Page:French Calvinism, German Lutheranism and the War.pdf/5

- 4 - My third thesis is that Lutheranism has meant the instauration of a religious Caesaro-papism in Northern and Central Europe.

My fourth thesis is that Lutheranism has furthered the instauration of political tyranny.

My fifth thesis is that Lutheranism has not only brought about the breaking up of the unity of Christian civilisation, it has also meant the breaking up, the destroying of the integrity of the German mind.

Let us consider briefly, as far as time and space will permit, those five different propositions.

I.

My first proposition is that Lutheranism means primarily the rebellion of the Teuton against tne Latin, of organised barbarism against civilisation. As a matter of fact, Christianity in the form in which it existed for many centuries had never taken deep root in Northern Germany, it never exceeded the boundary of the advance of the Roman legions. At the time of Luther, Brandenburg was still practically a heathen country. What is to-day the capital of Prussia was not many centuries ago, a village inhabited by Wendish savages. What was to be the Dukedom of Prussia and what/