from 1524-1525. It failed primarily because the aristocracy slaughtered up to 100,000 of the 300,000 poorly-armed peasants and farmers.
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The capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, Constantinople, was conquered by the Ottoman Army in 1453.
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Stalkinghorse: a horse behind which a hunter hides while stalking game – a false facade to enable an attack.
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Zuingle and OEcolampadius, the former at Zurich, and the latter at Basil, were the great defenders of the faith in this cause. Notwithstanding the authority, ponderosity, calumniousness, and inflexibility of Luther, they manifested to the uttermost in opposing them, were enabled to “bring forth judgment unto truth.” (Isa 42.3) Zuingle’s great work is a commentary on true and false religion, published in 1525, to which he added an appendix on the Eucharist. Oecolampadius’ principal performance is a treatise on the genuine meaning of our Lord’s words, This is my “body,” published about the same time. Erasmus, in his light and profane way, said that it might deceive the very elect; and being called to review it, as one of the public censors, he declared to their high mightinesses, the senate of Basil, that in his opinion, it was a learned, eloquent and elaborate performance he should be disposed to add pious, if anything could be pious which opposes the judgment and consent of the church. Zuingle testified his sense of the importance of the question by remarking in his letter to Pomeranus, ‘I do not think Antichrist can be completely subdued, unless this error of consubstantiation is rooted up.’ OEcolampadius traces the origin of the doctrine of the real presence to Peter Lombard; and he contends that every one of the Fathers had held that the words, This is my body, were not to be taken literally.
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It was this sort of argument which brought the infidel Gibbon back to the Protestant faith, from which he had been seduced…. That the text of Scripture which seems to inculcate the real presence is attested only by a single sense, our sight — while the real presence itself is disproved by three of our senses. See his ‘Memoir of My Life and Writings,’ vol. i. p. 58.
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Palliation: to act in such a way as to cause an offense to seem less serious.
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Take an instance of the toil and sweat of his argumentation; take an instance, or two, of the calumnious fierceness with which he pursued these fraternal adversaries:
‘But it is absurd to suppose the body of Christ to be in more than a hundred thousand places at once. This is not more absurd than the diffusion of the soul through every part of the body. Touch any part of the body with the point of a needle, and the whole man, the whole soul, is sensible of the injury. If, then, the soul is equally in every part of the body, and you can give no reason for it, why may not Christ be everywhere, and everywhere equally, in the sacrament? Tell me, if you can, why a grain of wheat produces so many grains of the same species; or why a single eye can fix itself at once on a thousand objects, or a thousand eyes can be fixed at once on a single minute object.
— Take another example. What a feeble, poor, miserable, vanishing thing is the voice of a man! Yet what wonders it can perform — how it penetrates the hearts of multitudes of men! And yet, not so as each person acquires merely a portion of it, but rather as if every individual ear became possessed of the whole. If this were not a matter of experience, there would not be a greater miracle in the whole world. If, then, the corporeal voice of man can effect such wonders, why may not the glorified body of Christ be much more powerful and efficacious in its operations?
— Further, when the Gospel is preached through the exertion of the human voice, does not every true believer, by the instrumentality of the word, become actually possessed of Christ in his heart? Not that Christ sits in the heart, as a man sits upon a chair, but rather as he sits at the right hand of the Father. How this is, no man can tell; yet the Christian knows, by experience, that Christ is present in his heart. Again, every individual heart possesses the whole of Christ; and yet a thousand hearts in the aggregate possess no more than one Christ. The sacrament is not a greater miracle than this.’
‘The Sacramentarian pestilence makes havoc, and acquires strength in its progress. Pray for me, I beseech you, for I am cold and torpid. A most unaccountable lassitude (if not Satan himself) possesses me, so that I am able to do very little. Our ingratitude, or perhaps some other sin, is the cause of the divine displeasure. Certainly our notorious contempt of the word of God will account for the present penal delusion, or even a greater one. I was too true a prophet when I predicted that something of this kind would happen.
— If I had not known from experience, that God in his anger allowed men to be carried away with delusions, I could not have believed that so many, and such great men, would have been seduced by such trifling and childish reasonings, so as to support this pestilentious, this sacrilegious heresy…. I am all on fire to profess openly, for once, my faith in the sacrament, and to expose the tenets of our adversaries to derision in a few words; for they will not attend to an elaborate argument. I would have published my sentiments long ago, if I had had leisure, and Satan had not thrown impediments in my way…. Factious spirits always act in this way. They first form to themselves an opinion which is purely imaginary; and then they torture Scripture to support that opinion…. He gave himself seriously to the work, and produced, in the month of February or March, a most elaborate treatise in the German language, on the words ‘Take, eat, this is my body,’ AGAINST THE FANATICAL SPIRITS or THE SACRAMENTARIANS…. They lay no stress on anything except their Sacramentarian tenet. Devoid of every Christian grace, they pretend to the sanctity of martyrs, on account of this single opinion…. They would persuade one that this was the great, the only concern of the Holy Ghost; when in reality, it is a delusion of Satan who, under the pretence of love and concord, is raising dissensions and mischiefs of every kind.’
— In the celebrated conference at Marpurg, proposed and accomplished by the landgrave of Hesse in 1529, for the purpose of mutual conciliation and peace, though the Sacramentarians begged hard to be acknowledged as brethren, and even went so far as to own repeatedly, that the body of Christ was verily present in the Lord’s Supper, though in a spiritual manner. And Zuingle himself, in pressing for mutual fraternity, declared with tears, that there was no man in the world with whom he more earnestly wished to agree, than with the Wittemberg divines — the spirit of Luther proved perfectly untractable and intolerant. It seems he had come with a mind determined not to budge one inch upon this point. Accordingly, nothing more could be gained from him than that each side should show Christian charity to the other as far as they could conscientiously; and that both should diligently ask God to lead them into the truth. To go further, Luther maintained, was impossible; and he expressed astonishment that the Swiss divines could look upon him as a Christian brother, when they did not believe his doctrine to be true. In such circumstances, however, though there could be no such thing as fraternal union, the parties, he allowed, might preserve a friendly sort of peace and concord; they might do good turns to each other, and abstain from harsh and acrimonious language. The vehemence, in fact, was not confined to one side, though the Swiss had learned more of modern manners than the Lutherans, and could cut deep without appearing to carry a sword — whereas the Lutherans growled more than they bit, in this fight. Still our business is with the wrong of Luther. He provoked first, he spoke worst; their acrimony was no excuse for his. His was the fury of a great man brought to the level of his equals, or even below those whom he would gladly consider his inferiors, and treat as his vassals.
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Pour le rire: for the jest, or for making fun of something.
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Lucian of Samosata (c.115-200 AD) was a Greek satirist. He wrote On the Death of Peregrinus, a huckster. Lucian parodies what he sees as inherent naïveté and gullibility in Christians, calling them lackeys and dolts. Porphyry of Tyre (c. 234-305 AD) was a Neoplatonic philosopher. He edited and published the Enneads, containing the works of his teacher Plotinus. His book, Against the Christians, was banned by emperor Constantine the Great.
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Atticus (c. 175) insisted that Aristotle was an atheist, denied the existence of the soul, and rejected divine providence.
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Horace, Carminum, lib. i. 12, par. 45. Marcellus is compared to a bright start, illuming with its effulgence the Julian line, and forming the hope and glory of that illustrius house.
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Cuthbert Tunstall (1474-1559) English church leader, diplomat, and royal adviser. He was Prince-Bishop of Durham during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I.
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He feared losing the pension which he received from England. Clement had made him a present of two hundred florins. He had received most magnificent promises from popes, prelates,