the Blessed Eucharist, to be played in the open on Corpus Christi Day. . . . . The true auto has no secondary interest, has no mundane personages: its one subject is the Eucharistic Mystery exposed by allegorical characters . . ."

England gave the Renaissance a ready welcome and a generous opportunity. The pioneer was Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, 1391-1447, whose protégé THOMAS BECKYNTON, 1390-1465, names some active humanists of the day in his Letters. JOHN COLET, 1466-1519, began to expound the New Testament in the new light even before ERASMUS gave himself to the task. He expressed his views on some of the current ecclesiastical abuses in A Serious Protest Against Auricular Confession, and in a book entitled Absolution. His sincere piety is shown in a little work on Daily Devotions, and especially in A Right Fruitfull Admonition concerning the Order of a Good Christian Man's Life, which passed through many editions during the sixteenth century:

But in especial is it necessary for thee to know that God of his great grace has made thee his image, having regard to thy memory, understanding, and free will, and that God is thy maker, and thou his wretched creature, and that thou art redeemed of God by the passion of Jesus Christ, and that God is thy helper, thy refuge, and thy deliverance from all evil.

Another man of Oxford, THOMAS MORE, 1478-1535, threw his influence on the side of light for a time, but afterwards "went violently back to the extreme of maintaining the whole fabric of superstition." He was the author of the only work of genius that England can boast in this age, the UTOPIA, 1516, a jeu d' esprit, written to satirise existing institutions. "The point of the UTOPIA consisted in the contrast presented by its ideal commonwealth to

7 J. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, Spanish Literature, pp. 327, 328.

the condition and habits of the European commonwealths of the period." "Beneath the veil of an ideal communism, into which there has been worked some witty extravagance," there lies a powerful and original study of social conditions unlike anything that had appeared before in literature.

MORE'S definitely Christian writings included A Dialogue against Luther and Tyndale, 1528, The Supper of the Lord, first part 1532, second part, 1533, and A Dialogue concerning Comfort against Tribulation.

8 Frederic Seebohm, The Oxford Reformers, chap. xii., 3.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE REFORMATION

(i. IN GERMANY)

The spirit of liberty evoked by the revival of classical learning entered into the realms of theology and Church government in the north of Europe, where it produced the Reformation. From the standpoint of Christian literature the Reformation appears as a religious development of the Renaissance. Humanism attained spiritual completion among the sincerities of the Reformed faith.

Germany was the scene of the beginning of this religious change, and MARTIN LUTHER, 1483-1546, was the protagonist of the reform. His first overt literary act took place when he set forth his now famous Ninety-five Theses, 1517, "those ninety-five sturdy strokes at a great ecclesiastical abuse which was searing the consciences of many." The Theses are plain and easily understood; they gained sympathy from all the simple evangelical believers, and from all those who were leaning towards the non-ecclesiastical piety that was rapidly gaining ground on all sides.

COUNT WIMPINA undertook to answer them in a book called Counter Theses. JOHN MAYR of Eck, 1486-1543, usually referred to as ECK, repudiated LUTHER'S propositions in a pamphlet entitled Obelisks, 1518, to which LUTHER made answer in Asterisks. These discussions quickened the excitement and caused LUTHER to explain and defend his views. This he did in the most carefully written of all his works, the defence called Resolutions.

Thus began a pamphlet warfare which "raised the Ger

man prose dialogue to the rank of a recognized branch of literature," and which "may almost be said to have created the German book trade." The period, 1518-1530 was given up to discussion. Hitherto printed books in German had been few and insignificant; they were popular chapbooks and almanacs, herbals and books of folk-lore, and a few songs, and tales, and lives of saints. "But in the years 1518-1523 they increased enormously, and four-fifths of the increase were controversial writings prompted by the national antagonism to the Roman Curia.”1

One such booklet, The New and the old God, 1521, had an immense circulation. "It attacked the ceremonies, the elaborate services, the obscure doctrines which had been thrust on the Church by bloody persecutions." JOHN EBERLIN of Gunzburg, wrote fifteen pamphlets during 1521: they became known as The Confederates, and included such titles as: Of the Forty Days' Fast before Easter and Others which Pitifully Oppress Christian Folk, An Exhortation to all Christians that They Take Pity on Nuns, How Very Dangerous it is that Priests Have Not Wives, Why There is No Money in the Country, Against the False Clergy, Bare-footed Monks, and Franciscans.2

JOHN COCHLAEUS, d. 1552, wrote a series of Commentaries on the Acts and Writings of Martin Luther, during the years 1517-1546, and JOHN FABER, d. 1561, published his Hammer for Heretics in 1523. In 1518 LUTHER issued The Sacrament of Penance, and after his disputation with ECK at Leipsic on the primacy of the Pope he reasserted his new found principles in Sermons, including some on the sacraments of Repentance and Baptism and on Excommunication. His popular Account of his disputation with ECK, 1519, brought increasing sympathy to his side.

The alarm spread to Italy where SYLVESTER MAZZOLINI

1 T. M. Lindsay, History of the Reformation, Vol. I., p. 304.

2 Ibid.,

p. 300.

of Prierio, 1460-1523, attacked the reformer in A Dialogue on the Presumptuous Conclusions of Martin Luther concerning the Power of the Pope, 1518, to which LUTHER made a written reply. MAZZOLINI defended the papacy in three serious works: An Epitome of Answers to Luther, 1519, Errors and Arguments of M. Luther, 1520, and The Constitution and Irrefragable Truth of the Roman Church and Roman Pontiff, 1520.

The literary labours of LUTHER multiplied rapidly. While under examination at Augsburg he issued his Appeal from the Pope Ill-informed to the Pope Well-informed, 1518, and an Appeal to the General Council, 1518. After his return to Wittenberg he described the interview with Cardinal Cajetan, 1470-1553, the papal Legate, in a work entitled Acta Augustana, 1518. The first edition of his memorable Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians was printed in 1519; it was revised and much improved in 1536.

These are the points of doctrine which ought to be explained to the people; and in the very order in which the apostle lays them down in this epistle. For example; let a man first learn to despair of his own strength; let him hear the word of evangelical faith; hearing, let him believe it; believing, let him call upon God; calling upon him, let him find, as he will find, that he is heard; being heard of God, let him receive the spirit of love; receiving this spirit, let him walk in the same, and not fulfill the lusts of the flesh; but let him crucify them; lastly, being crucified with Christ, let him rise from the dead, and possess the kingdom of heaven.

In 1520, believing that he had broken with Rome, he issued his three primary works, which set forth "what is truly vital and permanent in his doctrine." The earliest of these, The Address to the Nobility of the German Nation,