Introduction to the Protestant Reformation: The Counter-Reformation (part 4)발음듣기
Introduction to the Protestant Reformation: The Counter-Reformation (part 4)
[music] In the previous three videos, we looked briefly at what it was like to be a Christian before the Reformation, before 1517.발음듣기
Then we looked at Martin Luther; we looked at his ideas, and the spread of his ideas, as well as the violence that resulted.발음듣기
And for our final video, we want to look at the response by the Catholic Church and so, whereas we call what Luther and his followers did the Protestant Reformation, the Church's response is referred to as the Counter-Reformation, the word "counter" here meaning "against."발음듣기
And churches, that is, the architecture of the Roman Catholics, which existed throughout Western Europe, was an important focus of the violence of the Protestants against the Catholic Church.발음듣기
The practice of Catholicism was incredibly visual, and there was a real concern among the Protestants - not so much by Luther, but mostly by his followers - that images were being abused, that they were being prayed to as if the images had power themselves, instead of just a way of reaching the Divine, of passing through the images to the Divine. That's right.발음듣기
Calvin, specifically, had a problem with this, and believed that the images in churches were actually creating a kind of idolatry.발음듣기
This goes back to the Second Commandment:"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth."발음듣기
So, this notion that to create is, in a sense, usurping a little bit of God's responsibility. That is, God creates.발음듣기
It's a compound that's made of two words:"icon," which is Greek for "image," and "clasm," which means "violence."발음듣기
And there were iconoclastic riots within five years or so after Luther's "Ninety-Five Theses."발음듣기
This is one of the great tragedies in the history of art, actually, where an untold number of paintings, of sculptures, were destroyed.발음듣기
So in essence, what the Protestants often did is, they took over a Catholic church, and they stripped it of all of those sensual forms, all of that sculpture, those tapestries, and left it a kind of pristine space.발음듣기
So, we know that Luther is going against Church teaching in all these different ways:Faith is the path to salvation, not good works.발음듣기
We know that there were efforts to make Luther bend to their will, right? At the Diet of Worms, for example; Luther is excommunicated after that.발음듣기
In 1545, the Church holds something called the Council of Trent, essentially a kind of meeting of all of the highest levels of the Church in Europe.발음듣기
One of the most important outcomes of the Council of Trent was that the Catholic Church reaffirmed its doctrines. That is, it doubled down.발음듣기
So, regarding the issue of whether good works have a role in salvation, the Church said indeed they do.발음듣기
Regarding Purgatory and the efficacy of indulgences - do indulgences do anything, does Purgatory exist - the Church affirmed all of that.발음듣기
The Church affirmed transubstantiation, the changing of the bread and wine during the Eucharist to the body and blood of Christ.발음듣기
And by doing so, it affirmed the power and importance of the priesthood, and of the hierarchy of the Church.발음듣기
And lastly, the Church affirmed that Scripture alone wasn't enough, that one really also needed the teachings, the traditions of the Church.발음듣기
The Council said this: "Images of Christ, of the Virgin Mother of God, and of the other saints are to be placed and retained especially in the churches, and due honor and veneration is to be given to them."발음듣기
So they're reaffirming, immediately:Images belong in the Church. But what's important is why.발음듣기
They say, quote: "Because the honor which is shown them is referred to the prototypes which they represent."발음듣기
So, if somebody is honoring a statue of the Virgin Mary, they are actually affirming the honor to the Virgin Mary herself.발음듣기
Yes. "Let the bishops diligently teach, that by means of the stories of the mysteries of our redemption portrayed in paintings and other representations the people are instructed and confirmed in their articles of faith."발음듣기
So, art was a way of actually didactically getting the ideas of the Church across to lay people, many of whom were still illiterate. And deepening their faith.발음듣기
Also, that great profit is derived from all holy images because through the saints the miracles of God and salutary examples are set before the eyes of the faithful, so that they may fashion their own life and conduct in imitation of the saints and be moved to adore and love God and cultivate piety.발음듣기
One, they reaffirm all the basic doctrines of the Church that had been attacked by the Protestants.발음듣기
They begin a major campaign to spread the teachings of the Catholic faith all around the world.발음듣기
The New World has been discovered, there's increasing trade with Asia, and with Africa; and so, the Catholics are really evangelizing in all of these places.발음듣기
So the Church establishes the Inquisition, the Roman Inquisition; the Church also creates the Index of Forbidden Books.발음듣기
The Jesuits establish schools, they spread the Christian faith throughout the world, and they fought Protestantism.발음듣기
There's a fabulous and very literal example of all of these ideas of the Counter-Reformation in a sculpture by an artist whose name is Le Gros, in the mother church of the Jesuits in Rome.발음듣기
Okay now, first of all, it's important to know that the sculpture is just to the right and below a very large altar to St. Ignatius Loyola.발음듣기
One is an older female figure who represents Hatred, and the other figure, falling towards us, wrestling with snakes, is the allegoral figure that represents Heresy.발음듣기
And one of those book has on its spine Luther's name, so heresy here couldn't be any more explicit.발음듣기
And as if that isn't making the point sharply enough, on the left, we see a little angelic figure, who's ripping pages out of the book by Luther's follower Zwingli.발음듣기
And even as late as the twentieth century, there is violence that erupts between these factions.발음듣기
It's also interesting to think about the ways that the Protestant Reformation set the stage for the modern world, this idea of not listening to a single authority, but listening to your own conscience.발음듣기