Religion 101 (12 page)

Struggle and Disillusionment

Luther’s time at the monastery was unhappy. He began to question the God of the scriptures as well as his own relationship to God. He sought to purge himself from sin through fasting, meditation, and self-flagellation. By 1507, when he was ordained a priest, he wondered if he was really up to such a task. In 1510 he traveled to Rome. He was happy when he got there but his happiness was short-lived. Rome was a city of corruption and materialism with a religiously indifferent population. Luther left a very disillusioned man and continued his studies and teaching in the town of Wittenberg (where he received his doctorate in theology).

To Be … Or Not to Be?

Decades after Luther’s defiance of the papacy, Wittenberg was still highly symbolic of change and turmoil. In
Hamlet
, Shakespeare makes the young prince of Denmark, tortured by indecision and by unaccustomed thoughts, a former student at Wittenberg.

Luther found the core of his answer in St. Paul’s letter to the Romans. From this he derived the basic element of his philosophy: People achieve salvation by faith alone. If they believe in God through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, they are absolved of sin and will receive God’s grace. This has nothing to do with doing good deeds — donating money to rebuild St. Peter’s cathedral in Rome, for example.

In this, Luther attacked a prevalent practice of the church: indulgences. The church raised money for its vast projects by soliciting donations from Christians. In return for these donations, the church granted an indulgence from sin. Luther was offended by this idea, especially as it was practiced by Johann Tetzel (1465–1519). In 1517 Tetzel was on a mission from Rome to raise funds for the rebuilding of St. Peter’s basilica. In his preaching, Tetzel promised that the Christians who donated their money to this venture would be given an indulgence, which consisted of granting the pardon for past sins without penance, the release from purgatory of loved ones, and the pardon of sins that have not yet been committed.

Luther attacked this on three points:

1. Only God, not the church, can grant salvation.
   
2. The church was taking advantage of Christians (especially poor ones) for its own material benefit.
   
3. A Christian is not automatically given salvation for good works, but a good Christian automatically does good works.
   

Luther refuted Tetzel’s teachings in the form of ninety-five propositions, or “theses.” Legend has it (quite possibly incorrectly) that he nailed these to the church door in Wittenberg. In any case, he published them, and they became widely known.

Protestantism and Printing

Many historians argue that one reason Luther’s attack on the leadership of the church was so successful was because of a new communications technology then available in Western Europe: the printing press. Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1395–1468) first used movable type to print around 1439. By 1450 he had set up a printing shop. It’s notable that the first book he printed was the Bible, printed in an edition of about 180 copies in 1455. Thus the works of Protestants such as Luther could be reproduced in large numbers and distributed throughout Europe.

Luther’s ideas continued to evolve during the next few decades. By 1520 Luther had launched a full-scale attack against the church. He argued that:

1. If Christ is the head of the church, what need do Christians have for a pope?
   
2. The sacraments hold Christians captive of Rome.
   
3. The only valid sacraments are those instituted by Christ, not those invented by the church.
   

Luther declared the pope to be the Anti-Christ; the pope, in turn, declared Luther to be a heretic, whose writings were to be burned.

Other Reformers

By this time, the dispute had spread across Europe, where it had social as well as theological impacts. In Germany, peasants wanted to participate in newfound religious freedom, and they also demanded social, political, and economic reform. They formulated twelve demands:

1. Each parish should choose its own pastor.
   
2. Some forms of tithing (that is, church taxes) should be abolished.
   
3. Serfdom, the tying of peasants to the land, should be done away with.
   
4. Peasants should have the right to hunt and fish freely.
   
5. Peasants should be able to collect building materials and firewood freely from forests.
   
6. Lords should stop imposing oppressive workloads.
   
7. Peasants should only work according to what is “just and proper” according to an agreement between lord and peasant.
   
8. Rents should be affordable.
   
9. There should be equal justice for lord and peasant.
   
10. Unfair division of land should be done away with.
    
11. The death tax should be abolished.
    
12. If any of these demands did not adhere to the word of God, it would be scrapped.
    

The princes and rulers of Germany were not about to allow such radical demands to be implemented. The result was a civil war that left more than 100,000 peasants dead. Luther sided with the landowners during the war, with the result that the peasants (especially in the south of Germany) turned their backs on Luther and sided with more radical religious movements.

Religious reform continued to spread throughout Western Europe, aided by such thinkers as Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531) and John Calvin (1509–1564). Although these men, like many others, came to disagree with Luther, on one point they were agreed: They did not recognize the pope as the head of the church. This became the most basic point of separation between Protestants and Catholics.

MISSIONARIES

Sending God’s Glory Through the World

As part of the reaction against the Reformation, the Catholic Church encouraged the formation of a new order of monks, the Society of Jesus, more commonly known as the Jesuits. Founded by a Spanish soldier, Inigo de Loyola (1491–1556), the Jesuits were highly disciplined and militaristic in their organization. This made them an excellent agency with which to spread the teachings of the church throughout the world.

Glory to God!

In the early seventeenth century, there were more than 13,000 Jesuits all over the world. The motto for the Society became
Ad maiorem Dei gloriam
, Latin for “To the greater glory of God!” This reflected the high standards for which they stood.

Loyola developed strict standards for entry into the Society, the most important of which was education. With education, the Jesuits not only believed that they instilled the Catholic doctrine in the areas where they taught, but they saw themselves as preparing to spread it to the rest of the world as well.

The late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries have been dubbed the Age of Discovery. The Jesuits were instrumental in assisting explorers to convert “heathens” across the world. Aboard almost any sailing vessel in this time period was a Jesuit, a Dominican, a Franciscan, or an Augustinian. It was their task to convert the natives in each newly discovered region.

St. Francis Xavier

Francis Xavier (1506–1552) was one of the seven original members of the Society of Jesus and among the most dedicated missionaries ever. Xavier’s mission was to convert the population of the Far East. He launched his mission as a papal legate (or messenger) under the commission of Portugal, from the Portuguese seaport of Goa, India. His work in Goa was brief, and feeling he was leaving the port in a state of moral well-being, he set his sights on the remote regions of southern India.

While there, the local village fishermen (Paravars) sought refuge with the Portuguese explorers from invading robbers who were making their lives impossible. The Portuguese agreed to help them if they submitted to baptism and the Christian faith. Out of desperation, the Paravars agreed, but it went no further. They had no idea what Christianity was and no one bothered to teach them until Xavier came. He read to the villagers from scripture and helped them memorize the Ten Commandments, the Apostolic Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and other rituals. Once they had sufficiently consumed the words and the faith behind the words, Xavier baptized them by the hundreds.

On the perimeters of Christendom, however, were the Hindus and the Muslims. While Xavier has been praised for his influence and ambition, he is criticized for his call for an inquisition to convert the Muslims. The king of Portugal agreed, and the “Inquisition” lasted in Goa until the early nineteenth century. In an effort to destroy all signs of heathenism, parts of India were leveled.

The Japanese Experience

In 1538, Xavier arrived in Japan, where the Jesuits left a lasting impression. Eager for change from their feudal system to a world of prosperity and trade, the Japanese welcomed the outsiders. Upon arrival, Xavier was pleased that Buddhism was fading from the psyche of the people.

Japan changed Xavier’s thinking about destructive imperialism. He was enamored of Japanese culture, and while he knew they needed to accept scripture and adopt the Christian faith, he believed these could be integrated into the existing lifestyle of the people.

The Jesuits remained in Japan well into the sixteenth century, leaving behind some 300,000 converts and two colleges in the Jesuit-established town of Nagasaki. However, these endeavors died in the seventeenth century when new rulers of foreign nations declared the missionaries to be foreign invaders and launched a policy of Christian persecution. Nagasaki collapsed, and Christianity disintegrated in Japan.

The Chinese Challenge

Xavier died before he could make it to China, and another Jesuit, Matteo Ricci, undertook his missionary work in that nation.

Finding that Confucianism was ensconced in Chinese culture and represented a serious challenge to Christian doctrine, Ricci taught that Christianity was not new in China. Rather, it was a new expression of existing religious beliefs. Instead of bombarding his way with force and wrath, he learned the culture and the language of the region and made attempts to talk to the Chinese leaders, honoring them with gifts and friendship. When Ricci died in 1610, there were 2,000 Christians in China.

The Clocks

Among the gifts Ricci gave the emperor during his stay in Beijing were two clocks. The emperor loved them, but at some point they stopped working. Chinese experts couldn’t figure out how to get them working, so the emperor ordered Ricci to remain; he was the only one who knew how to start the clocks and keep them going.

After Ricci’s death, Johann Adam Schall von Bell took over missionary work in China. By the time of his death in 1666, there were more than 300,000 converts in the kingdom. In 1692, to reward years of Jesuit effort, China passed an edict of toleration. Although it seemed that things were ripe for the conversion of the entire nation, the Jesuits, Dominicans, and Franciscans quarreled over the correct practice of Christianity in China, and things collapsed.

SCHOLASTICISM

The Marriage of Aristotle and Christianity

During the twelfth century there came a revival of learning within the Christian Church. Universities were opening all over Europe, and people began to study, think, and question. Art, literature, music, and science quickly came to the forefront of education.

Cathedral schools were established to promote the understanding of Christianity. These schools were open to all, and their object was to study the faith within the fixed bounds of church law. A cathedral school education consisted of the seven liberal arts:

1. Grammar
   
2. Rhetoric
   
3. Logic
   
4. Arithmetic
   
5. Geometry
   
6. Astronomy
   
7. Music
   

The growth of education stemmed from enthusiastic schoolteachers, often monastic scholars eager to spread their wealth of knowledge. This enthusiasm would take many educators away from the restrictive bonds of medieval thinking into a mysterious world of questions just dying to be asked.

Gerbert of Rheims

A man named Gerbert of Rheims (later Pope Sylvester II) was a brilliant monastic scholar influenced by both Christian bishops and Muslim culture. Gerbert discovered the inquisitive thinking of Muslim learning and decided to incorporate it into his own teaching methods.

The Value of the Question

One of the most notable intellectuals of the late Middle Ages was Peter Abelard. He gave his inheritance to his brothers and traversed all France to learn from great thinkers. He became a lecturer (professor) at the University of Paris and wrote
Sic et Non
(Latin for
Yes and No
), in which he posted 158 questions with answers drawn from Christian scripture, pagan writings, and church leaders.

Abelard took the ancient Greek method of consistent questioning and applied it to medieval study–something many church leaders did not welcome. At the Council of Soissons in 1121, Abelard was condemned for his writings on the nature of the Trinity and was soon living in seclusion in a monastery. Although his students found him and begged him to continue teaching, Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux, one of the most powerful figures in the church, prevented this and forced Abelard to retire to the abbey of Cluny, where he died in 1142.

Abelard and Héloïse

Abelard was at the center of one of the great sex scandals of the Middle Ages. While teaching in Paris, he became infatuated with Héloïse, niece of the canon of Notre Dame. Abelard seduced her; he made a secret marriage with her, but when Héloïse publicly denied they were married, her uncle confronted Abelard and had him castrated. Héloïse spent the rest of her life in a convent, and the two lovers are today buried together in Paris’s Père Lachaise cemetery.

A New Age