16th Century Christianity

By the 16th century, Europe was in the midst of a great upheaval that was as social and political—and even economical—as it was religious. Religion was woven into the fabric of society to such an extent that it informed each of the other sectors; but they in turn also had an impact on the new concepts and strains of religious thought that were being explored. This paper will discuss some of the examples of these thoughts from men of the time: Erasmus, Luther, Las Casas and Foxe, and show how their writings are evidence of the new era of re-examination of self, society and God—a re-examination that had one foot in the rise of humanism, one foot in the traditional teachings of the Church, and another foot in the camp of rebellion against this same religious authority.
Proper Christian belief and the duties that Christians owed to one another was characterized by many at the time in very different ways. The Protestant Movement had ushered into Europe an entirely new way of thinking about God, self and society. A great deal of personal interpretation of the Word of God was relied upon in order to effect new systems of religious thought. Luther, for example, developed an approach to Christianity that differed radically from what the Church taught—as did John Foxe: each viewed the Church and its representatives as tyrannical and essentially un-Christian. Las Casas and Erasmus held more to the traditional concepts promulgated under official Church doctrine, though each of them also had a unique orientation: Erasmus was inclined to humanism and felt that the more that people understood one another the less inclined they would be to revile one another; and Las Casas was touched by the plight of the Native Americans in the West and felt compelled to defend them from acts of cruelty committed by his fellow Spanish countrymen.
For Luther, the concept of being a proper Christian was based on his own personal interpretation of the Bible. He rejected the Church’s teachings, and, having rejected the teaching authority of the Church, he asserted himself as the teaching authority for his fellow readers. In his preface to the New Testament, he states that “many unfounded [wilde] interpretations and prefaces have scattered the thought of Christians to a point where no one any longer knows what is gospel or law, New Testament or Old.”[footnoteRef:2] While this generalization hints of exaggeration (surely many in the 16th century could distinguish the New from the Old Testament), and its focus on gospel and law hints of novelty, Luther implies that he alone has the power to guide his audience to the correct understanding of the Word of God that the people of 16th century Europe are in need of. [2: Martin Luther, “Prefaces to the New Testament,” in Word and Sacrament, p. 357.]
Luther saw righteousness as springing from one’s connection to Christ—for Christ is the ultimate source of righteousness, and any righteousness that a person achieves is only to be seen as an effect or cause of Christ’s grace flowing through the person.[footnoteRef:3] The self could not be viewed as a thing that was good by itself but that rather depended entirely upon God’s grace. A person united to God could do good works in society and for others and, ultimately become zealous—but only after growing in maturity and grace. Luther justifies his appreciation for zealots by indicating that the Scriptures praises the zealots, that Christ Himself was zealous in whipping the money changers and that Paul took the tone of a zealot, for example, in his letter to the Corinthians.[footnoteRef:4] In other words, Luther draws support for his beliefs from his own view and reading of the Bible, and he distances himself from any traditional or institutional teaching, as he himself had rejected the Institution of the Roman Catholic Church when he left his Order. [3: Martin Luther, “Two Kinds of Righteousness,” in Career of the Reformer, p. 301.] [4: Martin Luther, “Two Kinds of Righteousness,” in Career of the Reformer, p. 306.]
Foxe took a similar perspective when he conceptualized proper Christian beliefs and the responsibilities that Christians owed to others. Foxe likewise rejected the teaching authority of the Church and believed that true saints were those witnessed to the religious faith of the Protestants. He “inflamed Protestant fervor against the pope and the Church of Rome by attaching partisan comments to his narratives.”[footnoteRef:5] For Foxe, one’s duty as a Protestant was to hold firm in the Protestant faith even in the face of persecution—which is why Foxe wrote The Book of Martyrs with stories like those of Driver and Gouch. Driver, in particular, echoes Luther’s sentiment in that one’s faith should be based solely on Scripture and that the concept of the Blessed Sacrament as taught by the Church is therefore to be rejected (apparently in spite of Mark 14:22-24 or Luke 22:14-20). Thus, Foxe records Driver as saying, “Pardon me…for in all my life I never heard nor read of any such sacrament in all the scripture.”[footnoteRef:6] Clearly, Foxe and his book of martyrs were inclined to take up Luther’s teaching that all teaching but a strict, literal interpretation of the Bible be rejected. In doing so, one would be doing one’s utmost to society, self and God. [5: 6.5 John Foxe, from The Book of Martyrs, introduction, p. 135.] [6: 6.5 John Foxe, from The Book of Martyrs, introduction, p. 137.]
Erasmus and Las Casas were a bit different in their approach to the concept of Christian duty and belief. Each was more traditional and oriented towards embracing the teachings of the Church. Erasmus adopted the humanist perspective in order to promote understanding among persons and thus quell animosity and spite. Las Casas focused on the Church’s teachings of humility and charity in order to condemn the actions of his countrymen in the Americas.
It was Erasmus’s foundation in humanism that prompted him to write: “If there is any human activity which should be approached with caution, or rather which should be avoided by all possible means, resisted and shunned, that activity is war, for there is nothing more wicked, more disastrous, more widely destructive, more persistently ingrained, more hateful, more unworthy in every respect of man, not to say a Christian.”[footnoteRef:7] In these words, Erasmus reflects much of the patience and passionate pleas for charity that many a pope had made before him. His view of human beings as creatures made in the image and likeness of God is what informs his rejection of war. While Luther and Foxe were engaged in battles with Catholics over how Christianity should be practiced, Erasmus sought a higher road—one which avoided war. As war was ravaging much of Europe at the time, this is understandable: Erasmus saw all of his fellow men and women as children of God, misunderstood perhaps by men, but not by God. [7: Erasmus, “War is Sweet for those who have not tried it,” p. 319.]

Las Casas was similar: he wanted his fellow Spaniards to respect the natives in the Indies. Instead, he saw them taking advantage of them and exploiting and abusing them. This was not behavior becoming of a Christian. For Las Casas, Christians should resemble Christ, should reflect His mercy, patience, kindness, humility, and charity. To see other human beings as dogs was not Christian in Las Casas’ eyes. Thus, he wrote that the human race had been divided into kingdoms and peoples so that each land’s rulers should act as “fathers and shepherds to their people” and serve as “the noblest and most virtuous of beings.”[footnoteRef:8] That is why Las Casas is upset to see the supposedly Christian Spaniards harassing and torturing the natives, whom Las Casas describes as “open and as innocent as can be imagined. The simplest people in the world—unassuming, long-suffering, unassertive, and submissive—they are without malice or guile, and are utterly faithful and obedient both to their own native lords and to the Spaniards in whose service they now find themselves.”[footnoteRef:9] He saw that the Native Americans would make excellent Christians if only the Christians were willing to teach them the faith and treat them with the kind of love expected of them. Las Casas was dismayed by the cruelty of the Spaniards and did not view their behavior as Christian in the least. [8: Bartolomeo de las Casas, “A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies,” p. 108.] [9: Bartolomeo de las Casas, “A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies,” p. 110.]

In conclusion, Las Casas and Erasmus, who promoted the Church’s traditions and teachings, were alarmed by the vengeful and warlike attitudes of their fellow men. They wanted more charity, more patience, and more kindness from their fellow Catholics towards others, as this was the attitude and approach that Christ took and showed by example in His dealings with men. Luther and Foxe, however, were much more hard-line in their rhetoric, instead pointing towards Christ’s outburst of violence towards the money changers, Paul’s insistence upon discipline, and the Protestant’s own insistence upon a personal and strict reading of the Scriptures as a basis of faith as opposed to the Church’s teachings. The latter, in other words, took an oppositional stance to the Church, and the former took a pleading stance with the Church, imploring its members to do their Christian duty and practice charity towards others. In a world that was literally tearing itself apart over questions of land, doctrine, politics, finance, empire, and society, these various takes on the concept of Christian duty reveal the extent to which fragmentation among the collective European mind had occurred. Once known as Christendom, it was now being reduced to ashes in a fit of self-destruction.
Bibliography
Erasmus. “War is Sweet for those who have not tried it.”
Foxe, John. The Book of Martyrs.
Las Casas, Bartolomeo de. “A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies.”
Luther, Martin. “Prefaces to the New Testament,” in Word and Sacrament.
Luther, Martin. “Two Kinds of Righteousness,” in Career of the Reformer.