The Top 100 Most Influential Christians of All Time, Volume 2: From the Reformation to the Twentieth Century

The Reformation

Chapter 61

Desiderius Erasmus: He Laid the Egg that Hatched the Reformation

(1466-1536)

The Reformation was in full bloom, and it was an age of spiritual giants. Erasmus was more famous than any of them, and he knew most of them: England had Thomas More, John Colet, Thomas Wolsey, Hugh Latimer, and Thomas Cranmer; the incomparable Martin Luther was in Germany with Melanchthon; Ulrich Zwingli and Oecolampadius led in Switzerland. These were of his generation and in his circle. Other great leaders were young men when Erasmus died, and some others were contemporaries of his but outside his circle: the English Bible translator William Tyndale; John Calvin in Geneva; John Knox in Scotland; the Anabaptist reformers Hubmaier, Grebel, Manz, and Simons; the Catholics Loyola and Xavier; and great artists like Albrecht Durer.

Gerrit Gerritszoon was born on October 28, 1466 in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The name we know him by, Desiderius Erasmus, he chose himself when he became a scholar. It was a common practice of the time to take a Latin name. His father was a minor clergyman who lived in concubinage with his mother Margaret, a physician’s daughter. The Church had been fighting concubinage for some time, but it remained a common practice. Gerard and Margaret sent Erasmus to the cathedral school in Utrecht, then to the Brethren of the Common Life school in Deventer when he was nine. There he fell in love with the classics. By age twelve, he had memorized all the writings of Horace and Terence. Both his parents died in the Black Plague in 1483, leaving him an inheritance which his guardians stole from him. He had little choice but to enter a monastery near Rotterdam. He spent two miserable years there before he left and wandered aimlessly. In 1486, when he was twenty, his guardians forced him into another monastery. For the rest of his life he had a profound dislike of monks and monasteries, and he ridiculed them constantly in his writings.

The Bishop Henry of Cambray rescued Erasmus from the monastery and his misery in 1491 by choosing him to be his secretary. He had him ordained to the priesthood the next year but allowed him to continue his studies. Erasmus took Augustinian vows, which should have returned him to a monastery, but he was given an ecclesiastical dispensation. In 1495, he enrolled in the University of Paris, the foremost school in Europe, which clung to scholasticism as its method of study. Erasmus came to detest it for the same reasons it was falling out of favor with other scholars. He left Paris and traveled from place to place, supporting himself by offering his scholarship to wealthy households. All this time, he was working on a huge collection of proverbs which he called Adagia. He went to Oxford in England in 1498-1499, where he became acquainted with the great English reformers. John Colet showed him how his faith could be reconciled with humanism simply by rejecting the scholastic method and basing his views on Scripture. This insight revealed to him the importance of Greek, and so he returned to Paris to study the language.

The Adagia was published in 1500 and made his reputation, though Erasmus continued to enlarge it throughout his life. In its final form, it is a collection of 4151 proverbs and anecdotes gathered from Greek and Latin writings. They are arranged in a way that ridicules clergymen, kings, and especially monks. In 1503, he published his first serious writing, Manual of the Christian Gentleman. It is highly critical of the Church as it describes what true religion is all about. Two years after it was published, Lorenzo Valla’s annotations to the New Testament were discovered and printed. Valla was the controversial scholar who proved the Donation of Constantine to be false (see chapter fifty-eight). Erasmus wrote an introduction to the volume in which he stated his conviction that a new translation of the Vulgate was needed.

In 1506, Erasmus traveled through Italy, visiting the important universities. He went to Bologna, Padua, and Venice, and was given a doctor’s degree at Turin. While in Rome, he was offered an important ecclesiastical office. He turned it down when he learned Henry VIII had just become king of England. He had met Henry while he was at Oxford and hoped the new king would give him a significant position. On his way there in 1509, he began writing The Praise of Folly, finishing it while a guest in the home of Thomas More. It was a satirical look at society but especially excoriated the Church. An immediate sensation, it went through seven editions in only a few months. Erasmus pictured Folly as a goddess to whom people bow down, focusing as they are on all the wrong things in life. He satirized the wise man as being the most miserable of humans, as demonstrated by Socrates’ fate. (Socrates was forced to drink poison when his teaching challenged the status quo.) The happiest man is the fool. The fool does not fear death or hell, he does not worry about embarrassing himself, is truthful, and has a secure place in society because his services are needed by everyone.

Erasmus accepted a position at Cambridge University as Lady Margaret’s Professor of Divinity and Reader of Greek, but he did not remain there long. During the years 1515-1521 he divided his time among Brussels, Antwerp, and Louvain, the latter becoming his principal place of residence. He began writing Colloquies in 1519, which became every bit as popular as The Praise of Folly. With Colloquies, he hoped to make men better scholars and better persons. He explains how to converse in Latin, how to behave with good manners, and he gives his views about everything from shipwrecks to marriage, all with humor, irony, and satire. He continued his biting attack on monks, and he attacked war as being reckless and sick. Using a dialogue between a butcher and a fishmonger as his vehicle, he accused the Church of Phariseeism because of its focus on Friday fish days.

In The Complaint of Peace Erasmus enlarged his thoughts on war. He had watched Pope Julius II enter Bologna at the head of an army. The sight was repugnant to him. In the book, Lady Peace bewails how unwelcome she is among Christians. He attacked the cavalier attitude kings and the Church have toward war, and the practice of bishops traveling with armies to lend support to carnage, sometimes even serving as generals.

Erasmus’ writings were a major influence in the emerging Reformation; some Catholics blamed him as its primary cause. He felt that reforming scholarship was absolutely essential, believing this was necessary if the Church was to be reformed. Universities must drop the scholastic approach. His adopted city of Louvain was strongly Catholic and it became less and less comfortable for Erasmus. Charges of heresy began to circulate. Basil was a more open city, so in 1521 Erasmus made it his primary home. Europe’s leading publisher, John Froben, lived there and became his closest friend. Erasmus became so famous that he corresponded with practically all of the important people of the time. Everywhere he traveled, he was treated like royalty, receiving gifts from the rich and powerful and being hailed as a scholar.

His influences were broad. He ridiculed the attitude of the Church toward marriage and sex, blaming Tertullian and Jerome for promoting celibacy and denigrating sex within marriage. He wondered, if sex is an outgrowth of sin, how can it be explained in the animal world? He introduced many sayings still in use: In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. To start from scratch. A flash in the pan. No sooner said than done. Shadow, not substance. Eyes in the back of his head. Crocodile tears. One hand washes the other. You're on entirely the wrong track. Fortune favors the brave. He wrote a dialogue in which Eutrapelus argues with Fabulla that women are not inferior to men. He is honored among educators because he proclaimed that children learn better if learning is made to be fun rather than drudgery.

During the time Erasmus had been at Cambridge, he examined the available New Testament manuscripts. Learning that the Complutensian Polyglot Bible was being prepared (a Bible of more than one language, usually arranged in side-by-side columns) in Spain, which would include a Greek text, he made up his mind to publish his Greek New Testament first. John Froben printed this epochal work in 1516. It was the first critical Greek New Testament, but Erasmus’ rush to get it into print resulted in many typographical errors. The second edition of 1519 was much better, and it was the one Martin Luther used it to translate the New Testament into German. The third edition of 1522 was used for both the Geneva Bible and the King James Version. In the 1527 edition Erasmus included both the Greek text and Latin Vulgate, plus his own Latin translation, which he considered more accurate than the Vulgate. He also published Paraphrases of the New Testament in Latin, which very soon was translated into several European languages and became accessible to a great many people.

Erasmus’ spent much of his time in Basel producing editions of the classics and the Church Fathers, and he wrote original works on homiletics, devotionals, and other materials. He became the intellectual leader of the Reformation, a role he did not want. He had spent his life trying to bring reform to the Church, but he did not want to see it divided. Events overwhelmed him. He had lost control of Church reform, and now both sides demanded he make a choice. He wrote, This new gospel is producing a new set of men so impudent, hypocritical, and abusive, such liars and sycophants, who agree neither with one another nor with anybody else, so universally offensive and seditious, such madmen and ranters, and in short so utterly distasteful to me that if I knew of any city in which I should be free from them, I would remove there at once.

Erasmus and Luther had mutual respect for each other, but when Luther appealed to him to join his cause, he refused. His reason was that it would endanger his own work of reforming scholarship, and he believed his influence for reform would be greater if he stayed within the Church. Luther decided Erasmus was a coward. When the pope issued a bull against Luther which the Reformer burned publically, the breach between them became final. Even so, Erasmus tried to relate to some Reformers. He praised Melanchthon, Luther’s main theologian, and he corresponded with Zwingli and Oecolampadius.

The Catholics attacked Erasmus even as he tried to convince them he was not part of the Reformation. He weakened his case with them when he urged Catholics to exercise restraint toward Luther: If he is innocent, I should not wish him to be crushed by a set of malignant villains; if he is in error, I would rather see him put right than destroyed. When Luther was called to defend himself at the Diet of Worms, Erasmus wrote a friend that the pope’s choice of agents surprised him. Nothing can exceed the pride or violent temper of Cardinal Cajetan, of Charles Miltitz, of Marinus, of Aleander. The Sorbonne in Paris in 1527 condemned thirty-two of Erasmus’ positions.

Erasmus believed the basic doctrines stated in the Apostles’ Creed were all that should be absolutely required. Anything people believed beyond these essentials, they should be allowed to hold. He wrote to Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz, Reduce the number of dogmas to a minimum. You can do so without injury to Christianity. On other points, leave everyone free to believe what he pleases. He vacillated on the Lord’s Supper, one of the major issues of the Reformation. When Erasmus was asked his opinion of a book Oecolampadius wrote that argued for a figurative interpretation of the Supper, he answered insipidly that was well written but contrary to what the Church taught.

Much to Erasmus’ dismay, the Reformation was gaining ground in his adopted city of Basle, and its leader was his friend Oecolampadius. When the citizens raided the churches in 1529 and destroyed the images, he knew it was time to leave. He moved to the Catholic city of Freiburg, but many Catholics still did not trust him. He had sowed the wind and was surprised that the harvest was a whirlwind.

Erasmus was a small, blonde-headed man with fair skin, blue eyes, and a wrinkled forehead. He spoke Latin almost exclusively, the universal language of scholars. He had always been sickly, and both his health and his outlook deteriorated as he aged. With his world falling apart, he accepted an invitation from Mary, regent of the Netherlands, to live in Brabant. He had just learned of the martyrdom of his dear friends Thomas More and Bishop Fisher in England. As he prepared for the trip to Brabant, he fell ill and died. He was not given last rites, but a great funeral was held for him and he was buried in the Basle cathedral. Catholicism never forgave Erasmus for his part in starting the Reformation. He has been condemned as the one who laid the egg that hatched the Reformation, and one who did not see the dangers of a Bible in the language of the people. Pope Paul IV (1476-1559) placed his writings on the Index of Prohibited Books.

Analysis

Erasmus produced the first Greek text of the New Testament in the West and his writings changed the social climate of Europe and energized the Reformers.

Part of the reason Erasmus finally rejected Luther was his aversion to war. He realized that the path the Reformers were treading would result in great chaos for Europe. The reason he was right was because in his day Christianity could not be thought of apart from the use of power. Few could conceive of a region or nation that would include different religious beliefs. As the Reformation progressed and wars were fought, rulers came to an agreement that the religion of a realm was determined by the ruler. The people had to follow his religion. The agreement did not stop the wars, but it was the dominant thinking that helps explain why both Catholics and Protestants persecuted anyone in their realms who held other views.

The Reformation would have come with or without Erasmus, but he was its most important gadfly who energized the men and women who became Reformers. His writings gave voice to the popular sentiment against the corruption of the Church. His concept that the Apostles’ Creed contained everything a person should be required to believe is similar to the view expressed by Hilary of Poitiers. Insistence on more specificity than this, both men believed, is destructive to Christianity. Erasmus influenced more than five hundred of the most important and powerful men in the world. Most of all, his Greek New Testament changed the Christian world. Not only did he provide a crucial tool for translators such as Luther and Tyndale, but he emphasized the critical need to determine the original reading and translate it as accurately as possible.

Chapter 62

Martin Luther: Let the Reformation Begin

(1483-1546)

Martin was dressed for the terrible weather, as he rode his horse against a rain that was coming down in sheets. Thunder and lightning sent chills through his body, for every German knew a thunderbolt was God’s sign of judgment. He was fretting about that when lightning struck so close that his horse bolted. Martin fell hard to the ground and cried out in great fear to Saint Anne, Save me and I will become a monk! That fateful day was July 2, 1505. Martin remounted and headed home, dreading to break the news to his stern father who would be angry and disappointed. From the cradle, his father had groomed him to become a lawyer. But Saint Anne was Mary’s mother and he could not break the vow.

Martin Luther was born November 10, 1483 to peasants, Gross-Hans Luder and Margaretta Ziegler. Martin changed the last name later. The Luder’s were typical parents of the time, strict disciplinarians and superstitious. Shortly after his birth, they moved to Mansfield where Gross-Hans hoped to improve his fortunes. He found great success in the mining industry and gained a place on the city council. He sent Martin to school at quite an early age, perhaps when he was five. When he was fourteen, he went to a Brethren of the Common Life school in Magdeburg for a year, then on to Eisenach for three more years. This was a time he looked back on with fondness as his beloved Eisenach. Gross-Hans selected the University of Erfurt for his oldest son and Martin enrolled in its law school in 1501. He was a superior student, earning the bachelor’s degree in less than two years. By 1505, he had his master’s and it was time to decide his future. He did not want to follow law, but he feared disappointing his father. It took the lightning bolt to force his decision. His father was furious, but Luther told him his soul would be in danger if he broke his vow to Saint Anne.

On July 17, he entered the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt and at the end of his second year was ordained to the priesthood. For the next two years or so, Luther worked on his basic theological degree at the newly-founded University of Wittenberg. All during this time he was struggling to reconcile his soul to God. Hour after hour after hour he confessed every sin he could recall, wearying his confessors with minute details, yet never being sure he had confessed every sin. The God he knew was judgmental, holding humans to an impossible level of behavior yet demanding they put forth enormous effort to attain it. His superior, Johann von Staupitz, sent Luther to Rome on a mission in hopes the trip might help him conquer his personal demons. Luther worshipped at all the holy places, he listened to the miracle stories, he attended masses and dedications, and he obtained every indulgence he could. (An indulgence is a remission of guilt for sins which shortens the time spent in purgatory, by the payment of a fee or an ascetic act. The term sometimes applies to forgiveness during one’s life.) Still, he left Rome terribly disappointed that nothing had alleviated his distress. He later described his feelings: I went with onions and left with garlic.

Returning to Wittenberg, Luther became subprior of the Wittenberg monastery in 1511 while a licentiate (a step toward the doctorate). He was awarded the doctor of theology degree at age thirty in 1512, and three weeks later was admitted to the faculty senate. The next year, he took Staupitz’ place as lecturer on the Bible. In 1515, he became the representative of the vicar-general and lectured at the university on the Psalms and Paul’s writings. His life was so busy he had to have two secretaries.

Luther’s conversion came in 1515 as he lectured on Romans. In the very first chapter he read, the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel (v. 7). The Church’s definition of God’s righteousness was that God proves himself to be righteous by punishing sinners. This idea was so thoroughly ingrained in his soul that he could not understand what Paul was saying. He wrestled with the phrase for days and nights until God helped him see its connection with the last phrase of the verse, The righteous shall live by faith. Suddenly things fell into place. I felt exactly as though I had been born again, he wrote, and I believed that I had entered Paradise through widely opened doors. He called this breakthrough his Tower Experience.

His new insight brought him into conflict with indulgences, a primary source of income for both the church and the university. He was already preaching against the practice when Pope Leo X used the technique to raise money for a new St. Peter’s Basilica. Leo sent a firebrand preacher named Johann Tetzel to Germany to convince people to purchase indulgences. His slogan was, As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs. Luther was appalled at the crass attempt to sell salvation. He drew up a list of propositions for debate, his famous Ninety-Five Theses, which he fastened on the doors of the Castle Church on the eve of All Saints’ Day, October 31, 1517.

The theses attacked St. Peter’s as a waste of money that was robbing the German people. He challenged the pope’s power over purgatory and the very concept of a storehouse of merits. (The indulgence system was based on the idea that great saints produce an overabundance of good works, more than they needed for salvation, which went into a sort of pool from which the Church could draw for those sinners who needed more.) A printer made copies, and within two weeks the Ninety-Five Theses was spread all over Europe. Sales of indulgences fell, but Pope Leo dismissed Luther no more than a drunken German. He instructed Staupitz to summon Luther before a meeting of Augustinians, but the group exonerated him. Leo took him more seriously and summoned him to Rome. Frederick the Wise, to protect Luther, convinced the pope to hold the hearing in Augsburg. Cardinal Cajetan was in charge, and Luther defended himself fearlessly. Cajetan angrily ordered Luther to leave the room. Warned that he was to be arrested, Luther sneaked out of the city in the middle of the night and raced on horseback to Wittenberg.

More and more people became involved in the dispute. Letters flew back and forth between fledgling reformers, books debating Luther’s theses appeared, and priests proclaimed new ideas from pulpits. Luther’s view evolved, and he came to see that the Church was founded on Christ alone. He gained local support when Carlstadt and Melanchthon joined the faculty. Finally, a major debate was held in Leipzig. Luther’s opponents were led by the well-known Johann Eck. Luther could cite authorities from memory as well as Eck could, but he knew far more about Scripture. Eck realized he was losing the debate, so he tried to recover by accusing Luther of being a follower of Huss and Wycliffe.

In 1520, Luther wrote the three most important works of the early Reformation: Treatise on Christian Liberty, Appeal to the German Nobility, and Babylonian Captivity of the Church. The first one, Treatise on Christian Liberty, is summed up in this statement of Luther’s: A Christian man is the most free lord of all and subject to none. A Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one. He had rediscovered the priesthood of believers. In Appeal to the German Nobility, Luther exposed the abuses of Rome against the German people and urged German leaders to cast off the horrific burden that was bleeding the country dry. In Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Luther discussed what he called the superstitions that held the Church in spiritual captivity. He identified these as the system of sacraments and the enormous number of accretions the Church had added to the gospel. Luther insisted that only God can decide what is a sacrament, and God had instituted only two, baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

On June 15, 1520 the pope issued a bull warning Luther that if he did not recant within sixty days he would face excommunication. Luther arranged a huge public bonfire and burned the bull, cheered on by Wittenberg’s students and faculty. He was excommunicated on January 3, 1521. Frederick arranged for a diet to be held at Worms to begin April 18. The finest Catholic minds of the day read the charges against Luther, and the debate went on for a number of days. Finally, the council demanded Luther’s final answer. His response is one of the decisive statements of the Reformation: Unless I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture or by clear reason . . . I neither can nor will make any retraction, since it is neither safe nor honorable to act against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.

The council condemned Luther, but he was allowed twenty-one days of safe conduct. After that, he was subject to arrest, and his books were to be eradicated from the memory of man. Frederick, however, did not trust the promise of safe conduct. He arranged for Luther to be kidnapped on his way home, a plan Luther knew nothing about and believed his kidnapping was real. He was taken to Frederick’s Wartburg castle near Eisenach and hid there for a year. He used the time well, writing several books and papers and working on his greatest work, the translation of the Bible into German. There were German translations already, but none were very good. Luther used Erasmus' second edition of the Greek New Testament, and by September of 1522 the German New Testament was in print. He called on Melanchthon to help with the Old Testament since he knew Hebrew. It came out piecemeal, the final installment appearing in 1534. This Bible is widely recognized as the work that created the modern German language.

Meanwhile, Carlstadt and others in Wittenberg were carrying Luther’s views to their logical conclusions, much farther than Luther desired. They revised the mass to reflect the evangelical view. Priests were encouraged, even pressured, to marry. Monks were virtually forced out of their monasteries. A group called the Zwickau Prophets came into town and called for the smashing of idols in the churches. These developments were too radical for many parishioners, and the city council sent an urgent appeal to Luther to return. He disguised himself as a knight, Junker Jörg, and returned to his city. Fearing such rapid change would doom the Reformation, he accused Carlstadt of radicalism. He restored most of the mass, leaving out only the reference that made the elements a sacrifice, and decided to maintain all rituals that were not clearly contrary to Scripture. He allowed clergy to marry, but he removed all pressure to do so.

Carlstadt retired to a peasant’s life, but he continued his ministry and examined ideas about the Lord’s Supper. Catholics held to transubstantiation—the view that the elements literally turn into the body and blood of Christ upon ingestion. Luther himself rejected this but put constubstantiation in its place. This is the view that Christ’s real but not literal presence permeates and envelops the elements. Carlstadt rejected both views. He insisted the elements symbolize the body and blood, which caused Frederick to banish him from Saxony.

The Zwickau Prophets left Wittenberg when Luther returned, accusing him of becoming another pope. Their influence was widespread, however, and Thomas Müntzer took their views farther. He was a well-educated pastor who came to believe Christ was about to inaugurate his eschatological (pertaining to end times) kingdom. He set his mind to start a revolution to pave the way. He cast his lot with a group that supported the Peasants’ Revolt and led some of them into a terrible battle. The peasants were wiped out and Müntzer was beheaded. The Catholics blamed Luther for the revolt, an accusation he answered with a hard line: Anyone who killed a peasant did God a service.

On June 13, 1525 Luther married a nun, Katherine von Bora, his beloved Kate. An extraordinary woman of much ability and goodness, she provided a good model of what a Protestant family should be, husband and wife working together and the whole family living together in peace. Luther further influenced the view of family by having family members sit together on pews. Previously, men and women stood or sat on opposite sides of the church.

Frederick the Wise died in 1525 and Philip Landgrave of Hesse stepped into the leadership role. He organized the First Diet of Speyer in 1526, which attempted a truce between Catholics and Protestants who were about balanced in strength in northern Europe. They agreed that the religion of the ruler had to be the religion of the people. Three years later, the Catholics had become stronger. The emperor Charles V called a second diet at Speyer that changed the agreement. Catholics must be given freedom in Protestant lands, but Protestants were not free in Catholic lands. The Protestants wrote a response stating we herewith protest . . . , from which they came to be called Protestants. The Protestant leaders knew they had to unite or be destroyed. They tried to reconcile Luther and Ulrich Zwingli of Zurich. (Zwingli was a Reformer whose story appears in the next chapter.) Luther was opposed to any alliance with the Zwinglians because of their position on the Lord’s Supper. The two met in Marburg in 1529 to debate their differences, but the meeting came to nothing and Protestants continued at a disadvantage in the wars.

Luther’s success required many skills. He promoted congregational music, he was a powerful preacher, and he was a good scholar. As a flute player and a good singer, he revolutionized the use of music in worship. He wrote a number of hymns, including A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, the theme song of the Reformation. He produced hymnbooks and translated the mass into German, composed new chants that had worshippers sing parts of the service, and put Christian lyrics to German folk tunes. The Eucharist had been the central act of worship for centuries. He made preaching the focus and used it as a vehicle for teaching. As a scholar, he translated the Bible into German, defined the nature of a church, and provided a theology for the Lutheran Church. He wrote Small Catechism for children, a longer one for adults, and Instruction to help newly-reformed churches. As an administrator, he organized a financial process in which the secular authority collects revenues and allots them to the churches. He meant the plan to be temporary, but it became permanent and helped establish the state church in Protestant areas.

Luther stated seven marks of a true church, but he reduced the number to two essentials: A church is where the gospel is preached and the sacraments are properly observed, the word properly being crucial. Since virtually all people were baptized as infants, baptism of adults was improper. This eliminated Anabaptists from being a true church. Luther defined proper as meaning laity received both wine and bread, and belief in consubstantiation. Luther was enamored with Augustine, believing him to be a true interpreter of Paul. His ideas about justification—one of his hallmarks—came through Augustine’s filter. (Justification is a forensic term which means a person is declared to be acquitted and so there is no possibility of condemnation. It is an action of God toward the repentant sinner in which God imputes the righteousness of Jesus Christ to the believer and pardons him completely. Justification is a result of God’s grace which is appropriated by genuine faith.)

Among Luther’s many contributions, his negative and even vicious writings and actions against Jews must be acknowledged. In his book which was very popular at the time, On the Jews and Their Lies, he crudely besmirched them and urged people to set their synagogues on fire, destroy their prayer books, legislate to keep rabbis from preaching, seize their belongings, smash their homes, and either force them to labor or go into exile.

Luther was in ill health in his later years, with a variety of disorders from heart trouble to constipation, but his life was happy. He entertained in a fireside intimacy that has been captured in Table Talk. Three days before he died, he journeyed to Mansfield and that night experienced chest pains. He went to bed committing his spirit to God, awoke at 1:00 in the morning, affirmed his trust in Christ, and suffered an apoplectic stroke. He died a little after 2:45 at age sixty-two on February 18, 1546 and was buried beneath the pulpit of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. He was a medieval man in many ways—dogmatic and intolerant, superstitious and bad-tempered—but he also was a new man for the times. He gave us the Reformation.

Analysis

Martin Luther inaugurated the Reformation and authored the theology of the Lutheran Church. In his view, church and state were united and he felt anything could be retained from Catholicism that was not contrary to Scripture.

After Luther’s more radical beginning, he settled into the view that has been summed up as retaining anything from Catholicism that does not violate Scripture. Carlstadt and others were correct in accusing him of not taking his beliefs to their logical conclusions. Circumstances drove him to support the rulers and take actions that established a State Church. Other Reformers followed him in this. Luther was certain no church could survive without the support of the secular government, so he accepted the decision of the first Diet of Speyer. This decision acknowledges secular government’s rule over the church.

Luther was responsible for resurrecting the concept of the priesthood of believers, which began its long road to obliteration in the early second century. He saw believers as priests to one another, aiding one another in various ways. The Radical Reformers would take the concept farther. They would emphasize that believers, all priests, not only minister to one another but all have equal access to God.

Luther’s interpretation of the Eucharist as consubstantiation calls for a summary of the history of the Lord’s Supper, with which baptism goes hand in hand. The argument whether baptism is necessary for salvation dates to the Reformation period; the issue was not debated prior to that time. The New Testament knows nothing of salvation that is not followed by baptism; that is, no Christian of the time conceived the possibility that a convert would not be baptized. The transition of making baptism necessary for salvation was so gradual it is not possible to establish a time line. Very early, many if not most churches established the practice of baptizing all converts on Easter after they went through a catechumen period. This may mean that baptism was not believed essential for salvation, else it would not be postponed, but that interpretation is not required.

By the time infant baptism became established, the act was considered necessary for salvation. Scholars who favor infant baptism see household references in the New Testament as indicating that it was practiced from the first. Apart from those references, the Didache (ca. 100) speaks only of adult baptism. That it was practiced in the second century is indicated by Irenaeus and Tertullian and was common after that. It appears the Eucharist came to be considered essential along the same time frame.

Sprinkling has a long history. The Didache explains options for baptism: Immersion in running water is preferred, still water next, and if such is not available sufficient water may be poured over the body. This pouring eventually, it seems, required less and less water. Sprinkling is limited to the Western Church and was late in coming. The Eastern Church still practices immersion. The Eucharist became necessary for salvation along with baptism. Magical powers came to be associated with the elements in the same way such power came to be associated with the crucifix. From New Testament times until the Reformation, the common practice was to offer the Eucharist every Sunday. With the magical powers that were associated with it, people came to fear the consequences of not taking the Eucharist. This gave the Church considerable power because if it denied someone the Eucharist that person was condemned to eternal hell. This concept is linked to the larger claim that salvation is available only through the Church.

During the Middle Ages, some Catholic scholars began to propose that the elements literally turn into the body and blood of the Savior. Other Catholic scholars fought this view but eventually lost and transubstantiation became the official view of Roman Catholicism. The Reformers disputed the doctrine and offered alternative explanations. We have seen in this chapter that Luther decided on consubstantiation, which allowed much of the mystery to be retained while eliminating a magical physical transformation. Zwingli considered the Eucharist symbolic, a view with which the Radical Reformers agreed and added that it was not necessary for salvation. To demonstrate this point they stopped taking the Eucharist every week and did so only once a month or once a quarter. We will see that Calvin took a middle road.

Chapter 63

Ulrich Zwingli: Third Man of the Reformation

(1484-1531)

The Black Plague struck Zurich in 1519. Zwingli stayed in the city to minister to the sick and dying. One-fourth of the population succumbed, the bodies stacked to wait for burial. The plague took Ulrich’s younger brother Andrew, and then Zwingli caught the disease and remained critical for months.

Ulrich Zwingli was born January 1, 1484 into a successful farming family, the third child among two girls and six boys. He took his father’s name, a leading magistrate of the town of Wildhaus in the high beauty of Switzerland’s Toggenburg Valley. The Swiss were the only free people in all of Europe, and every day he heard his father tell stories of their freedom and valor. Their independent cities and cantons (states) were organized for mutual protection. Southern Switzerland was Catholic, but the region was not burdened with the superstition of Luther’s northern Germany where Luther lived.

At age five, Ulrich went to live with his uncle Bartholemew, a priest, so he could attend a Latin school. At age ten, Bartholemew sent him to a school