The Reformation [antikvár]

Introduction It is well enough known that during the 16th Century a powerful religious vitality generated the movement that culminated in the founding of Protestantism. It is less well known that this occurred in a context of total social and economic change. Indeed, the age that is called the Reformation witnessed the shattering not just of the religious status quo but also of the secular aspects of society. The reorganization of medieval Europe that resulted produced the fabric of life as we know it today. The 16th Century was the time when dynamic nationalism fragmented the vast empire that had held sway over all of Christendom since the Fifth Century and crystallized the modern nation-states. It was the time when the medieval guild system declined, to be replaced by economic individualism and, eventually, by capitalism. Perhaps most fundamental, it was the age in which men began to question tradition and to venture into innovation. It was within this framework of universal change that the religious Reformation took place, and the early leaders of the movement were reformers, not innovators. "One should help and cling to the Church," wrote Martin Luther at the outset, "for conditions will not be improved by separation." The story of ecclesiastical reform as it developed into contending factions, and as it interacted with the political, social, economic and philosophical currents of the age, is unfolded in this book by Miss Edith Simon, fier book is timely because of the ecumenical movement of the 1960s. Thousands of Protestants now want to understand what caused the remarkable reform and strengthening of the Ro- man Catholic Church that began with the Council of Trent in 1545 and that led to the Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965. Similarly, many thousands of Roman Catholics want to resurvey the Reformation, that they may understand what it was that produced the churches of the "separated brethren" and prospered them. In the past centuries it was almost impossible for anyone to read or write a book about the Reformation that was not biased. Many were written by Protestants who ultimately saw in the Reformation the foundation for all that is best in Christianity in the modern world. Many were written by Roman Catholics who ultimately judged the Reformation to have been the tragic cause of Church schism in the West and, therefore, the cause of the weakening of religion and the promotion of atheism in our time. If a historian were neither Protestant nor Roman Catholic his book tended to suffer from an anti-Christian or an antiecclesiastical bias. However, during the first half of the 20th Century, scholars, both Protestant and Catholic, began to transcend their personal religious orientation as did secular historians their secular orientation. But by and large there was no popular audience for such books. Today the ecumenical movement is creating a market for a better historical treatment of the Reformation. In many respects our age is as awakened —and as much beset by turmoil—as was that of the 16th Century. And an understanding of that age can give us insight into our own. I believe that this book is a beginning in that direction. EUGENE CARSON BLAKE Stated Clerk, The United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America