Crucible of Freedom

God writes straight with crooked lines: Never was that proverb more conspicuously true than in the period known as the Reformation, and in its consequences. The revitalization of certain religious truths, in the thought and activity of Martin Luther and his successors, was met with repression by religious authorities. The repressed reformers, in turn, spilled the blood of their own opponents, and even tried to establish some of their own semi-theocracies. The long-term result of this vicious circle of repressive absolutism? The most flourishing system of religious tolerance that mankind has ever known.

To study the Reformation, then, is to become a connoisseur of historical ironies and unintended consequences; and Oxford historian Diarmaid MacCulloch’s magnificent new book is replete with them. In the 1520s, for example, conservative Catholic theologians in France were alarmed at the use that might be made of vernacular Bibles, so they convinced authorities to ban them outright; as a result, the only Frenchmen who printed vernacular Bibles did so in secret, and in support of the Protestant cause. (The moral is, if you outlaw Bibles, only outlaws will have Bibles.) In the 1550s, England’s Queen Mary tried valiantly to restore the Catholicism that her father, Henry VIII, had replaced with his new state church—only to find, writes MacCulloch, that one of her “chief enemies” was the Pope himself: “Not only did [Pope Paul IV] declare war on her husband King Philip, but he also pursued his old vendetta with Cardinal Pole,” the religious leader of English Catholics. Mary’s reign would be brief, and her window of opportunity for re-Catholicizing England equally so; she could ill afford such lack of support from her most obvious ally. Similarly, in 1566, the Council of Trent published a Catholic Catechism that would become renowned for its rigorous orthodoxy; but because it was based on the work of a Spanish Dominican who was suspected of heresy back home, “the Spanish Inquisition persistently refused to allow [the new Roman Catechism] to be used in Spain” itself.

About the Author

Michael Potemra

Michael Potemra was a literary editor for National Review.

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God writes straight with crooked lines: Never was that proverb more conspicuously true than in the period known as the Reformation, and in its consequences. The revitalization of certain religious truths, in the thought and activity of Martin Luther and his successors, was met with repression by religious authorities. The repressed reformers, in turn, spilled the blood of their own opponents, and even tried to establish some of their own semi-theocracies. The long-term result of this vicious circle of repressive absolutism? The most flourishing system of religious tolerance that mankind has ever known.

To study the Reformation, then, is to become a connoisseur of historical ironies and unintended consequences; and Oxford historian Diarmaid MacCulloch’s magnificent new book is replete with them. In the 1520s, for example, conservative Catholic theologians in France were alarmed at the use that might be made of vernacular Bibles, so they convinced authorities to ban them outright; as a result, the only Frenchmen who printed vernacular Bibles did so in secret, and in support of the Protestant cause. (The moral is, if you outlaw Bibles, only outlaws will have Bibles.) In the 1550s, England’s Queen Mary tried valiantly to restore the Catholicism that her father, Henry VIII, had replaced with his new state church—only to find, writes MacCulloch, that one of her “chief enemies” was the Pope himself: “Not only did [Pope Paul IV] declare war on her husband King Philip, but he also pursued his old vendetta with Cardinal Pole,” the religious leader of English Catholics. Mary’s reign would be brief, and her window of opportunity for re-Catholicizing England equally so; she could ill afford such lack of support from her most obvious ally. Similarly, in 1566, the Council of Trent published a Catholic Catechism that would become renowned for its rigorous orthodoxy; but because it was based on the work of a Spanish Dominican who was suspected of heresy back home, “the Spanish Inquisition persistently refused to allow [the new Roman Catechism] to be used in Spain” itself.