The TWO REFORMATIONS The TWO REFORMATIONS The Journey from the Last Days to the New World HEIKO A. OBERMAN EDITED BY DONALD WEINSTEIN YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS / NEW HAVEN & LONDON Published with assistance from the foundation established in memory of Oliver Baty Cunningham of the Class of 1917, Yale College. Copyright ∫ 2003 by Yale University. All rights reserved. Several chapters in this book have appeared elsewhere and may have been revised. Chapter 1: ‘‘The Long Fifteenth Century: In Search of Its Profile,’’ appeared in Die deutsche Reformation zwischen Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, ed. Thomas A. Brady, Jr., with Elisabeth Müller-Luckner, Schriften des Historischen Kollegs, Kolloquien 50 (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2001). Chapter 2: ‘‘Luther and the Via Moderna: The Philosophical Backdrop of the Reformation Breakthrough,’’ is forthcoming in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History. Chapter 3: ‘‘Martin Luther Contra Medieval Monasticism: A Friar in the Lion’s Den,’’ appeared in Ad fontes Lutheri: Toward the Recovery of the Real Luther, Essays in Honor of Kenneth Hagen’s Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Timothy Maschke, Franz Posset, and Joan Skocir, Marquette Studies in Theology 28 (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2001). Chapters 6, 7, and 8: ‘‘Toward the Recovery of the Historical Calvin: Redrawing the Map of Reformation Europe,’’ formed a plenary address presented by Oberman at the International Congress on Calvin Research, in Seoul, South Korea, in August 1998. Chapter 9: ‘‘Calvin: Honored, Forgotten, Maligned,’’ appeared in Oberman’s Calvin’s Legacy: Its Greatness and Limitations, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1990). This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Oberman, Heiko Augustinus. The two Reformations : the journey from the last days to the new world / Heiko A. Oberman ; edited by Donald Weinstein. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-300-09868-5 (alk. paper) 1. Luther, Martin, 1483–1546. 2. Calvin, Jean, 1509–1564. 3. Reformation. I. Weinstein, Donald, 1926– II. Title. br332.5 .o24 2003 270.6—dc21 2002153187 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Gratefully dedicated to wayfarers who lived to destroy life-size caricatures ANDRÉ M. HUGO (1929–1975) —Professor of Classical History, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa —A Puritan Calvin scholar who lived and died opposing apartheid KLAUS SCHOLDER (1930–1985) —Professor of Contemporary History, University of Tübingen, Germany —A genuine German with a liberal smile, yet uncompromising in exposing the mythmakers of the Third Reich Burn after reading! —Sixteenth-century epistolary postscript Read them and weep. —Sixteenth-century Dutch card-table proverb Viele derjenigen, die unvorstellbar Furchtbares erlebt haben, schweigen. Sie haben nicht überlebt. —Wolfgang von Buch, Wir Kindersoldaten, 1998 CONTENTS Editor’s Preface xi Preface: Burn after Reading xv I The Gathering Storm 1 II Luther and the Via Moderna: The Philosophical Backdrop of the Reformation Breakthrough 21 III Martin Luther: A Friar in the Lion’s Den 44 IV Reformation: End Time, Modern Times, Future Times 62 V From Luther to Hitler 81 VI The Controversy over Images at the Time of the Reformation 86 VII Toward the Recovery of the Historical Calvin 97 VIII Toward a New Map of Reformation Europe 106 IX The Cutting Edge: The Reformation of the Refugees 111 X Calvin’s Legacy: Its Greatness and Limitations 116 Abbreviations 169 Notes 171 Index 227 EDITOR’S PREFACE Until a few days before he died, on April 22, 2001, Heiko Oberman had been working on two books. One was a new appraisal of Calvin’s career and thought, a labor of years of research, close study of Calvin’s writings, and deep reflection. The Calvin book was part of a scholarly life plan: Oberman had carried the story of Reformation religious thought from its roots in the late Middle Ages (for example, The Harvest of Medieval Theology, Forerunners of the Reformation, and The Dawn of the Reforma- tion) through Luther (Luther: Man between God and the Devil and Mas- ters of the Reformation), and after Calvin, the City Reformation, and the Reformation of the Refugees, he intended to turn his attention to what is often called the Radical Reformation (although Oberman would not so call it) and then carry the story into modern times and across oceans. With his Calvin still short of completion, however, Oberman learned that he had terminal cancer. About the same time he began writing another book, an extended essay comparing the respective contributions of Luther and Calvin toward the founding of the modern world. Clearly he regarded this as his last opportunity to place the Reformation in the larger perspective of European and American history. It was also the last chance he would have to express in print some of his deeply held feelings about such related matters as the influence of German nationalism on Reformation scholarship, the trahison des clercs of certain prominent twentieth-century German historians, and the Reformation and anti- Semitism (already addressed in his groundbreaking book The Roots of Anti-Semitism). The inspired energy that had driven Oberman’s entire scholarly and teaching career was ebbing, but, with still more verve than most of us have at our peak, he persevered. In the growing shadow of xi EDITOR’S PREFACE death, Oberman worked furiously—often, as I was told by Mrs. Ober- man, long into the night. Only when he began counting his life in days and when his strength was failing him did he seek help. Peter Dykema, one of his last doctoral students, would complete the Calvin book. I o√ered to do what I could, and Heiko asked me to edit and prepare for publication the chapters he had written for his second book in progress, on Luther, Calvin, and the onset of the modern world. I have undertaken this task as an expression of admiration for a great historian and wonder- ful colleague as well as a labor of love for a dear friend. The material Oberman left consisted of a preface and dedication as well as several chapters that were in a state I regarded as a penultimate draft; that is to say, the chapters were virtually complete as to content but were uneven in footnoting and in need of some editing and light revision. Another section, indicated in the original table of contents as The Aggres- sive Reformation, with chapters on The Reformation in the Streets, The First Book Burnings in Europe, The First Martyrs: From Books to Bodies, and The Image as Battlefield: Competing for the Simple Folk, remained to be written. Because no one but Oberman—certainly not I—could write those chapters, they are lost to us, with one partial exception. It is a paper, ‘‘Der Bilderstreit im Zeitalter der Reformation,’’ which he was preparing for delivery at the Interdisziplinärer Kongress, ‘‘Von der Macht und Ohnmacht der Bilder,’’ subsequently held at the Universität Bern, from January 21 through 24, 2001. It appeared to me that he intended it as part of the chapter The Image as Battlefield, and although time ran out before Oberman was able to complete or revise it, I decided to include it. I have translated it and added some notes. My friend David Price, associate professor of history at Southern Methodist University, went over my translation with extraordinary care and expertise and made invaluable corrections and suggestions, just as he had already done for some other passages. It appears here under the title The Controversy over Images in the Time of the Reformation. Although Heiko gave me carte blanche with the material, in editing the chapters he wrote I have tried to restrict myself to what he might have done to smooth out the text—so much of it produced at fever heat—to clarify a point, add a note, or check an American English idiom. Dutch- born and reared, Oberman commanded a remarkable English vocabu- xii EDITOR’S PREFACE lary and a writing style that must have been the envy of many a native American scholar. Only rarely did he fail to hit the nail squarely on the head, but it did happen, and I have tried to redirect those near misses. Heiko and I carried on a running debate about matters of style and tone: he loved alliteration, colorful similes and metaphors, and startling locu- tions. I prefer a more matter-of-fact style, and when criticizing other historians in print, I have tried (not always successfully) to maintain some measure of polite restraint; by contrast, Heiko, although he was very generous and fair, gleefully exposed and damned the scholarly short- comings of fellow historians, especially when they committed the cardi- nal sin of anachronism, failed to work hard enough at their subject, or displayed an inadequate grasp of his beloved sources. Sadly, death has given me the last word in that friendly debate, and if I have betrayed my resolve not to leave my own fingerprints on Heiko’s manuscript, it has been in yielding to the temptation to tone down a few of his more flamboyant images and in occasionally substituting a word or phrase with one that fits better what he meant to say. I have also made the decision (after some consultation) to present the surviving chapters as essays, each of which can stand alone as a scholarly contribution. This has little practical e√ect except to avoid giving the impression that they constitute the book that Oberman would have published had he lived to do it.