Christianity in the Nineteenth Century

marked, on its intellectual and literary side, the transition from that period of history known as the Middle Ages to that which is termed Modern. It consisted in a rebirth of the classical spirit and in a temporary burial of the poetry and legendary literature of the Middle Ages, such as " Barlaam and Josaphat," the "Nibelnngenlicd" the "Book of Heroes," and the " Holy Grail," and it revived a love of Greek art, as well as of Greek letters. The place of its nativity was within the charmed circle of the Roman Catholic world, whose power it undermined and toward whose disintegration it contributed. Unquestionably it facilitated and almost rendered inevitable the Reformation. According to Heine: Leo X., the magnificent Medici, was just as zealous a Protestant as Luther ; and as in Wittenberg protest was offered in Latin prose, so in Rome the protest was made in stone, colors, and ottava rhymes. For do not the vigorous marble statues of Michelangelo, Giulio Romano's laughing nymph faces, and the life-intoxicated merriment in the verses of Master Ludovico, offer a protesting contrast to the old, gloomy, withered Catholicism ? The painters of Italy combated priestdom more effectively, perhaps, than did the Saxon theologians.1 The Renaissance was thus, in a sense, the reawakening of paganism and its victory over the dominant typeof Christianity. It plainly announced that great Pan was not dead, and bound him in alliance with the mighty spiritu...