The Reformation – Principles and Persons

December 30, 1962
Rochester

Sermon Series: Our Judeo-Christian Heritage
14. The Reformation – Principles and Persons

The reformations of the sixteenth century are the great hinges of the door which opens to the room of religious understanding. I venture to say that any person who becomes thoroughly informed on these Protestant movements will acquire considerable insight into religion as a social force which draws men together, and religion as a social force which splits men apart from each other.

Behind these opposing movements, which seem to make organized religion a self-contradiction, is the basic issue of private judgment as opposed to outside authority. When we keep this primary dilemma in mind, not only will the vast confusion of historical forces and persons become a bit clearer to us, but also issues in our own time will be shown to be closely akin.

The causes of the reformation could be listed as moral, ecclesiastical, political and doctrinal. These are but approximate separations, for there were other immediate and tangential sparks which lit the bonfire of the reformation. A partial additional list would include economic struggle and the rise of a middle class, class warfare between lords and peasants, individuals peculiarly disturbed and the desire to create and perpetuate movements of art and architecture.

The traditional date of the Reformation is October 31, 1517, when Martin Luther composed 95 theses attacking the practice of indulgences and nailed these propositions to the door of Wittenburg Cathedral as a challenge to debate. But there had been sporadic efforts to reform and there had been revolutionary outbursts for hundreds of years.

One could say that Abelard, who lived from 1079 to 1142, was a doctrinal reformer. His well-publicized affair with Heloise has caused his intellect and courage to be largely overlooked. But his critical mind saw that there were contradictions in the literature of the sacred scripture and the writings of the Church Elders. He felt that the purpose of educated leaders should not be to find ways to support conclusions which had been established by prior authority, but to discover truth by evidence and logic.

John Wyclif, the bold Englishman (1328-1384) and his followers, the Lollards, maintained brave, heretical positions. Wyclif brought about the first translation of the Bible into English, illuminating his conviction that the Scriptures, not the Church, were the supreme religious authority for man. This was an assertion of the superiority of private judgment as against the authority of the Church.

John Hus of Bohemia (1369-1415), influenced by Wyclif, not only maintained the supremacy of scripture, but also attacked the behavior of the clergy. Furthermore, the Hussites drew up a document asserting belief in freedom of the pulpit, communion of wafer and wine for both laymen and priests and argued against the morality of the Church owning great properties and amassing huge wealth.

At the famous Church Council at Constance in 1415, John Hus appeared to defend his views at the invitation of Emperor Sigismund, who had guaranteed his safe conduct. But the Church Council was false to its promise on the basis that “no faith was to be kept with heretics,” and burned John Hus as the stake.

But the evangelical spirit generated by John Hus could not be so easily consumed. For centuries to come, numerous movements carried on the ideas of Wyclif and Hus. Sometimes known as Taborites, sometimes as the Brethren of the Free Spirit, they were something like lay counterparts of the Mendicant orders of the Church. There was considerable response to their heretical ideas. Again and again Church and State drove the movements underground by torturing and executing the “Free Spirits,” but the spiritual vitality continued in spite of efforts to smother it.

The Waldensians, who organized in about 1175 and still continue in south-east Europe, also took a stand on the Bible, as well as asserting that there were no essential distinctions between clergy and laity.

Repression and the Inquisition prevented a wide distribution of these ideas and convictions which, in their essence, repudiated the authority of the Church. Twenty years before Luther’s decisive day, Savonarola, who was strangled and burned, proclaimed himself an obedient son of the Church, but his insistence on the subjection of the Church to Scripture was heretical, notwithstanding.

Under political and economic tensions, rulers of European states, particularly the hundreds of German states and principalities, had been restive for decades. The clergy had great possessions, owning one-fifth to one-third of all real estate – and of course, claiming [an?] exemption for it. The Church insisted on the right of Investiture – the right to appoint the bishops who would hold title to these vast estates.

In addition, Annates were due from each bishop to the Pope at Rome. Annates were one-half the year’s income of every bishop.

The Inquisition also represented a considerable drain of wealth from the secular to the ecclesiastical treasuries. The Inquisition confiscated all the goods of those persons labeled “heretics.” Obvious is the temptation of rich prizes awaiting only the organization of charges and confessions produced by torture.

All these expanding and contracting pressures were ignited into conflagration by Martin Luther’s challenges to the practice of indulgences. Because the controversy about the indulgences involved not only disputes of doctrine, but issues involving the growing nationalistic spirit, economics, morality and international politics, a review of the indulgences dispute will help light the historic state of the organized reformations.

At the time of Luther’s challenges, indulgences has been a part of Church practice for centuries. The doctrine of indulgences held that the saints of the Church had been better persons than they needed to be. They had not only earned their own salvation, but also acquired a surplus. This surplus of merit comprised a treasury. The Pope held the keys to this treasury of merit and could authorize disbursements of merits to sinners who had committed too many sins to be qualified for salvation on their own efforts. An indulgence was the granting of some of the merits from the treasury of the saints by the Pope to a sinner.

In Luther’s time indulgences could be given not only to people living on Earth, but to sinners serving out their time in Purgatory.

Then a confluence of art, economics, politics and morals created the fullness of time for Martin Luther, Augustinian monk, university teacher, great preacher, competent administrator of monasteries. The Pope embarked on the completion of St. Peter’s, the costliest, largest, most magnificent church building in the world, then and now. He needed all the money he could raise for the great project.

Duke Albert of the house of Hohenzollern wanted to be named Archbishop of Mainz, the ruling primacy of Germany. Because he was already bishop of two other sees, the Pope insisted on a huge installation fee before he would name Duke Albert to the see of Mainz.

They bargained. The Pope’s initial asking was 12,000 ducats (for the twelve apostles); Duke Albert countered with an offer of 7,000 ducats (for the seven deadly sins); they reached a compromise figure of 10,000 (for the Ten Commandments).

The financing was complex. To pay the Pope, Albert borrowed the money from a banking house. In order that the loan could be repaid, the Pope granted permission for the sale of indulgences in Albert’s territories – one half for Albert, one-half for the Pope to go to the building fund for St. Peter’s.

The vending of indulgences became a scandal as people were pressured to buy release from purgatory for their deceased relatives and friends. Tetzel, the most successful and most mercenary of the indulgence salesmen, used a couplet to shame people into buying indulgences to release relatives from purgatory:

“as soon as the coin in the coffer rings,
the soul from purgatory springs.”

Now if Luther had confined himself to criticizing the financial abuse of indulgences, history might have been quite different. There were many in the Roman Catholic Church who were outraged too at the venal practice. The Roman Catholic Church was to reform a great many of the corrupt practices and strengthen administration and discipline at the Council of Trent (1564).

But in addition, Luther denied the doctrine of indulgences, proclaiming that there could be no such treasury of merit; even saints were never as good as they could be; all were sinners and saved only by faith and the grace of God. This denial of doctrinal authority could not be tolerated. The struggle engaged. In the process of time, Luther was excommunicated; the Lutheran churches formed; the convents and monasteries emptied; Luther’s German translation of the Bible and the Biblical sermon became central, not the sacraments.

The time was ripe in Germany for this Reformation. Emancipation from the ecclesiastical rule, political influence and economic demands of the Roman Catholic Church at Rome were in the interests of many of the more than three hundred German states.

The printing press was a great power in the spread of the new doctrine that the “just shall live by faith.” For example, in 1517, only 37 books in the vernacular were printed; in 1518, the number increased to 71; in 1523, 498 books were printed and 180 of these had one author, Martin Luther.

To understand our heritage it is crucial to know that the Lutheran movement neither created free churches nor granted to individuals freedom to choose a religion. In the long, confused struggle, the so-called “halfway” principle was adopted. The ruler of each state or principality acquired the right to choose Roman Catholicism or Lutheranism. All his subjects were bound by his choice – the state decreed whether its subjects were to be all of them Lutheran, or all of them Roman Catholic.

Thus the various princes and Dukes either chose to remain faithful to the Roman Catholic Church, which claimed universality and sovereignty over all peoples; or chose allegiance to a national Church, responsible to the prince, not the Roman Pope. Neither choice, in any way, would be in keeping with the separation of Church and State. The choice was between a state-church or a church-state.

The development of the theocratic city-state, notably Geneva under the strong leadership of John Calvin and Farel, was a different emphasis, but just as restrictive. Geneva witnessed the growth of theocracy, wherein the city council, city laws and ordinances were dictated by Calvin, an ecclesiastical leader. Geneva was the scene of the execution of Servetus, an anti-Trinitarian, whose ideas anticipated much modern, liberal, religious thought. Servetus was persecuted by the Calvinists, with John Calvin emphatic in his malice toward the Spanish physician. It is only fair to note that Roman Catholics also vowed to execute Servetus if they captured him first.

When we consider these portions of our heritage – the imperial church asserting world authority, the national church subservient to the State, the theocratic city intolerant of diversities, we would be in a quandary to trace to the Reformation our heritage of freedom from doctrinal necessities and our insistence on the separation of church and state. In order to understand the Reformation origins of some of the important ideas in our liberal heritage, we must look at the Peasants’ Revolt and the Anabaptist movements which more fully emphasized what came to be known as the “Protestant Principle – the freedom of private conscience from all human authority.” (Sohm)

Thomas Muntzer was the most representative figure of the Peasants’ Revolt. Thoroughly grounded in Hebrew and Greek, a close student of the scriptures, originally a monk, Thomas Muntzer was an early follower of Martin Luther. before long he broke with Martin Luther because the latter was too subservient to the princes and wealthy ruling classes in Muntzer’s view.

Muntzer reveled in the stories of Old Testament blood-lettings, Elijah’s slaughter of the priests of Baal, for example. Believing this was scriptural authority for violence, he agitated among poor miners and weavers, strenuously urging them as the “elect,” to rise up and kill their oppressors. Muntzer believed devoutly that Christ was coming again, but that the millennium could not begin until the godless were no more. The “elect,” in Muntzer's belief, were those who individually had received the Holy Spirit, thus qualifying them to perform the divine mission.

Muntzer denounced both the ruling princes and the burghers of the rising middle class. Under his excitations, the peasants revolted and were ruthlessly slaughtered by the princes. Martin Luther endorsed the bloody repressions, urging the princes to kill all the peasants involved and extinguish the uprisings.

Motives and consequences of the Peasants’ War are not involved and difficult to sort out. Some historians believe that the princes were not sorry to have the chance to crush any possible obstacles to their state-building ambitions. The peasants’ lot had been improving slightly, but they were impatient with obstacles to more progress and were even talking self-government. In any event, the consequences were disastrous to the peasants. 100,000 died and the survivors had then no chance for a better political lot.

Thomas Muntzer was captured and beheaded by the princes in Thuringia in 1525, but his ongoing influence has been considerable. Marx and Engels chose to use him as a prominent symbol of class warfare and a forerunner of proletarian revolutions. This is probably historical dis-placement. While Muntzer did gather revolutionary groups largely through their social discontent, he was more of a violent mystic than a revolutionary theoretician.

But at least his life illustrates that religion cannot be confined to church walls, sacraments and Sunday services. That when religion speaks to human need, to disputed issues, and defends human rights, religion will be a spur, comfort, and support to those who need and want an improved social order. The rights of man did not originate in the reformations, but without doubt these movements extended the definition of human rights and transmitted momentum for the rights of all people.

Even more important to our heritage from the Reformation is the development of a number of diversified movements sometimes called the “Left Wing of the Reformation.” Most prominent were Anabaptists.

The Anabaptists’ beliefs centered in the authority of Scripture for matters of religious belief and practice. They disavowed belief in infant baptism because they could find no warrant for this sacrament in scriptures. The Anabaptists insisted on adult baptism for the converted believer.

Although this doctrine was heretical in the Catholic Church, the national churches and the city-state theocracies, the reason Anabaptists were persecuted and placed under sentence of death was more the consequence of their attitudes toward the State. they would not take oaths for the State, accept office as magistrates, and most of them were pacifists.

There was a perceptible line of influence from the Hussites, the Brethren of the Free Spirit, and other pre-Reformation precursors to the Anabaptists. Primarily all these were characterized by a religion of inwardness. This emphasis on individual piety and reliance on intuitive guidance from God was to be called the “inner light” by later Quakers. And this sovereignty of spirit comes down to us, too, to cherish as a high privilege of a religion which gives us freedom to choose what values we shall revere, what causes we shall honor by our efforts.

Some of the better-known descendants of the Anabaptist Reformation groups are the Hutterites and the Mennonites who still maintain their lives separated from the world, as much as they can – some living in communal groups, wearing plain garb and holding strong pacifist convictions.

One of the great benefits from this Left Wing of the Reformation has been the emphasis it has created on the priority of an individual’s relationship to religion – the right of individual interpretation of what God is for him and what this conviction demands that he should be and should do in the world.

The many Reformation movements, including the Catholic counter-reformation of the sixteenth century, brought to a head awareness of the main difference about the seat of authority in religion (as formulated by the church historian, Sohm:) “But as the Protestant principle – the freedom of the private conscience from all human authority – has its followers – the opposite principle, the subjection of the whole life of the individual and even of its conscience to a visible authority – has its followers also.”

New times bring revised language and altered emphases. But to me it is quite clear that our present and future are on the side of the “freedom of private conscience.” It is true that we have pursued a parallel development, the congregational principle in the ordering of our corporate affairs. As a group, private judgment speaks in the context of consenting community. That is, the consenting community may agree with a proposal, but when it disagrees, it approves the right of announcement of the convictions of individual conscience, even if that voice speaks alone. Unless this part of our beginnings is understood, then Liberal Religion today is inexplicable. In our heritage, this consenting and supporting community is the ministry of mutuality.

The Protest – Savonarola

December 16, 1962
Rochester

Sermon Series: Our Judeo-Christian Heritage
13. The Protest – Savonarola

During the vivid days of the Italian Renaissance, amid the glorious artistic creation, the reach of discovery and the exciting applications of inventions, a dour religious fanatic rebelled against the Church. This was Savonarola, the Prior of San Marco. Luther and other Reformers were to look back at Savonarola, finding in his life and death spiritual sustenance for their years of travail in the struggle for Reformation. Savonarola illuminated the cause of conscience. We, too, are in his debt for strengthening this important strand in the fabric of our heritage.

On September 21, 1452, the year before Constantinople fell to the Turks, Girolamo (Jerome) Savonarola was born to Michele and Elena Savonarola in Ferrara, Italy.

Although born in the Renaissance, Savonarola did not share its spirit. As a somber lad of sixteen, he was detached from his fellows. Although he possessed superior intellectual abilities, he could neither enter into the activities nor share the animal vigor of his peers. He decided not to acquire the habits of a world where “all vices are lauded and all virtues derided.” (See MAN OF THE RENAISSANCE, ROEDER, p. 7). His morbid fancies created visions and his notebook became a tracts on “THE CONTEMPT OF THE WORLD.”

He found no joy in the usual life of a young man. When a girl of the Strozzi family rejected his proposal of marriage as preposterous, because her family position was much superior to the Savonarola’s, the young man’s readiness to reject the world increased. Later he said, “two things I loved above all, freedom and peace; to have freedom I would not take wife, and to find peace, I fled the world and gained the port of religion.” At the age of twenty-three, he entered the Dominican monastery at Bologna.

There his conviction strengthened that his was a call to preach repentance to a vain, pleasure-loving age. The Dominicans cherished a famous preaching tradition. Over the doorway of the monastery, their emblem, the Domini-cani, proclaimed that they were the “hounds of the Lord with the torch in their teeth.” (ibid, p. 13)

In the process of time, a most curious encounter occurred. The city-state of Florence was the gem of the Renaissance. Under the patronage of the wealthy and cultured Medici family, the most talented artists, sculptors, poets and scholars had been sponsored, with no return obligation expected other than to create. The Medici family sponsored Michelangelo at the age of fifteen; had recommended Leonardo to the Duke of Milan; had been patrons for the careers of Botticelli, Ghiberti, Raphael, Della Robbia and many others. Among these was the leading scholar, philosopher, and poet of his age, Pico Mirandola.

Pico was a young genius who knew twenty-two languages, had studied and understood the weaknesses of all philosophies, could write excellent poetry and was the sparkling center of the cultured discussions at the home of Lorenzo the Magnificent, greatest of the Medici family, who ruled Florence with a benevolent despotism.

Mirandola, with all his versatile genius and vast knowledge, was harassed by uncertainties. Although he had comprehended formal learning to its limits, he possessed no burning convictions about life and death and destiny. By chance, Mirandola heard Savonarola speak on the corruption of the clergy at a Dominican chapter meeting. Mirandola was so impressed by the passionate conviction of the monk that when the chance came to have him invited to Florence, the philosopher recommended the monk to Lorenzo the Magnificent. Lorenzo had the power to ensure Savonarola’s appointment as Prior of San Marco convent.

When Mirandola discussed the matter in Florence, he found to his surprise that Savonarola had preached briefly in that city four years before. At that time, Savonarola had been fumbling, hesitant, awkward – a failure as a young preacher. In the interval, he had so developed power and conviction that Mirandola had felt his spine tingle when the Dominican’s stern voice applied the scripture of Revelation to the Renaissance scene. When Savonarola returned to Florence in the maturity of his spiritual strength and preaching ability, events soon provided the opportunity for a head-on clash between the power of the Medici family and new forces set in motion by the Dominican preacher.

As Prior of San Marco, Savonarola not only instructed novices, as was his regular duty, but also led a laymen’s class which from small beginnings in the garden, grew until he was urged to preach from the pulpit. He felt that this invitation was a summons from on high.

On August 1, 1480, the church of San Marco was thronged as the monk who once had been a failure, returned to the same pulpit. As he began a scathing indictment of the corrupt church, licentious government and immoral laity, he cast the spell of the revivalist. The crowd of worshipers were gripped by hypnotic preaching power. The failure had become a magnetic success.

As the people continued to crowd the church at his preaching services, his denunciations and his invoking of the terrible last things predicted in the Book of Revelation became more directly related to the political and social issues of Florence.

The commercial involvements of Florence demanded the levying of interest on loans. Forty years before a preacher had been ejected from Florence because he had criticized usury. Savonarola thunderously condemned usury. While the ruling families were disturbed, Savonarola was too popular to be removed.

He condemned the clergy for corruption, greed and lust. He proclaimed this in a city where Lorenzo’s son, one day to be Pope, was made a bishop at the age of seven, and a cardinal when thirteen. The inter-relationships of the powerful, wealthy families and the ecclesiastical hierarchy were so locked in that Savonarola could not help but create lasting enmities. His popularity with the people may have temporarily postponed actions against him, but could not prevent ultimate retaliation.

The Medici family has stirred various arguments among historians. Did their benevolent paternalism, bountiful gifts to Florence and their commissioning of some of the greatest art ever produced outweigh their tyrannical rule of Florence, their control of the clergy and their abuses of the tax system? That question may be incapable of solution.

But Savonarola made it quite clear where he stood: “... we must proceed without too many scruples and speak frankly and openly. Tyrants are incorrigible because they are proud, because they love flattery, because they will not restore ill-gotten gains. They give a free hand to bad officials; they yield to flattery; they do not heed the wretched; they do not condemn the rich; they expect the peasants and poor to work for them for gratis or they allow officials to oppress them; ... and burden the people more and more. It is your duty, therefore, to root out dissension, to do justice, and to demand honesty of everyone.” (Roeder, p. 27).

Savonarola condemned parties, pleasure, pictures, statues, lewd books and fashionable clothing. All these were attributes of the wealthy society of gay, artistic Florence. But the public seemed undisturbed by corruption.

Lorenzo the Magnificent did not attempt to silence or remove Savonarola. This may be to the credit of the greatest of the Medici, for he had often demonstrated his ability to recognize the man of superior talents. One could also interpret his forbearance as a cautious waiting until Savonarola’s popularity waned among the masses of people.

In April 1492, when Lorenzo was dying, Savonarola was summoned to the death-bed. There are contradictory accounts of the confrontation between Lorenzo, archetype of Renaissance Man and Savonarola, the captive only of an overwhelming conscience.

The mysterious forces of history, life and death soon made their power evident in the life of Savonarola and the destiny of Florence.

In July 1492, Pope Innocent VIII died. His successor was Cardinal Roderigo Borgia, who assumed the papal throne as Alexander VI. Because this Pope was so utterly different from Savonarola, their ultimate and uncompromising clash was certain. Alexander VI was a self-indulgent sensualist, a seeker of special advantages for his four infamous children, Juan, the Duke of Gandia, Lucrezia Borgia, Cesare Borgia and a third son, lesser-known but not more virtuous.

The ascetic Savonarola, who had turned forever from the love of women and family when he was spurned by the Strozzi girl, increased the savagery of his indictments of particulars against clergy and ruling class.

At this time in history, France possessed the only standing army in Europe. When Charles VII became king of France, he determined to embark on an adventure for power with this impressive force. The city-states and papal kingdom of Italy seemed easy prey and an opportunity to re-establish empire.

When the French force threatened Florence, Piero Medici, the son of Lorenzo, went to the French camp with offers to negotiate, to permit the occupation of Florence, in return for which Charles VII would agree not to sack Florence.

Savonarola, with visions pressing on him, preached that the French army would overwhelm Florence for its sins just as God had overwhelmed a sinful world with a flood, saving only Noah and his family.

The fervor of Savonarola’s preaching so aroused the people of Florence that the Medici family was expelled and a people’s party, with the unifying cry, “people and liberty,” took command and ruled the affairs of Florence.

Savonarola, the Prior of San Marco, had no official post in the new government. Nevertheless he was the dictator of Florence. A new order set in immediately. A wave of puritanism changed public morality. The luxuries of the past became forbidden. A rigid system of supervision was installed whereby even the children were enlisted to spy on and report parents and other adults who might be indulging in the older ways.

In place of the spirit of Carnival, there was stern austerity and suppression. In a riot of fanatical, puritanical zeal, books, pictures, fashionable clothing, masquerade costumes were piled in the square and a torch set to the pile of “vanities.” The glare of leaping flames illuminated the excesses to which good men can go. Shakespeare said, “conscience doth make cowards of us all,” but Savonarola embodied the reality that conscience carried to fanatical extremes can make tyrants of us all.

Savonarola demonstrated surprising perception in the measures he promoted for Florence. He was entrusted with unofficial leadership because of his monastic background. He was presumed to be disinterested in partisan politics while committed to the needs of all.

He stood firm for the relief of poverty and unemployment. This note was sounded in his first public statement when the people’s party came to power, “Give over pomps and vanities, sell your superfluities and relieve the poor. Citizens, collect alms in all the churches for the poor of town and country. Give them, this year at least, the subsidies of the University of Pisa; and if that will not suffice, let us seize the vessels and ornaments of the churches and I shall be the first to contribute. But above all open the shops and give work to the people who stand idle in the streets.” (ibid, p. 56).

Reaction always comes; and this was to be the experience of Savonarola. The Reform movement was exhausting its momentum. At the Vatican, Alexander VI plotted and waited patiently for the right time and circumstance.

On July 25, 1495, Savonarola was summoned to report to Rome to answer charges that his preaching of prophecies was a violation of official doctrines. Savonarola evaded the summons, pleading ill-health. (this he could well do, as his health had been poor from the time of his severe adolescent depressions and visions.)

Savonarola based his religious and political evangelism on the Bible as he interpreted it – and it was a radical evangelism. He defended his loyalty to the Church, announcing he would always be obedient. But the real authority for his religion was disclosed by his statement which qualified his professed obedience, (however) “my superiors cannot command contrary to charity and the Gospel. I do not believe the Pope would ever do so; but if he did, I would say to him, you are no longer the Pastor, you are no longer the Roman Church, you err. I say whenever one can clearly see that the commands of one’s superiors are contrary to those of God and above all the precepts of charity, no one is bound to obey, for it is written: it is more important to obey God rather than man.”

Heresy hunters then had ample evidence to build a case which would eventually remove Savonarola.

Events maintained a steady progression. In September 1495, Savonarola was forbidden to preach by Pope Alexander VI. The following February, Savonarola returned to the pulpit, thus being openly disobedient. To add to the accumulation of charges, Savonarola called for a council of the Church to depose the Pope. In May of 1497, Savonarola was excommunicated by Alexander VI. On the following Christmas Day, almost four hundred and sixty-five years ago, Savonarola celebrated mass and served holy communion – a plain act of defiance.

The political and ecclesiastical plotting assumed subtle aspects. Not only must Savonarola be disposed of, but first, the people of Florence, already wearying of puritan reform, must be turned against the Prior and those monks of San Marco loyal to him.

A devious scheme took form. A Franciscan friar challenged Savonarola to ordeal by fire. Savonarola was not inclined to take this seriously, but his loyal monastic colleague, Fra Domenica Buonvicini eagerly accepted the challenge for Savonarola.

For the opposition, this would not do. Savonarola was finally driven to accept the challenge of ordeal by fire. The Vatican and the political parties set plans in motion to make this a circus event. Publicity was built up and the courtyard was crowded with people anxious to see Savonarola and his Franciscan challenger walk through flames, to discover which one would be preserved, and thus vindicated by a miracle of God.

Savonarola and his companions were ready. The Franciscan appeared and then went to confer with his superiors. Hours passed as the delays continued. The mob waited impatiently. In the manner of fickle crowds, they turned on Savonarola who somberly was waiting for the opposition to end conferences. He had no confidence that God would preserve him, but resignedly was willing to undergo the ordeal.

The ordeal was a debacle. The Franciscan friar never did re-appear ready to participate. Savonarola was the scape-goat; his followers fell away; the Pope knew the time was ripe to rid himself forever of the Florentine Reformer.

Savonarola was arrested and abused by the crowd. His two closest companions, Fra Domenica and Fra Silvestra were seized with him. For sixteen days Savonarola was tortured. One day he was subjected to the rack fourteen times. Sometimes he confessed under torture, but withdrew the statements after release from the instruments. Fra Domenica stayed faithful. No extremity of torture could make him say other than Savonarola was on a divine mission. Poor Silvestra yielded at the first sight of the rack and acknowledged himself and Savonarola guilty of every crime of which they were accused.

Even after days of prolonged torture, the inquisitors had so little of substance from Savonarola that they had to resort to a palpable forgery to present incriminating evidence. After all, he really was on trial for the influence he had on people who responded, even if only for a time, to an awareness of oppression and a hope for social, as well as theological redemption.

The accused were condemned to be executed. Alexander VI had sent word from the Vatican that Savonarola was to die, “even if he was a second John the Baptist.”

Permitted to gather together briefly, Savonarola, Silvestra and Domenica prayed together and found renewed strength to meet the awful death that awaited them.

Then came the ceremony of degradation. Sacerdotal robes were thrown on Savonarola and then roughly stripped by the bishop of Vasona, with the words, “I separate thee from the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant.”

Savonarola, spirit unquenched, warned, “From the Church Militant, yes. But not from the Church Triumphant. That is not within your power.”

First they were strangled on three crosses from which the perpendicular sections above the cross arms had been lopped off, so that the scene might not be too suggestive to the large crowd. Then the first were lighted and the bodies consumed. At dusk, the warm ashes were thrown into the river Arno, which flowed into the Mediterranean, through the pillars of Hercules, to all the oceans.

And the influence of Savonarola spread through all the world, touching the lives of Luther, Calvin, Knox – and all the reformers since. The flames of that funeral pyre in Florence became a beacon-light forever for those who believe in the necessity of the free soul to be the slave of one’s own conscience. The protest of Savonarola is one of the imperishable human illustrations of that great saying from the Proverbs, (20/27)

“Man’s conscience is the lamp of the Eternal, flashing in his inmost soul.”

The Renaissance – Humanism Re-asserted

December 9, 1962
Rochester

Sermon Series: Our Judeo-Christian Heritage
12. The Renaissance – Humanism Re-asserted

Renaissance Man or cheerful robot? There are possible destinies for man, the late C. Wright Mills pointed out in a searching essay, “On Reason and Freedom.” Professor Mills was speaking of modern man’s vulnerability to being turned into a robot, “by chemical and psychiatric means, by steady co-ercion and by controlled environment....” He also warned that man can become a “cheerful robot.” That is, the psychological needs and wants of man can be so manipulated that he will desire to become a robot without freedom to choose or influence his individual destiny.

What was “Renaissance Man” that he should represent the desirable goal of reason, freedom and creativity?

Although many historians write as though the Age of the Renaissance, usually dated from 1400 to 1525, was a miraculous sunrise, suddenly illuminating man as he came into modern times from the Middle Ages, the change was not explosive. There had been many omens and indications that a new age was to dawn for man and that it was to be one of the most spectacular periods in human history.

The Renaissance represented a revolt against the other-worldly attitude which had been clamped on European man by the medieval church. This life had been looked on as nothing in comparison with the heaven or hell of other-worldly destination. In the Renaissance, the value of this life and the worth of human abilities was re-asserted. This revival of learning, a complete change that seemed to inspire the ideas and creativity of man had numerous expressions:

There was a recovery of classic learning and literature.
The authority of the Church and the grasp of Empire weakened.
The search for truth shook off chains.
Invention and discovery were prime characteristics.
Artistic and literary creativity reached peaks of genius.
Human joy in living became reborn.

This love of life is well-expressed by the first lines of a hymn composed by Lorenzo, the most famous member of the wealthy house of the Medici:

“Let one loud song of praise arise
To God, whose goodness ceaseless flows.”

The city-state of Florence in Renaissance Italy was the superb example of the glory f the revival of learning and art. Under the patronage of the Medici family, creative artists, sculptors, architects, poets and scholars energized a whole tide of human creation that began to wash clean all the dusty corners and gloomy overlooks of the Middle Ages.

Florence demonstrated the great flowering of the fine arts in the Renaissance. Nothing could be compared to it since the days of the ancient, creative Greek classic culture. Many artists and sculptors of Florence and other city-states of Italy combined marvelous creativity with the technical skills of genius. To name Michelangelo, Ghiberti, [Brunelleschi], Frau Angelico, Botticelli, Raphael, is just to list some of the great creators.

Above all was Leonardo da Vinci, perhaps the most versatile genius ever known in the history of man. Leonardo represented in fullness another phase of the Renaissance, the all-around man. A genius in all fields, a sculptor, painter, inventor, designer, authority even today on perspectives of light and shadow, Leonardo encompassed all fields. With equal ease and facility, he could create admirable designs for irrigation ditches, mausoleums, machines for warfare or a two-tiered city. He designed the airplane and submarine centuries before these could become functioning machines.

During this age inventions and their applications changed the course of history: printing, paper, gunpowder, the mariners’ compass. Vast frontiers, promising wealth and power opened up for Europe.

Inserted note (apparently by Rev. Westman): Following delivery of this sermon, the valid criticism was made that printing, paper, gunpowder, the compass and the exploratory spirit were all characteristics of Asian and other non-European cultures long before the Renaissance. Notwithstanding this correction, it was during the Renaissance that the application of these discoveries became effective in Europe.

There are a number of key dates in this revival of learning and age of new frontiers: 1415, the printing press was used; in 1453, Constantinople fell to the Turks and the classical scholars fled to the West, bringing priceless ancient manuscripts with them; in 1492, Columbus discovered the New World.

Humanism was re-asserted as this creativity, love of learning and courage to explore, reflected a profound change in man’s way of looking at the world. There was a renewed claim for human values.

There is hardly a limit to the comment that could be made about the creativity of the artists who were inspired by the ancient Greeks, but not limited by them. Even the popes were patrons of the arts, disbursing wealth almost without restraint for the magnificent buildings and superb art. Julius II and Leo X were largely responsible for St. Peter’s. The Sistine Chapel, with Michelangelo’s ceiling memorialized another pope, Sixtus IV. Pope Nicholas V (1447-1455), had a staff of hundreds of classical scholars, studying and translating manuscripts so many scholars could become involved in studies. It was said that one time he gave 10,000 gulden for a translation of Homer into Latin verse. His library comprised 9,000 volumes.

But from the standpoint of our Judeo-Christian heritage, our particular debt to the Renaissance is of greater importance even than the enormous contributions of art, architecture and letters. In the Renaissance, the mental boundaries of man stretched, ranging wider than for at least one thousand years. Man became curious again. Inquiry became free as men examined pre-suppositions. Men began searching out what might be true and what might be false. Tolerance increased acceptance of the notion that there is more than one source for truth; that truth can be discovered in the classics that existed long before Christianity; that truth was not confined to the Church’s official doctrines and interpretations of scripture. This was a revival of the mind – a protest against limitations on knowledge. In it was an assumption that had been obscure in Christian Europe for too many centuries: that man is competent to learn about his universe, his fellow human beings and himself. So Renaissance Man began to inquire, to seek, to turn the powers of his curious mind to all the questions, the puzzles, the riddles of this wider mental world of his awakening.

Furthermore, it followed from this intellectual revolution against authoritarianism imposed on the mind, that man was returning to the Greek idea of the individual: the individual as a unique creation of a Cosmic Soul or Universal Order, who had the right to use his mind, his body and his environment to achieve the good life on this earth. Values were asserted which held high human life on this earth.

However, it would be an error to assume that Renaissance Man had forsaken the theology or sacraments of the Church. But he had widened his grasp to include various philosophies as well as official theology. In the Renaissance in Italy there were no new, enduring, strong religious movements established of which we have knowledge. As has been pointed out, the Church itself patronized the achievements of the intellect as well as the arts. But in this setting, human qualities began to prevail. The rigidity of a system of thought began to weaken which had fixed men’s minds only on salvation in another world, for which life here was but preparation. Instead there came to be held as a goal, the well-rounded personality seeking knowledge for its own sake – living in this world as a place of joy in which he may find fulfillment.

In all this there was the re-inforcement of the scientific spirit, because man now assumed he was competent to learn truth through experiment and to draw valid conclusions from testing. The truth could be thus achieved and this was far different from truth as pronouncements of dogma formed by councils and popes.

The great historian, Arnold Toynbee made the point in his STUDY OF HISTORY that there was a political re-establishment in the Renaissance which has been a continuing influence. In the Italian city-states, political control gradually passed from bishops and into the hands of boards of magistrates who were responsible to citizens. Again, this was related to the revival of the classic period, for this was the Greek or Hellenic idea of the city-state – governed by free people who live in it. Thus Renaissance Man re-asserted the ancient humanistic values: the inquiring mind, life on this earth which was prized, the integrity of scientific experiment and the wisdom of responsible political government.

However, Utopia had not arrived. The Italian Renaissance was not a seamless fabric of shining virtue. The increased opportunities for freedom also brought greater license. There was joy; there was vigor; there was a re-birth of learning; there was great beauty created. But these movements did not reform the church – Alexander VI, the incredibly evil Roderigo Borga was one of the Renaissance popes. The revival learning co-incided with the rapacity of the powerful, unscrupulous family groups which maintained control over money and politics. There was conspiracy, selfishness, murders. This was also the age when Machiavelli learned the lessons of political knavery well enough to immortalize his classic exposition of unholy expediency.

We shall consider next week how one man revolted against this new holiness granted unto beauty and reminded men sternly that the beauty of holiness was more important.

The German Reformation may have been a counterpart of the Italian Renaissance, but in another sense it was a reaction to it. The Renaissance did not cleanse the Church of greed, of misuse of power, of deceit. The Reformation had to come and then, also, the Counter-Reformation of the Latin Catholic Church. Both of these were in a sense balance weights of the Renaissance period.

In spite of these reservations which can be made to point out that the days of the Renaissance did not mark the inauguration of the Kingdom of God, ... the Renaissance re-asserted the human values of ancient Greece in a more modern setting; spurred great explorations which opened up new worlds of opportunity, even though despotism and exploitation also booked passage for the new worlds. The invention of printing made it possible to spread, not only the “Word of God,” but the words of mankind, to more and more seeking minds than had ever been the case in all the history of man.

The Renaissance, the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation and all the other momentous movements which have affected us, are significant for us by virtue of what we may recover of value from them and how we may use this wisdom in our time. The past is with us always, but there are many aspects of the past, some good and useful to us if we learn of them, and apply their wisdom to our time. But the past also has a record of infamy and harm to the human family. Knowledge of that should instruct us what not to do.

In his great study of THE CITY IN HISTORY, Lewis Mumford, speaking of Renaissance architecture, points out that in cities like Florence, the original Roman outlines of the city were still there during the Renaissance. The city was not newly created in the revival of art and learning. What Mumford maintains is that there was no Renaissance city. But rather, in the old order, patches of the new appeared. The new was characterized by openings, there were clarifications, there were modifications. As he says (p. 348), “if the new buildings with their impersonal gravity and decorous regularity break up the harmony of the Medieval pattern, they established a contrapuntal relationship which brings out, in contrast, otherwise unregarded, often invisible, the aesthetic qualities in the older streets and buildings, the theme itself remained Medieval. But new instruments were added to the orchestra and both the tempo and tonal quality of the city were changed.”

So it is with us today: the outlines of the old are marked upon us. The old as well as the new buildings are with us. Usually the outlines of the old are detectable. In some of the fascinating photo studies recently appearing in the newspaper, from the pictures taken from high above, one can see old scars on the land, identifying bygone roads and institutions. The world of religion and ideas is like that too. The old ways of imposed thought, iron custom, fixed doctrines, still have their brands deeply etched within us and stir our ancient and nostalgic emotions. But also, the spirit of the Renaissance Man is ours, his quest for truth; his resistance to any limitations to be placed on the acquisition of knowledge, his recognition, implicit in the search for truth, that the truth is a value which ever has newer dimensions of depth and breadth.

Most vital of all, perhaps is that the thinking man, wiling to take upon himself the agony, as well as the joy of choosing his alternatives for decision, as well as making decisions, is the only authentic obstacle in the way of those who would seek to recreate man as the “cheerful robot” or any other variety of automaton.

There is current timeliness in this recognition of the age when man would be free. Tomorrow, December 10, is the observation of Human Rights Day, marking the anniversary of the Charter of Human Rights of the United Nations. Next Saturday, December 15, is Bill of Rights Day, in commemoration of the date when the United States, aware that it was newborn to freedom, enacted the first ten amendments to the Constitution – the Bill of Rights – most precious of all our privileges of citizenship.

Things will go ill with the family of man if we neglect or ignore the best of our heritage from Renaissance Man: a strong awareness that to be human is to retain the authentic human privileges and obligations of freedom and individualism in a society that gives exercise to these values within an organic structure that never ceased to labor to make democracy real and effective.

The Age of Faith – Yearning for Piety and Hungry for Power

December 2, 1962
Rochester

Sermon Series: Our Judeo-Christian Heritage
11. The Age of Faith – Yearning for Piety and Hungry for Power

We will fail to do justice to the age of faith unless we appreciate the great yearning for piety that surged through the European lands lately Christianized. We will insufficiently apprehend the lessons of the times unless we also recognize that the age of faith was also a time of great struggles for political domination. The Church, among other institutions, was hungry for power.

I would speak to you today of the long periods of history in which vast changes occurred and new, vigorous movements marked the times. Beginning with the breakup of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, and continuing on through hundreds of years till the dawn of the Renaissance, so much happened that of necessity, there can be but scant treatment of the whole period. if the Age of Faith can be seen as one great historical canvas, we shall just stop here and there along its vast scene, singling out certain details for examination, in much the same way that a book, portraying some of the masterpieces of art of that period, the Flemish painters for example, will sometimes separate out and enlarge smaller scenes from the larger canvas.

In pointing out some of the great swings of contrast between piety and power, I would also refrain from raking over the stories of lurid immorality in monasteries and convents. That there was immorality and crude standards in those times, no one can doubt. But this was a rough age. It is a characteristic of the Church in any age not to rise a great deal above the culture of its times, for the Church is always a child of its times, as well as, hopefully, a leader in its times.

The ambivalent hungers for piety and power can be understood somewhat in terms of three great contrasts that marked the Church during this long age. First of all, there is the contrast of the feudal system with the centralized Church. Secondly, we would set off the idea of monasticism against the action of the Crusades. Then we would consider the inquisitor and the saint – the Inquisition and the other side of the coin, Francis of Assisi.

The first great tension was between feudalism and the Church. After the highly-developed secular bureaucracy of the Roman Empire had crashed, the feudal system grew on its ruins. When the Roman Empire disintegrated, there was no longer centralized police power or an empire tax system to keep the wheels of government turning. In order to survive, the poor man, the undefended man, the freeman pledge allegiance to a lord of a great estate. Young soldiers would attach themselves to a feudal lord, ready to fight battles, in return for which they would be fed, housed, and entertained. Secular government had become decentralized.

The growing centralized power of the Roman Catholic Church was in sharp contrast. Together with consolidation of church power was recognition that the Bishop of Rome was the head of the Church. During the crucial century when Rome was being so badly beaten by Barbarian invaders, there was a series of strong, courageous popes established in the bishopric of Rome. Innocent I (402-417) was an able administrator, courageous and vigorous who strengthened the claim that the Bishop of Rome had universal jurisdiction over the Church. Less than a generation later, Leo I asserted that the Bishop of Rome was supreme because he was in direct succession to Peter, who had the “keys to the Kingdom.” Leo was more a theological debater. When the Barbarians stormed toward Rome, Leo I confronted the invaders outside the gates and forbade them to sack Rome.

Perhaps as significant as the contrast of the centralized, powerful Church with decentralized feudalism, were other contributions that the church made during centuries of formation and growth.

Although the early part of this period is referred to as the “Dark Ages,” because ignorance was so wide-spread and government so unstable, it is fair to recognize that although there was mass ignorance, such literate civilization largely existed due to the influence of the church. Although many of the clergy were ignorant too, the books that were written were by monks, priests or clerks of the church. While nine out of ten people had no schooling whatsoever, were illiterate and uninformed, the one person in ten who had any schooling had been taught by the Church.

We should note, as C. C. Colton and other historians have pointed out, that although the Roman Catholic Church was a centralized ecclesiastical body in this period, with tentacles of power reaching out to all Christendom, the local parish system was the product of grass-roots loyalties in the villages, more than missionary stations established by Rome. Culturally, the local parish had evolved from pre-Christian times and circumstances. Before Christianity prevailed, the local chief had the right to build a temple to whatever local gods were worshiped, had the power to appoint the priest and the privilege of charging religious dues.

The difference between local organization and centralized authority was the cause of one of the most difficult struggles between Rome and the Kings who succeeded feudal lords. When Christianity was young, there had been considerable democracy in the election of bishops. Bishops were elected by members of the congregation, as well as by other members of the clergy. During and after the Barbarian conquests, this practice fell into disuse. In the so-called “pagan” religions, the tribal chiefs had appointed their priest, and they continued to do so, even though nominally they had become Christian converts. These tribal chiefs, predecessors of the feudal lords, treated the bishops not as representatives of the central church at Rome, but as their own subjects and tenants. Because later on the king too granted the bishop authority for office, and gave use of the episcopal lands and properties, the kings also demanded loyalty and income.

The popes at Rome insisted that the bishop’s office was not a privilege to be bestowed by a king, but a spiritual benefit conferred only by the bishop of Rome, properly in the apostolic line. That the bishop’s authority could be conferred by a layman was unthinkable to the bishop of Rome. But strong kings did make the appointments, time and time again.

This controversy known as “investiture” continued. This was not so much a prestige encounter for the honor of choosing a bishop, but more a struggle for wealth and power. By the end of the first thousand years of Christianity, the Church owned probably twenty-five percent of the land in every country in Christendom. If the king could not elect the bishops, he lost control of these lands, and political power as well as ecclesiastical would reside in Rome.

As nations emerged from feudalism, this contest between secular ruler and Roman pope intensified. English history has a classic illustration of this struggle between growing nationalism and the central Church. In the twelfth century, Henry II, King of England, appointed Thomas A. Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. Thomas A. Becket had been an able soldier and statesman, loyal chancellor for the king. Henry II had expected the loyalty of Thomas A. Becket to continue, and, consequently, the control of the vast estate and powers of Canterbury. Thomas A. Becket knew internal conflict. Should he serve his king or his pope? Significantly, he was ordained a priest the day before he was consecrated as Archbishop. His loyalty was to his Church. He opposed the encroachments of the State and Henry II in the affairs of the Church. Trouble began.

While forced to submit to the famous Constitutions of Clarendon, in 1164, Thomas A. Becket then repudiated his consent, escaping to France. Later he returned to England, but was murdered at the altar in Canterbury Cathedral by four retainers of Henry II.

While it is far from certain that Henry II authorized the murder in the cathedral, certainly this assassination starkly illuminated the contest between the State and the Church. Not only did Thomas A. Becket’s tomb at Canterbury become the shrine for the Canterbury Pilgrims immortalized by Chaucer, but even today, Becket’s life is the setting for one of the hit plays on Broadway this year, “Murder in the Cathedral.”

The question might very well be raised again seriously. Religious institutions are acquiring more and more land, tax-free, not only properties for churches and parochial schools, but also for non-profit enterprises, owned by religious institutions. The seeds of similar struggle may be being sown in our time. Eventually, if religious institutions become too powerful a force in the control of land and wealth in our nation, then again we may see a rebirth of the struggle which led to bitterness and bloodshed in the Age of Faith.

In the eleventh century and shortly thereafter, the Church won the victory. The stronger popes used the weapons of excommunication and interdict. When interdict was applied, priests were forbidden to perform the sacraments in a given country. The people were ignorant and superstitious for the most part. Bell, book, candle, wafer and wine were a strong influence so that even kings were forced to acknowledge the power and authority of Rome. Nationalism was somewhat thwarted. Centuries later it was to come into fullness of power and bubble in the ferment of the Reformation.

I would speak of another great contrast of this Age of Faith, representing differences between the yearning for piety and hungry for power. Almost from the earliest days of Christendom, deeply convinced Christians had been bothered by the difficulty of living a Christian life in a worldly culture. In the earliest days, individuals had escaped to the wilderness or caves, or stood on pillars, renouncing the evils of this world. Then came a time when some hermits saw the necessity of group living apart from the worldly temptations. Eventually there were many such orders, including Augustinians, Franciscans, Dominicans. Legislation or rules for group living were necessary. The Benedictine rule shows the nature of commitments which caused monasticism to become such an important influence in the Western World. Benedict (480-543) founded his movement at Monte Cassino, that location which became so well known during the bloody fighting during World War 2 in Italy.

Monks in the Benedictine community were require to pledge vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. After a year’s trial period, the vows were irrevocable. The Abbot must be obeyed. A monk was required to worship at least four hours every day, in at least seven periods of prayer.

Of no less importance were the vows of poverty and chastity. The vow of poverty prevented acquisitions. As this was a celibate order, the monks had no descendants to whom they could leave property. Therefore all property acquired belonged to the Benedictine order. Of great significance was the rule that physical labor was to be a standard work experience of all monks. The Benedictine rule made work a sacred obligation that the committed man was required to perform. The centuries had not been many since the domination of classical society where physical work had been considered degrading, to be performed by slaves. Under the Benedictine rule, and other monastic orders followed suit, work became sacred and honored. Because of work in monastery shops and intelligent tilling of the fields, surplus accumulated and the monastic orders tended to become wealthy.

Like most human institutions, following initial period of growth and achievement, monasticism suffered a decline. There were abuses, corruption, immorality. But about the time of the Norman conquest of England (1066), there was a monastic revival. Known as the Cluniac reforms, led by the great Bernard of Cluny, the monasteries again assumed an important place in the life of the church and the world. Many of the monks had become powerful leaders of the Church. They were teachers and missionaries.

Nor were the monasteries devoted entirely to accumulating stores of goods for themselves and establishing honor and power for the Church. While some historians may exaggerate the contribution of the monastic orders, [it was] there [that] histories and chronicles of the times were written, copies of sacred books made. The monasteries were not only the schools, they were the hospitals as well as the libraries of the age. Sir Arthur Bryant (MAKERS OF ENGLAND) says, “That in the days of no hotels, newspapers or post, the monasteries with their international organization were the means of communicating news, learning, crafts and discoveries.”

The monastic movement was one of the more important social movements of the Age of Faith. It has had a direct bearing on movements in the Western World since. There are scholars who believe that the early Benedictine movement, with its emphasis on work, prudence and thrift in a situation where the individual was not able to accumulate wealth separately from the order, was one of the important fore-runners of the Capitalist system.

If the monastic movement at its best represented the constructive application of the yearning for piety, the Crusades represented one of the bloodiest swindles in the name of religion. For about one hundred years, the Crusades occupied a good deal of the attention of the people of Europe. Pope Urban II called the First Crusade (1096). In some ways it was a concept that would unify the separate feudal lands and nations with the Holy Roman centralized Church. Urban II asserted the rule of the papacy over all disunited Europe. In a time of economic distress in Europe, men would be kept busy by going to the Holy Lands to recapture the holy places from the Moslems. They could help their separated Christian brothers in Eastern Orthodoxy by helping defend Constantinople against the Turks who were threatening that center of Eastern power.

Venice, Genoa and Pisa managed to acquire the contracts for transporting and supplying the Western armies in the Holy Land. In so doing, they acquired lucrative trade monopolies in silk, glass and other commodities from the Middle East. Slave-trading became extensive and profitable. The pathetic Children’s Crusade resulted in great numbers of children being sold into Moslem slavery, if they managed to survive the unseaworthy vessels and awful conditions.

Under the name Crusade and the symbol of the cross, there [was] plunder, raping, extortion. The cruelties exerted against Moslems and Jews in Jerusalem are almost beyond stating. When the Christians captured Jerusalem, they slaughtered so many Moslems and Jews that it was said that the blood ran as high as horses’ knees. Not the least of the consequences of these Crusades was the enduring suspicion of Moslems toward the Christian world.

One of the vicious consequences of the idea of Crusades to the Holy Land against the “infidel,” was that those who could not go to the Holy Land, or did not want to, turned against heretics and Jews at home. These home crusaders labored under the bigoted mis-apprehension that if they could not go to the Holy Land and kill Turks, they could stay at home and kill Jews. In the cities along the Rhine River where the many Jews were concentrated in pursuit of commercial occupations, there were horrible massacres.

In this same period, the Church turned on the Albigensians in Southern France, labeled them heretics. They were tortured and dispersed in the internal Crusade to destroy heresy. Here the Inquisition began its sinister operations.

This leads to the third striking contrast that we see reflected in this age of piety and power – the Inquisitor as against the Saint.

Of all the encroachments upon human liberty and human dignity in Christian history, the Inquisition is probably the most notorious. The Inquisition was organized to search out, not bad people, but non-conforming people, people who had interpretations of religious experience other than the dogmas officially pronounced by the Church. Augustine laid the theoretical groundwork for the repression of non-conformity in his influential theology. The Crusade against the Albigensians led to the founding of the Inquisition.

With the appearance of the Inquisition, opportunity for expansion within the society of the Middle Ages seemed to be ended. Society officially became closed – closed Church – closed doctrine, closed state of mind. Those who did not obey, those who did not renounce their heresy, were condemned to torture and frequently execution. Under some popes, the horrors were somewhat lessened than under the more militant. The abuses of the Inquisition are a long and painful story, a testimony to the abuses which can be a consequence of the hunger for unquestioned and unlimited power to make men conform. The official opinion was that a person was better off being tortured into conformity to the Church than permitted to live in freedom. If this was honest conviction, then certainly it was mistaken, and has done incredible harm everywhere it has been exerted against human rights. Nothing is more clear in history, than all institutions which have pretended infallibility, and assumed all power, have soon demonstrated that they do not have all the truth, and should not have had all power. The non-conformist, the heretic has provided the alternation which has meant growth in wisdom, stature and the rights of man.

If hunger for power created the Inquisition and put a blot on Christian history, then this same age of faith also produced Francis of Assisi, whose gentle piety remains one of the remarkable instances of spirituality in men. Francis has been called “the only Christian since Christ.”

Son of a cloth merchant, christened by John Bernadone, Francis was a leader in his youth with no strong interest in religion. He seemed to have little use for learning, being more interested in sports and soldiering. Recovering from battle wounds, he abandoned his soldier’s life, although conversion seemed a gradual process. He was concerned for poor people, giving them affection and help. He cared for sick people, even the most ravaged leper received his love and care. Because he completely rejected worldly goods and power, Francis was thought to be insane by many men, including his father. For years he went about, laboring with his hands, working for the restoration of chapels.

Experiencing a vision in 1209, he believed that the command had come from Christ to preach the good news of the kingdom. Gathering a few disciples, they committed themselves to poverty. Happily singing, clad only in robes of undyed wool, they went about trying to serve all God’s creatures. They loved nature. Their commitment was to the most poor, humble and sick.

Francis prepared a simple rule for his brotherhood and secured the approval of the Pope. Not a heretic, Francis was anxious to serve the Church obediently. But he felt strongly moved by Christ’s injunction to give all one’s goods to the poor, take up one’s cross and follow.

Francis went on the Crusades; he visited Moslem camps in an effort to bring about peace. Still coming strongly to us down through the ages is his radiant serenity. So deep was his spiritual commitment, it was said there appeared on Francis’ body the stigmata, the wounds of Christ, nailmarks on hands and feet. This appearance of stigmata was apparently the first time it had appeared in Western Christendom, at least. Francis was the first to set up a crèche at Christmas. He did this, not to set up a collection of toys, but because of the feeling that the mighty and the theologian should be warned, “behold your God, a poor and helpless child.”

Francis lived long enough to see his ideals betrayed. The Franciscan order eliminated the requirement of poverty and became rich and powerful, rivaling the other orders.

When civil war was threatening Assisi, Francis sent the contending powers a hymn of peace hoping they would listen to his words where he said,

“Praise my Lord for those who for thy love forgive
Content, unavenged in quietness to live.
Bless those who in the way of peace are found
By thee O Lord most high
Shall they be crowned.”

He is a Catholic saint whose life, work and influence all may respect.

The Age of Faith was rough and stormy with many tides of power-struggle washing many shores. Most of the people were unlearned and illiterate. Many of the beliefs in magic, demons and other superstitions of Norsemen, Teuton, Celt and Slav remained entrenched in their attitudes. Always there was compromise with religions that existed. The old temples became Christian churches; the old festivals, Christian celebrations. Many of these compromises and assimilations were probably unavoidable in order for more enlightened aspects of Christianity to begin to have influence among men. In the rhythms of yearning for piety and hunger for power, many things did emerge which were good for culture.

Perhaps the greatest inspiration coming to us from the age of faith may be not so much the struggles and wars, but the lives of men of courage and conviction, who because of what religion meant to them, risked life and safety, time after time.

Consider Patrick, the missionary to Ireland: Grandson of a priest, raised as a Christian, seized in a raid in the 5th century, he was a slave in Ireland for six years. Escaping, he became a member of a monastic order on the coast of France; in 432 was ordained as a missionary bishop, went back to Ireland where he labored until his death in 471. Here was a man returning voluntarily to the land where he had been a slave. He braved the wrath of the Barbaric slave-trading princes of Tara’s hall. It is said, (Sir Arthur Bryant) that Patrick faced the king and his druid magicians and said, “I have cast myself on almighty God and he shall sustain me.”

From the work of such men as he did the nations grow. Good men nurturing ideas that are great, have helped preserve the seed of many of the great ideals we cherish and the worthy goals we seek. Always men and women of understanding and conviction must be alert to push back the power-hungry who would seize control of the minds and rights of men. But always too, if we are wise, we shall be alert to those people of authentic piety who see in the moral, mental and physical welfare of their fellow human beings, the way to identify with the God of all things.

Augustine - Index to an Age

November 25, 1962
Rochester

Sermon Series: Our Judeo-Christian Heritage
10. Augustine - Index to an Age

When Rome was at its weakest, a strange man, brilliant of mind and passionate of spirit, provided the strongest individual influence ever made on the Christian Church. The Roman Catholic Church calls him "Saint" Augustine. The Protestants do not call him "Saint," officially, but the theology of John Calvin, and Martin Luther as well, were molded by Augustine. Liberals have acquired greater understanding of their own principles and methods by reacting to Augustine's dogmatic theology of the Trinity, Original Sin, Grace, Pre-Destination and the Sacraments.

An African, he was the pre-eminent figure in the history of the Catholic Church. In a very real sense, he was the draftsman of Western Christianity.

In common with all men who have molded history, Augustine cannot be understood apart from his times. He experienced the Roman Empire throughout his lifetime only as a state rapidly weakening, as it attempted to withstand the barbarians pressing in from the German forests; crowding in from the Asian steppes. When he was thirteen years old, the Picts and the Scots, far from North Africa, successfully invaded England. DV2911US When Augustine was in the maturity of his career, the remnant of the Roman Legions left England in a last valiant attempt to bolster weaker parts of the Empire.

There is no one reason why the Roman Empire fell. Nearly every theory that is advanced is plausible; but all are incomplete. In all such judgments, perhaps the total is greater than the sum of the parts. There is an intangible thing which has been called, "the fullness of time" in all sweeping changes and movements. It was long past the fullness of time for Rome's greatness. It was the fullness of time for her decline. Yet in one cultural sense, Rome never fell. The legal, political, CIVIL government was transformed into a legal, political ECCLESIASTICAL government. The years of Augustine's lifetime witnessed the frailty and decline of Emperors and Roman legions, but these years also knew the growing strength of the Church as a powerful institution with vigorous leadership.

If one isolates the one hundred years from 350 to 450 A.D., one would be hard-pressed to discover another century, except the first century, where there have been more competent or powerful men upholding the Christian faith. There was a backdrop of declining Rome; and in the foreground of the stage of history, there was the shifting scenery of dogma. Among the great men achieving honor and glory for the Church in this significant century was Ambrose, elected Bishop of Milan in 374. Ambrose feared God but not emperors. It is possible that because of his wisdom, Augustine was gathered to the Church.

It was in this same century that Augustine, the great theologian, fixed for Roman, Calvinistic, Lutheran and other branches of mainstream Christianity, the theological foundations of the doctrines of the Trinity, Church and State, Sacraments, Freedom of Will or lack of it, and he pointed up the mystic ideal. A most vexing question, which perhaps implies the most pathetic of answers, did Augustine also make the final muddling and the complete confusion of message, spirit and the contribution of Jesus?

We know more about Augustine than almost any great leader of the early period. His "Confessions," one of the great classics of Christian literature, tell us a great deal about his life, even more about his temperament; and to the critical eye, a great deal is disclosed as to what made Christianity the kind of theological religion that it is.

On the 13th of November, in the year 354, in the city of Thagaste in North Africa, there was born of Monica, a devout Christian woman, and a father who was a "pagan" and a freeman, a baby boy they called Augustine. In later years, Augustine would look critically at his own boyhood as he recalled youthful delinquencies, but he seemed to have had a normal boy's life. He played ball, preferring it to learning. He was somewhat scornful of adult occupations and labors. He said this was the "idleness they call business." He liked the epic stories from antiquity, but balked at proper study of his Latin grammar. He went on raids with other boys, stealing apples from orchards, getting great pleasure out of the fellowship of the "gang." Augustine's teachers thought he showed great promise. While in his home he received Christian training from his devout mother, Monica, and while he seemed to accept her instruction passively, there may well have been religious tensions in the house. His father was a non-Christian, a "pagan," although at a later time in his life, he may have taken instruction in the Christian faith.

Christian history probably has not been sufficiently appreciative of this “pagan” father, because he sacrificed enough so that Augustine could receive advanced education at Madura, a neighboring city. At school, Augustine showed commendable progress in the study of grammar and rhetoric.

Augustine lived in a time and place where promiscuity was the rule, not the exception. Greco-Roman-Oriental culture, except in those places where Christian rules for sexual conduct prevailed, was heavily larded with sensuality. Monica wanted to restrain the self-indulgence and the passionate drives of young Augustine. In what may have been rare faithfulness for his time, Augustine took one girl for a mistress and remained faithful to her for some years. But he was etching a rut of self-indulgence which was to cause him great inner storms of guilt later in his life. To this union of Augustine and his mistress, a son, Adeodatus, was born.

When Augustine completed his studies at Madura, he returned home to teach rhetoric. After a stay at home, he went to Carthage at the age of seventeen. He enjoyed the sophisticated life of that cosmopolitan center, following the drama, other arts and pleasures available in the large city.

Augustine’s great intellectual ability was recognized at this early age as he was made head of the school of rhetoric in Carthage. Augustine’s sensual life did not entirely overwhelm everything else. He yearned for wisdom. He was stimulated to search for understanding insight by studying the works of the great Roman, Cicero. Probably because mother Monica urged it, Augustine investigated and studied the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Interestingly enough, at this period of his intellectual life, he rejected those scriptures as not being on the same high scholarly level as the Latin classics. He was impressed by the dualistic religion of Manicheism and studied its teachings. Ten years passed while he taught, took his pleasures, studied, debated. Then came a climax, one of many in his life. Bishop Faustus of the Manicheans visited Carthage. For nine years, Augustine had anticipated the meeting. But Faustus proved a disappointment, for he could not answer the questions of the young rhetorician. Augustine concluded that the education of the bishop had been superficial and bothered no more with this dualistic, Asian competitive religion to Christianity.

Augustine, restless, searching, decided to go to Rome. He thought that there the discipline would be better among the students. (Note to teachers: some things are never new.) Although Monica objected, Augustine took his mistress and their young son and set said for Rome where he was to teach his major field, rhetoric. The Bishop of Milan was one of the great men of the age. Ambrose was a fearless leader, eloquent preacher, learned scholar, sensitive to the rhythms of poetry and music in the church. Augustine admired Ambrose; went to hear him, not so much concerned about the theology Ambrose was preaching, but rather as an appreciative critic of eloquence and style. But under the influence of this brilliant bishop, Augustine begins to wonder if there are not some great truths in the Catholic faith. He decides to make inquiries and accept instruction.

His mother, Monica, ever-prayerful, ever-devout (and if one may judge from references in the “Confessions,” apparently ever-weeping), followed Ambrose to Milan, still hoping and praying that her son would turn to Christianity. She arranged for Augustine to be married to a maiden of “suitable station,” but for whom Augustine would have to wait two years. Then, in perhaps the least forgivable action of the lives of Augustine and Monica, his mistress of many years is sent back to Africa alone. Augustine, his son Adeodatus and Monica remain in Milan. Looking backward, it is much easier to have sympathy for the woman who remained faithful to Augustine for many years, even though no marriage occurred, than for Augustine’s mother, who probably tried for years to persuade Augustine to do what he finally did, get rid of the girl whom he had loved and who was the mother of his son.

Augustine continued his studies. He studied Plato as well as the doctrines of Christianity. Christian converts told Augustine and his friend, Alypius, the story of the monk, Anthony, who resisted temptations in the desert. The two pagan scholars were greatly impressed. One day in the garden in Milan, Augustine was waging a great inner struggle, which he records in Book 8 of the “Confessions.” At the height of the battle between his yearnings for Christianity and his habit of skeptical philosophical analysis, not to speak of his troubles with his own sensuality, he thinks he hears a child, as in a game, say, “take up and read.” Augustine picked up a book which opened to Paul’s letter to the Romans. The first lines he read were, “not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof.” (Rom. 13/13). That moment was the great conversion experience for Augustine. The bright light of Christian truth seemed to illumine his soul. Very soon afterwards, on Easter Sunday in the year 386, Augustine, his son Adeodatus, and his friend Alypius were baptized by Bishop Ambrose in the cathedral at Milan.

Monica had seen her fondest dreams come true. She prepared to return to North Africa, but was not destined to reach there. At the seaport of Ostia, after a conversation which Augustine records in the “Confessions,” with words mystical and uplifting, she died happy.

Soon after his mother’s death, Augustine returned to Thagaste in North Africa to form a community of religious men in the countryside. Later this society was to become the model of the Augustinian type of monastic life. (We might recall that among the great Augustinians, more than a thousand years later, was Martin Luther.)

Augustine now had ample time to use his powers of mind for the very intensive study of the scriptures. But this serene, academic life was not to continue very long. In 390, he was asked to go to Hippo, one of the important cities of North Africa, to give advice to a friend who was troubled by religious questions. In Hippo, Bishop Valerius ordained Augustine, somewhat against Augustine’s wishes. Four years later, he became the official colleague of the bishop – co-adjutor bishop he would be called today. Soon he was to become Bishop of Hippo when his aged predecessor died.

The date is significant. It was in the same year, 395, that the Emperor Theodosius, died in Milan. Theodosius was the last Roman emperor to reign over the whole Empire. After his death, the empire was divided – Rome and Constantinople. Rome was soon to fall. Alaric, the Arian Goth was to overwhelm Rome in 410. The traditional date of Rome’s final fall is dated 476, usually, when Odacer assumed the throne of the Caesars.

During the thirty-six years that Augustine was Bishop of Hippo, he wrote an incredibly large quantity of theological discourse. His point of view has been the most influential in the entire history of the Christian Church.

He wrestled with every theological and philosophical controversy of his day. In the Christian world, wherever there was a battle between the minds of men, Augustine’s brain and ready pen would be engaged in the contest. He wrote treatises on the Trinity, Original Sin, Baptism, Grace and innumerable other aspects of doctrines. Although Augustine insisted on the authority of the bishops, he also based his theological arguments on the authority of the scripture. Therefore, he was the supporter of both the Roman Catholic doctrine of the authority of the Church and also the Protestant Reformation doctrine of the authority of scripture.

Of considerable interest to us should be the famous controversy between Augustine and the British monk, Pelagius. Pelagius would have appealed to most of us because he was a fore-runner of the kind of religious thinking which has been a continuing emphasis in our liberal religious movements in the last two hundred years. Augustine was convinced man was born depraved, with no hope of salvation other than the Grace of God, a salvation pre-destined for the elect few. Pelagius on the other hand, used reason in arriving at his theology. Pelagius disavowed the doctrine of original sin. He believed every soul born was born pure [and] that human nature, because it is created by God, is basically good. Man possesses the freedom to choose good from evil in his life. Pelagius said, “everything good and everything evil is done by us, not born with us.”

The issue revives again and again in religious history, will do so again, “Does God save man or does man save himself?”

Augustine, fiery, intense, goaded by his own feelings of guilt about his youth, convinced that man was helpless, must always lean for strength on God, not himself, engaged in strenuous literary warfare with Pelagius. The arguments Pelagius used would be more persuasive to us now, but Augustine won the decision then. Pelagius, calm of mind, known for integrity, master of himself, apparently was no match for the dogmatic controversialist, Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. Augustine was able to get the teachings of Pelagius declared officially “heretical.”

Fearing a free market in theological ideas, Augustine insisted on the authority of the Church even to the extent of using force in dealing with alleged unbelievers. Misusing a text from a parable of Jesus, “compel them to come in,” (Luke 14/23) Augustine established the theological groundwork which led to the later persecutions and intolerance of the Medieval Church.

Augustine was extremely influential too in fixing the position of the medieval Catholic Church when he composed his great treatise, THE CITY OF GOD. This book was inspired by the fall of Rome to the Goths under Alaric in 410 A.D. THE CITY OF GOD was a comprehensive statement of the Christian faith seen in the fading light of a world that was dying. Augustine said that there were two kingdoms, one the kingdom of this world, the other the city of God. The city of Rome – the city of man – might be passing. It must decline, said Augustine, in order that the city of God may come to power. even though present times are bad, said Augustine, better times are coming. There will be a golden age when the city of God rules over men. Although this great treatise, “The City of God,” has many intellectual flaws from the viewpoint of the 20th century, the proposition was then a new conception of the old Messianic hope. A winsome standard of faith was established which captured the allegiance of the medieval Church. THE CITY OF GOD had a profound influence too on the coming assertion that the Church overruled the State. The State was subservient to the Church, which was the visible representative of the invisible and spiritual City of God. The City of God was ideal, spiritual, heavenly and superior to the earthly and the material. Augustine saw the City of God and the Catholic Church as identical. This reasoning by Augustine’s capable mind did much to establish principles which later led the medieval papacy to assert the Church should rule the State.

This division affects our lives even today. The present controversies of Church and State can be traced to the conflict of ideologies represented by the encounter of the City of God with the City of Man.

Although Augustine’s theological works did much to influence the future of the Church, perhaps the most intriguing side of his many-faceted character was his mystic piety. In his remarkable “Confessions,” we have a fascinating disclosure of his personality, his feeling of mystic identity with God. His famous first lines where he comprehends the entire relationship with God will endure, “our hears are restless until they find rest in Thee.” There are insights in the Confessions, which are helpful to achieving inner peace. Consider this insight about anger or malice against others, “As if any enemy could be more hurtful than the hatred with which he is incensed against him; or could would more deeply him whom he persecutes than he wounds his own soul by his enmity. Assuredly no science of letters can be so innate as the record of conscience, that his is doing to another, what from another he would be loth to suffer.”

It is also part of candor to say that with all its meditative beauty, when one reads Augustine’s Confessions, one can get the impression that Augustine never did solve his youthful stresses and guilt over boyhood peccadilloes and adult passions. One reads the “Confessions” rather fruitlessly waiting for Augustine to think of others beside himself. The wait is vain. For the most part Augustine thinks only of God and himself. There seems to be little understanding of association with his fellow human beings, serving them and enjoying their company. The only mature friendship he tells about is that with Alypius, and that seems a rather pale association. Even Augustine’s love affairs seem for him to be in a framework of self-reference. Along with all his great mind, Augustine seemed to have a psychic flaw which limited him. Even though he enjoyed a seemingly complete and wonderful mystic fellowship with God, this should have brought him closer to his fellow human beings, rather than separating him from them, as seemed to be the case.

Any appraisal of this Father of the Church is bound to be incomplete, with virtues unmentioned and vices unlisted. Yet, acknowledging all the criticisms that can be made of his dogmas and his self-centeredness, it is also true that when his city, Hippo, of which he was Bishop, was stormed by the Vandals in 430, Augustine remained in the city as month after month the siege went on. Augustine falling seriously ill, requested that the penitential psalms (including 7, 32, 38, 51, 130, 143) be posted on the walls of his bedroom so that he might meditate on them in his dying hours. On August 28, in the year 430, as Gaiseric was leading the Vandals through the gates of Hippo, Augustine died, bringing to a close a long, turbulent life of achievement for the Church he first scorned and then came to love.

The Roman Empire of the State was disintegrating. The Roman Empire of the Church was gathering strength and Augustine was the greatest builder of its theological foundations.

The Church Becomes Official

November 11, 1962
Rochester

Sermon Series: Our Judeo-Christian Heritage
9. The Church Becomes Official

To change from being a voluntary association of believers, few in number, to being the official religion of the Roman Empire, with every citizen compelled to acknowledge that religion, is to move from a better to a poorer religion. Co-ercion is always less moral than freedom. Such a radical alteration occurred before Christianity was four centuries old.

We have observed how the church changed from fellowships of simple believers to formal organization, ruled by the bishop , expressed in sacrament and liturgy by a hierarchy, with conformity guaranteed by a creed. The Church changed toward these ways in the first two hundred years in order to confront heresies, define the differences in religions and simplify the instruction of uneducated converts. If it is regrettable that the Church gave up spontaneity for formality in the first two hundred years, it is deplorable that the succeeding two centuries culminated in the end of freedom and the sovereignty of compulsion. This, then, is an account of a sequence of growth, persecution, tolerance and tyranny. The relevance of this segment of Christian history is found in the question, what should make religion binding upon people?

By the time the third century began, the organization of the Christian Church had expanded. The bishop required numerous assistants for the work of their dioceses. The organization had become formal. The efficient and far-flung administrative system of the Roman Empire was a model for the Church and religious bureaucracy, too, touched all parts of the Empire. The Church had grown considerably in numbers, but still claimed only a small fraction of the people. Most scholars calculate that perhaps one in twenty persons in the larger cities had adopted Christianity. A controversy, not likely to ever find unanimous agreement, was the status of the Bishops of Rome in the early centuries. Roman Catholic thought has insisted for centuries that the Bishops of Rome have been the successors of Peter, were "keepers of the keys," and unquestioned voice of authority in faith and morals for all Christians. Historians find no unquestioned evidence for the pre-eminent place of the Roman Bishop for centuries after Christian beginnings. There is considerable historical evidence that the bishops of all cities were equal in authority. Furthermore, when one studies Christian beginnings, there is a much more persuasive case to be made that Paul, not Peter, was the founder of the Christian Church.

In the second and third centuries, although growth was slow, there was a dynamism of ideas and vigor of spirit which was beginning to make its mark on the ancient world.

The effects were observable in ways that would impress us today. As the historian Hans Lietzmann observes, "A number of callings were not reconcilable with Christianity, and had to be given up when application was made. Here were included not only ... prostitution, but also the disreputable arts of the actor, the gladiator, the racing chariot driver.... Naturally, the priest of a pagan temple, an astrologer, or other soothsayer was inadmissible. A sculptor or painter had to undertake not to depict gods, and a schoolmaster was recommended to abandon his calling because he was required to deal with pagan mythology in the course of giving instruction.... A soldier had to undertake not to kill and not to swear oaths; anyone already Christian was forbidden to become a soldier." (HISTORY OF THE EARLY CHURCH, Vol. II, p. 151-2)

In spite of the growth of creeds, there was continuous intellectual ferment. There was a wide variety of interpretations of Christianity, as different emphases of oriental and Greek thought mingled with, or confronted, Judaic and early gospel teachings. The famed Christian teacher, Clement of Alexandria, (d. 215), spoke of Christian differences as the "blooming of a hundred flowers."

The centuries before the Church became official were the times of persecution, too. In spite of dramatic legends and colorful books of martyrs, the historians approach the matter of persecution of Christians with considerable caution. That persecution of Christians began when Nero sought to divert suspicion towards them as arsonists who burned Rome, seems well-founded. Equally assured is the opinion that persecution was sporadic, at widely-spaced intervals. Origen, the famous Christian philosopher of the 2nd century, reported that the number of martyrs was not considerable. (See Gibbon, Ch. 16, DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, p. 104-5). Gibbon, whose knowledge of ancient sources is astonishing, commented, "But I cannot determine what I ought to transcribe, till I am satisfied what I ought to believe." (Ibid, p. 144)

If, because of our limited knowledge of fact, we should be reserved about persecution by the Roman Empire on any wide-spread and persisting basis, we may also recognize with appreciation, that there were Christians who gave up their occupations because of inconsistency with Christian standards, that there were Christian soldiers who threw down their weapons because they were convinced that the way of Jesus was one of peace and non-violence, that there were Christian martyrs who died in the arenas because for them, death as a Christian was much better than life as a lapsed Christian. Anyone who considers this quality of devotion as unremarkable should also confront his own degree of willingness to permit his religion to interfere with his job, his patriotism or his life.

The advent of toleration and subsequently, a favored position for the Christian Church, comprises a congruence of remarkable men and dramatic events. Sometimes I wonder, that if Jesus could have foreseen the Emperor Constantine, the Council of Nicea and the official sovereignty of Christianity, whether this wandering preacher of the Kingdom of God would have ever spoken a word or raised a finger.

The Emperor Constantine had to eliminate rival Caesars before he became sole ruler of the Empire. What sort of man was this ruler who paved the way for Christianity to become official? Christian writers have heaped adulation upon him, but the more realistic historians have viewed Constantine as a shrewd, ambitious politician who appraised Christianity as possessing the vigor and charm which would aid him in the consolidation of power.

In 311, before the contest for empire was decided, Constantine and Galerius issued an edict of toleration to Christians. This was hardly more than grudging concession; by no means an emancipation proclamation.

Omens for the future were best illustrated by one of the most famous and least substantial myths of Christianity. In 312, when preparing for battle against Maxentius, his chief rival in the West, Constantine asserted that he saw a lighted cross in the sky, with the words, IN HOC SIGNO VINCES, (in this sign thou shalt conquer.) (The Nazarene, Jesus, had become the God of War!) The vision may have been myth, but Constantine did win the battle of Milvain Bridge. From that time on, Constantine was the friend and protector of Christianity. Although not baptized until his deathbed, he acted as the determined sponsor of the Christian Church. He rebuilt churches; returned property formerly confiscated and he freed clergy from the necessity of military service. (One historian reports that Constantine by this exemption created the problem of a rush of wealthy citizens seeking ordination. See 20 CENTURIES OF CHRISTIANITY, Hutchinson and Garrison, Harcourt & Brace, 1959, p. 49-51.)

Shortly after deposing of his last rival, Constantine was instrumental in the organization of the Council of Nicea, 325 A.D. This was one of the most important gatherings in all Christian history. The issue was theological, but Constantine wanted an end to controversies, because they interfered with his planning that a new universal Christian religion would be a support and a harmonizing influence in the "new Rome" which he planned would see an end to the decay and decline of Empire.

The theological dispute concerned the nature of Jesus Christ. Arius, a distinguished churchman of Alexandria, leader of Eastern thought, believed that Jesus was a created being. God was eternal, but Jesus was not. "The Son has a beginning, but God is without beginning." Arius believed Jesus to be God, but not one with the Father in "essence or eternity." Bishop Alexander of Alexandria took a different position. To him, the Son was uncreated, of the same essence of the father, eternal from the beginning.

Constantine, concerned with unity in the Empire called a council of the entire Church. Constantine provided transportation to Nicea for all the ecclesiastical delegated, from all over the Empire. Probably there were 318 bishops, each with his own retainers. The total number involved must have reached two thousand. Thus, as historian Philip Schaff noted, here at Nicea, there was a union of ecclesiastical council and the political state, wherein the Christian Church was vested with imperial power, but subservient to the Emperor.

There were several matters to be debated, but the Arian dispute was the most important. On May 20, 325, the sessions were opened in the Imperial Palace, with regular meetings beginning after Constantine, clad in cloth of gold, studded with precious stones, was seated in a golden chair.

The debate ensued and the position of Arius, argued by Eusebius of Caesare, was soon rejected and a compromise formula sought. Constantine, knowing that Arianism was not popular in the Western part of the Empire, (north Africa, Rome, Gaul, Spain), was influential in the adoption of the Nicene definition, which, while it failed to satisfy everybody, all but two bishops signed the creed. These two, along with Arius, were sent into exile by Constantine. The writings of Arius were burned. Book-burning seems an irresistible temptation to those who get unrestrained power. Constantine might have hoped that he had secured the results he wanted, but synods as soon as two years later questioned every conclusion of Nicea. There were to be more church councils before the Christian church could define or refine its orthodoxy. One is in progress in Rome at this moment, the Second Vatican Council.

The beliefs of Arius persisted for hundreds of years, despite official disapproval and censorship. The Germanic tribes, converted to Christianity by Arian missionaries, maintained this theological position until the 8th century at least. Socinianism, the 15th century Hungarian fore-runner of Unitarianism, could be considered a re-statement of the Arian position in the Nicean controversy.

Although Constantine favored Christianity, he did not make this religion compulsory. But fifty years later, the Church became official. Caesar Theodosius II, issued a series of proclamations which ended the voluntary nature of religion. Christianity became the only religion legally permitted in the empire. To reject Christianity was to commit treason against the state; the punishment for treason was death.

The church became official. A wrong proposition became law - that social cohesion and orderly government were possible only when one religion, one and only, was permitted. The continuing consequences of this erroneous premise have influenced events up to our own time and will present problems for our children, and theirs.

Did the Christians enjoying power and receiving the heavy flow of converts, which official approval started, ever look back on Matthew (20/26) where these words were attributed to Jesus, "You know that the rulers of the heathen lord it over them, and their great men tyrannize over them. It is not to be so among you, but whoever wants to be great among you must be your slave, just as the Son of Man has come not to be waited on, but to wait on other people and give his life as a ransom for many."

In the closing years of the fourth century, events had come full circle. The persecuted Church became the persecuting Church. Pagan temples were destroyed; schools of philosophy closed. The Church inflicted more evils on its own whom they named "heretics," than ever had been the victims of so-called "pagans." The Christians killed each other in far greater numbers than Romans killed Christians in all the persecutions. (See Gibbon, p. 147-8). Not long after the Church became official, the pacifist was declared a heretic, subject to the punishment for treason - death.

Many have observed that the Sermon on the Mount has almost no theological content, but rather, great ethical emphasis. The theme is how we should behave, not what we must believe. The Nicene Creed produced under the watchful eye of the Emperor and on his expense account is entirely metaphysical, with no trace of ethical standards. This omission is symptomatic of sliding standards as the Church was on the way to becoming official.

This triumph with which the Roman emperors crowned the Church in the fourth century has been called the "Fatal Gift." Grateful churchmen bestowed on Constantine the utterly un-deserved title, "the equal of the apostles." Says Herbert Muller, (Constantine) "inaugurated the lasting confusion in Christendom between the things that are Caesar's and the things that are God's."

There is much more to be said of the Christian Church, virtues to recite, vices to relate. But the transition from persecuted sect to official church demonstrates what we should never forget: unlimited power is a temptation to unrestrained corruption to which any institution, even the Church, may yield. No institution comprised of people - and this is the only kind of institution of any meaning to us - can ever be given power without reserving ways to keep power in check; and ways to remove power when it is abused.

What should be the power of the religious institution to bind people? The answer is, only in those ways people choose voluntarily to be bound.

Somewhere along the line, the Christians made an enormous mistake. There was democracy and social equality in that on the whole, the clergy had been recruited from all sectors of the population, rich and poor, slave and free. But once the clergy was ordained, a system of self-perpetuating power was maintained. The right of the members of the congregation in Unitarian Universalist churches to ordain their clergymen, rather than the right of other clergymen to ordain their successors, is one of the healthiest safeguards we can maintain to ensure that our self-governing operation will be democratic in fact as well as theory.

When one pursues the winding trails of religion and government through history, we come again and again to the issue of freedom. The freedom to choose is no less the irreplaceable condition in religion than politics. This, as we shall see in discussing modern issues of Church and State, is the liberty most easily submerged in a confusion of irrelevant protest: Centuries before the Church became official, Paul, writing to his friends in Rome, in his most clearly theological letter says, "that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith." Then he goes on to make one of the most extensive and persuasive arguments for Christian theology, recognized as strong reasoning even by those of us who do not accept this Christian theology. But Paul, even when asserting his most urgent convictions, never made the mistake of the Church when it became official, pronouncing, "accede to this or die a heretic." Paul said, "let us encourage each other's faith."

And so may it be with us, no matter how wide our range of differences, no matter how provocative our distinctions, no matter how passionate the temper of our convictions.