Fatal Discord

by Michael Massing

prefer “Catholic Reformation”: See, for instance, Michael A. Mullett, The Catholic Reformation, 1–28.

  the Council of Trent: See H. J. Schroeder, trans., The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent; Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 15, 366–378; MacCulloch, Reformation, 227–229, 294–296; Ozment, Age of Reform, 406–408; Eire, Reformations, 378–384; Holborn, History of Modern Germany, vol. 1, 270–274; H. R. Trevor-Roper, “Desiderius Erasmus,” in Historical Essays, 51–52.

  very first substantive decree: Schroeder, Canons and Decrees, 17–20; Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 12, 259–260.

  would remain the official Bible: See “Bible (Versions)” in An Introductory Dictionary of Theology and Religious Studies, eds. Orlando O. Espin and James B. Nickoloff.

  Anyone who asserted: Schroeder, Canons and Decrees, 21–23.

  the “perpetual and indissoluble”: Ibid., 180–190, 246–248; MacCulloch, Reformation, 588.

  one key point: Schroeder, Canons and Decrees, 29–46; Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 12, 341; Elton, Reformation Europe, 137.

  a series of remedial measures: Schroeder, Canons and Decrees, 46–50, 56, 105–114, 175–179, 190–196; Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 15, 371–376.

  Paul IV: Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 14, 65–70, 259–288; Elton, Reformation Europe, 133–134, 145–146; MacCulloch, Reformation, 269–272.

  Index of Prohibited Books: Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 14, 277–281; Eire, Reformations, 384–388.

  “all his commentaries”: Bruce Mansfield, Phoenix of His Age: Interpretations of Erasmus c. 1550–1750, 26; Smith, Erasmus, 422.

  Now only a handful of works: Smith, Erasmus, 422.

  to keep vernacular Bibles: MacCulloch, Reformation, 394, 271–272.

  to make the faith more appealing: Ibid., 318–319, 440–441; Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 14, 177ff; Eire, Reformations, 393–413; Rice and Grafton, Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 175–177.

  proliferation of new monastic orders: Eire, Reformations, 414–441; Elton, Reformation Europe, 126–128.

  Society of Jesus: MacCulloch, Reformation, 212–219, 313–315; Elton, Reformation Europe, 137–146; Rice and Grafton, Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 171–172; Ozment, Age of Reform, 409–417; Eire, Reformations, 442–465; Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 12, 58–123.

  When he read Erasmus: Mansfield, Phoenix of His Age, 48; Huizinga, Erasmus, 189.

  Erasmus was a perennial target: Mansfield, Phoenix of His Age, 41, 48, 51, 56, 297.

  After Luther’s death, Melanchthon: Holborn, History of Modern Germany, vol. 1, 235, 255–256; MacCulloch, Reformation, 337–341; Walker, History of the Christian Church, 526–529.

  “the rage of the theologians”: Quoted in Smith, Erasmus, 424.

  Erasmus was reviled as a man: Mansfield, Phoenix of His Age, 97–99, 228.

  Erasmianism went underground: Paul Johnson, in A History of Christianity (318 ff), makes the case that after Erasmus’s death, a “third force” of Erasmianism was at work underground in Europe.

  In France: MacCulloch, Reformation, 327–329; Walker, History of the Christian Church, 516–518, 520–521, 525–526; The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., vol. 19, 479–481; Eire, Reformations, 533–542.

  the Low Countries: Israel, Dutch Republic, 85, 96, 96–105, 139, 155ff; Walker, History of the Christian Church, 518–520, 521–522; Eire, Reformations, 542–548; The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., vol. 24, 883–889; “Dutch Revolt” and “Dutch Republic” in Europe, 1450–1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World; “Netherlands” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation.

  The Thirty Years’ War: MacCulloch, Reformation, 469–483; Holborn, History of Modern Germany, vol. 1, 305–360; Eire, Reformations, 548–553; Matthew Stewart, The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World, 39–40.

  pushed back by hundreds of miles: MacCulloch, Reformation, 647.

  ended more than a century: Ibid., 646–650; Eire, Reformations, 561.

  The main victors: MacCulloch, Reformation, 468; Holborn, History of Modern Germany, vol. 1, 368–374.

  opened up a new space in Europe: Alister McGrath, Christianity’s Dangerous Idea, 143–144.

  entering its Golden Age: Israel, Dutch Republic, 328ff, 392; “Dutch Republic” in Europe, 1450–1789; Mansfield, Phoenix of His Age, 147–148.

  Jacobus Arminius: Israel, Dutch Republic, 393; Walker, History of the Christian Church, 538–542. On Arminius’s career, see A. W. Harrison, Arminianism, 9–42.

  Baruch (later Benedict) Spinoza: Steven Nadler, Spinoza: A Life, 100–111, 120; Lewis Samuel Feuer, Spinoza and the Rise of Liberalism, 17–22; Israel, Dutch Republic, 395, 913, 916–921; Stewart, The Courtier and the Heretic, 18–38; The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., vol. 11, 99–101.

  Spinoza left the bustle of Amsterdam: Nadler, Spinoza, 138–141, 180–182, 203, 279–285; Feuer, Spinoza, 38–47, 58ff.

  the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus: Israel, Dutch Republic, 787–789; Feuer, Spinoza, 58–75.

  “I have often wondered”: Benedict de Spinoza, A Theologico-Political Treatise and a Political Treatise, trans. R. H. M. Elwes, 6–7; “to examine the Bible afresh,” 8; “The true meaning of Scripture,” 112–113; apart from a small number, 186; “everyone should be free,” 10; The true enemies of Christ, 185–186; “most consonant with individual liberty,” 207; “for everyone has an inalienable right,” 241; “from the attempt of the authorities,” 262; “should think,” 265. The Erasmus quote is at Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 76, 10.

  the philosophes “cited Erasmus”: Bruce Mansfield, Man on His Own: Interpretations of Erasmus c. 1750–1920, 15.

  In Diderot’s Encyclopédie: Mansfield, Phoenix of His Age, 15–16. Citations of Erasmus in this work can be found at ARTFL Encyclopédie Project: http://artflsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/search3t?dbname=encyclopedie0416 &word=erasme&CONJUNCT=PHRASE&dgdivhead=&dg divocauthor=&ExcludeDiderot3 =on&dgdivocsalutation=&OUT PUT=conc&POLESPAN=5.

  Even Voltaire: Mansfield, Man on His Own, 18–25; Smith, Erasmus, 435; The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., vol. 29, 524–527.

  a dialogue among Lucian: “Lucien, Érasme, et Rabelais dans les Champs Élysées,” in Oeuvres Complètes de Voltaire, vol. 6, part 2 (Paris: L’Imprimerie de Fain, 1817), 1410–1413.

  held little appeal for a man: See Peter Gay, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation—The Rise of Modern Paganism, 274–275, 373. Erasmus, Gay observes, “was not a Voltaire before his time.” While the Renaissance “had come a long way from Petrarch,” even Erasmus was “not a modern secularist.” It is ironic, Gay adds, that “the Enlightenment should have used Erasmus’s writings to separate what he had worked so diligently to keep united, and to pit, with his own words, philosophy against Christ. Voltaire’s Erasmus was the supple man of letters perpetually threatened by fanatics, the pitiless adversary of monasticism.”

  appeared in more than sixty editions: See Ferdinand van der Haeghen, Bibliotheca Erasmiana: Repertoire des Oeuvres des Érasme, 1er sér.

  turned to contempt: Mansfield, Man on His Own, 118, 121–122.

  Herder wrote an essay: Ibid., 58–61.

  “A great scholar but a weak character”: Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 7, 315.

  Huizinga made light: Huizinga, Erasmus and the Age of Reformation (as the English translation is titled), 123, 129, 190, 194.

  Huizinga acknowledged: Mansfield, Man on His Own, 371.

  inspire another writer: Mansfield, Erasmus in the Twentieth Century: Interpretations c. 1920–2000, 8, 236.

  “the greatest and most brilliant star”: Stefan Zweig, Erasmus of Rotterdam, trans. Eden and Cedar Paul, 3; “the first conscious European,” 4; “a United States of Europe,” 108–109; “overlooked the terrible,” 119; “from the heights of their idealism,” 123; “fanatical man of action,” 129; “a swaggering, brimming,” 133; “werewolf raging,” 141; “world-citizenship of hum
anity,” 159; “to exercise a tangible influence,” 242–243.

  became for Zweig an allegory: See George Prochnik, The Impossible Exile: Stefan Zweig at the End of the World, 127–129.

  Winston Churchill: His statement is available at https://europa.eu/european-union/sites/europaeu/files/docs/body/winston_churchill_en.pdf.

  “Our century”: This statement is available at http://www.schuman.info/Strasbourg549.htm.

  the Erasmus Program: The official site is at https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/node_en. See also “Erasmus Program” in Europe Since 1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of War and Reconstruction.

  Umberto Eco: Gianni Riotta, “Umberto Eco: It’s Culture, not War, that Cements European Identity,” La Stampa, January 26, 2012.

  one million babies: European Commission, press release, September 22, 2014, available at http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-14–1025_en.htm.

  questions have been raised: See “Erasmus Students” in Dictionary of European Actors; Magali Ballatore and Martha K. Ferede, “The Erasmus Programme in France, Italy and the United Kingdom: Student Mobility as a Signal of Distinction and Prestige,” European Educational Research Journal, 12(4):525–533, 2013 (available at journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2304/eerj.2013.12.4.525). On the popularity of the Erasmus Program and the social status of its participants, see Aurelien Breeden, “For Europe’s Young, Unifying Identity Is Shaken,” New York Times, July 3, 2016. The article describes the four “E’s” associated with the younger generation in Europe: Erasmus, easyJet, the euro, and elite.

  “If you believe”: Quoted in Washington Post, October 5, 2016, available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/10/05/theresa-may-criticized-the-term-citizen-of-the-world-but-half-the-world-identifies-that-way/.

  AFTERMATH: LUTHER

  800 million adherents: “Global Christianity: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Christian Population,” Pew Research Center, December 19, 2011, available at http://www.pewforum.org/2011/12/19/global-christianity-exec/. Somewhat different estimates are offered by Todd M. Johnson, Gina A. Zurlo, Albert W. Hickman, and Peter F. Crossing, “Christianity 2017: Five Hundred Years of Protestant Christianity,” International Bulletin of Mission Research, available at http://www.gordonconwell.edu/ockenga/research/documents/IBMR2017.pdf

  Unsere Besten: See http://www.zdf-jahrbuch.de/2003/programmarbeit/arens.htm

  150,000 copies: Deutsche Welle, “German Protestants to Revise Landmark Luther Bible,” available at http://www.dw.com/en/german-protestants-to-revise-landmark-luther-bible/a-18171554

  Nearly 30 percent: See https://www.ekd.de/ekd_en/ds_doc/EKD_facts_and_figures_2016.pdf (The EKD includes both Lutheran and Reformed churches.)

  Lutheranism seemed an unstoppable force in Germany: Walker, History of the Christian Church, 529; Elton, Reformation Europe, 189; Holborn, History of Modern Germany, vol. 1, 242–246, 252–255, 266–268; 278–294.

  Counter-Reformation got underway in earnest: Rice and Grafton, Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 171; MacCulloch, Reformation, 312ff.

  clashed with the Lutherans over the Eucharist: MacCulloch, Reformation, 341.

  Formula of Concord: Walker, History of the Christian Church, 526–529; “Formula of Concord,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation; “Germany, Lutheranism,” in The Encyclopedia of the Lutheran Church; “Protestantism,” in The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, vol. 26, 238.

  Johann Gerhard: “Gerhard, Johann,” in The Encyclopedia of the Lutheran Church; Walker, History of the Christian Church, 529; “Protestantism,” in The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, vol. 26, 238.

  Age of Orthodoxy: Holborn, History of Modern Germany, vol. 2, 1648–1840, 129–135; “Germany, Lutheranism in,” in The Encyclopedia of the Lutheran Church; “Protestantism,” in The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, vol. 26, 238.

  the control that princes gained: Holborn, History of Modern Germany, vol. 2, 4–9, 39, 125, 128–129, 373–375.

  Philipp Jakob Spener: On Spener and Pietism, see “Pietism,” in The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge; Walker, History of the Christian Church, 587–592; Holborn, History of Modern Germany, vol. 2, 137–144; Alex Ryrie, Protestants: The Faith That Made the Modern World, 159–168; David A. Rausch and Carl Hermann Voss, Protestantism—Its Modern Meaning, 49–53.

  Pia Desideria: Rausch, Protestantism, 50; Walker, History of the Christian Church, 588.

  “diligent exercise of the spiritual priesthood”: Quoted in Ryrie, Protestants, 162.

  August Hermann Francke: “Pietism,” in The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge.

  a missionary training school: Ibid; Walker, History of the Christian Church, 590–591.

  Nikolaus Ludwig Zinzendorf: Holborn, History of Modern Germany, vol. 2, 141; Ryrie, Protestants, 168–169; Walker, History of the Christian Church, 592–596; “Nikolaus Ludwig, count von Zinzendorf,” at Britannica.com.

  to delight in alienating others: “Pietism,” in The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge; Ryrie, Protestants, 163–168.

  this was prohibited by law: Holborn, History of Modern Germany, vol. 2, 140. According to the editors of The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (vol. 9, 64), “If conditions in Germany in the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries had made possible the rise of denominations, as in England, the religious life of the nation might have attained to and maintained a higher standard, and the triumph of rationalism in the Enlightenment might have been averted.”

  the movement had lost much of its vitality: Walker, History of the Christian Church, 591.

  Pietism would not disappear: Holborn, History of Modern Germany, vol. 2, 141–142; “Pietism,” in The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge.

  the German Enlightenment: “Enlightenment,” in The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge; Walker, History of the Christian Church, 567–572; “Germany,” in Religion Past and Present, 395.

  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Holborn, History of Modern Germany, vol. 2, 158–159; “Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm,” in Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment; “Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm,” in The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition; Stewart, The Courtier and the Heretic, 235–241; Rausch, Protestantism 59–61.

  Immanuel Kant: See the introduction by Theodore M. Greene to Immanuel Kant, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, ix-lxxviii; Holborn, History of Modern Germany, vol. 2, 334–340, 486; Walker, History of the Christian Church, 628–629; “Kant, Immanuel,” in The Encyclopedia of Protestantism; “Immanuel Kant: Philosophy of Religion,” in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

  radical innate evil: Kant, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans. Theodore M. Greene and Hoyt H. Hudson, 28; “seed of goodness,” 41; “It is not essential,” 47; a “fetish-faith,” 181; to become a “favorite”: 188–190.

  liberal Protestantism: Holborn, History of Modern Germany, vol. 2, 310–314, 485; “Liberal Protestantism,” in The Encyclopedia of Protestantism; Gordon A. Craig, Germany: 1866–1945, 182–183.

  radical advances taking place in biblical studies: Holborn, History of Modern Germany, vol. 2, 491; The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, vol. 26, 238.

  David Friedrich Strauss: “Strauss, David Friedrich,” in The Encyclopedia of Protestantism; Walker, History of the Christian Church, 636; Rausch, Protestantism, 86.

  Among traditional groups: Holborn, History of Modern Germany, vol. 2, 486–487, 494–495; “Germany,” in The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition., vol. 20, 101–105.

  During the French occupation: Holborn, History of Modern Germany, vol. 2, 386ff, 424ff.

  formed patriotic unions: Ibid., 464–466.

  On October 18, 1817: Ibid., 464; “Protestantism,” The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, vol. 26, 238.

  the old regime: “Germany,” in The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, v
ol. 20, 105–106; Holborn, History of Modern Germany, vol. 2, 424ff, 457ff.

  pillar of that regime: Holborn, History of Modern Germany, vol. 3, 1840–1945, 109–110.

  a neo-Lutheran movement: “Neo-Lutheranism,” in The Encyclopedia of the Lutheran Church; “Protestantism,” in The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, vol. 26, 238.

  Otto von Bismarck: “Bismarck,” in The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition., vol. 15, 121–124.

  to complete what Luther had begun: Rausch, Protestantism, 118.

  great capitalist boom: Holborn, A History of Modern Germany, vol. 3, 122–123; “Germany,” in The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, vol. 20, 106, 113–115.

  incapable of developing a program: Craig, Germany, 183–185.

  had only about a hundred places of worship: Andrew Landale Drummond, German Protestantism Since Luther, 220–222. See also Craig, Germany, 180–181.

  The Social Democratic Party grew so fast: “Germany,” in The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, vol. 20, 114–115.

  Marxist historians: James M. Stayer, Martin Luther, German Saviour: German Evangelical Theological Factions and the Interpretation of Luther, 1917–1933, 27.

  Communism in Central Europe: The text is available at https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1897/europe/index.htm

  Ernst Troeltsch: Stayer, Martin Luther, 13–26; “Luther Renaissance,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation; “Troeltsch, Ernst,” in The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, vol. 11, 937.

  a church historian named Karl Holl: Stayer, Martin Luther, 18–47, 118–124; “Luther Renaissance,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation; Karl Holl, What Did Luther Understand by Religion?, eds. James Luther Adams and Walter F. Bense, trans. Fred W. Meuser and Walter R. Wietzke, introduction by Walter F. Bense, 1–14.

  Heinrich Denifle: “Denifle, Heinrich Seuse,” in New Catholic Encyclopedia. A translation of the volume (Luther and Lutherdom, from original sources) is available at https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo1.ark:/13960/t50g47q19

  patriotic surge in Germany: Stayer, Martin Luther, 17.