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This is a really bizzare comment. The early Protestant reformers were all highly educated academics. Luther was a classically educated professor of theology. Ca

This is a really bizzare comment. The early Protestant reformers were all highly educated academics. Luther was a classically educated professor of theology. Calvin was a university educated lawyer who had published commentaries on Seneca (a Stoic philosopher). Philip Melanchthon was a university lecturer on oratory and Latin literature, and published a Greek grammar. It is a bit of a stretch to paint them as simple-minded Germanic folk (especially since Calvin was French). All of them were familiar with the theology of the early church fathers and appeal to it in their writings. While the pope had plenty of temporal power in the renaissance, it's certainly incorrect to say that any pope ruled anything that could be called the western empire before that. Instead of a strict separation of church and state, the Byzantine emperor Justinian appointed 3 successive popes after re-conquering Italy from the ostrogoths.

coldtea 8y ago
>It is a bit of a stretch to paint them as simple-minded Germanic folk Not them (as people), their doctrines (and eventual audience). It was a simplified and fundamentalist approach to theology -- and owes a lot to its translation to common folk language and the political interests of the day for its quick adoption. >Instead of a strict separation of church and state, the Byzantine emperor Justinian appointed 3 successive popes after re-conquering Italy from the ostrogoths. That was a power move, in an always tense political climate in the Eastern empire. There were the opposite moves as well -- the patriarch at war with the emperor, criticizing public policy, and so on, depending on the balance of power. Such incidents aside (across a millennium of state history), they remained two separate domains, not a single unified source of church and state power.
tpm 8y ago
Luther certainly was not a simple-minded German folkperson, however in his time the Mass was commonly in Latin, which was not understood by the folk. One of important results of the Reformation was the translation of the Bible and liturgy in the language of the people (this happened in Czech lands already at the time of Jan Hus, but not elsewhere). The Catholic hierarchy was also perceived to be highly corrupt and the teachings not accessible by the common people, so the Reformation aimed to change all that. This is sort of what I feel where the OP is going with his comment.
- coldtea 8y ago
  Yeah, that's part of where I was going. The new theology caught on as a simplified "back-to-basics" doctrine for the masses, and shed a lot of the subtlety of earlier theology. Instead of being less indoctrinated protestants became more fundamentalist and less nuanced than Catholics -- which can be seen in a very crude example in today's "bible belt" version of christianity (and even someone like Nietzsche alluded to that kind of influence by Luther).

coldtea 8y ago

>It is a bit of a stretch to paint them as simple-minded Germanic folk Not them (as people), their doctrines (and eventual audience). It was a simplified and fundamentalist approach to theology -- and owes a lot to its translation to common folk language and the political interests of the day for its quick adoption. >Instead of a strict separation of church and state, the Byzantine emperor Justinian appointed 3 successive popes after re-conquering Italy from the ostrogoths. That was a power move, in an always tense political climate in the Eastern empire. There were the opposite moves as well -- the patriarch at war with the emperor, criticizing public policy, and so on, depending on the balance of power. Such incidents aside (across a millennium of state history), they remained two separate domains, not a single unified source of church and state power.

tpm 8y ago

Luther certainly was not a simple-minded German folkperson, however in his time the Mass was commonly in Latin, which was not understood by the folk. One of important results of the Reformation was the translation of the Bible and liturgy in the language of the people (this happened in Czech lands already at the time of Jan Hus, but not elsewhere). The Catholic hierarchy was also perceived to be highly corrupt and the teachings not accessible by the common people, so the Reformation aimed to change all that. This is sort of what I feel where the OP is going with his comment.

coldtea 8y ago
Yeah, that's part of where I was going. The new theology caught on as a simplified "back-to-basics" doctrine for the masses, and shed a lot of the subtlety of earlier theology. Instead of being less indoctrinated protestants became more fundamentalist and less nuanced than Catholics -- which can be seen in a very crude example in today's "bible belt" version of christianity (and even someone like Nietzsche alluded to that kind of influence by Luther).