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back to the Peaking Yona Show. Thomas is back for
episode three of the three hundred. Of the three hundred
that would be that would be horrendous, the Thirty Years War.
Hey you're doing Thomas.
Speaker 2: I'm doing well. It's important to talk with the confessional
aspect the conflict, because that was a significant element obviously,
but the way it's presented, I think is incorrect. And
even some of the even a lot of the histories
I like, including when I cite a lot by this
one British academic, he doesn't understand Calvinism. I mean, there's
there's some active prejudice when you read Catholic or or
a Church of England coded writers, I think. But then
other people who have sort of a secular disposition, they
just don't they don't understand the faith, you know. I
mean I run into that a lot. I mean, because
it's my heritage and I you know, I.
Speaker 1: Think I'm one of the weirdest Catholics around because I
understand Calvinism better than I do. I understand Catholicism because
I actually went to I actually went to school to
learn Calvinism.
Speaker 2: Yeah no, I mean, and that's uh, and I mean,
don't get me wrong, most of the guys in MI
Cadre locally or Catholic Clym in Chicago. When I I
think Katholics are awesome, I don't. I'm ecumenical was fuck,
you know. I mean, like I I've got mobs on comrades,
I've got immense respect for I think people know. I
get a lot of shift for that from simpletons and
uh zoglings and a sort of other morons who you know,
aren't on my level. But point being, I I don't
have some bad feeling towards Catholics. Quite the contrary, and
to be tooth be told, I don't think most people
in their lack of understanding of the Reformed Faith comes
from some kind of hostility or prejudice. I think they
just don't understand it. And admittedly it is it is
sort of strange to people who have a, you know,
a primarily kind of liturgical view of worship. I totally
get that. I don't take it some kind of wigh
or something. But because it may, you know, one of
the reasons why I think it's ill understood is there's
this kind of a this kind of sense I'm trying
to transpose the Middle Ages out of the modern period,
and there's a sense of, oh, well, this was just
a religious war, that's the wrong way to look at it.
And church affairs when I'm speaking of the Roman Church
creeping into politics, particularly the imperial structure and the Holy
Rown Empire, that was a big problem, you know, I mean, axiomatically,
there's always a political aspect to institutionalize or ecclesiastical affairs,
but that but we're we're talking about out what was
perceived as an active subversion of secular political affairs as
a kind of power play. And the Jesuits played a
big role in this, which is really interesting. And we're
gonna get into all that stuff today and then we'll
get back to the heart and fast kind of power
political and military aspect next time. Because the other big, uh,
sort of a subject within this broader prestige of variables
is the Swedish intervention, and Sweden was a tremendous military
power at the time. You know, you've got to look
at Sweden as a having in part inherited what had
been the the territorial imperatives of of of the Danes,
as well as Sweden becoming the local of Scandinavian power,
a large you know, and this was a very very
strong constellation of factors in their favor, including mentioned material
which attended towards tremendous industriousness in all that efforts, Wilian
engineering and military matters, and you know, a great military aptitude.
But you know, there was this complex air play in
terms of religious tensions that did play this positive role.
You know, the sixteenth century to the preceding decades. One
of the reasons why the Europeans could effectively mobilize against
the Turks is because compared to the Middle Ages, this
early Modern period was far, far less violent. You know,
the Middle Ages are characterized by emperors, not you know,
local gentry and uh lesser nobility, but emperor is being
deposed by vassals. Wholesale mass occurs, sometimes motivated by the
sectarian imperatives or literal class revolts. That's not just some
sort of Marxist mythology superimposed over history. But you know,
matters of faith being bound up with secular disputes over
legitimate authority and succession they're in That wasn't really something
characteristic of you know, the sixteenth and early seventeenth century
at all, you know, and the papacy had a problem,
you know, because really one of the things they emphasize
not just for stability, but also to sustain their mandate,
such that they played a meaningful and enduring role in
the political order, which again really flowed from the Holy Roman,
the Holy Roman Empire. There was a primacy placed on organization,
you know, and the exclusive mandate of the Roman Church
to interpret the Word of God for all Christians. That
was really the source of that organizational imperative. So when
Martin Luther and his followers started trusting stressing the primacy
of doctrine over the medium of uh the church, you know,
as the uh as as God's representative on earth, you
know that that caused a real controversy at all levels
of political power. That's the way to understand it. This
wasn't some trivial dispute between theologians or something, as you
know a lot of these sort of middling university types
like to present it is. But what's fundamentally important too
is that, you know, Luther's Reformation, he was quite literally
looking to reform the church. This was totally different than
what Calvin had in mind, and Calvin's successors, who were
even more radical than he was, you know, and really
what such Lutherans could be said to have been radicalized
when the Council of Cardinals that was convened, they're trying
and heal the at trent In from the fifteen forties
until the fifteen sixties, they were trying to heal the
emergent sectarian rift. But what ended up happening is they
came out branding the standard bears the Reformation and those
who evangelized the Reformist perspective as heretics. You know. Its
final sort of decree and decision was defining Catholicism really
as the faith of Europe and this kind of revival
of the faith within the Holy Roman Empire over within
Habsburg domains is what they translated to, and devising a
program quite literally to exterminate heresy through the revival of
Roman Catholic life, confessional life, but also you know, through
bringing down the weight of some terrifyingly punitive measures on
the enemies of the Church, who again had been identified
with a fairly broad brush by this point, you know,
one of the uh and this came the way, this
trickled down sort of to liturgical and identitarian matters, and
we'll get more into that later, because I don't want
to get ahead of ourselves, but even things like the Eucharist,
you know, and the dispute over the meaning of the
Holy Communion and the Last Supper, because things like that,
things like communion, there was a significance because the centrality
of Mass is this collective act of worship that brought
not just congregational communities together, but brought them together with
representatives of the Roman Church, you know, the presiding priest.
You know. Obviously Calvinists in particular revolted against this and
declared their real presence to be the idea of it,
to be idolatrous and stuff. But you know, the Consulate
Trent doubled down on these liturgical aspects and these communitarian
aspects of worship because that was something that was possible
through what amount of the statutory means, you know. So
the Tredentine Mass, if you abided it, that signals subordination
to the to the Pope, you know, and his infallibility
and his absolute authority as God's em as aria on earth,
you know. And this led also to counter Reformation partisans,
you know, uh, reviving the idea of the Eucharist cult
and doubling and tripling down on on, you know, belief
in the real presence as a as a testament of faith.
And so these corpus Christie processions started popping up, you know,
encouraged by local bishops and whatnot, you know, where people
would literally walk behind the parish priest as a testament
to their you know, commitment. And people who opposed to this,
even people who otherwise pious, they were very much marked
out as and sometimes even branded as you know, people
who were tending towards heretical ideas. So this becomes very political,
you know, nakedly, so you know, and this also, this
also is what kind of brought Lutherans and Calvinists together
in ways that wouldn't have organically happened. And this is
really interesting because later when the Prussians st I'm talking
you centuries later, when the Prussian state became Prussia, the
a unified church emerged, consisting of you know, Catholic or
Lutheran and Calvinist congregations. And in Prussia that experiment worked,
which is kind of fascinating, but its roots. I mean,
by that point there was a discreete Prussian identity and
people were very self conscious of being German, and that
emerged also two of the thirty years of war, This
like self conscious German identity, I mean, local identitarian characteristics remained,
but this became part of that entire equation. But you know,
it marking out people with a broad brush on the
question that Yukaris then some other key doc triantal and
liturgical aspects, you know, brought people together in common political
cause that probably otherwise would not have been you know,
and but it wasn't all punitive in nature. A lot
of the team let me, let.
Speaker 1: Me ask you a question, Yeah, do you think it? People
ran to the other side, Like Calvin famously rejected the
letters of Ignacious of Antioch, which were used in the
first couple of centuries against some of the heresies by
you know, basically that Ignacious was a disciple of John
the Apostle, and he's arguing that that the I can't
remember who he was arguing against, but he was saying
that they deny Christ coming in the Christ coming in
the body, therefore they denied the Eucharist and you know,
the body in the Eucharist. And Calvin basically went so
far as to say those were forgeries those those letters
that had been I mean, do you think that it
caused you know, overreaction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, probably in part. I mean I I'll get to
that in a minute. But at the same time, you know,
I this this whole, this whole idea that there's this
politicized institution that is the intermediary between man and the
Word of God is problematic.
Speaker 1: And you know, yeah, that's that's that's the last five
hundred years of history.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, and I uh, Calvin's old perspective, and in
pure reform congregations, the idea is that communion it's a
it's a commemoration of the Last Supper, and this idea
that through the blessing by way of a bishop or
a pre least, you know, the host literally becomes the
body of Christ. The Calvinist perspective is that that that's
idolatrous and pagan and arguably even satanic. And I'm not
I'm not saying that's my perspective. I don't want to
get into some religious fight with our Catholic brothers and sisters.
But you know, Kelvin, it was interesting the way that
Calvin treated the early church fathers because again, and I'll
get to this in a minute. I want to get
too far ahead of myself, you know. He he argued
that predestination is you know, the earliest church fathers. I
mean this, this is what was the perspective of what
became the Catholic Church. So Calvin, it's important. On the
one hand, yeah, he basically rejected the Catholic literay, liturgy
and the most hostile and condemnatory terms. But the other hand,
he said, there's not something inherently wrong with the Catholic Church.
It's that the men who, in his view, hijacked the
mandate that they had owing to their lineage, going back
to the you know, literal disciples of the Christ. You know,
uh pagan and and and and uh quite literally devilish
things were allowed to subvert, you know what, what's proper
uh worship. So it's it's not it's not accurate. I mean,
I know you weren't saying this, but it's not accurate
to say that Calvin rejected the early Father's outright, I'd
have to look into the discrete subject matter you're talking about.
I'm not I'm strong on Bible scholarship. I'm not strong
on early calvin Is history. Other than the political aspects
of the regency in Geneva and things like that. But
I'll try to flash without the best I can, but
to bring it back to the situation with respect to
luther and the the evangelical reformers, the the Council at Trent,
they did try and address some of these problems, you know,
to assuage the anxieties of lapsed Catholics and you know
people who you know kind of had a softer view
of the of the Roman Church and the Lutheran camp.
You know, they they expanded, uh, they expanded the curriculum
of you know, uh, seminary and education, said priests understood
official doctrine and this tendency of individual priests to stamp
their own interpretation on and while passing off as church doctrine,
owing to localized intrigues or owing to you know, minority
viewpoints on scripture and things. You know, they did a
point to sort of homogenize, uh, what was being conveyed
to congregation at the localized level. And bishops were required
to live within their diocese, so uh, you know, there
was an understanding that individual congregance, at least informal terms,
they had access to like the church hierarchy, you know,
and they they they didn't feel like they were just
receiving you know, dick toss from on high or whatever,
you know. And they did they tried, they did a
lot to try and stamp out corruption too. And there
was a big problem with uh, with priests uh secretly
getting married and uh becoming very rich, you know, because
it's like, okay, so you know, some young priest, you know, uh,
he secretly marries some nobleman's daughter, you know, because now
only that nobleman, he's got an in with the church,
you know. And this this guy in turn, you know,
he's very wealthy, and he's got a wife and his
whole secret family. I mean that this happened a lot,
you know, uh, and that that became a big problem.
I mean, aside in the fact that I mean it
makes hash with you know, one's vows and things, and
that that's completely cynical way of uh you know, uh,
of of abiding one his vocation. But it also was
incredibly corrupting politically. And the modern confessional box, the confession
being a private affair, uh, that came out of these
the tridentine reforms you used to confession used to be
done like before the whole congregation, which obviously you know
that there was a public shaming aspect of that, because
people then you know, use that to you know, try
and exploit the weaknesses of their of their personal rivals
and things. And it also put a lot of people
off a confession because it's you know, properly, it's between
the congregant and you know the priest as the representative
of the Church, which is God's representative on earth. It's
not supposed to be this confrontation between you know, the
sinner and the congregation. Obviously, you know, the veneration at
Saints became a big deal. That became kind of the
defining mark of Tredentine Catholicism, you know, holding up hious
individuals not just as role models and examples of a
Christian life, but people who were directly, you know, kind
of direct emissaries between you know, congregants in God. And
it's also like local Saints became a big deal, you know.
Uh it Uh. One of the things that the Lutherans
that going for them is uh, they were very very
good at kind of weaving together this understanding of a
Christian life being a very German thing, you know. I
mean that this happened over the course of centuries. But
there's a communitarian aspect. So we through an evangelism, you know,
being the you know, the kind of the kind of
Germanic reputation for truth telling and kind of openness. That's
what it is to be a good Christian, you know.
And Pagans and foreigners and heretics, you know, they they
this isn't this isn't coded into them like it is
to us, you know. And uh, local dialects, you know,
like Lutheran pastors, they don't they'd sermonize in local dialects,
you know, which was still varied quite a bit, you know,
even among people who spoke a common you know, Germanic language,
you know. So the Catholic parishes, the liturgy remained in Latin,
but other aspects were were performed in the local language,
you know, and a lot they added in a lot
of local customs relating to the you know, the music
that was performed and the songs that accompanied worship, you know,
stuff intended to strengthen stelid dirty and communitarian identity that
drew from Ethnos. You know. They also made a big
deal a big aspect of the Tridentine reforms was Pilgrim,
you know, the one of the oldest shrines in your
There's a shrine at Vinegarden and another at Voldern that
actually I think I think survived into well well into
the modern era. And then there's the Black Madonna somewhere
in Poland, which I conver what it's called, but that
that tendency of Orthodox iconography to have metals insinuated into it.
And there's a specific class of of icons that depict
the Blessed Virgin holding baby Jesus and she's pointing, and uh,
when the light refracts off the metal, it looks as
if it's emanating from her fingertip to illuminate Jesus. And
essentially what one'm supposed to derive from that is that, uh,
you know, Mary points the way of Christian piety, and
uh that's uh, that's an Orthodox tendency, but it very
much mirrors the the the the cult of the Saints
and the and the public cult of the Saints that
they came out of this reformist tendency, you know. So
uh the uh so, what what I'm getting at is that,
you know, the the the imperial culture and particularly the
Hassburg culture. It became it became an extricably bound up
with this sort of Catholic revivalism, you know. And uh
this was dramatically exacerbated by the emergence of the Jesuits,
who became very, very powerful around this time. And the
Jesuits were controversial then even among Catholics, and the I
mean the remains so today for different reasons. But one
of the reasons when one of the reason why the
Jesuits were a militant order, you know it Mayola was
a soldier and then he he had a vision which
brought him to Christ. And uh, you know, they were
established in fifteen forty by people the Creed, and they
had a clear mission to destroy Protestantism. Well we all
called it a quote epidemic of the soul, you know,
and uh this led uh Lutherans and Calvinists alike, they
came to view they came to view that Jesuits, says,
as the hoops vanguard and their mortal enemies, you know.
And that wasn't totally unfounded, you know. Their their job
was to displace Protestants and uh, also the route out
Catholics were viewed as being soft on Protestant heresies from
position of authority and then where required, uh, you know,
enforce Catholic doctrine as part of the tredenting scheme of vitality.
And these tactics became overly political obviously because uh some
raquelca truent uh duke or baron or elector you know,
the Jesuit which had target him for removal, and uh
then suddenly, uh the man who replaces him in some
sort of hapsper partisan who uh you know, makes a
show of its commitment to uh Trendentine revivalism. You know,
you can't you can't extirpate that from you know, a
negatively political set of concerns. You know. So this was
the this was the this was sort of the foundation
or the background and the climate that was underway for
you know, decades before the oddset of hostilities, and it
was still going on, you know, by the by the
onset of formal combat. You know. To be clear too,
and I'm not sure a lot of people realize this.
You find a lot of loyalists uh propaganda going back centuries,
including well into the twentieth century. You know, during the Troubles,
and Ulster that that singles out the Jesuits as being
a particularly sinister cadre within the Catholic Church. That's not
odd if you consider the context. For years, even very
sort of serious people that weren't prone to extreme cultish
tendencies within when Prostenism, they insisted that Guy Fox was
a Jesuit agent and that the gunpowder plot was what
was it basically like a Jesuit operation? You know, I
mean you can I I don't accept that, but it's
not it's not unthinkable or something, or it's not as
crazy as it might sound. People in twenty twenty five,
you know, but they uh, you know, and then and
the Jesuits were extreme. Even a lot of arch counter
Reformation and counter Enlightenment partisans viewed them with skepticism and
as a potential fifth column, you know. Uh, and they
kind of they kind of became a cult onto themselves,
you know. And obviously too, there was the experience of
the Templars centuries proceeding that was very much on people's minds.
I mean, that's a whole other subject matter. But they
also they had a weird view or a heterodox view,
and they were all as confessors one of the things
that Jesuits to do. They'd approached princes who they felt
were making too many concessions to Protestants or who were
insufficiently enthusiastic about abiding the Tredentine reforms, and they'd claim
in their role as confessor that princes are uniquely susceptible
to being tempted by the devil, and they can be deceived,
you know, to granting concessions to heretics, you know, and
if these concessions were politically necessary in the short term.
The Jesuit view is that God would forgive the prince
in question so long as he confessed that he'd been deceived,
you know, a tone for it, and promised that he'd
revoke these concessions at first opportunity or first expedient moment,
and then actually followed through it that you know, his
salvation was assured. And I mean, that's that's really strange.
You know, that that goes beyond you know, polite fictions
or whatever. To stead of assuage the concerns of the
pious or the righteous, you know, to accept a less
than to accept the noble who doesn't live up to
the to his office, you know, there's something that that
there's something about that that doesn't seem correct. You know,
this this uh, this priestly order that had substantial military power,
that's going around basically taking on a role that should
be reserved for the pope frankly, you know, so that
this was a this was a problem again even for
a lot of Catholics. It wasn't the gesuit terms of
some boogeyman that was confedgularly about a Protestant like you know,
the fever dreams of Protestant radicals or something. You know
that uh, and that's and that's one of this also
played into the ambitions of Lutherans because one of the ironically,
i mean not so ironically, if you know the relevant
history and if you know something about the competing theological perspectives,
it was this kind of heterotoxy within the Roman Catholic Church,
including within its hierarchy. That was one of the big
objections that Lutherans had. You know, Lutheran in a large measure,
wanted to reform existing structures. He didn't want to burn
down the Roman Catholic Church and create something totally new.
You know. One of his big issues was that the
pope you know, these doctrines are inconsistent from one prelate
to the next and from one succession to the next.
And you've got factions within the Roman Church like the Jesuits,
who don't seem to be bound by the centrality of doctrine,
but are able to present their own interpretations with you know,
while invoking something approaching their own infallibility, you know, which
is incredibly uh problematic, you know, for any believing Catholic
you know, not just for Lutheran reformers, but uh, you know,
and that's too Uh. Lutherans didn't abide sell the Scripture
like Calvinists do, but luther did view scripture is the
source of all truth, you know, and misinterpretation of Scripture
by the papacy is catastrophic, you know. And uh, that's
always gotta be the metric by which you know, uh,
papal decision making is measured the uh and that's really
the uh you know of course too, I mean that
that takes on a political function because if you if
you reduce the role of priest as any mediary, you know,
that diminishes the power of the Vatican to h impact
the body politic in ways beyond those rudimentary, you know,
and then so and Luther also he wanted to reduce
the sacraments to baptism, baptism and the Eucharist, you know.
He didn't object to the doctrine of real presence like
the Calvinists did, but you know, in the view of
a believing Catholics, he gutted the liturgy, you know. And
on the one hand, he increased late participation in worship
while selectively excluding aspects of Christian practice that you know,
would insinuate priests into the congregate in a leadership role,
you know. And this was viewed as very cynical by
his enemies and by a power play, and in part
I think that it was. You know.
Speaker 1: He also he wrote his own Catechism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, I mean yeah, I mean obviously, yeah,
I mean obviously I'm not gonna sit here and say
that I find Lutheranism to be its own thing. I mean,
it's not just I mean, obviously I'm sure that's colored
by my own confessional heritage, but it you know. But
at the same time, there is something too, there is
it's improper for people to view Lutheranism as some middle
ground between Roman Catholicism, and you know, Calvinism and dissenters
because it's not that and it's got a totally different
heritage intellectually. But you know, Luther did draw a distinction
between salvation and sanctification and justification for salvation, you know,
and he reputed this idea that every man and woman
is trapped in this cycle of sin and repentance and
contrition and confession. There are confessional Lutherans, but that it's
it has a different function than in the Roman Church generally,
you know, and uh, there's an emphasis on Christian living,
you know, rather than constant preparation for a good death
or this sort of constant uh effort to balance the
proverbial scales, you know, and that Uh, but it's not
nearly as uncompromising as you know, the Calvinists as Calvinists metaphysics,
I mean, let me put it that way in soo teryology,
you know. But I, like I said, I don't it's
it's a very different tendency. I mean, that's why at
the top of the hour I made the point that these, uh,
the unification at congregational level of of Lutherans and Calvinists
and in Prussia is pretty remarkable you know, the uh,
but it also too the there was a basic fragmentation
within the Holy Roman Empire. And again there's always going
to be a call for churchmen to try and mitigate
these kinds of divisions, particularly when crisis appears to be
a mergent you know, that's perennial. So even I mean,
I I don't want to spin this off into an
abstract discussion of political theory and political ontology. I accept
the postulate that all politics is conceptually theological, but in
terms of literal theology, it's it's inevitable that in a
situation or where there's a fragmentation of sovereign authority and
the seat of that authority upon which the entire political
culture is based and ethical as well as structural terms,
a sort of revivalist sensibility is there's always going to
be pressure on churchmen in order to facilitate that, and
in turn, that's always going to cause adherence to the
minority perspective to feel that they're being, in the most
general possible terms, shut out the political processes and the
most severe that they're about to be programmed by the majority. Okay,
you know, and this also compromised me there's credibility with
Calvinists because the Lutherans were constantly and Luther himself was
constantly joined this distinction worldly in political matters, you know,
but then he was he was he was insinuating himself
into a ecclesiastical affairs for negatively political reasons. You know,
you can't have it both ways. I don't want to.
I don't want to sound like I'm trashing Lutherans. And
I'm trying to be objective on this, and you know,
and and and uh, you know, treat these parties factions equally,
you know. I it's just to be clear. I don't
want people to get the wrong idea, you know. And
Luther also one of the things that's interesting and one
of the things that did uh, Luther himself and most
of the early Lutheran authorities within the Holy Roman Empire,
they were basically honest. There wasn't a corruption problem, and
the Roman church lands that were appropriated, it wasn't a
situation like in England, you know, the UH, it wasn't
a question like local lords couldn't just help themselves to
these resources. You know, it went to fund uh Lutheran
institutions that trained clergy. It went to quite literally build
churches and give alms to the poor, and that's it.
You know, this change later on for the worst. But
I for people make the case that you know, uh,
there was this looting underway by by Lutherans of of
church wealth and that that's just not true, you know,
And that's I think I think that's important to acknowledge that, uh,
you know, I mean the contrasting that with Henry the
a who Uh you know, the monastic land was quite
literally appropriated and and and sold off to you know,
to satisfy you know, uh state debts and expenditures and things,
you know, just unconsortable stuff. You know that Uh, there's
not nothing, nothing comfortable like that happened within the the
Lutheran hierarchy. And uh famously there was Emperor Charles the
Fifth when the doctrinal controversy was really heating up and
you know, the hostility to Lutheranism was approaching Zenith. Charles
took the sponsoring meetings between theologians and then not only
does not accomplish anything, but it led to it led
to the Catholics accusing the the Lutherans of stealing church
property and and and enriching themselves and fermenting sedition among
Catholic subjects, or attempting to and basically in order to
steal from the church, you know. And that's that's something
you see. It's that still comes up in some and
in some Catholic histories. And I mean, don't get me wrong,
I understand people being protective of their confessional heritage, you know,
I've I've written extensively on that. But it's it's not
it's not it's not accurate. This wasn't a looting operation,
you know, and suggesting it is is is just dishonest.
But briefly, ill I mean, at least need to in
part cover the confessional aspect of another episode because our
time is getting short. But to understand the Calvinist perspective
on Lutheranism, as you mentioned, the Book of concord or
the Concordia or I think in America most most practicing
Lutherans are fruitless. The Lutheran Confessions, that's the Lutheran doctrinal
standard that's viewed as authoritative, authoritative, it's the it's the
Credle Documents of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. I believe that
was published in Dresden in fifteen eighty. Dresden is the
seed of Lutheranism in some basic ways. And uh it
was published on the anniversary of the Augsburg Confession to Charals,
the fifth of the Diet of Augsburg. I think the
authoritative Latin edition was published in the fifteen eighties in Leipzig,
but the original document was published in Dresden. And uh,
those who accept it, it's they they believe it to
be a faithful exposition of the Bible, you know, and
the the meaning of the holy scriptures which are set
forth in in in the CONCORDI. As you know, the
Scripture is the sole divine source of all Christian doctrine.
The uh dissenters, you know, Calvinists, they claimed that this
was not any different than they they called it the
Book of Discord. They think they were being funny, and
that is kind of funny. What no disrespect anybody's urgage.
But uh, the Calvinists claimed and that this was an
imposition of Orthodoxy that was not any different than you know,
what what what the Roman Church did? You know? So
the Calvinists rallying cry was for a quote second Reformation,
you know, and uh, Calvinism and the Holy Roman Empire.
It was different than what it took root in the
rest of Europe. And to be clear, Calvinism is interesting
and one of the reasons why I talked about the
Calvinist diaspra in places like Ulster, in places like America,
you know, in places like Australia and New Zealand, Calvinists
weren't and aren't a majority on the ground anywhere in Europe.
And on the one hand, this led to a kind
of deep Pietism that was community based and tended to
strongly reinforce ethnic identity. But there wasn't. Calvinists were essentially
the minority everywhere they were, you know, and generally it
was common people. And uh, Calvinism appealed lot to yeomanry.
That's one of the reasons took root in Prussia and
the way it did, I believe. But in the Empire
and the Hily Roman Empire, Calvinism was basically led by
princes and nobles, and that's that's one of the reasons
why they developed disproportionate power in military terms in the
Thirty Years War, you know. And uh, this is one
of the reasons why it was these noble types who
are pious Calvinists. The term reform came from them because Calvinists,
the term Calvinist it had, it had connotations and illegality
and and outlaw sensibilities. And because their view was that
we need a second Reformation to eradicate the remnants of
what they call papist superstition. That's that's why they're called
and we're called reform, you know, because we're the standard
bearers or they're the standard beers of you know, the
the the the Second Reformation, you know, that's going to
bring that, that's that that's gonna eradicate uh idolatrous practices
that deviate from you know, the the Word of God,
which is which is the only correct uh exposition of
of Christian doctrine. You know, So this uh you know,
and again the uh Calvinists went as far, you know,
like I said, I they reviewed almost like the Taliban.
And I'm not that I'm not trying to be funny.
I mean they they there was instances of Calvinist burning
and destroying icons. You know, they banished vestments and the
high altar from churches. Calvinist uh zealous they'd often uh
smashed paintings and sculptures, you know, to prove that cultic
objects and icons are powerless. Ministers would dress, uh, they
do their dressed like common people or like professors, you know.
And uh, their notion was of a priesthood, of universal
priesthood of congregants, you know, any man who can, like
any man who's literate and who's pious, you know, and
who can learn scripture, you know, can convey the truth
of the Word of God to his fellow man and woman.
You know, there's not that there's not some priests, the
inner mediary you know, between Christ and his congregation, you know.
And they made a big deal, you know again, they
abhorred the notion of the of the real presence and
this this had become like we talked about a moment
ago a an incredibly uh divisive subject matter, you know,
and among other things, uh to Calvinists, and uh you
know this this comes as no surprise if you've read
the Institutes of the Christian Religion, among other things, you know,
the I the idea of the body of Christ being
consumed by a human organism and turned into excrement through
the digestive system of a physical body. That's calvin has
found that utterly unacceptable for people to suggest, you know.
So there was Calvin's congregations that went as far as
to ban a wine from communion observances, replacing it with beer,
to make it clear that this is a commemorative event.
The real presence is is a is a real tesque lie.
You know, it's really interesting. But I mean, I think so,
you know, I mean, I the significance that this these
things take on is fascinating. Now probably now calvin Is
soteriology obviously is the most controversial point of belief, I
think for a lot of people. Calvin, again, he didn't
say that the Cadolic Church itself is is just a
boring from inception. There were aspects of Cadlic ideas that
he said worth correct, and his view is that the
Roman Church had had essentially been hijacked and had fallen
into heresy. You know, the early the early church fathers,
they condemned the idea that you know, there was any
path of salvation other than you know, other than other
other than predestination, you know, the idea that God could
not know of of somebody's uh salvation. Whether this could
be some temporally contingent question based on willful acts and works.
You know, it was very clear. I mean, Saint Augustine
argued that God alone determined salvation, you know, and the
fortunes of both the elect and the reprobate being determined
by God alone. And God exists outside of any you know,
temporal or physical or geometric configuration or boundary. This isn't
something that Calvin just came up with, owing to, you know,
owing to a fascination of the early modern cultures, you know,
academic culture with formal logic and things, you know. And yeah,
your point, Calvin selectively redacted authorities from the same epoch
that he considered to not be congruous with his own interpretation.
And that needs to be said too. Like I said,
I can't speak to the specific specific subject matter that
you raise because I haven't researched it in depth. But yeah,
that needs to be said. But yeah, that's I'm gonna
stop here, because uh, I don't want to spin off
into a whole other exposition that you know, is requires
more attention than the next few minutes a little while.
But yeah, I I hope this, I hope nobody found
this unbearably dull. It's important to understand the sectarian aspect.
What's really interesting is, uh, how reformed people, particularly people
fleeing uh the Inquisition related to Sunny Moslims and Ottoman
terror stories. I think that's really interesting. There's a there's
a peculiar confessional dialogue between Soonies and reformed that I
think is something that's not discussed enough. But yeah, that's
all I got. No, that was great.
Speaker 1: I mean I I followed it all because I mean
that's what I had to learn.
Speaker 2: Well, No, you're you're a knowledgeable dude. And I.
Speaker 1: I think it's funny that you went to a cath
You went to a Catholic school, and I went for
higher ed and I went to a Calvinist school.
Speaker 2: For No, that's uh, I went to a Jesuit school too,
like on top of it, and I that that was
interesting man, Like, I know, I had a great time
at Leola. And I I mean a guy, uh, Tom Engeman,
he was my political theory professor, and he was a
speaking a Lutherans. He was a Lutheran guy, and uh
he butted heads very much with the Jesuit administration, but
he you know, he really schooled me in in political
theory in a way that was invaluable and really guided
my thinking in life. But no, all it was a
great institution, man. I I look back very finally in
my time there.
Speaker 1: All right, we'll pick up part four the next time,
and I will encourage everybody to go over to Thomas's
substack real Thomas seven seven seven dot substack dot com,
and you can basically connect to him from uh from
there to anywhere else he is and uh, go and
support Thomas. He's finishing up season three of Mind Phaser,
his podcast, and and and I think, what do you
you'll release? Uh? Do you release to the public season
two at the end of this or how do you
do that?
Speaker 2: No? What I do is when when I release a
new season, I I the previous season. You can get
season one and two for free like in their entirety.
When I begin season four, season three, is I going
to remove that from behind the paywall and just it's
only gonna be the current season episodes that are behind
the paywall. That's how we do it.
Speaker 1: Just go support Thomas. It's five bucks a month. Yeah,
you can do it. It's definitely worth it. But Thomas,
un till the next time, Thank you very much. Appreciate
it always.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you man. Very Christmas, everybody.
Speaker 1: Merry Christmas everyone,