Five hundred and two years ago, on October 31, 1517, an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther posted ninety-five theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. This was a common action in this university town and was intended as an invitation to debate and discuss.
Instead, a conflagration ensued and the world was transformed.
The event was preceded by the labors of men such as Jan Has (John Hus), and John Wycliffe, both of whom lived in the 14th century, and also William Tyndale, whose labors were greatly influential to the translators of both the Geneva Bible (the version first brought to America’s shores) as well as the later Authorized (King James) version.
The Reformation came “in the fullness of time.” The peoples of the world, especially Europe, were “ready” to seek, find, and act upon the Truth.
The following quotes will serve to remind us that, absent the Reformation, especially the work of John Calvin and the the Genevan reformers, we would have been a very different people and place:
“[Calvinists] are the true heroes of England. They founded England, in spite of the corruption of the Stuarts, by the exercise of duty, by the practice of justice, by obstinate toil, by vindication of right, by resistance to oppression, by the conquest of liberty, by the repression of vice. They founded Scotland; they founded the United States; at this day they are, by their descendants, founding Australia and colonizing the world.” — French atheist Hippolyte Taine (1828-1893)
“Calvinism has been the chief source of republican government.” — Lorraine Boettner
“In Calvinism lies the origin and guarantee of our constitutional liberties.” — Goren van Prinsterer
“[John Calvin] is the father of America. He who will not honor the memory and respect the influence of Calvin knows but little of the origin of American liberty.” — Historian George Bancroft
“John Calvin was the virtual founder of America.” — German historian Leopold von Ranke
When we speak of the Reformation we think of men like Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, Ulrich Zwingli, and many such others, mostly hailing from Switzerland, England, Holland, Scandinavia, Germany, and France.
And then there is Spain.
Perhaps the most known Spanish Reformation names are the remarkable Casiodoro de Reina and Cipriano de Valera, the erudite and pious men who translated and revised the entire Bible into Spanish from the original languages. The Reina-Valera version was first published in 1569, less than a decade after the Geneva Bible and four decades before the Authorized (King James). And it remains to this day as influential to the Spanish speaking peoples as the King James is to the English speaking.
Both men, at different times, pastored a Spanish protestant church in London. Valera translated Calvin’s Institutes into Spanish. From his introduction to the Institutes: “Therefore, open your eyes, O Spaniards, and forsaking those who deceive you, obey Christ and His Word which alone is firm and unchangeable for ever. Establish and found your faith on the true foundation of the Prophets and Apostles and sole Head of His Church.”
Both men died in exile after productive lives, despite hardships.
Spain, like her fellow European countries (including Italy, but that’s beyond today’s post), was also ripe for the Reformation. Reformistas Antiguos Españoles is a magisterial, 21-volume work which offers biographies and writings of Spanish reformers, including Juan Valdés, who, in 1529, published Diálogo de Doctrina Cristiana (Dialogue of Christian Doctrine) the first protestant book to be published in Spain. He also translated much of the New Testament from the original languages into Spanish. You could say he was the William Tyndale of Spain. An extraordinary man, as were many others of his compatriots.
Other examples of the spiritual fervent in Spain before and after Luther include the fact that there was at least one protestant congregation in Spain, established around 1510, years before the 95 theses were posted. Also, Adrian Saravia, born in the Spanish Netherlands to a Spanish father and a Flemish mother, fled to England and became one of the English Bible’s (Authorized) translators.
Another powerful indication predates 1517 by almost three centuries: Spain’s open mindedness and piety can be inferred by knowing a bit about the thirteenth-century Spanish king, Alfonso the Wise, who ordered the Bible be translated into Castilian Spanish and thus began to standardize the language. I understand there is still an extant copy of that Bible but to date have not succeeded in finding it. It was this king who laid the groundwork for the Siete Partidas, which includes large portions of the Old Testament in Castilian Spanish and which became the basis for law in Spain and her colonies until the catastrophic French Revolution’s incursions. For more on the Siete Partidas, refer to my May 11, 2019 post, “Simon Bolivar III — Influences.”
To begin to appreciate this king, however imperfect, the following was the instruction behind the Siete Partidas: “The Law-Maker should love God and keep Him before his eyes when he makes the laws, in order that they may be just and perfect. He should moreover love justice and the common benefit of all….If [the ruler] should make a bad use of his power … people can denounce him as a tyrant, and his government which was lawful, will become wrongful.” But this does not justify anarchy. “The union of all men together, those of superior, middle, and inferior rank” would determine what course to take in case of tyranny. This presaged John Calvin’s “lesser magistrates” theories, which we have institutionalized in the United States (federal, state, county, township, governor, sheriff, etc.) by three centuries, and anticipated our Fairfax Resolves and our Declaration of Independence by five!
The Spanish Inquisition, was energetically pressed by Pope Leo X, whose hatred for Luther was undisguised, not to say unhinged. He became alarmed at the incursions of the “Lutheran heresy” into Spain (apparently unaware that the “heresy” had resided in Spain for centuries before Luther) and he forcefully pressed the Spanish Inquisition whose first auto de fé took place in 1559, decades after the launching of the great explorations, including Columbus (1492), Cortés (1519), and others. If you read Columbus unfiltered by modern historians you would be forgiven if you thought he too was a Protestant.
My point is that, while the Reformation fostered unmistakable and long-lasting impact and influence on English and French America, it also affected Spanish and Portuguese America. An influence later truncated, if not extinguished by the Inquisition, which, unfortunately, had severe impact on Spain and its colonies, and even on the Roman Catholic Church in Spain, whose developing “evangelical” component was snuffed out.
As I’ve noted several times in this blog, North, Central, and South America have more in common with one another than is usually assumed. Granted, in some regions one would have to dig much deeper under the surface to find that shared background. For one thing, the French atheistic revolutionary influence forcefully invaded the Spanish colonies centuries ago in contrast to the English, who greatly delayed that infiltration.
Nevertheless, I do hope we will one day see the fruits of the common ancestry of the Reformation. Perhaps within the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren.
May you enjoy Reformation Sunday, October 27, and Reformation Day, October 31.
