REFORMATION AND COUNTER–REFORMATION.* A PROFESSOR of History is usually inclined
to equip anything that he publishes on his own subject with a considerable apparatus of preface and appendices. Professor Hulmo has none of them. He does not tell us whether his book on the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Counter-Reformation contains the substance of several courses of lectures or is a by-product of his leisure. Ho does not state his purpose in writing it, or define the class of readers for whom it is intended. There are no notes and no references to authorities, and though there is an appendix there is nothing in it but a few genealogical tables. He relies, to all appearance, on the interest of his subject to gain him the public he wants, He starts, however, with one decided advantage. Much has been written about the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Catholic reaction which followed it on the Continent, but the three subjects have seldom—perhaps never—been brought together in a single volume. And though the combination in so small a compass of three periods, each so vast and so interesting, argues some courage, the author may fairly claim to have given his readers a volume which is instructive as well as comprehensive to an unusual degree.
The most valuable chapters of Professor Hulme's work are those which .deal with Calvin's part in the Protestant Reformation, and Ignatius Loyola's part in the Catholic Counter-Reformation. In the popular accounts of the first of these movements Luther usually has the lion's share allotted to him. In the first instance, no doubt., ha has every title to be thus singled out. He was earlier by a generation, and the first acts of revolt against the Papal authority are associated with his name. But the Reformation in Germany followed a course which, as we have lately learned, is very characteristic of the German mind. Beginning with a declaration of every man's right to think for himself in matters of religion, it ended in the recognition of every Sovereign's right to think for his subjects. By the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 " each secular ruler henceforth was free to choose between Catholicism and Lutheranism." But this right of choice went no lower than the Sovereign
:- "All his subjects were to be bound by his decision. Cujus regio ejus
religio. Should a subject find himself unable to accept the religion of his ruler it was his privilege to go elsewhere. . . . From the mass of the people even this limited choice between two creeds was prac- tically withheld. Their religion was determined for them by the Prince in whose jurisdiction they happened to reside. The alternative of exile, in most cases, was but a mockery."
Calvin's connexion with Geneva, which gave him an exceptional oppor- t unity of turning his theories into practice, was the result of an accidental sisit. On his way from Italy to Stras3burg, " where he hoped to lead the quiet life of a scholar," he stopped for one night at the city with which his name was to be for ever associated. The Reformation had already made some progress there, for the Mass had been declared illegal But though " the old religious edifice had been torn down, a new one had not been erected in its place. In ecclesiastical matters the Genevese lacked organization and creed." Calvin, who had already published the first outline of the Institutes of the Christian Religion, "incomparably the most effective exposition of Protestantism that had yet been made," proved the man to equip them with both. When pressed to stay he at first refused, on the plea of his unfitness for the work that had to be done there. But a night's argument with Farel, one of the Reform leaders who had been driven from France into Switzerland, was enough to change his purpose, and he stayed.
His first business was to put out a new Confession of Faith in twenty.
ono Articles. This was presented to the citizens by the Council in order that each man might choose whether he would be a Protestant or a Catholic, and those who decided to remain Catholics were compelled to leave Geneva at once. The next thing was the establishment of a system of discipline, ecclesiastical and civil. Not only were idolaters, blasphemers, murderers, thieves, adulterers, and false witnesses to be cut off from Christian communion, but all quarrelsome persons, slanderers, pugilists, drunkards, and spendthrifts were included in the asmo condemnation. This spiritual censure was to be enforced by corresponding civil Renal ties. Calvin was appointed to be one of the pastors of the city, and this was the only office that he held. " Yet in an incredibly short time he became the virtual dictator of the city, ruling it till his death [in 1564], except for the three years of his banish- ment, with a rod of iron." Professor Hulme thinks there is no evidence to show-that Geneva was morally worse than any other European city of the same size. He describes its people as gay and pleasure. loving, fond of dancing, of music, and masquerades, especially at wed- dings, and much given to gossiping over their wine or their cards in the cabarets. Under the new rule the list of punishable offences became very long, and included not attending two sermons on Sunday, speaking disrespectfully of Calvin in the street, do eking the hair or dress of a bride, entertaining too many guests and setting them down to too many dishes. At starting the new system worked smoothly, but before long it bred discontent, and in three years' time Calvin and Farel were banished. Calvin retired to Stress sburg, where he found a congregation of French refugees, who made him their pastor. The Pope, Paul III., saw in this a chance of winning Geneva back to the Roman obedience. A conciliatory appeal was made to them by Cardinal Sadoleto. It
• The Revaie ee, the Pratestaot Relortnalion, and lhe Catholic Rejoemation in Cootioeatal Euro e. By .1:dward Malin Hahne. Professor of History in the Uni- versity at Idaho. London : George Allen and tnwin. [10s. net.1
was eventually sent to Calvin to answer, and his " dignified, gentle, and moderate " reply " made many friends for its author." A time of incessant strife succeeded, and in October, 1540, Calvin was requested to return to Geneva on his own terms. Those included the establishment of a Consistory of pastors and elders charged with the supervision of tho morals of the citizens, and on September 13th, 1511, the exile returned..
When the city and territory of Geneva had thrown off the rule of their Bishop and of the Duke of Savoy, they both fell by degrees under the domination of a very close oligarchy. There was a General Assembly consisting of all heads of families and a Council of Two Hundred nomi- nated by the Little Council. This latter body had twenty-fivo members, of whom only five could be chosen by the people in.any one year. There was also a Council of Sixty created to consider matters too important to be decided by the Little Council. But as its members were chosen by the Little Council it was very rarely necessary to ask its advice. In this singular Constitution Calvin found the means of con- solidating his influence in the city ready to his hand. He had only to discourage the meetings of the Assembly, and to provide that nothing should be considered by one of the larger bodies that had not first been debated by the Little Council, which in this way became possessed of an authority that was almost absolute. " Between this Little Council and the Consistory there was a most intimate connexion, and the dominating influence in the Consistory was Calvin." The special circumstances of Geneva gave the new Church a kind of power which the German Reformers never ventured to claim. They were content if they could get the civil power on their side, and they could only do this by concessions which gave the State the absolute control of ecclesiastical affairs. In Geneva, on the contrary, the civil power became the instrument of the Church, and one of its chief duties was to punish the offenders handed over to it by the Consistory.
The Protestant Reformation had failed in one of its chief original aims. Throughout a large part of Europe it had overthrown the old faith, but it had left the old immorality very much what it was. When Luther attacked the morals of tho clergy he found much sympathy among Catholics. But it was beyond their power to give him any effectual help at the opening of his career because the Popes of that ago were often among the worst offenders. A generation later the reforming party in the ancient Church had greater influence and found allies among the Popes, especially in Paul IV. and in Pius V. But if any one agent in the success of the Counter-Reformation is to b3 singled out before others, it is Ignatius Loyola and the Order which he founded. Professor Hulme devotes a very useful chapter to the life of Loyola, to the founding and organization of the new Society, and to its progress under the first five Generals. In the years immediately following his conversion Loyola had met with no sympathy in the Spanish Universities in which he had begun his study of theology. At Alcala he was suspected of heresy and imprisoned ; at Salamanca ha was forbidden to speak about religion until his four years of study were completed. In Paris, to which ho went in 1528, having walked all the way thither, ho found a more congenial atmosphere. Even in Spain he had had a number of followers, and he now gathered round him the men who later on were associated with him in his work, including Lainez, the second General of the Order, and Francis Xavier, its greatest missionary. On August 15th, 1534, in the crypt of the little church of St. Denis, half-way up Montmartre (destroyed in 1790), they made their first vows, and five years later they met at Rome and formally founded a Society which should have no local habitation, but be " a, flying corps ready at all times and in all places to support the main army of the Church." In 1541 Loyola was elected General, and the framing of the Constitution " was a gradual process which occupied him to his death " in 1550. The full members of the Society are divided into the Professed of the Three Vows, who take the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and the Professed of the Four Vows, who add to these a vow to undertake at a moment's notice any mission that the Pope may lay upon them. Only those who have taken this fourth vow can hold the highest offices in the Society. The General is elected from among the Professed of Four Vows and holds office for life. His authority is unlimited, except that, though he may suspend the Constitutions, he cannot change them. In theory ho may be deposed by tho Society, but this power has never been exercised. In the exercise of his functions he has the help of five Assistants, repre- senting the most important of the Provinces into which the Society is divided. These are Italy; France ; Spain ; Germany, Austria. Hungary, Poland, Relgium, and Holland ; and the English-speaking countries. The Assistants are his constant attendants, and in their appointment he has no voice. They do not offer any direct advice, but he is further supplied with an official called the General's Monitor, whose business it is to convey to him any strictures that the Assistants may have passed on his actions. The success of the new Society was greatest, Professor Huhn() thinks, in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, and under Acquaviva, its fifth General. it had become established in every Catholic country. It had sent missions to every part of the known world. " It had made itself the most formidable force in the ecclesiastical affairs of the time. In its Colleges many of the leading rulers, statesmen, and military com- manders of the next generation were being educated." Professor Hulme does not attempt to estimate the extent or character of Jesuit
influence. Evidently he has no sympathy with its ecclesiastical or political aims; but against the disposition of many people to attribute the activity of its members to nothing nobler than self-aggrandisement he makes a just protest. "The unparalleled patience, the abject self-effacement, and the ready willingness to suffer every hardship and undergo the ultimate penalty of death are not to be found among a body of men aotuated only by the spirit of intrigue and self-seeking, displaying in their daily lives no moral virtue, and cherishing in their hearts no high enthusiasm."
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