From Wittenberg to Trent
A History of the Council of Trent. By Hubert Jedin. Translated from the German by Dom
Ernest Graf, OSB. Volume 1. (Nelson, 70s.) A WARM welcome will be given by all students of sixteenth-century history to the English trans- lation of the monumental Geschichte des Konzils von Trient by Professor Jedin of Bonn, the first volume of which is now published. The work is conceived on a generous scale, for of the total compass of eight books, only Books I and 11 are embraced in this volume. The author is well known for his previous historical studies of this period and this magnum opus constitutes the definitive account of that Council which marked the parting of the ways of the Roman and Pro- testant Churches. The appearance of an English translation will enable a much wider public to become acquainted with this important work.
The present volume closes with the actual open- ing of the Council at Trent on December 13, 1545, more than a quarter of a century after Luther's affixing of his theses against indulgences to the door of the castle church at Wittenberg, only one year before that reformer's death, twelve years after Zwingli's death on the field of Cappel, and nearly twenty years after the appearance of the first edition of Calvin's Institutes. These dates are important; for the gravest accusation against the Papacy is that of postponing so long the sum- moning of a general council and thereby suffering reform to pass into rebellion and making prac- tically impossible a healing of the schism. It is
the province of this first volume to explain the causes of the delay, and also why, notwithstanding the extreme reluctance of Papacy and curia to risk the experiment, the demand for a council proved ultimately irresistible. The author pro- vides full documentation for the universal recog-
nition of the imperative necessity for reform of the Church tam in capite quain in inembris, and
of the widespread conviction that a general coun- cil alone was adequate to effect it. Despite the apparent completeness of the Papal victory over the Conciliar movement of the fifteenth century, Professor Jedin emphasises the persistence of the Conciliar tradition, finding its strength 'in the combination of the demand for a council with the actual need of reform.'
When the story passes from reform to rebellion, however, the author's pen assumes a sharper point. In the protest of Luther he sees from the outset nothing but heresy; and accordingly the attitude of the Church should be one, not of com- promise and the search for agreement, but of sentence and condemnation. It should be remarked, however, that Professor Jedin pays a nioving tribute to the efforts at reconciliation by Contarini at Ratisbon; and that one of the most valuable sections of his book is its sketch of the pre-Trientine apologetic against Luther. Likewise he realises the full extent of the real tragedy of Papal and curial practices in almost extinguish- ing the pastoral ideal of the episcopate and the parochial ministry. This was the supreme con- demnation of the Papacy, and the author, in an earlier work, has traced the revival of this pastoral ideal in the counter-reformation.
On the 'whole Professor Jedin has attained a notable degree of impartiality in delineating the events of a singularly controversial episode; but at times he cannot refrain from seeing the six- teenth century through the spectacles of 1870. `For the Catholic of today, firmly set as he is on the standpoint of the Vatican Council, the situation is perfectly clear.' But it was not so to sixteenth- century churchmen, not a few of whom (like Stephen Gardiner of Winchester) did not hold the Papal jurisdiction to be divino jure and therefore essential to the Church. indeed this is admitted when the author writes of the colloquy at Ratisbon that 'the discussions within the Church herself on the extent of the Papal primacy and its relation to a 'General Council had not as yet led to such unanimity and clarity as to make it advisable to enter into details in a discussion with
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