Ecclesiastical exclusiveness has been among the persistent historical characteristics of the Christian church as, in its various forms and by varying degreees, it has insisted on monopoly in the mediation of salvation. The Cyprianic theme of extra ecclesiam nulla salus has not lacked occasion for re-utterance throughout the centuries, whether by the pen of Augustine, Boniface VIII, Luther or Calvin, though meanings, of course, have changed in differing theological and ecclesiastical circumstances. The church as custodian of the sacraments and chief locus of the work of the Holy Spirit, the church as supreme, universal institutional authority under the rulership of the vicar of Christ, the church as proclaimer of the Word and its promises and thus the home of saving faith—these are among the designations historically utilized to support the exclusivistic affirmations.

It is now almost a century since a German theologian first discussed the life and work of Johan Eberlin von Günzburg, the Swabian folkpreacher who doffed his Franciscan habit to follow Luther. In the ensuing period, the published writings of this minor Reformation character have been submitted to microscopic analysis, pertaining to his theological, sociological, political and philological style by a variety of German scholars. So far, however, there has been no assessment of Johan Eberlin's significance against the background of Christian Humanism as it applied to the German Renaissance. With two recent exceptions there has been almost no reference to this fascinating figure in the Reformation literature available in the English language. I intend here to remedy this injustice and to throw some light on a personality of considerable historical interest by reviewing the internal evidence of his most important work—that part of his Fünfzehn Bundsgenossen (Fifteen Confederates) which comprises his utopia.

Historians of art and of German culture alike traditionally have interpreted the Reformation period as one of crisis and ultimate decline in the area of the visual arts. This view, while perhaps correct in broad outline, should be accepted only with certain qualifications. The German Reformers, and Luther in particular, were not as hostile to aesthetic expression as has sometimes been alleged. In Lutheran Nuernberg there occurred very little iconoclasm; in fact, Medieval and Renaissance art works were more fully preserved there than in many Catholic areas where they were later replaced by Baroque creations. It is true that, following the Reformation, few new commissions were given for works of ecclesiastical art. It is also no doubt true that the economic position of the artist was thereby gravely endangered, as examples cited later in this study will indicate. The evidence suggests, however, that the picture was not uniformly bleak.

For a man who had achieved deserved fame as a master of English allegory and had thereby become the subject of a host of biographies, Bunyan would be dismayed if he knew that, three hundred years after his initial if temporary release from the Bedford prison, the thing he had strived for most in his writings had been ignored—his attempt to clarify for his readers what he believed to be the central truths of the Christian faith. Historians have diligently sought for every piece of evidence available to fill in the unknown facts of Bunyan's life, while scholars of English literature continue to examine the style of writing of the unlettered Tinker. Yet no one has ever dealt satisfactorily with the thought of this man.

It is generally accepted that even though rationalism was predominant during the eighteenth century, a significant mystical trend was simultaneously present. Thus it was not only the Age of Voltaire, Diderot, and Holbach, but also the Age of St. Martin, Eckartshausen and Madame Guyon. With increased Western influence on Russia, it was natural that Russia too would be affected by these contrary currents. The reforms of Peter the Great, animated by a utilitarian spirit, had brought about a secularization of Russian culture. Father Florovsky aptly summed up the state of mind of the Russian nobility as a result of the Petrine Revolution: “The consciousness of these new people had been extroverted to an extreme degree.” Some of the “new people,” indifferent to their previous Weltanschauung, Orthodoxy, adopted the philosophy of the Enlightenment, “Volter'ianstvo” (Voltairism). But “Volter'ianstvo” with its cult of reason and belief in a remote creator of the “world machine,“ did not permanently satisfy those with deeper religious longings. While conventional Orthodoxy, with its emphasis on external rites, could not fill the spiritual vacuum, Western mysticism, entering Russia chiefly through freemasonry, provided a satisfactory alternative to “Volter'ianstvo.”

Recent Puritan historiography has stressed the characteristics peculiar to the New England churches during the 1630's and 1640's. Historians have noted that while the Puritan church was the central religious institution in a religiously oriented society, it did not have the same importance for its members that the Roman Catholic church, for example, has for its communicants. Since the Puritans believed that God had irrevocably predetermined who would be saved and who damned, they did not need their churches to insure salvation. On the contrary, rather than being a means of gaining salvation, Puritan theory clearly defined the church as a fellowship of those already saved under covenant with God. By excluding all others the New England Puritans attempted to narrow the apparently inevitable gap between the visible and the invisible. In a world where salvation belonged to a minority and where man could do nothing to change his spiritual state, the Puritan church, these historians continue, was not an institution which included all those living within a certain geographical area, such as a parish, or even all the obviously pious within such an area.