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THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY

From Hutton Webster's, Early European History (1917); edited for this on-line publication, by ELLOPOS

XXIV. THE REFORMATION AND THE RELIGIOUS WARS, 1517-1648 A.D.

Em. Macron, Rediscovering the Path to Europe

» Contents of this Chapter

Decline of the Papacy   * Heresies and Heretics   * Martin Luther and the Beginning of the Reformation in Germany, 1517-1522 A.D.   * Charles V and the Spread of the German Reformation, 1519-1556 A.D.   * The Reformation in Switzerland: Zwingli and Calvin   * The English Reformation, 1533-1558 A.D.   * The Protestant Sects   * The Catholic Counter Reformation   * Spain under Philip II, 1556-1598 A.D.   * Revolt of the Netherlands   * England under Elizabeth, 1558-1603 A.D.   * The Huguenot Wars in France   * The Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648 A.D.

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HERESIES AND HERETICS

PERSECUTION OF HERETICS

During the first centuries of our era, when the Christians had formed a forbidden sect, they claimed toleration on the ground that religious belief is voluntary and not something which can be enforced by law. This view changed after Christianity triumphed in the Roman Empire and enjoyed the support, instead of the opposition, of the government. The Church, backed by the State, no longer advocated freedom of conscience, but began to persecute people who held heretical beliefs.

MEDIEVAL ATTITUDE TOWARD HERESY

It is difficult for those who live in an age of religious toleration to understand the horror which heresy inspired in the Middle Ages. A heretic was a traitor to the Church, for he denied the doctrines believed to be essential to salvation. It seemed a Christian duty to compel the heretic to recant, lest he imperil his eternal welfare. If he persisted in his impious course, then the earth ought to be rid of one who was a source of danger to the faithful and an enemy of the Almighty.

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THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY: Table of Contents

url: www.ellopos.net/politics/european-history/default.asp

IN PRINT

Cf. The Ancient Greece * The Ancient Rome
Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) * Western Medieval Europe * Renaissance in Italy