Part 1: A Fair Hearing for Our Faith
It has been an old complaint, going back to the earliest patriarchs and prophets, and confirmed by the writings and testimonies of every age, that truth wanders through the world as a stranger. She readily finds enemies and slanderers among those who do not know her. Perhaps some find this hard to believe, especially those who have scarcely considered it closely. After all, every human being naturally desires truth, without needing a teacher; and our Savior Christ himself, when he was on earth, chose to be called the Truth, as the name most fitting to express all his divine power.
Yet we who have studied the holy Scriptures, and have both read and seen what has generally happened to all godly people in every age, see nothing new or incredible in this. We know what happened to the prophets, the apostles, the holy martyrs, and Christ himself: the rebukes, insults, and abuse that continually troubled them while they lived here, solely for the truth’s sake. We recognize this treatment as an established practice, common from age to age.
Indeed, it would be far more astonishing and beyond belief if the devil, the father of lies and enemy of all truth (John 8:44), should suddenly change his nature. Could he now hope to suppress truth by any means other than lying about it? Would he begin to establish his own kingdom through practices different from those he has used from the beginning? Within human memory, we can scarcely find a time when religion first grew, became established, or sprang up afresh, in which truth and innocence were not treated with the utmost spite and by every shameful means. The devil undoubtedly sees that, as long as truth remains safe, he cannot be safe himself or maintain his position.
To pass over the ancient patriarchs and prophets, whose lives, as we have said, were never free from insults and slanders, we know that some people in former times publicly and repeatedly declared that the ancient Jews worshiped a sow or a donkey instead of God. Yet we have no doubt that those Jews worshiped the one true God. Their accusers said that the whole Jewish religion was nothing but sacrilege and outright contempt for all godliness.
We also know that the Son of God, our Savior Jesus Christ, when he taught the truth, was considered a trickster and an enchanter, a Samaritan, Beelzebub, a deceiver of the people, a drunkard, and a glutton (Matt 10:25). Again, who does not know what was said against St. Paul, that most earnest and forceful preacher and defender of the truth? Sometimes he was called seditious and meddlesome, a stirrer of disturbances and a cause of rebellion; sometimes a heretic; sometimes a madman. At other times he was accused of blaspheming God’s law and despising the ordinances of the fathers merely out of contentiousness and malice.
Who does not also know how St. Stephen, after thoroughly and sincerely embracing the truth, began to preach and proclaim it openly and courageously, as he ought? He was immediately put on trial for his life, accused of wickedly uttering contemptuous and outrageous words against the law, against Moses, against the temple, and against God. Who is unaware that some people formerly accused the holy Scriptures of falsehood, saying that they contained things contrary to and directly contradicting one another? Or that Marcion alleged that Christ’s apostles disagreed among themselves, and that St. Paul differed from them all?
Not to recount everything, which would be an endless task, who does not know how our forefathers were reviled when they first began to acknowledge and profess Christ’s name? They were accused of forming private conspiracies, devising secret plots against the state, and holding early, secret meetings in the dark for that purpose. It was said that they killed young babies, ate human flesh, and drank human blood like savage, brute beasts. Finally, they were accused of putting out the candles and committing adultery among themselves, recklessly practicing incest with one another: brothers lying with sisters and sons with mothers, without respect for nature or kinship, without shame or distinction. They were called wicked people who cared nothing for religion and had no belief in God, the very enemies of humanity, unworthy to be tolerated in the world or even to live.
All these things were said in those days against God’s people, against Christ Jesus, against Paul, against Stephen, and against everyone who first embraced the truth of the gospel and was willing to bear the name of Christian. That name was then hateful among ordinary people. Although these allegations were untrue, the devil thought it would be enough if he could at least make people believe them. Then Christians would be hated by everyone, and people of every rank would seek their death and destruction.
Led by such beliefs, kings and princes killed all God’s prophets, letting none escape: Isaiah with a saw, Jeremiah with stones, Daniel with lions, Amos with an iron bar, Paul with the sword, and Christ upon the cross. They condemned all Christians to imprisonment, torture, and the pikes; to being thrown headlong from rocks and steep places; to being cast to wild beasts; and to being burned. They made great fires of their living bodies merely to provide light at night and to make them objects of contempt and mockery. They considered them no better than the vilest filth, the refuse and laughingstocks of the whole world.
This, as you see, is how those who first proclaimed and professed the truth have always been treated. We who have undertaken to profess Christ’s gospel should therefore bear it more patiently if we are treated in the same way for the same cause. If today, like our forefathers long ago, we are tormented and harassed with insults, spiteful treatment, and lies, it is through no fault of our own, but solely because we teach and acknowledge the truth.
Everywhere today they cry out against us. They say that we are all heretics, that we have abandoned the faith, and that with new beliefs and wicked teaching we have utterly destroyed the church’s unity. They accuse us of reviving old heresies condemned long ago, as though fetching them back from hell, and of spreading new sects and disturbances never heard of before. They also say that we are already divided into opposing parties and opinions and have been completely unable to agree among ourselves. They call us accursed creatures who, like the giants, wage war against God himself and live without any regard for God or any worship of him.
They accuse us of despising all good deeds; of observing no discipline of virtue, no laws, and no customs; of valuing neither right, order, equity, nor justice. They say that we give free rein to every kind of wickedness and incite the people to all licentiousness and lust. They charge us with working to overthrow monarchies and kingdoms and bring everything under the rule of the rash, fickle populace and the uneducated multitude.
They say that we have rebelliously deserted the catholic church and, by a wicked schism and division, shaken the whole world and disturbed the church’s common peace and universal tranquility. Just as Dathan and Abiram once conspired against Moses and Aaron, they say, so we today have renounced the bishop of Rome without any reasonable cause. They accuse us of disregarding the authority of the ancient fathers and councils, and of rashly and presumptuously abolishing old ceremonies approved by our fathers and forefathers for many hundreds of years, both through good custom and in purer ages. They say that, on our own private judgment and without the authority of any sacred general council, we have brought new traditions into the church. All this, they claim, we have done solely from a desire for contention and strife, rather than for religion’s sake.
But they claim that, for their part, they have changed nothing whatsoever. Through all these years down to the present day, they say, they have preserved everything just as it was handed down by the apostles and approved by the most ancient fathers.
To keep this affair from seeming merely a matter of secret slander, passed around in a corner solely to spite us, the bishop of Rome has also cunningly recruited certain people of considerable eloquence and learning. They are to help this now almost hopeless cause, polishing and presenting it in books and lengthy speeches. With the matter so neatly and eloquently handled, ignorant and inexperienced people might imagine that something important lay behind it. Indeed, these advocates saw their own cause falling to ruin everywhere, their tricks exposed and held in less esteem, and their resources failing daily. Their case badly needed a skillful spokesman.
As for the charges they have brought against us, some are manifestly false, and even those who make them judge them to be so. Others, though equally false, have a certain appearance and color of truth. An unwary reader may easily stumble over these and be led into error, especially when their polished, cunning account is added. Still others concern things we ought to acknowledge and profess as well done, and done for very good reasons, rather than avoid as crimes or faults.
To speak the truth briefly, these people falsely accuse and slander everything we do, even things they themselves cannot deny are done rightly and in good order. Out of malice, they misconstrue and distort all our words and actions, as though we could not possibly say or do anything right. If they intended to deal truthfully, they should have proceeded more openly and sincerely. Instead, with neither truth, sincerity, nor Christian conduct, they secretly and craftily assail and batter us with lies. They exploit the people’s blindness and foolishness, together with the ignorance of princes, to make us hated and suppress the truth.
Here you see the power of darkness, and of people who rely more on the bewildered amazement of the uneducated multitude and on darkness than on truth and light. As St. Jerome says, they openly contradict the truth, closing their eyes and deliberately refusing to see. But we thank God, supremely good and mighty, that our cause is such that, even when most eager to abuse it, they could say nothing against it that could not equally be twisted against the holy fathers, the prophets, the apostles, Peter, Paul, and Christ himself.
If these people are permitted to speak evil with polished eloquence, surely we ought not to remain speechless in answering truthfully for so good a cause. To care nothing about what is said about oneself and one’s cause, however falsely and slanderously, is surely the conduct of dissolute and reckless people. This is especially so when God’s majesty and the cause of religion may suffer harm. Such people wickedly turn a blind eye to injuries done to God’s name.
A gentle Christian may bear and overlook other wrongs, even great ones. Yet Rufinus used to deny that someone was a Christian if, when accused of heresy, he quietly walked away and concealed the matter. We will therefore do what all laws and nature’s own voice command, and what Christ himself did in a similar case when rebuked and reviled. We intend to repel these slanderous accusations and defend our own cause and innocence soberly and truthfully.
When the Pharisees charged Christ with sorcery, alleging that he had familiar spirits and performed many things with their help, he said, “I have not the devil, but do glorify my Father: but it is you that have dishonored me, and put me to rebuke and shame” (John 8:49). When Festus the governor mocked St. Paul as a madman, Paul said, “I, most dear Festus, am not mad, as thou thinkest, but I speak the words of truth and soberness” (Acts 26:25).
The ancient Christians were publicly slandered as murderers, adulterers, committers of incest, and disturbers of states. They saw that these accusations might bring the religion they professed into question, especially if their silence appeared to confess guilt. To prevent this from hindering the gospel’s free course, they delivered speeches, presented petitions, and made every effort to persuade emperors and princes to let them defend themselves and their fellow Christians in a public hearing.
For our part, we have seen many thousands of our brethren bear witness to the truth during these last twenty years amid the most painful tortures anyone could devise. Princes have tried many ways to restrain the gospel and achieved nothing. Now almost the whole world is beginning to open its eyes to the light. We therefore consider our cause already sufficiently explained and defended, and see no need for many words, since the matter speaks sufficiently for itself.
For if the popes would, or could, weigh the whole matter for themselves, including the beginnings and progress of our religion, they would see how nearly all their labor has come to nothing without anyone driving that collapse forward. On the other hand, our cause has grown from the beginning against the will of emperors, against the wishes of so many kings, despite the popes, and almost in defiance of everyone. Little by little it has spread into every country and finally entered even the courts and palaces of kings. These things, I think, might be signs enough to them that God himself fights mightily in our cause and laughs from heaven at their undertakings. They might see that truth has such power that neither human strength nor the gates of hell can root it out. Surely all those free cities, kings, and princes who have left the see of Rome and joined themselves instead to Christ’s gospel are not mad.
Even if the popes have never yet had time to consider these matters carefully and earnestly, that gives no reason to think less of our cause. Nor does it matter if other concerns now hinder them and pull them in different directions, or if they consider these studies commonplace and trivial, beneath the pope’s dignity. Or if they refuse to see what they actually do see, choosing instead to resist acknowledged truth, must we immediately be counted heretics because we do not obey their will and pleasure?
Suppose Pope Pius were indeed a man who would regard us as his brethren, or at least recognize us as human beings. We do not ask that he be what he so eagerly wishes to be called. If he were such a man, he would first have examined our reasons carefully and considered what could be said both for us and against us. In the bull by which he recently announced a council, he would not have rashly condemned so great a part of the world, so many learned and godly men, so many states, kings, and princes. He would not have done so solely on his own blind prejudices and predetermined judgments, without hearing them speak or giving a reason why.
But he has already publicly branded us in this way, and our silence might seem an admission of guilt. Above all, we can obtain no hearing in the public assembly of the general council, where he would allow no one to vote or express an opinion unless sworn and strictly bound to uphold his authority. (We have had ample experience of this at the last conference at the Council of Trent, where the ambassadors and theologians of the German princes and free cities were entirely excluded from their company. Nor can we forget how Julius III, more than ten years ago, carefully provided by his writ that none of our people should be permitted to speak in the council, except perhaps someone willing to recant and change his opinion.)
Chiefly for these reasons, we thought it right to give a written account of our faith and answer truthfully and openly the charges openly made against us. We want the world to see the parts and foundations of the doctrine for which so many good men have held their own lives of little account. We want everyone to understand what sort of people they are, and what they believe about God and religion, whom the bishop of Rome condemned as heretics before they were called to present their case. He did so without sound consideration, without precedent, and entirely without law or right, merely because he heard that they disagreed with him and his followers on some point of religion.
Although St. Jerome would have no one remain patient when suspected of heresy, we will handle this matter without bitterness or quarrelsomeness, and without being carried away by anger and passion. Still, someone who speaks the truth ought not to be considered bitter or quarrelsome. We willingly leave that kind of eloquence to our adversaries. Whatever they say against us, however malicious or spiteful, they think it modest and proper enough, and care nothing whether it is true or false. We who uphold the truth need none of these devices.
Further, suppose we plainly show that God’s holy gospel, the ancient bishops, and the early church support our side; that we have left these men with just cause and have instead returned to the apostles and the ancient catholic fathers. Suppose we are found to have done this without pretense or craft, but in good faith before God, truly, honestly, clearly, and openly. Suppose those who reject our doctrine and wish to be called catholics plainly see that all their much-boasted claims to antiquity have been knocked out of their hands, and that our cause has more substance than they imagined. Then we hope and trust that none of them will be so negligent and careless about his own salvation that he will fail, at last, to consider carefully which side he ought to join.
