Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/887

 WJntney : The Reformation 877 felicities and inconsequentialities would require more space than is available for the entire review. Only forty pages can be spared by him for Germany and the Reformation up to 1529 and sixteen pages to Germany after 1529, and of these Luther gets barely five or six with an occasional sentence passim. Even in these two chapters popes, humanists, and Catholic opponents of Luther are much in evidence. Mr. Whitney does not know Luther. He supposes that Luther attributed the Deutsche Theologie to Tauler (p. 28). He speaks of Luther as " typically scholastic " and as having " never departed from the stand- point of his master Staupitz ". As a matter of fact he was antipodal to scholasticism, as was Staupitz, and he did depart from Staupitz as widely as can well be conceived. He declares that Luther was " abso- lutely free from any scruples as to breach of unity ", which is very far from the fact. Zwingli and the Swiss Reformation fare no better as regards space; but the author's characterization of Zwingli and his teaching is some- what juster than in the case of Luther. He declares Zwingli's " free and intellectual study of the Scriptures interpreted by the individual powers and for the individual needs " to be " Humanism pure and sim- ple, unfettered or unchecked, as with Erasmus, by regard for religious authority and the unity of the Church ". He further characterizes Zwingli as " the revolutionary theologian of the Reformation ", a desig- nation which would be more suitable to Luther and still more so to some others. It is in the chapter on the Reformation in Switzerland, strangely enough, that the Diet of Augsburg and the Augsburg Confes- sion are treated. Here Mr. Whitney makes the amazing blunder of supposing that the Confession presented by the Lutherans had " Apol- ogy " for its original title. Of course the Apology was Melanchthon's defense of the Confession against the Refutation put forth by the Roman Catholic theologians. The author's statement (p. 377) that Zwingli derived his sacramental views from 'an Hoen. a Dutch theo- logian, is not quite correct. It was to Erasmus that he owed his mode of thought which determined his attitude toward the sacraments, and the influence of Carlstadt, who seems to have owed something to Van Hoen, probably had to do with the formulation of his views. While he insists that " the influence of Calvin cannot be estimated too highly " and gives a fairly satisfactory account of his theological and theocratic views, he cannot forbear to speak of his genius as " sinister ". Knox is dismissed with a few short, disconnected sentences (pp. 348, 354, 364), which involve no adequate appreciation of his character or work. Chapters vii.-ix. (141 pages) are devoted to the Council of Trent. Here we at once become aware that the author is treading on firmer ground. He no longer deals in vague generalities or manifests the " possession " on his part of vast supplies of ignorance and misinforma- tion, but he shows interest in the minutest details and the possession of a creditable amount of authentic knowledge. These chapters constitute AW. REV., HIST. VOL. XI. — 57.