Church History (part seven): The Reformation

1324-1384     John Wyclif

• The Morning Star of the Reformation
• He was of Saxon blood and studied at Oxford.
• He several appointments including one from the king
• In 1366 he was one of the king’s chaplains
• In 1374 Wyclif went for the king to negotiate peace with France and to meet with the pope’s agents on filling of ecclesiastical appointments in England.
• ON his return to England he began to speak of religious reform.
• He preached in Oxford and London against the pope’s secular sovereignty.
• IN one of his tracts he called the bishop of Rome “the anti-Christ, the proud, worldly priest of Rome, and the most cursed of clippers and cut-purses.” 
• Wyclif said that the pope “has no more power in binding and loosing than any priest.”
• In 1378 he was tried for heresy
• He then began to write in English the Scriptures
• He organized traveling preachers to take his message
• He rejected transubstantiation, priestly absolution in the confessional and indulgences.
• His followers were called ‘Lollards’ and were arrested
• He suffered a stroke in 1382 that left him partially paralyzed
• While saying mass in his church he was struck again with paralysis and died two days later on Dec. 29, 1384.
• Wyclif was said to have lit a fire that would never go out.

1305-1378     Popes at Avignon

• The increase in the number of sects, nationalism, and the wider spread of money began the decline of the papacy
• England and France were at odds with the pope.  The clash centered not on lands as in the past but on the accumulation of money. 
• The church had to resort to demanding tithes from the churches or risk excommunication
• In France King Philip the Fair levied taxes on the French clergy of one-half their annual income.
•  In 1296 Pope Boniface threatened excommunication
• Philip then forbid the exportation of gold to Rome
• Pope Boniface countered by stating the most far-reaching claims ever made by medieval papacy.   He said that Christ, being both a king and a priest, had committed to Peter not one key but two, and not one sword but two – the temporal as well as the spiritual.  Peter had renounced for himself the actual use of the temporal sword, but had delegated it to kings to be employed under papal direction. 
• 1303 some of Philip’s men captured the pope in his summer residence near Rome and tortured him until he died.
• The papacy was then transferred from Rome to Avignon a little town in Southern France.  This city as to be the papal residence from 1305 until 1378. 
• This was known as the Babylonian captivity

1378   Great Schism of Papacy

• Other countries were rejecting the papacy as a French institution.
• Pope Gregory XI went back to Rome but his cardinals refused to go with him and elected another pope in Avignon, Clement VII
• Gregory XI was succeeded by Urban VI in Rome who then created a new college of cardinals.
• There were now two popes and two sets of cardinals.
• The conflict continued until both sets of cardinals were so disgusted that they met together with out either pope in 1409, calling their two popes “Benefictus” and ”Errorius” and deposed them both.
• They elected a new pope

1380   Wyclif’s English Translation of the NT

1414-1418     Constance Council

• 17th Church Council
• Heal Papal schism
• Burn Hus

1415   John Hus Burnt at stake

• He began preaching to the people of Bohemia in their own language
• He criticized Catholicism at first on a moral basis.
• He upbraided the luxury and license of the bishops and pope and drew a graphic picture of Christ riding on a donkey and the pope on a stallion being kissed on his feet.
• Hus movement restored the cup to the laity and not just to the priest
• Students at the University of Prague burned the papal bull of indulgence and were executed.  Hus protested and was sent into retirement and wrote “On the Church”
• At the Council of Constance the council proposed to examine Hus. 
• Hus welcomed the suggestion and was guaranteed a safe journey there and back.
• Upon arrival Hus was shocked by the blatant immorality of the priests.
• Hus was imprisoned
• Hus was accused of teaching the doctrines that he did not teach.
• He was burned by the council and said while burning, “O Christ, thou son of the living God, have mercy upon me.  O thou, who wast born of the virgin Mary. . .”
• Even the dirt around the stake was dug up and removed so there would be no relics.

1431-1449     Basel Council

• 18th Church Council
• Reform the Church

1453   Turks Capture Constantinople

• After years of standing against Muslim pressure the Christian city of Constantinople fell to the Turks on May 29, 1453
• This ended the last stand of the former Roman Empire in the form of the Byzantine Empire and gave way to the Ottoman Empire
• This date is seen as the end of the Middle Ages. 
• The Greek scholars of the Byzantine Empire migrated into Europe which began the Renaissance

1300-1600     Renaissance

• The Renaissance began a revival of learning based on classical culture of ancient Greece and Rome preserved in the Greek language of the Byzantine Empire that entered Italy with Muslim invasion of the eastern church and the ultimate fall of Constantinople in 1453
• Michelangelo, Erasmus, Raphel

1456   Johan Gutenberg

• Printing press invented
• Prints first Bible

1478   Spanish Inquisition

• In an attempt to rid the country of Spain of all heresy against the Catholic church.
• Spain sacrificed Jews, Moors (Muslims living in Spain), and Protestants.
• No church organization has ever been more unrestricted than the Spanish Inquisition.
• It was in agreement with the papal Inquisition established by Innocent III in its aim to eradicate heresy.  But it was under the direction of a tribunal appointed by the Spainish king and answerable to him.  They were completely independent of the bishops.
• The first sitting of the tribunal in 1481 result in six men and woman being cremated alive.
• It began with the Edict of Grace which gave heretics a period of 30-40 days to turn themselves in.
• The priest were then placed under a vow to reveal these names. 
• Then 750 of them in 1486 were to march through the streets with candles to the church where they were told 1/5 of their property would be taken and they could never hold public office.
• By 1491, 298 people had been burned and 79 condemned to perpetual imprisonment.
• 1490-1500, 75 were burnt alive and 26 dead were exhumed and cast into the flames.
• In 1500 the entire population of a city was banished by inquisitor-general Deza.
• The crimes of unorthodox faith could be refusal to eat pork on a single occasion, visiting a house where Moorish notions were taught, saying that the Virgin herself and not her image effected cures
• People were tortured into confession and to get a conviction of someone else.
• The water-cure: the victim was tightly bound and stretched upon a rack with the body on an incline and the head tilted back.  The jaws were opened and a linen cloth stuck down the victim’s throat.  Water from a quart jar trickle through it into his body until they held 7-8 jars.  Weights were attached to the feet and the body would be raised and lowered to increase the pain.
• Whipping, Galley labor
• By 1488 5,000 were in perpetual imprisonment.
• The last case of an execution by the Spanish Inquisition was a schoolteacher on July 26, 1826.  He was accused of being a deist and substituting the words “Praise be to God. For “Ave Maria purissima.”  He died on the gibbet (gallows or forked stick)  repeating the words, “I die reconciled to God and to man.”

1512-1517     Fifth Lateran Council (Council of Rome V)

• 19th Church Council
• Another effort to reform the church
• Included five decrees:
• Pawn shops allowed to help the poor
• Permission was required to print books
• Declared war on the Turks and ordered three years of tithes on all benefices, or on all churches and church ministers

1500-1600     Protestant Reformation
1483-1546     Martin Luther

• As a 13 year old student Luther was trained in grammar, rhetoric and logic
• At 17 Luther entered the University and received a Masters degree at 21 in 1505
• Luther then enrolled in law school but switched to philosophy but did not see the truth he was looking for.
• That same year, 1505, Luther vowed to become a monk when he was caught in the middle of a terrifying thunderstorm.  He cried out for help to Saint Anna saying, “Help! Saint Anna, I will become a monk!”
• Luther joined an Augustinian monastery two weeks later.
• 1507 Luther was ordained as a priest
• 1508, age25, he taught theology at the newly opened University of Wittenberg
• In 1510 Luther was sent to Rome concerning the affairs of his Augustinian monastery and saw first hand the immorality, corruption and extreme luxury of the Roman church.  He visited the famous churches, viewed the relics and observed priests saying three or four masses in the time it took Luther to present one back home
• In 1511 at the University of Wittenberg Luther became a professor of Bible. He studied the Bible in its original languages and lectured on the books of the Bible:
• 1513-1515 he taught the book of Psalms
• 1515-1517 he taught the book of Romans, Galatians and Hebrews
• During this time Martin Luther came to an understanding of salvation by faith from Romans 1:17
• At this point Luther began to hold to the three great points of his faith:
• sola fide – “by faith alone” and refers to justification and personal salvation only by faith in Jesus Christ
• sola scriptura – “by scripture alone” and means scripture is the only inspired word of God and the only source of authority for establishing Christian doctrine.
• sola sacerdos – “by priest alone” and refers to the priesthood of all believers in the One High Priest Jesus which is in contrast to a human priest on earth that stands between the believer and God

• In 1517, Johann Tetzel, a Dominican friar, came to the Wittenberg area to begin the sale of indulgences (the removal of sin granted by the church to individual believers who purchased the indulgence and were given a paper document after the purchase).  Tetzel’s motto was, “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs” and taught that repentance was not necessary since the indulgence itself provided forgiveness.  Pope Leo X needed the money for the building of St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome.
• On October 31, 1517 Luther protested the sale of indulgences along with several other issues he had with the Roman church by offering a challenge to anyone who wanted to debate him on any of his 95 points of contention.  He nailed the challenge, or the Ninety-five Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.
• The Castle Church in Wittenberg in 1509 had over 5,000 church relics supposedly including bones, teeth and hair of saints, a piece of the burning bush, soot from the fiery furnace, a piece of Jesus’ crib, even the thumb of Jesus’ grandmother, Anne, plus the standard relics such as a pieces of the cross and a hair from Jesus’ beard.  By 1520 the number of relics had grown to over 19,000 that if viewed by a believer could reduce a believer’s time in purgatory by 1.9 million days or about 5,209 years.

1517   Martin Luther and 95 Theses

• Below is a copy of the letter that Martin Luther nailed on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31, 1517 offering an opportunity to discuss the stated issues:

1518-1521     Luther Breaks with Rome

• After 95 theses the Dominican monk Tetzel tried to silence Luther with all the power of the Dominicans and with help of the Augustinian order
• The reformation was then early called a squabble of monks.
• Luther was ordered to argue his position in a debate with his own order of monks. 
• Result:  More monks accepted Luther’s ideas

1516-1605     Swiss Reformation

1518   Diet of Augsburg

• Luther met with Cardinal Cajetan who demanded Luther to retract
• Luther’s response:   

• Only when proven by scripture
• Denied pope final authority in faith
• Denied sacraments had any power without faith.

1519   Debate with John Eck

• Eck cleverly forced Luther to admit

• fallibility of a council
• his unwillingness to accept popes decisions
• That many of Hus’ ideas were valid

1520   Luther decides to go to German People

• Luther publishes three writings:

•  “Address to German Nobility”
• it was an attack on the hierarchy of the Catholic Church
• Luther used scripture to demolish three strengths of church:            
  • 1-  Popes authority over temporal powers
  • 2- Pope alone could interpret scripture
  • 3- Only pope could call a council

• Luther proved with scripture these four things:

                        1- all believers were priest
                        2- Pope should not interfere with temporal affairs
                        3- all believers could interpret scripture
                        4- believers could choose their ministers

• “Babylonian Captivity
• Luther challenged the sacramental system of Roman Church
• “The freedom of Christian Man”
• Attacked the theology of the Roman Church

• Luther had attacked the Hierarchy, the sacraments and the theology of the Roman Catholic Church in these three books to the German people.
• Luther was appealing his nation for a national reform.

June 1520     Pope Leo X issued the Bull resulting in excommunication of Luther

• Luther’s books where burned
• Luther burned Leo’s bull

1521   Diet of Worms

• Luther went under protection of Frederick the elector of Saxony and founder of Wittenberg
• Luther was told to recant
• Luther said only with scripture or reason
• Luther said, “Here I stand, so help me God.”
• On his return to Wittenberg his friends kidnapped him and took him to the Wartburg castle until 1522
• After leaving Worms the diet issued an order to seize Luther and hand him over.
• They banned his writings

1521-1522     Luther translates German Bible

• Luther used Erasmus’ GNT to complete his German translation
• This set the standard for the German language for years
• Luther also wrote “On Monastic Vows” where he urged monks and nuns to repudiate their wrongful vows, to leave the cloister and marry.

1522   Zwickau Prophets arrive at Wittenburg

• While Luther was hidden in the Wartburg castle Nicholas Storch and Markus Stubner showed up in Wittenburg.
• They claimed to be prophets
• They began preaching the Anabaptists’ ideas (“ana” means “again, twice” and refers to believers who were being baptized a second time as an adult after having been baptized into the C atholic church as an infant)
• They taught the kingdom of God would soon appear
• Their followers would have special revelations
• Luther risked his life, left the castle and returned to Wittenberg to preach 8 fiery sermons.
• In these sermons he:

• defeated the prophets
• stressed the authority of the Bible
• stressed the need for gradual change in the church

1525   Anabaptists in Europe

1531   King Henry VIII (1491-1547)

• King Henry VII becomes king of England in 1509.  England is a Roman Catholic country controlled by the pope
• King Henry wants a divorce from his first wife but the Roman church refused
• In 1531 Henry VII becomes head of church of England and gives grants himself a divorce
• 1933 Henry VIII marries Anne Boleyn

1535   Luther breaks completely with the Anabaptist movement

• The radical wing of the reformation lost confidence in Luther
• Luther rejects the Anabaptist extreme views
• The humanist and Erasmus (their leader) broke with Luther when they saw he was breaking with Rome
• The German peasants became hostile to Luther (1525) when he opposed the peasants revolt.

-  the peasants had applied his teaching of individual priesthood to the civil authorities and revolted against the government.

1531   The protestant princes organized forming the Schmalkaldic League

• They agreed to defend their faith by war if needed
• They would not need to until 1546

1535   The Lutheran order of ordination

• The official ecclesiastical break with Rome occurred

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• Take a Virtual Pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the Middle Ages http://crusades.boisestate.edu/vpilgrim/

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