844 (trans. into French and Italian). The last two volumes are devoted to the monastic orders and the Eccles. and social conditions of the thirteenth century. An exhaustive work full of enthusiastic admiration for Innocent and his age. Hurter wrote it while antistes or pastor of the Reformed Church in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, and was led by his studies to enter, with his family, the Roman Catholic communion in 1844 and became imperial counsellor and historiographer of Austria. Gfrörer, likewise a Protestant, dazzled by the splendor of the Gregorian papacy in the preparation of his Life of Gregory VII., was also led to join the Roman communion.—Jorry: Hist. du pape Inn. III.; Paris, 1853.—F. F. Reinlein: Papst Inn. III. und seine Schrift de contemptu mundi, Erlangen, 1871; also Inn. III nach s. Beziehung zur Unfehlbarkeitsfrage, Erlangen, 1872.—H. Elkan: Die Gesta Inn. III. im Verhältniss zu d. Regesten desselben Papstes, Heidelberg, 1876.—Fr. Deutsch: Papst Inn. III. und s. Einfluss auf d. Kirche, Bresl., 1876.—Leop. Delisle: Mémoire sur les actes d’Inn. III, suivi de l’itinéraire de ce pontife, Paris, 1877.—J. N. Brischar, Roman Catholic: Papst Inn. III. und s. Zeit, Freib. im Br. 1883.—J. Langen: Gesch. d. röm. Kirche von Gregor. VII. bis Inn. III., Bonn, 1893; also Hefele-Knöpfler, vol. V.—the Works on the Hohenstaufen and the Crusades.—Ranke: Weltgesch., VIII. 274 sqq.—the Histories of Rome by Reumont, Bryce, and Gregorovius,—Hauck: Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, IV. 658–745.—T. F. Tout: The Empire and the Papacy, 918–1272, N. Y. 1898.—H. Fisher: The Med. Empire, 2 vols. London, 1898.—For fuller lit., see Chevalier; Répertoire, pp. 1114 sq. and Suppl. 2659, and art. Inn. III., by Zöpffel-Mirbt, in Herzog, IX. 112–122. § 36. Innocent’s Training and Election. The brilliant pontificate of Innocent III., 1198–1216, lasted as long as the combined and uneventful reigns of his five predecessors: Lucius III., 1181–1185; Urban III., 1185–1187; Gregory VIII. less than two months, 1187; Clement III., 1187–1191; Coelestin III., 1191–1198. It marks the golden age of the mediaeval papacy and one of the most important eras in the history of the Catholic Church. No other mortal has before or since wielded such extensive power. As the spiritual sovereign of Latin Christendom, he had no rival.

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

  After the lapse of six centuries and more, the Crusades still have their stirring lessons of wisdom and warning, and these are not the least important of their results. The elevating spectacle of devotion to an unselfish aim has seldom been repeated in the history of religion on so grand a scale. This spectacle continues to be an inspiration. The very word "crusade" is synonymous with a lofty moral or religious movement, as the word "gospel" has come to be used to signify every message of good. The Crusades also furnish the perpetual reminder that not in localities is the Church to seek its holiest satisfaction and not by the sword is the Church to win its way; but by the message of peace, by appeals to the heart and conscience, and by teaching the ministries of prayer and devout worship is she to accomplish her mission. The Crusader kneeling in the church of the Holy Sepulchre learned the meaning of the words, "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, He is risen." And all succeeding generations know the meaning of these words better for his pilgrimage and his mistake. Approaching the Crusades in enthusiasm, but differing from them as widely as the East is from the West in methods and also in results, has been the movement of modern Protestant missions to the heathen world which has witnessed no shedding of blood, save the blood of its own Christian emissaries, men and women, whose aims have been not the conquest of territory, but the redemption of the race.493 § 60. The Military Orders. Literature.—The sources are the Rules of the orders and the scattered notices of contemporary chroniclers. No attempt is made to give an exhaustive list of the literature.—P. H. Helyot: Histoire des ordres monastiques, religieux et militaires, 8 vols. Paris, 1719.—Perrot. Coll. Hist. des ordres de chivalrie, etc., 4 vols. Paris, 1819. Supplementary vol. by Fayolle, 1846.—Bielenfeld: Gesch. und Verfassung aller geistlichen und weltlichen Ritterorden, 2 vols. Weimar, 1841.—F. C. Woodhouse: The Military Religious Orders of the Middle Ages, London, 1879.—G. Uhlhorn: Die christliche Liebesthätigkeit im Mittelalter, Stuttgart, 1884.—Hurter: Life of Innocent III., vol. IV. 313 sqq.—The general Histories of the Crusades.—Stubbs: Const. Hist. of England. For the Knights of St. John: Abbe Vertot: Hist. des chevaliers hospitaliers de S. Jean de Jérusalem, etc., 4 vols. Paris, 1726, and since.—Taafe: History of the Knights of Malta, 4 vols. London, 1852.—L. B. Larking: The Knights Hospitallers in England, London, 1857.—A. Winterfeld: Gesch. des Ordens St. Johannis vom Spital zu Jerusalem, Berlin, 1859.—H. Von Ortenburg: Der Ritterorden des hl. Johannis zu Jerusalem, 2 vols. Regensb. 1866.—Genl. Porter: Hist. of the Knights of Malta of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, London, 1883.—Von Finck: Uebersicht über die Gesch. des ritterlichen Ordens St. Johannis, Berlin, 1890.—G. Hönnicke: Studien zur Gesch. des Hospitalordens, 1099–1162, 1897.—*J. D. Le Roulx: De prima origine Hospitaliorum Hierosol., Paris, 1885; Cartulaire général de l’Ordre des Hospitaliers St.

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

  Among those who attended the council and remained in the West for a period or for life, were Plethon, whose original name was Georgios Gemistos, 1355–1450, and Bessarion, 1403–1472. Cosimo de’ Medici heard Plethon often and was led by his lectures on Plato to conceive the idea of the Platonic Academy in Florence. Bessarion, bishop of Nicaea, became a fixture in the Latin Church and was admitted to the college of cardinals by Eugenius IV. The objection made in conclave to his candidacy for the papal chair by the cardinal of Avignon was that he was a Greek and wore a beard. He died in Ravenna. Like all Greeks, Bessarion was a philosophical theologian, and took more interest in the metaphysical mystery of the eternal procession of the Spirit than the practical work of the Spirit upon the hearts of men. He vindicated Plato against the charges of immorality and alleged hostility to orthodox doctrines, pointed to that philosopher’s belief in the creation and the immortality of the soul, quoted the favorable opinions of him given by Basil, Augustine and other Fathers, and represented him as a bridge from heathenism to Christianity. Bessarion’s palace in Rome was a meeting-place of scholars. At an expense of 15,000 ducats or, as Platina says, 30,000, he collected a valuable library which he gave, in 1468, to the republic of Venice.1014 George of Trebizond, 1395–1484, came to Italy about 1420, conformed to the papal church, taught eloquence and the Aristotelian philosophy in Venice and Rome, and was appointed an apostolic scribe by Nicolas V. He was a conceited, disputatious and irascible man and quarrelled with Valla, Poggio, Theodore of Gaza, Bessarion and Perotti. The 50 scudi which Sixtus IV. gave him for the translation of Aristotle’s History of Animals, he contemptuously threw into the Tiber. His chief work was a comparison of Aristotle and Plato, to the advantage of the former. Theodore of Gaza, George’s rival, was a native of Thessalonica, reached Italy 1430, taught in Ferrara and then passed into the service of Pope Nicolas. He was a zealous Platonist, and translated several Greek works into Latin and some of Cicero’s works into Greek and also wrote a Greek grammar. John Argyropulos, an Aristotelian philosopher and translator, taught 15 years with great success at Florence, and then at Rome, where Reuchlin heard him lecture on Thucydides. His death, 1486, was brought about by excess in eating melons. The leading Greeks, who emigrated to Italy after the fall of Constantinople, were Callistus, Constantine Lascaris and his son John. John Andronicus Callistus taught Greek at Bologna and at Rome, 1454–1469, and took part in the disputes between the Platonists and Aristotelians. Afterwards he removed to Florence and last to France, in the hope of better remuneration. He is said to have read all the Greek authors and imported six chests of manuscripts from Greece.

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

  It was here he made the prediction that "the name of Erasmus will never perish." Erasmus had written to Colet that he had dipped into Hebrew but gone no further, "frightened by the strangeness of the idiom and in view of the insufficiency of the human mind to master a multitude of subjects."1114 A much younger scholar at Tübingen, Philip Melanchthon, had put his tribute to the Novum instrumentum in Greek verse which was transmitted to Erasmus by Beatus Rhenanus. Fox, bishop of Winchester, pronounced the book more instructive to him than 10 commentaries. Not long before his death, Colet determined to retire to a religious retreat at Shene, a resolution based upon his failing health and the troubles in which his freedom of utterance had involved him. He did not live to carry out his resolution. He was buried in St. Paul’s. It is noteworthy that his will contained no benefactions to the Church or provision for masses for his soul. Erasmus paid the high tribute to his friend, while living, that England had not "another more pious or one who more truly knew Christ." And, writing after Colet’s death to a correspondent, he exclaimed, "What a man has England and what a friend I have lost!" Colet had often hearkened to Erasmus’ appeals in times of stringency.1115 No description in the Colloquies has more interest for the Anglo-Saxon people than the description of the journey which the two friends made together to the shrines of Thomas à Becket and of Our Lady of Walsingham. And the best part of the description is the doubting humor with which they passed criticism upon Peter’s finger, the Virgin’s milk, one of St. Thomas’ shoes and other relics which were shown them. Far as Colet went in demanding a reform of clerical habits, welcoming the revival of letters, condemning the old scholastic disputation and advocating the study of the Scriptures, it is quite probable he would not have fallen in with the Reformation.1116 He was fifty when it broke out. The best word that can be spoken of him is, that he seems to have conformed closely to the demand which he made of Christian men to live good and upright lives for, of a surety, he said, "to do mercy and justice is more pleasant to God, than to pray or do sacrifice to Him."1117 What higher tribute could be paid than the one paid by Donald Lupton in his History of Modern Protestant Divines, 1637, "This great dean of St. Paul’s taught and lived like St. Paul."1118 Sir Thomas More, 1478–1535, not only died in the Catholic Church, but died a martyr’s death, refusing to acknowledge the English king’s supremacy so far as to impugn the pope’s authority. After studying in Oxford, be practised law in London, rising to be chancellor of the realm.

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

  Köstlin concludes that the only question is about the order of words, and whether they were spoken at the close of his main declaration, or a little afterwards at the close of the Diet. I have adopted the latter view, which agrees with the contemporary German report above quoted. Kolde, in his monograph on Luther at Worms (p. 60), agrees substantially with Köstlin, and says: "Wir wissen nicht mehr, in welchem Zusammenhang diese Worte gesprochen worden sind, auch können sie vielleicht etwas anders gelautet haben; bei der herrschenden Unruhe hat der eine Berichterstatter den Ausspruch so, der andere ihn so verstanden; sicherlich drückten sie zu gleicher Zeit seine felsenfeste Überzeugung von der Wahrheit seines in sich gewissen Glaubens aus, wie das Bewusstsein, dass hier nur Gott helfen könne." § 56. Reflections on Luther’s Testimony at Worms. Luther’s testimony before the Diet is an event of world-historical importance and far-reaching effect. It opened an intellectual conflict which is still going on in the civilized world. He stood there as the fearless champion of the supremacy of the word of God over the traditions of men, and of the liberty of conscience over the tyranny of authority. For this liberty, all Protestant Christians, who enjoy the fruit of his courage, owe him a debt of gratitude. His recantation could not, any more than his martyrdom, have stopped the Reformation; but it would have retarded its progress, and indefinitely prolonged the oppressive rule of popery. When tradition becomes a wall against freedom, when authority degenerates into tyranny, the very blessing is turned into a curse, and history is threatened with stagnation and death.382 At such rare junctures, Providence raises those pioneers of progress, who have the intellectual and moral courage to break through the restraints at the risk of their lives, and to open new paths for the onward march of history. This consideration furnishes the key for the proper appreciation of Luther’s determined stand at this historical crisis. Conscience is the voice of God in man. It is his most sacred possession. No power can be allowed to stand between the gift and the giver. Even an erring conscience must be respected, and cannot be forced. The liberty of conscience was theoretically and practically asserted by the Christians of the ante- Nicene age, against Jewish and heathen persecution; but it was suppressed by the union of Church and State after Constantine the Great, and severe laws were enacted under his successors against every departure from the established creed of the orthodox imperial Church. These laws passed from the Roman to the German Empire, and were in full force all over Europe at the time when Luther raised his protest. Dissenters had no rights which Catholics were bound to respect; even a sacred promise given to a heretic might be broken without sin, and was broken by the Emperor Sigismund in the case of Hus.383 This tyranny was brought to an end by the indomitable courage of Luther.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  But at this point, probably in 203, he became a religious fanatic and remained one for the next fifty years. He gave up his job and sold his books to concentrate on religion. He slept on the floor, ate no meat, drank no wine, had only one coat and no shoes. He almost certainly castrated himself, in obedience to the notorious text, Matthew 19:12, ‘there are some who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake.’ Origen’s learning was massive and it was of a highly original kind: he always went back to the sources and thought through the whole process himself. Thus he learnt Hebrew and, according to Eusebius, ‘got into his possession the original writings extant among the Jews in the actual Hebrew character’. These included the discovery of lost texts; in the case of the psalms, Origen collected not only the four known texts but three others he unearthed, including ‘one he found at Jericho in a jar’. The result was an enormous tome, the Hexapla, which probably existed only in one manuscript, now lost, setting out the seven alternative texts in parallel columns. He applied the same principles of original research to every aspect of Christianity and sacred literature. He seems to have worked all day and through most of the night, and was a compulsive writer. Even the hardy Jerome later complained: ‘Has anyone read everything that Origen wrote?’ His scriptural commentaries were so vast that none has been transmitted in full. Some have been lost, others survive as drastic paraphrases. The effect of Origen’s work was to create a new science, biblical theology, whereby every sentence in the scriptures was systematically explored for hidden meanings, different layers of meanings, allegory and so forth. And from the elements of this vast scriptural erudition he constructed, in his book First Principles, a Christian philosophy from which it was possible to interpret every aspect of the world. Hitherto, Christians had either dismissed philosophy as irrelevant or pagan, or had simply appropriated Plato and other writers, categorized them as incipient Christians, and fitted the Pauline superstructure on to their foundation. Origen waved aside this tradition, dismissed the Greek philosophers as false and constructed a new synthesis out of profane and sacred knowledge. Thus he offered to the world the first theory of knowledge conceived entirely from within Christian assumptions, prefiguring both the encyclopedists like Isidore of Seville, and the systematic summae of the medieval schoolmen. With Origen, Christianity ceased to be an appendage of the classical world and became, intellectually, a universe of its own. It was also, if only as yet by implication, becoming a society of its own. Origen was the first theorist of clericalism, as well as other aspects of mature Christianity. His own relations with the Church were stormy.

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

  Meister Eckart, 1260–1327, the first in the line of the German mystics, was excelled in vigor of thought by no religious thinker of his century, and was the earliest theologian who wrote in German.432 The philosophical bent of his mind won for him from Hegel the title, "father of German philosophy." In spite of the condemnation passed upon his writings by the pope, his memory was regarded with veneration by the succeeding generation of mystics. His name, however, was almost forgotten in later times. Mosheim barely mentions it, and the voluminous historian, Schroeckh, passes it by altogether. Baur, in his History of the Middle Ages, devotes to Eckart and Tauler only three lines, and these under the head of preaching, and makes no mention at all of German mysticism. His memory again came to honor in the last century, and in the German church history of the later Middle Ages he is now accorded a place of pre-eminence for his freshness of thought, his warm piety and his terse German style.433 With Albertus Magnus and Rupert of Deutz he stands out as the earliest prominent representative in the history of German theology. During the century before Eckart, the German church also had its mystics, and in the twelfth century the godly women, Hildegard of Bingen and Elizabeth of Schoenau, added to the function of prophecy a mystical element. In the thirteenth century the Benedictine convent of Helfta, near Eisleben, Luther’s birthplace, was a centre of religious warmth. Among its nuns were several by the names of Gertrude and Mechthild, who excelled by their religious experiences, and wrote on the devotional life. Gertrude of Hackeborn, d. 1292, abbess of Helfta, and Gertrude the Great, d. 1302, professed to have immediate communion with the Saviour and to be the recipients of divine revelations. When one of the Mechthilds asked Christ where he was to be found, the reply was, "You may seek me in the tabernacle and in Gertrude’s heart." From 1293 Gertrude the Great recorded her revelations in a work called the Communications of Piety—Insinuationes divinae pietatis. Mechthild of Magdeburg, d. 1280, and Mechthild of Hackeborn, d. 1310, likewise nuns of Helfta, also had visions which they wrote out. The former, who for thirty years had been a Beguine, Deutsch calls " one of the most remarkable personalities in the religious history of thirteenth century." Mechthild of Hackeborn, a younger sister of the abbess Gertrude, in her book on special grace,—Liber specialis gratiae,—sets forth salvation as the gift of grace without the works of the law. These women wrote in German.434 David of Augsburg, d. 1271, the inquisitor who wrote on the inquisition,—De inquisitione haereticorum,—also wrote on the devotional life. These writings were intended for monks, and two of them435 are regarded as pearls of German prose.

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

  Jerome went out from the cathedral wearing a cheerful countenance. A paper cap was put on his head, painted over with red devils. No sentence of deposition was necessary or ceremony of disrobing, for the condemned man was merely a laic.701 He died on the spot where Huss suffered. As the wood was being piled around him, he sang the Easter hymn, salva festa dies, Hail, festal day. The flames were slow in putting an end to his miseries as compared with Huss. His ashes were thrown into the Rhine. And many learned people wept, the chronicler Richental says, that he had to die, for he was almost more learned than Huss. After his death, the council joined his name with the names of Wyclif and Huss as leaders of heresy. Poggio Bracciolini’s description of Jerome’s address in the cathedral runs thus:—

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

  * * * * * * * A better priest I trow that nowhere non is, He waited after no pompe ne reverence; Ne maked him no spiced conscience, But Christes lore and his apostles twelve He taught, but first he folwed it himselve."553 Chaucer. The title, Reformers before the Reformation, has been aptly given to a group of men of the 14th and 15th centuries who anticipated many of the teachings of Luther and the Protestant Reformers. They stand, each by himself, in solitary prominence, Wyclif in England, John Huss in Bohemia, Savonarola in Florence, and Wessel, Goch and Wesel in Northern Germany. To these men the sculptor has given a place on the pedestal of his famous group at Worms representing the Reformation of the 16th century. They differ, if we except the moral reformer, Savonarola, from the group of the German mystics, who sought a purification of life in quiet ways, in having expressed open dissent from the Church’s ritual and doctrinal teachings. They also differ from the group of ecclesiastical reformers, D’Ailly, Gerson, Nicolas of Clamanges, who concerned themselves with the fabric of the canon law and did not go beyond the correction of abuses in the administration and morals of the Church. Wyclif and his successors were doctrinal reformers. In some views they had been anticipated by Marsiglius of Padua and the other assailants of the papacy of the early half of the 14th century. John Wyclif, called the Morning Star of the Reformation, and, at the time of his death, in England and in Bohemia the Evangelical doctor,554 was born about 1324 near the village of Wyclif, Yorkshire, in the diocese of Durham.555 His own writings give scarcely a clew to the events of his career, and little can be gathered from his immediate contemporaries. He was of Saxon blood. His studies were pursued at Oxford, which had six colleges. He was a student at Balliol and master of that hall in 1361. He was also connected with Merton and Queen’s, and was probably master of Canterbury Hall, founded by Archbishop Islip.556 He was appointed in succession to the livings of Fillingham, 1363, Ludgershall, 1368, and by the king’s appointment, to Lutterworth, 1374. The living of Lutterworth was valued at £26 a year. Wyclif occupies a distinguished place as an Oxford schoolman, a patriot, a champion of theological and practical reforms and the translator of the Scriptures into English. The papal schism, occurring in the midst of his public career, had an important bearing on his views of papal authority.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  Nor were they full Jews in the religious sense: that is, few of them were circumcized or expected to obey the law in all its rigour. Most of them were noachides, or God-fearers. They recognized and worshipped the Jewish God and they were permitted to mingle with synagogue worshippers to learn Jewish law and customs – exactly like the future Christian catechumens. But, unlike the catechumens, they were not generally expected to become full Jews; they had intermediate status of various kinds. On the other hand, they seemed to have played a full role in Jewish social arrangements. Indeed, this was a great part of the appeal of diaspora Judaism. The Jews, with their long and assured tradition of monotheism, had much to offer to a world looking for a sure, single god, but their ethics were in some ways even more attractive than their theology. The Jews were admired for their stable family life, for their attachment to chastity while avoiding the excesses of celibacy, for the impressive relationships they sustained between children and parents, for the peculiar value they attached to human life, for their abhorrence of theft and their scrupulosity in business. But even more striking was their system of communal charity. They had always been accustomed to remit funds to Jerusalem for the upkeep of the Temple and the relief of the poor. During the Herodian period they also developed, in the big diaspora cities, elaborate welfare services for the indigent, the poor, the sick, widows and orphans, prisoners and incurables. These arrangements were much talked about and even imitated; and, of course, they became a leading feature of the earliest Christian communities and a principal reason for the spread of Christianity in the cities. On the eve of the Christian mission they produced converts to Judaism from all classes, including the highest: Nero’s empress, Poppaea, and her court circle, were almost certainly God-fearers, and King Izates II of Adiabene on the Upper Tigris embraced a form of Judaism with all his house. There were probably other exalted converts. Certainly many authors, including Seneca, Tacitus, Suetonius, Horace and Juvenal, testify to successful Jewish missionary activity in the period before the fall of Jerusalem. Was there a real possibility that Judaism might become the world religion in an age which longed for one? Or, to put it another way, if Christianity had not intervened, capitalized on many of the advantages of Judaism, and taken over its proselytizing role, might Judaism have continued to spread until it captured the empire? That was the way some Jews in the diaspora certainly wished to go; the same Jews, of course, who embraced Christianity when the opportunity arose. But plainly Judaism could not become a world religion without agonizing changes in its teaching and organization. It bore the marks of its tribal origins in more than a notional sense.

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

  The copies of Wyclif’s and Purvey’s versions seem to have been circulated in considerable numbers in England, and were in the possession of low and high. The Lollards cherished them. A splendid copy was given to the Carthusians of London by Henry VI., and another copy was in the possession of Henry VII. Sir Thomas More states distinctly that there was found in the possession of John Hunne, who was afterwards burnt, a Bible "written after Wyclif’s copy and by him translated into our tongue."618 While for a century and a half these volumes helped to keep alive the spirit of Wyclif in England, it is impossible to say how far Wyclif’s version influenced the Protestant Reformers. In fact, it is unknown whether they used it at all. Some of its words, such as mote and beam and strait gate, which are found in the version of the 16th century, seem to indicate, to say the least, that these terms had become common property through the medium of Wyclif’s version.619 The priceless heirloom which English-speaking peoples possess in the English version and in an open Bible free to all who will read, learned and unlearned, lay and cleric, will continue to be associated with the Reformer of the 14th century. As has been said by one of the ablest of recent Wyclif students, Buddensieg, the call to honor the Scriptures as the Word of God and to study and diligently obey them, runs through Wyclif’s writings like a scarlet thread.620 Without knowing it, he departed diametrically from Augustine when he declared that the Scriptures do not depend for their authority upon the judgment of the Church, but upon Christ. In looking over the career and opinions of John Wyclif, it becomes evident that in almost every doctrinal particular did this man anticipate the Reformers. The more his utterances are studied, the stronger becomes this conviction. He exalted preaching; he insisted upon the circulation of the Scriptures among the laity; he demanded purity and fidelity of the clergy; he denied infallibility to the papal utterances, and went so far as to declare that the papacy is not essential to the being of the Church. He defined the Church as the congregation of the elect; he showed the unscriptural and unreasonable character of the doctrine of transubstantiation; he pronounced priestly absolution a declarative act. He dissented from the common notion about pilgrimages; he justified marriage on biblical grounds as honorable among all men; he appealed for liberty for the monk to renounce his vow, and to betake himself to some useful work. The doctrine of justification by faith Wyclif did not state. However, he constantly uses such expressions as, that to believe in Christ is life. The doctrine of merit is denied, and Christ’s mediation is made all-sufficient. He approached close to the Reformers when he pronounced "faith the supreme theology,"—fides est summa theologia,—and that only by the study of the Scriptures is it possible to become a Christian.621

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  They will give you their affection first; then their confidence; and then their souls.’ The Catholic missions had a number of distinct advantages in competition with Protestants. Their unmarried missionaries were much cheaper to maintain, between one-fifteenth and one-twentieth of the cost of a full-time Protestant (even in 1930, Catholic missionaries cost, on average, only £35 a head a year; the CMS paid a married European missionary £650 a year, and an African clergyman £10–£25). They were better educated than the largely lower middle-class Protestants. They lived much closer to native living standards, were less identified with European social and cultural absolutes, and were often much more flexible in their approach. Superficially, at least, Catholicism tended to be more attractive to Africans than most brands of Protestantism. Protestants often made war on images – Holman Bentley recorded: ‘My dinner . . . was cooked with the wood of a fetish image four feet high, which was publicly hacked to pieces without a word of dissent by one of our new church members’ – and their barter-stores, which stocked virtually everything, often including guns, never sold dolls. The Catholics, with their multiple statues of saints, seemed to offer an easier bridge to Christianity than the overwhelmingly Low Church Anglicans and Nonconformists. Moreover, the Catholics were not internally divided, for the removal of crown control, and the discipline of the new papacy, made inter-order squabbles of the old kind virtually impossible. As in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Catholics vigorously pursued the policy of creating Christian villages, and of removing converts or prospective converts from what were termed ‘the temptations of tribal life’. They set up scores of very large orphan settlements, and units known as ferme-chapelles, in which groups from the main villages were hived off into farming colonies. Where they failed to compete effectively with the Protestants was in the training of native priests: if the Protestants were slow, the Catholics were positively backward. For most of the nineteenth century their policy on this issue was less enlightened than it had been in sixteenth century Japan. Of course neither side talked in terms of competition. When Lavigerie launched his missions into areas where Protestants were already established, his orders were that the White Fathers must never be nearer than eight to ten kilometers to Protestant mission-stations. But these instructions were widely ignored, as perhaps Lavigerie knew they would be. When he decided to penetrate East Africa he did so in the knowledge that conflict was virtually certain, and despite remonstrances and appeals by R. N. Cust of the CMS. He was also aware that on the upper Nile, and to the south of it, French and British political interests were on the point of contact. In fact in Uganda, where the trouble came to a head, the clash was three-sided since the Moslems had been proselytizing there first, since 1844.