In the history of the pontificate of Gregory VII, the figure of archbishop Gebiun of Lyons is mysterious, and his very presence shadow-like, while his position as primate seems at first glance anomalous. The policy of the pope, from the start of his rule, had been dominated by motives of ecclesiastical centralization and by the notion of a hierarchy ruled directly on all levels by the pope himself or by administrators in constant contact with the papacy. Thus, he had regularized and extended the scope of the Roman Council, and had asserted the privileged position of the papal legate throughout the western church.

The attack on the orthodoxy of Jacques Lefè d'Etaples, taken as a whole, may be divided into three stages. The first centered about his handling of the Vulgate; the second may be called the “controversy of the three's;” the third stage began when he was first charged with Lutheranism. The first two of these stages involved a number of widely separated individuals, whose varying degrees of repugnance have every appearance of being genuine and spontaneous reactions to Lefèvre's innovations. The third stage lies beyond our boundaries, so we shall not undertake its consideration in this paper. We shall only say of it, by the way of comparing it with the first two, that the attack was then consolidated under the leadership of the Sorbonne, and its Syndic Beda; it became institutionalized or professionalized, and sprang from all sorts of motives, self-regarding and political as well as religious. Of course the Sorbonne as one of the pillars of the old order had a hand in it from the beginning, and in general each of what I have called “stages” gathered up into itself much of those that went before, and they are to be distinguished from each other by emphases rather than by clear-cut divisions, either logical or chronological.

“What do they know of Luther, who only Luther know?” This question posed by Professor Gordon Rupp is apposite as one commemorates the 450th Anniversary year of Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses. The discovery of Luther's biblical lectures has led to a renaissance in Luther studies. Would not careful attention to Catholic commentaries in the period between Luther and Trent provide that perspective suggested in Rupp's more than rhetorical question? In a recent study attention is drawn to humanistic influences on the decree of April 8, 1546 at Trent.8 I should like to draw attention to the Catholic biblical study of Marino Grimani (1486–1546), Clemens Aranis (1482–1559), and Ambrosius Catharinus (1484–1553) which is necessary to an understanding of the context of that April 8, 1546 decree on scripture and tradition at Trent. By thus observing part of the Catholic reaction to Luther one understands in a different way the importance for the people of God of Luther's study of the word of God. That difference relates to the definition of authority which is beyond the scope of this descriptive essay.

Religious division has determined Germany's destiny. In the Middle Ages, it was the struggle between Emperor and Pope which doomed the Holy Roman Empire. During the Reformation, and the Thirty Years' War, it was Protestantism as well as the anti-Imperial diplomacy of the Pope and the French cardinals, which prevented the emergence of a national state and a centralized government. “From the split of the church dates all our misfortune,” complained in 1846 the Lutheran historian Johann Friedrich Böhmer, editor of a major medieval source collection.

Springing from English Puritanism, Congregationalism became the established religion of New England outside Rhode Island and at the time of the American Revolution stood pre-eminent in membership and prestige in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. Congregationalism's position in New England was not, however, indicative of its national appeal. When the Revolutionary War commenced various of the other American religious groups began to organize themselves into national churches. By the early part of the nineteenth century it was apparent that these national churches forged in the midst of a pluralistic society were denominations, i.e., they were voluntary associations of like-minded individuals united to accomplish certain defined objectives. Thus, religious groups in America came to be defined in terms of a common purpose rather than in terms of a special relationship to civil government or even in terms of a precise theological standard.

In spite of the nativism that agitated the United States during the second quarter of the nineteenth century, the Catholic Church experienced a noticeable drift of native American converts from other denominations. Between 1841 and 1857 the increased number of converts included a significant sprinkling of Protestant ministers. The history of this movement, which had its paradigm in the Oxford Movement, will be treated more in detail elsewhere. The purpose of this essay is simply to recount the attempt by several converts to establish a religious congregation of men dedicated to the Catholic apostolate among native Americans.

Even the most ardent devotee of ecclesiastical history cannot realistically claim for his special interest a major role in Clio's fraternity in this age of high secularization. Yet it may be said, I believe, that the role is growing rather than diminishing for historians generally as they assess the value of scientific and professional works such as those of the Fliche and Martin series, The Christian Centuries edited by Louis J. Rogier, Roger Aubert, and David Knowles, the successive volumes of Concilium. Theology in The Age of Renewal devoted to ecclesiastical history, and the projected Oxford History of the Christian Church under the guiding hand of Owen Chadwick. And parenthetically at the outset I should like to make it clear that while most of the materials used in this paper are related to the Roman Catholic Church simply because of my greater familiarity with her story, I use the term ‘Christian Church’ in the broadest possible sense to embrace the Protestant, Anglican, and Orthodox communions, as well as that of the Church to which I owe my personal faith and allegiance.