The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Foreword
• Translator’s Preface
• Judgments On History and Historians
• I: Antiquity
• 1.: Ancient History and Its Scope
• 2.: On the Intellectual Indispensability of Studying Ancient History
• 3.: The Limits of Civilization and Barbarism
• 4.: Why Today’s “educated Man” Can No Longer Understand Antiquity
• 5.: The Historical Significance of Egypt
• 6.: The Phoenicians As the Earliest Creators of πóλεις ( Polis )
• 7.: On Carthage
• 8.: Athens
• 9.: Rome and Its Mission In World History
• 10.: On the Roman Empire In Its First Two Centuries
• II: The Middle Ages
• 11.: On the Middle Ages
• 12.: On Early Christianity
• 13.: Christianity As a Martyr Religion
• 14.: On Asceticism and Its Position
• 15.: The Spread of Nicene Christianity
• 16.: The Church
• 17.: Julian and the Prospect For a Restoration of Paganism
• 18.: Western European Arianism and the Jews
• 19.: The Breakup of the Western Empire
• 20.: The Achievement of Clovis I
• 21.: Mohammed As the Founder of a Religion, and Islam
• 22.: The Despotism of Islam
• 23.: Islam and Its Effects
• 24.: The Two Main Realities For the Papacy of the Eighth Century
• 25.: Charlemagne
• 26.: The Normans
• 27.: The Byzantine Empire and Its Mission
• 28.: On the Iconoclastic Controversy
• 29.: On the Crusades
• 30.: The Sorrows and Sacrifices of the Crusades
• 31.: On the Evaluation of the Later Middle Ages
• III: History From 1450 to 1598
• 32.: The Period From 1450 to 1598 and the Nineteenth Century’s View of It
• 33.: England In the Late Middle Ages
• 34.: On Richard Iii
• 35.: On the Wars of the Roses and On Scotland
• 36.: Burgundy
• 37.: Charles the Bold of Burgundy
• 38.: France and the Idea of Unification
• 39.: Louis Xi
• 40.: The German Imperial Power Under Frederick Iii
• 41.: The Ottomans
• 42.: The Republic of Florence
• 43.: On the War of 1494
• 44.: On the Power of the Papacy
• 45.: Italy and the Rest of Europe
• 46.: Spain and Portugal
• 47.: The Beginning of the Reformation: General Considerations
• 48.: On Luther
• 49.: On the German Reformation: Its Causes and Spiritual Consequences
• 50.: On the Reformation: Protestantism and Tradition—the Intolerance of the New Doctrine
• 51.: On the Reformation: the Establishment of So-called Spiritual Freedom
• 52.: On the Reformation: the Masses, Their Motives and Consequences—luther
• 53.: On the Reformation: Governments—confiscation of Property and Dogmatism—church and State
• 54.: The Origin of the Territorial Churches
• 55.: On the Reformation After 1526: The Inevitable Caesaropapism
• 56.: On the Coming of the Reformation: the Reformation and the Fate of Art
• 57.: On the Situation of the Catholic Church: the Direct Effect of the Reformation
• 58.: On Zwingli’s Later Period
• 59.: Charles V and Francis I
• 60.: On Charles V
• 61.: On Henry Viii
• 62.: Gustavus Vasa
• 63.: The Community of the Elect
• 64.: On Calvin
• 65.: On Protestantism In France
• 66.: German Culture Around 1555
• 67.: On Camoëns’ Lusiads
• 68.: On the Counter Reformation
• 69.: St. Ignatius Loyola
• 70.: The Jesuits
• 71.: The Jesuits and the Papacy
• 72.: The Third Council of Trent (1562–1563)
• 73.: The Popes of the Counter Reformation
• 74.: On the German Counter Reformation
• 75.: France In the Year 1562
• 76.: After St. Bartholomew’s Night
• 77.: Murder As an Expedient
• 78.: The Special Character of the French Court
• 79.: On the Conversion of Henry Iv
• 80.: Holland
• 81.: Mary Stuart
• 82.: On Elizabeth of England
• 83.: The Age of Elizabeth
• IV: History of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
• 84.: Introduction to the History of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (1598–1763)
• 85.: The Character of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
• 86.: The Huguenots Under Henry Iv
• 87.: Gomarists and Arminians
• 88.: Powers and Society In Europe Before the Thirty Years’ War
• 89.: Italy In the Seventeenth Century
• 90.: Richelieu
• 91.: On Germany’s Situation Before the Thirty Years’ War
• 92.: The Swedes In Germany
• 93.: On Wallenstein’s End
• 94.: The Great Elector
• 95.: England Before the First Revolution
• 96.: English Royalty and Its Task
• 97.: Cromwell
• 98.: The Fronde and the French Aristocracy
• 99.: The Fronde and the Parlement of Paris
• 100.: On Mazarin
• 101.: Styles of Life and Art Around 1650
• 102.: Sweden Under King Charles X Gustavus
• 103.: The Age of Unlimited Princely Power
• 104.: On Louis Xiv
• 105.: Louis Xiv As Lord of the Church
• 106.: The French Spirit of Uniformity and the Huguenots
• 107.: Louis Xiv Prior to the War of the Spanish Succession
• 108.: On the Second English Revolution
• 109.: England’s Defense Against Militarism
• 110.: On the Characteristics of the Seventeenth Century
• 111.: Russia
• 112.: England After George I
• 113.: Frederick the Great
• V: The Age of Revolution
• 114.: Introduction to the History of the Age of Revolution
• 115.: The Period of Reform From Above
• 116.: Absolutism In the North
• 117.: On the North American Revolutionary War
• 118.: England
• 119.: On Small States
• 120.: On the Dissolution of the Jesuit Order
• 121.: The Intellectual Situation Prior to 1789
• 122.: German and French Intellectual Development In the Eighteenth Century
• 123.: On Rousseau and His Utopia
• 124.: The Political Situation In France Before the Revolution
• 125.: The Destiny of the French Revolution
• 126.: On Mirabeau
• 127.: The Clergy
• 128.: The Legislative Assembly and the Clubs
• 129.: On the 10th of August, 1792
• 130.: On the September Massacres
• 131.: Before and After the Dissolution of the Convention
• 132.: On the Trial of Louis Xvi
• 133.: Girondists and Jacobins
• 134.: The Omnipotence of Utterly Unscrupulous Parties
• 135.: How a Government Becomes Exceedingly Strong
• 136.: Socialism? Communism?
• 137.: The Innermost Core of the Revolution
• 138.: Rousseau’s Concept of Music and the Destruction of Churches
• 139.: On Robespierre
• 140.: Before the 9th Thermidor (july 27, 1794)
• 141.: On the Mutual Destruction of the Revolutionary Factions
• 142.: On the 18th Fructidor (september 4, 1797)
• 143.: Bonaparte and the 18th Fructidor
• 144.: How Aristocracies and Princes Succumb
• 145.: On the Invasion of Switzerland By the French
• 146.: Old Bern and Why It Is Hated
• 147.: On the 18th Brumaire (november 9, 1799) and the Consulate
• 148.: On Napoleon
• 149.: Napoleon I and His Russian Campaign

47.

The Beginning of the Reformation: General Considerations

The transformation of the world through the Reformation was great in itself. First of all, the problem of “liberation” may be brought up.

Catholicism up to that time had exerted no substantial pressure, had not impeded any idea, not even atheistic blasphemy, and had allowed reformatory elements in particular to rise. But the church was subject to change (apart from dogma) in its hierarchic form of power and its property; for both are secular. (Still, someone who overthrows and steals power and property does remain a perpetrator of violence, even though sound forces may subsequently have associated themselves with the consequences of his actions.)

In Europe, church property was an open question for the universally needy secular class, and the church state was itself imperiled through the consequences of the activity of the popes.

The Reformation, as a religious innovation, diverges from all traditions of the Middle Ages. The Bible, which may be variously interpreted, remains the sole authority, and reformatory theology brought the difficulty of the doctrine of justification.

After 1520 Luther’s goal was the complete eradication of Catholicism. He was execrated; his opponents were designated as “scorners” of the gospel, and tolerance was represented as blasphemy.

The reformers were fond of invoking the wrath of God.

No mercy was shown those who wanted to adhere to the old religion optimo jure [as having the best right]. (But anyone who is treated that way must be destroyed; if he is not, there exists an avenger.)

The most enormous spoliation of the institutions of a millennium took place. But a large part of Germany remained Catholic or became Catholic again, and in all the rest of Europe Catholicism stood its ground in the most important countries and considered as its duty the utmost resistance to the Reformation and absolute self-preservation.

On account of that, with the Thirty Years’ War Germany paid as dearly for the Reformation as is at all conceivable. On the whole, things went very badly, and all desperate hatred has to date not been able to change this. The “others” are still around and are Christians, too.

Upon the Catholic “human statutes” there follow the Protestant ones.

The reformers and “freedom”:

Today they are chiefly regarded as battering-rams—not on account of what they taught, but because they did their best to destroy Catholicism. Little notice is taken of their doctrines, and at bottom they are held in low esteem. Protestantism is regarded as liberal, something it became only after it was no longer Protestantism—and the state dictated it anyway.

The reformers bewailed “spiritual freedom.” Every one of them conceived of his dogmatism as a condition of the soul’s salvation. They bitterly complain of being despised—here one suddenly does not even believe Luther himself. They shudder because with their innovation all of ethics has got out on the high seas (God as the Creator of Evil, and the like), while folk fancy and greed, now based on the Bible or even only on the spirit, rise to ever new evolutions (Anabaptists).

Yet the force which carried the Reformation materially was the general defection from good works, from alms, tithes, indulgences, fasting—in short, the general lack of discipline. The reformed not merely rejected asceticism, but went to quite the other extreme.

The Reformation is the faith of all those who would like not to have to do something any more. With Calvin this later changed.

The worst and socially most dangerous elements were soon in the foreground. They brought about a general break with all historical traditions. In addition, there were active among them those carried away by the spirit of rhetoric.

Even when the storm of the Peasants’ War was over, the general licentiousness in action and thought remained and spread to the areas of governments which had remained Catholic. In 1532 Tiepolo was afraid that in consequence of internal strife the victors or the emigrating vanquished might hurl themselves at the neighboring countries.

On the intellectually more advanced there was an inner pressure. The absence of any mood of exaltation becomes characteristic. Higher education did not advance, as is thought, but retrogressed for decades. The humanists became silent.

German art declined, through icon-smashing, through the atrophy of its higher tasks—it had been deprived of its myth—through the participation of the most important artists themselves in the Reformation.