§1
The following, for the most part, are the doctors and prelates of the dissenting sects whose names especially I found in the catalogue of the spring fair of the year 1618 and whose writings I acquired—although the writings of some could not be obtained, either because they had not yet appeared or because their printers were ashamed of them:
The academics of Strasbourg.
Andreas Finnolot.
An anonymous author, Unbekant gegen Christian Gottliebs.
The preachers of Strasbourg.
An anonymous author on the Jubilee.
Andreas Cramerus.
Abraham Scultetus.
Adrianus Smoutius.
The Arminians and Gomarians in Holland.
Balthasar Meisnerus.
Caspar Holstenius.
Caspar Melissander.
Caspar Finckius.
Christophorus Schleupnerus.
Christophorus Zieglerus.
Conradus Dietericus.
Christophorus Adolphi.
Christophorus Walpurger.
The Danish preachers.
Daniel Angelocrater.
David Pareus.
Ehrhardus Lautterbach.
Aegidius Strauch.
Fridericus Helbachius.
Friderich Franck.
Fridericus Balduinus.
Georgius Engelman.
Georgius Zeaeman.
Gaudentius, on the celebrants of the Jubilee.
Guilielmus Barret, an Englishman.
The academics of Heidelberg.
Hartmannus Braun.
Henricus Altingus.
Henricus Eckardus.
Henricus Hopffner.
Henricus Hirtzwigius.
Iacobus Martini.
Ioannes Gisenius.
Ioannes Simonius.
Ioannes Grocius.
Ioannes Tarnovius.
Ioannes Affelmannus.
Ioannes Staden.
Ioannes Schröder.
Ioannes Heinrich Hiemer.
Ioannes Schneider.
Ioannes Pandocheus.
Ioannes Salmuth.
Ioannes Ioachim Beutherus.
Ioannes Michael Beutherus.
Ioannes Leibius.
Ioannes Georgius Siegwart.
Ioannes of Rochester, against Robert Bellarmine.
Ioannes Schreiter of Annaberg.
Ioannes Sharpius.
Maximilianus Rittern.
Martinus Rober.
Matthias Hoe von Hoheneck.
Matthias Haffenreffer.
Melchior Schaererus.
Michael Mulingus.
The Popish Market, by an unnamed author.
M. M. D.
Nicolaus Hartkopfius.
Nicolaus Martini.
Nicolaus Pomeranus.
Nicolaus Grevinchovius.
Paulus Laurentii.
Polycarpus Leyser.
Fourteen sermons by various authors concerning the Jubilee feast.
The academics of Rostock.
Robertus Sarisburiensis.
Sibrandus Lubbertus.
Sigismundus Evenius.
Simon Gediccus.
The scholastics of Neuhaus.
The academics of Tübingen.
Thomas Weinrichius.
Thomas Tuke the Englishman’s Index of Faith and Religion.
Vincentz Schmucken.
Wilhelmus Alardus.
The professors and doctors of Wittenberg.
The preachers of Württemberg.
Wolffgangus Frantzius. And
Others whom obscure fame conceals.
Their multitude forbids the naming of the Catholic doctors of this time. The academies themselves, and the colleges both of canons and of religious, would fill many pages.
§2
As regards doctrine, it is one and the same among all Catholics, namely that which was explained in the Council of Trent and in other synods. Once you depart from it, you will behold a vast multitude of all the sects, each of which claims for itself the most certain truth and the most thoroughly tested sanctity, and most boldly condemns the others. Since, therefore, a later age will marvel at the variety, absurdity, and blasphemies of the heresies, something must be said briefly about their authorities and opinions.
Saint Augustine, Philastrius, and, before them, Epiphanius once compiled catalogues of the various heresies; in our own time Lindanus, Prateolus, Sanderus, and, in an abridgment, our own Iacobus Gualterus in his chronological table, in which he compared the new heresies with the old, have done so.
§3
Martinus Lutherus was the first to begin the innovation and to seek liberty for ambition and lust. The proclamation of indulgences furnished him the occasion, but internal evils—which have always disturbed peaceful affairs—avarice, illicit loves, and the pride of an unquiet disposition furnished the cause. But because he did not have all things settled, and because not only do true things conflict with false ones but false things also conflict with one another, he could never suitably weave and arrange that work without destroying one thing after another. So, if anyone should construct a great building without a plan, he necessarily has to tear down many things, because his hands were swifter than his counsel. Hence, at the very beginnings, not only sermons and writings but even the merriments and pleasantries of the table, about which the Lutherans have written entire books, were fruitful in new heresies. And indeed, as Lutherus himself and Matthias Hoe in his third Jubilee sermon confess, he himself encountered thirty fanatical spirits, just as that huge sow beneath the holm oaks lay after bringing forth a litter of thirty heads.
Ioannes Gisenius, professor at Giessen, admits this either candidly or when driven by the necessity of truth, in thesis 7: “Although in his first writings he defended certain things that manifestly favor the papists, in the following writings, nevertheless, he cast them off and condemned them. For successively, by assiduous prayer, meditation, and trial, he was led into the truth and learned to recognize and soundly refute the impieties of the papists.” Luther himself explains this in the preface to volume 1 of the Latin Jena edition: “Before all things,” he says, “I beg the pious reader—and I beg him for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ himself—to read these things with judgment, indeed with much compassion, and to know that I was once a monk and a most insane papist when I undertook this cause.” And a little later: “Thus you will find in these earlier writings of mine how many and how great things I most humbly conceded to the pope, which at a later time and at the present time I regard as the highest blasphemy and abomination, and execrate. You will therefore ascribe this error, pious reader, or—as they themselves slanderously call it—contradiction, to the time,” etc.
Since, therefore, at the beginnings he did not speak by the Spirit of God or by heavenly grace, he contradicted himself. For if God had placed the word in his mouth, he would not have asserted with such certainty anything abominable or anything contrary to manifest truth. Saints and learned men indeed err at times; but one who condemned the whole Church and antiquity and professed himself to be a new Elijah ought not to have erred in all things and altered everything.
§4
Furthermore, of those who altered the faith preached by Luther, some wholly defected from Luther and condemned him; others made little sects under a famous name that enjoyed favor—
—among the Germans.
His most bitter enemy was the man who had promoted him, Andreas Bodenstein of Carlstadt, who was bought so that he might attack his client, as many celebrants of the Jubilee relate the history, especially Matthias Hoe in his third sermon, page 116. The Lutherans attribute the Sacramentarian and Anabaptist heresies to him, as Erasmus Alberus does in his book On the Accursed Doctrine of the Carlstadtians. Melanchthon, in his commentary on Colossians, says that he denied infant baptism. Others credit Zwingli with Anabaptism because in his book on baptism he writes that it is more useful for baptism not to be conferred upon children; indeed, Balthasar Pacimontanus, whom most affirm to be the father of the Anabaptists, defended himself by a writing of Zwingli that rejected infant baptism. But one ought not to labor greatly over the author of the evil; reasons for averting the evil must be sought. Thomas Müntzer and Nicolaus Storch held the leading parts in that tragedy.
The first branch of Lutheranism, therefore—though torn from the tree—was Anabaptism, and it was divided into very many sects. They deny that the Son of God took flesh from the Virgin; approve promiscuous intercourse; issue commands; do not acknowledge the magistracy; seek a reputation for innocence through outward masks; indulge dreams; study magic; and think that those who do not follow their sect can be killed. They have many things in common with the others and many peculiar to themselves. Their leader was Christophorus Schaplerus, who incited the peasants to wars. Campanus, akin to this group, also added this: he denied the distinction of persons in the Trinity. I think the Scripturarians, Paulinians, Batenburgers, killers of pastors, Blood-men, Aegidians, Demoniacs, and Sabbatarians pertain to these, holding even wives in common; also the Sleepers and the Wailers, among whom there are as many sects as heads. With Carlstadt acting as midwife on one side, Zwingli giving birth, and Oecolampadius assisting, Sacramentarianism was born. The Lutherans are accustomed to call it Zwinglianism and Calvinism and especially detest it.
Zwingli imitated the errors of Berengarius, but added more; Carlstadt and Oecolampadius assisted him. With the Pelagians he rejected original sin and the necessity of grace. But all the Lutherans charge him with Nestorianism. Calvin followed Zwingli, adding many errors: that faith is not one; that it is not without unbelief; that there is no implicit faith; that Scripture is uncertain and easy to understand; that faith cannot be lost; that God predestined men to evils and sins; that there is a real distinction in the divine essence; that the Trinity is not to be adored; that Christ, according to his human nature, was ignorant; that he refused the office of mediator, despaired, and endured the punishments of a damned man; that he merited nothing for himself; that the glory of the pious is not granted before the last day; and that the Church can fail. Certain Lutherans enumerate three hundred and more errors of the Calvinists: Eckard’s Fasciculus, Cramerus, and others.
§5
The Sacramentarian heresy was divided into many sects, as Luther warned. From it arose the Bucerians and Melanchthonians, occupied in perpetual reconciliations, although they defended errors peculiar to themselves. Martyr likewise taught a singular opinion. Castellio permitted whatever religion each person wished. He removed the Song of Songs from the canon because he said that it was an immodest song.
Łaski wholly rejected baptism. Valentinus Gentilis mixed the Qur’an with the New Testament. Ludovicus Alemannus denied that the body of Christ is received even by faith. Petrus Richerius denied that Christ is to be adored in human flesh; at last he judged that the Father alone is to be adored. There are also others whom they call the Significatives, Tropists, Energetics, Arrhabonarii, Adessenarians, Metamorphists, Iscariotites, Metaphorists, Antipuritans, Pseudo-Irenics, Arminians, Sibrandians, Vorstians, and Venatorians. The polemical writings of the Netherlanders show the various and pernicious errors of these men, especially of the later ones.
§6
And these are the men who wholly opposed Luther. Yet no fewer wage bitter wars among themselves under his name and hurl thunderbolts against one another. There were two parties, the Rigid and the Mild. The head of the latter was Melanchthon, together with the Wittenbergers and academics generally; the head of the former was Illyricus Flaccus. Their errors grew cruel even to exiles and proscriptions. Then the Brentians, or grosser Ubiquitarians, became strong. At the same time, especially in Prussia, arose the Osiandrians, who taught that we are justified by the essential righteousness of God. Stancarus so opposed him that he attributed the power of justifying to Christ’s humanity alone and denied it to his divinity, being an Arian in this respect. Andreas Musculus, a distinguished Ubiquitarian, attacked both positions; for he attributed justification to both the divine and the human nature and, to make his position more vehement, said that the divine nature died on the cross. The Tübingen theologians adhered to Osiander in part, saying that the essential righteousness of God is imputed to us. Thereafter Nicolaus Amsdorff and the Mansfeldians tore Saxony apart in a great dispute, when they opposed the Majorists, the Antinomians, defenders of free will, the Adiaphorists, and the Stancarians concerning good works, and condemned them in a synod that had been held. Chytraeus, Functius, the Pastillarians, Interimists, Anti-Adiaphorists, Lutheropapists, Luthero-Zwinglians, Heshusians, and Hutites revived the errors in various quarters with various opinions and multiplied them so greatly that there is scarcely agreement among any of them.
The Concord of Berg was vaunted about the year of the Lord 1580, and in the following years most conspired to support it—but with the result that soon most Lutherans defected from it, and most provinces from the Lutherans.
§7
Those who openly fight against the Lutherans, Calvinists, and Anabaptists are the Ostorodians—or, if you prefer, Socinians—deniers of Christ’s merit, redemption, and divine righteousness, Arians throughout Poland, Hungary, and Transylvania; Servetians, who mingle Sabellianism, Eutychianism, and Anabaptism; the Effrontes, who shaved their foreheads until they drew blood, anointed them with oil, boasted that they were Christians without baptism, and said that the Holy Spirit was a certain motion and therefore could not be adored without the crime of idolatry; the Ochinists, who admit polygamy; the new Sabellians; the Bacularians; and those who form the greatest crowd, the Epicureans, atheists, and Libertines. This is the condition of the religions that contend most vigorously in Europe. A great part of the people either does not care about the controversies or is certainly ignorant of them. The more learned men are partly on others’ sides and partly on their own, for by the vehemence of disputing they generally lose the truth and strike against some heresy. There are many Lutherans, and of various stamps; many Calvinists; and perhaps no fewer Anabaptists and Socinians—
—but very many who have determined to fuse all the religions into one.
§8
The Novatians once did this, as the author of Heresy 38 and Epiphanius in Heresy 59 attest. They declared that they and the Catholics were imbued with nearly the same faith, but that they nevertheless differed in doctrine; and they blamed the Catholics in the time of the Arian emperor Valens: “You contend on account of a trifling subtlety of doctrines.” There were also Rhetorians, who taught that all heresies walked on the right path and taught the truth. So Philastrius relates in his Catalogue, and Augustine in Heresy 72; and Augustine marvels that it could enter anyone’s mind to judge thus. That opinion always gains strength when provinces fall into the manifold labyrinths of errors. For profane men are thereby led, provided only that they preserve the peace of the state, not to fear conspiring together in one error.
Zeno’s peace taught this: his ἑνωτικὸν πρόσταγμα, his pacificatory or unitive edict, by which he wished the Eutychians, Dioscorians, and Catholics to remit something of their own opinion so that they might unite in one religion. That measure nevertheless produced greater dissensions, just as the Lutherans weakened themselves by nothing more than when they forced otherwise incurable errors together into the single Book of Concord. By a not dissimilar reasoning, Ioannes Sturmius in 1578 established a middle way: he wished a new religion to be fused from the opinions of Protestants and Catholics by the judgment of seventy men; but he aroused against himself the anger of all theologians. Our most learned Gualterus relates in his chronological table, page 380, column 2, that Ioannes Serranus, minister of Orange, said to a certain powerful Catholic lord that his religion differed from the Roman religion only in ceremonies, that his own had too few ceremonies and the Roman too many, and that it was not difficult to reconcile the one with the other, namely by increasing the number of the former and diminishing that of the latter. Prevented by death, he did not finish the book he had begun on this subject. A certain conciliator under the fictitious name Christianus Constans attempted the same thing. He asserts that the Roman and Calvinian religions are not two religions but one, if the matter is to be judged truly and genuinely, as Gualterus himself explains at length under the year 1600, page 8, column 4, section 1. If Gualterus had seen Pareus’s Irenicon and the polemical writings of the Lutherans—all of which were published after his chronological tables—he would have marveled far more than Augustine did at the Rhetorians.
§9
Since, therefore, there are so many heresies, and they increase day by day, draw states into factions by their increase, rend apart the members of Europe, set some against others and the whole before the Turks: recognize, O kings and princes, the condition of your religion; take thought for your own souls, for the salvation of your subjects, and for the state and civil order. A return must be made to one religion. For either each of you will obstinately defend his own opinions, and thus there will be as many dissensions as men; or you will give each person the power of holding and teaching opinions, and thus in one word you will overthrow the state. For men will come who will deny that the magistracy has any right, who will say that all things are common, and who, with pleasure pandering to the efficacy of their errors, will introduce them into morals.
This change of religion was brought into Europe by many seditions and wars; it cost altogether much blood, with which Africa, Asia, and India could have been acquired. From it, even now as I write these things, civil wars rage in many places, are being prepared in more, and are feared by all. Alas, will you descendants deny it? Amid so many faiths, will the Son of Man, when he comes, find faith?