History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume II (of 2) / Revised Edition

by John William Draper

But there is another, a very different aspect under which we must regard this Church. Enveloped as it was with the many evils of the times, the truly Christian principle which was at its basis perpetually vindicated its power, giving rise to numberless blessings in spite of the degradation and wickedness of man. Statement of what the Church had actually done. As I have elsewhere (Physiology, Book II., Chap. VIII.) remarked, "The civil law exerted an exterior power in human relations; Christianity produced an interior and moral change. The idea of an ultimate accountability for personal deeds, of which the old Europeans had an indistinct perception, became intense and precise. The sentiment of universal charity was exemplified not only in individual acts, the remembrance of which soon passes away, but in the more permanent institution of establishments for the relief of affliction, the spread of knowledge, the propagation of truth. Of the great ecclesiastics, many had risen from the humblest ranks of society, and these men, true to their democratic instincts, were often found to be the inflexible supporters of right against might. Eventually coming to be the depositaries of the knowledge that then existed, they opposed intellect to brute force, in many instances successfully, and by [146] the example of the organization of the Church, which was essentially republican, they showed how representative systems may be introduced into the state. Nor was it over communities and nations that the Church displayed her chief power. Never in the world before was there such a system. From her central seat at Rome, her all-seeing eye, like that of Providence itself, could equally take in a hemisphere at a glance, or examine the private life of any individual. Her boundless influences enveloped kings in their palaces, and relieved the beggar at the monastery gate. In all Europe there was not a man too obscure, too insignificant, or too desolate for her. Surrounded by her solemnities, every one received his name at her altar; her bells chimed at his marriage, her knell tolled at his funeral. She extorted from him the secrets of his life at her confessionals, and punished his faults by her penances. In his hour of sickness and trouble her servants sought him out, teaching him, by her exquisite litanies and prayers, to place his reliance on God, or strengthening him for the trials of life by the example of the holy and just. Her prayers had an efficacy to give repose to the souls of his dead. When, even to his friends, his lifeless body had become an offence, in the name of God she received it into her consecrated ground, and under her shadow he rested till the great reckoning-day. From little better than a slave she raised his wife to be his equal, and, forbidding him to have more than one, met her recompense for those noble deeds in a firm friend at every fireside. Discountenancing all impure love, she put round that fireside the children of one mother, and made that mother little less than sacred in their eyes. In ages of lawlessness and rapine, among people but a step above savages, she vindicated the inviolability of her precincts against the hand of power, and made her temples a refuge and sanctuary for the despairing and oppressed. Truly she was the shadow of a great rock in many a weary land!"

Analysis of the career of the Church.This being the point which I consider the end of the Italian system as a living force in European progress, its subsequent operation being directed to the senses and not to the understanding, it will not be [147] amiss if for a moment we extend our view to later times and to circumstances beyond the strict compass of this book, endeavouring thus to ascertain the condition of the Church, especially as to many devout persons it may doubtless appear that she has lost none of her power.

Four revolts against the Italian system.On four occasions there have been revolts against the Italian Church system: 1st, in the thirteenth century, the Albigensian; 2nd, in the fourteenth, the Wiclifite; 3rd, in the sixteenth, the Reformation; 4th, in the eighteenth, at the French Revolution. On each of these occasions ecclesiastical authority has exerted whatever offensive or defensive power it possessed. Its action is a true indication of its condition at the time. Astronomers can determine the orbit of a comet or other celestial meteor by three observations of its position as seen from the earth, and taken at intervals apart.

The Albigensian revolt.1st. Of the Albigensian revolt. We have ascertained that the origin of this is distinctly traceable to the Mohammedan influence of Spain, through the schools of Cordova and Granada, pervading Languedoc and Provence. Had these agencies produced only the gay scenes of chivalry and courtesy as their material results, and, as their intellectual, war-ballads, satires, and amorous songs, they had been excused; but, along with such elegant frivolities, there was something of a more serious kind. A popular proverb will often betray national belief, and there was a proverb in Provence, "Viler than a priest." The offensive sectaries also quoted, for the edification of the monks, certain texts, to the effect that, "if a man will not work neither let him eat." The event, in the hands of Simon de Montfort, taught them that there is such a thing as wresting Scripture to one's own destruction.

How did the Church deal with this Albigensian heresy? As those do who have an absolutely overwhelming power. She did not crush it—that would have been too indulgent; she absolutely annihilated it. Awake to what must necessarily ensue from the imperceptible spread of such opinions, she remorselessly consumed its birth-place with fire and sword; and, fearful that some fugitives might have [148] escaped her vigilant eye, or that heresy might go wherever a bale of goods might be conveyed, she organized the Inquisition with its troops of familiars and spies. Six hundred years have elapsed since these events, and the south of France has never recovered from the blow.

That was a persecution worthy of a sovereign—a persecution conducted on sound Italian principles of policy—to consider clearly the end to be attained, and adopt the proper means without any kind of concern as to their nature. But it was a persecution that implied the possession of unlimited and irresponsible power.

The revolt of Wiclif.2nd. Of the revolt of Wiclif. We have also considered the state of affairs which aroused the resistance of Wiclif. It is manifested by legal enactments early in the fourteenth century, such as that ecclesiastics shall not go armed, nor join themselves with thieves, nor frequent taverns, nor chambers of strumpets, nor visit nuns, nor play at dice, nor keep concubines—by the Parliamentary bill of 1376, setting forth that the tax paid in England to the pope for ecclesiastical dignities is fourfold as much as that coming to the king from the whole realm; that alien clergy, who have never seen nor care to see their flocks, convey away the treasure of the country—by the homely preaching of John Ball, that all men are equal in the sight of God. Wiclif's opposition was not only directed against corruptions of discipline in the Church, but equally against doctrinal errors. His dogma that "God bindeth not men to believe any thing they cannot understand" is a distinct embodiment of the rights of reason, and the noble purpose he carried into execution of translating the Bible from the Vulgate shows in what direction he intended the application of that doctrine to be made. Through the influence of the queen of Richard the Second, who was a native of that country, his doctrines found an echo in Bohemia—Huss not only earnestly adopting his theological views, but also joining in his resistance to the despotism of the court of Rome and his exposures of the corruptions of the clergy. The political point of this revolt in England occurs in the refusal of Edward III., at the instigation of Wiclif, to do homage to the pope; the religious, in the translation of the Bible.

[149] Though a bull was sent to London requiring the arch-heretic to be seized and put in irons, Wiclif died in his bed, and his bones rested quietly in the grave for forty-four years. Ecclesiastical vengeance burned them at last, and scattered them to the winds.

There was no remissness in the ecclesiastical authority, but there were victories won by the blind hero, John Zisca. After the death of that great soldier—whose body was left by the road-side to the wolves and crows, and his skin dried and made into a drum—in vain was all that perfidy could suggest and all that brutality could execute resorted to—in vain the sword and fire were passed over Bohemia, and the last effort of impotent vengeance tried in England—the heretics could not be exterminated nor the detested translation of the Bible destroyed.

The revolt of Luther.3rd. Of the revolt of Luther. As we shall have, in a subsequent chapter, to consider the causes that led to the Reformation, it is not necessary to anticipate them in any detail here. The necessities of the Roman treasury, which suggested the doctrine of supererogation and the sale of indulgences as a ready means of relief, merely brought on a crisis which otherwise could not have been long postponed, the real point at issue being the right of interpretation of the Scriptures by private judgment.