Since Constantine’s Christianization of Rome in 313, the church had been an important, but often corrupt institution in western society. By the fourteenth century, the church had become the most powerful body in the world, and with that came wealth and with wealth comes greed. Therefore, many people criticized certain aspects of the church, including its extravagance and apparent obsession with wealth. For example, Florentine poet, Dante Alighieri’s, Inferno (1320) criticized the leadership of the church and its interpretation of the faith. As a political exile, Dante criticized the hypocrisy of the society that was centered around Christianity. These same issues existed two hundred years later during Martin Luther’s time period. Martin Luther, a German monk, was excommunicated for expressing faults in church practices. In Dante’s Inferno and in Martin Luther’s “The Freedom of a Christian”, the authors fault the papacy as a corrupt institution and the church’s interpretation of salvation.
In Dante’s epic poem, Divine Comedy, Dante describes an allegorical journey throughout the afterlife. In that journey, he discusses the nature of virtue and sin in light of church doctrine. Dante includes nine levels of hell and people are placed there based on the severity of their sins. More specifically, he places certain members of the church in the eighth circle, which is reserved for people who were greedy. In particular, there is a place reserved for simoniacs. Simony is defined as the buying or selling of church
privileges, such as indulgences. In this circle, he places several important religious figures, such as Pope Nicholas III, Pope Clement V, and mentions his own contemporary Pope Boniface VIII. Dante meets Pope Nicholas III, a pope who practiced nepotism, who mistakes Dante for Pope Boniface VIII:
He cried: “Is that you, here, already, upright?
Is that you here already upright, Boniface?
By many years the book has lied to me!
Are you fed up so soon with all that wealth
for which you did not fear to take by guile
the Lovely Lady, then tear her asunder?” (Dante 52-57)
When Dante meets the pope, Pope Nicholas III implies that Pope Boniface VIII is taking money that is donated to the church for charity and keeps it for himself. Furthermore, Pope Nicholas III mentions that Pope Boniface VIII is destroying the Lovely Lady, which is a metaphor for the church. Dante says, “I stood there like a person just made fun of” (Dante 58). This scene shows Dante’s distaste for the institution of the papacy, implying that it goes against the basic values of Christianity by being greedy.
Dante further criticizes the church’s interpretation of Christianity. When he first enters Inferno, he goes to Limbo, the first circle that is inhabited by moral people who could not achieve salvation. According to fourteenth century church doctrine, the souls that inhabit Limbo were the people that were good and moral people, but were born before the time of Jesus or who were not baptized. They said that these souls inhabit Limbo because they did not know the savior. People that were born after the birth of Jesus had to follow Christianity if they wanted to be eligible for heaven. The reader
knows that Dante is criticizing this practice because he sympathizes with the people in Limbo:
and if they came before the birth of Christ,
they did not worship God the way one should;
I myself am a member of this group
For this defect, and for no other guilt,
we here are lost. In this alone we suffer:
cut off from hope, we live on in desire.”
The words I heard weighed heavy on my heart;
to think that souls as virtuous as these
were suspended in that limbo, and forever! (Dante; 37-45)
In this scene, the reader learns that the people in Limbo were good people, and according to Dante, were being punished for something out of their control. Through the figures, he depicts throughout Inferno, he criticizes the church showing that virtue was not created through Christianity, and being a Christian does not necessarily make one a virtuous person.
By the sixteenth century, these problems still existed, and scholars were more openly critical about these problems. The most important critic was Martin Luther. In 1517, Luther posted ninety-five theses, or complaints, on church practices. Like Dante, Luther criticized the papacy and the means through which the church taught Christians could achieve salvation. In his letter to Pope Leo X, Luther talks about how he does not plan on leaving the church, but he is concerned about the corruption of the leadership of the church. Luther says, “For you and your salvation and the salvation of many others with you will be served by everything that men of ability can do against the confusion of this wicked Curia. They serve your office who do every harm to the Curia; they glorify Christ who in every way curse it. In short, they are Christians who are not Romans”
(Luther 5). Luther does not believe that this leadership reflects the values of the faith. Therefore, when he eventually does breakaway from the church, he does not include a governing body.
To that end, Luther argues that salvation cannot come from doing works, and cannot be given by a church leader. Luther believes that faith is the only thing that matters, and faith cannot be taught or purchased. He believes that one does not need good works to get into Heaven. He writes in “Freedom of a Christian” that doing good works does not make someone a good person. He argues that an immoral person can still perform good works, like donating money to the church. He believes that faith is the only thing one needs to go to Heaven, claiming, “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all” (Luther 9). This means that Christians are born free and they are only subject to God, so all they need is faith. For example, many people in the Church expressed their dedication to the Church by creating beautiful and intricate churches. However, according to Luther, anyone can do these things, but a good person has faith as well. Luther says that freedom does not have to do with leadership and riches, but with internal goods. Like Dante, Luther believes that the church’s interpretation of salvation is not accurate. Salvation, according to Luther, comes from faith and dedication to God alone, rather than participating in religious traditions.
In conclusion, European life during the both the Medieval period and the Renaissance was entirely invested in the Christian religion. As the Church
steadily gained power and wealth, corruption also increased, leading to a lot of criticism among scholars. Dante helped begin this trend with his Divine Comedy, influencing many thinkers after him. These problems would only increase in the following centuries until Martin Luther created a permanent schism in Christianity that would profoundly change the course of western society.