Luther, vol. 6 of 6

by Hartmann Grisar

It would, however, be historically incorrect to describe Luther as the originator of the Catechism. Catholic Catechisms, even illustrated ones, had existed before Luther’s time, having been printed not only in Germany but also elsewhere. But, after the success attained by Luther’s Catechism, writers of Catholic Catechisms tried to profit by his example. The best of these Catholic works was the famous Catechism of Peter Canisius. It was first printed in Vienna in 1555 under the title “Summa doctrinæ christianæ”; eighteen years later it had already been translated into twelve different tongues.[1587] It is a work rich in thought and positive matter where almost every word is based on Holy Scripture or some utterance of the Fathers and other ecclesiastical authority. Abbreviated editions, the “Parvus Catechismus” (Viennæ, 1559), the “Institutiones” (1561), and particularly the short German one: “The Catechism or Sum of Christian Doctrine arranged in question and answer for the simple,” rendered it of greater use for the common people.[1588] “Canisius’s book,” writes a Protestant expert in pedagogics, “is a masterpiece of brevity, precision and erudition; in it one sees from beginning to end an endeavour to excel in style even the great Protestant prototype” (viz. Luther’s Catechism).[1589]

Among the secular no less than among the regular clergy work for the souls of the children continued to win new friends. St. Ignatius of Loyola esteemed the teaching of the Catechism so highly that he expressly made it a duty incumbent on all members of his Order previous to their making their profession. Lainez, his companion and successor, when staying at Trent during the Council, instructed the people and the small folk in the Catechism. The Council itself impressed on the bishops in 1563 the duty of seeing that the children in each parish received religious instruction from the priest on Sundays and holidays.[1590]

The spread of the new religion had at first been followed by a lamentable decline in the educational system by no means confined to those regions torn away from the old faith.[1591] The Protestants were the first to recover their balance, partly owing to Luther’s vigorous appeals on behalf of the schools, partly thanks to the active co-operation of Melanchthon, who had great experience in this sphere and on whom his co-religionists in consequence bestowed the title of “Præceptor Germaniæ.” The methods followed by the Lutherans were borrowed principally, as indeed was only to be expected, from the treasure-house of the humanists. Protestant effort was largely crowned with success, especially since the old Catholic endowments of the Grammar Schools, and some part of the income of the sequestrated Church properties, were applied by the sovereigns and townships to the erection and maintenance of these new educational institutions.[1592]

The Catholics indeed were angry to see that these flourishing schools were at the same time hotbeds of the New Faith. They also lamented that, owing to the sad conditions of the times, they themselves had fallen astern of the other party in the matter of education. Their best leaders exhorted them to take a lesson from their opponents and thus reconquer the position the Catholic schools had lost. “With the spread and development of the Jesuit schools a change came over the face of affairs.”[1593] Before this Archbishop Albert of Mayence had declared in 1541 that the Protestants were far ahead of Catholics in the matter of education and were drawing all the youth of Germany into their schools. In 1550 Julius Pflug, bishop of Naumburg-Zeitz, wrote to Julius III: “The Protestant schools public as well as private are in a flourishing condition; ours are crumbling into ruin; the Protestants attract men by large salaries, we do not do this.” Already in 1538 George Wicel had expressed his regret to Julius Pflug that so little was done for the schools among the Catholics as compared with the Protestants, and that already the want of men of learning was being felt.[1594]

To mention two other spheres in which Catholics received a stimulus from Luther’s example and work, we may call to mind the German translation of the Bible and the German hymns.

What was good in Luther’s translation of the Bible was very soon turned to account in Catholic circles. If Catholic writers made use of Luther’s translation in their own editions, they probably excused themselves by arguing that Luther himself was undoubtedly indebted to the Catholic translations of the past. In the same way Luther had made use of some of the old hymns of the Church, amended and popularised them and published them as his own. Catholic hymns in the German language there were already in plenty. But, after 1524, when the first Protestant hymn-books made their appearance, Catholics copied these efforts to collect and improve on the originals, and the first Catholic hymn-book brought out by Michael Vehe, Provost at Leipzig as early as 1537, contained fifty-two hymns with forty-seven tunes—though, strange to say, the old Catholic hymns were given in the new Protestant version.[1595] A much bigger hymn-book was that of Johann Leisentritt, a Dean (1567); it contained in the first edition 250 hymns and 147 tunes. In the following century hymns well known to be Protestant but of which the words were orthodox were incorporated without demur in the Catholic collections.

The Middle Ages had been too neglectful of positive studies, particularly of history and languages, both of which are of such vast importance to theology. Since the dawn of humanism, however, a good beginning had been made, and the need of meeting the demands of the new age was recognised, as, in the domain of Biblical languages, the example of Faber Stapulensis and Jodocus Clichtoveus shows.[1596] The methods of the Protestants made further progress in this field imperative.

In criticism and church-history, where much good work had been done by the Protestants, Peter Canisius was one of the first to suggest that it would be advisable to devote more pains to the study and examination of the history of the Papacy, since, as he wrote, our “people seem to be still quite asleep” and unaware of all that had been done in the opposite camp. He was anxious for books that should be in no way inferior to those of the other side, and of which “the style must be in keeping with the present method and trend of scholarship.”[1597] It is not as yet enough known generally what great success crowned the labours of Onuphrius Panvinius (1529-1568) the Augustinian Roman antiquarian and historian, who was spurred on by the labours of the Protestants, though even more by the humanist traditions of his native country. Better known is the Oratorian, Cardinal Baronius (1538-1607), whose “Ecclesiastical Annals” unquestionably laid the foundation of a new era in the writing of Church history.[1598]