An Englishman Italianate Is a devil incarnate
It will be observed how many of the villains in Shakespeare are Italians. Iago is perhaps the most
prominent instance, but an even more illustrative one is Iachimo in Cymbeline, who leads astray
the virtuous Briton travelling in Italy, and comes to England to practise his wicked wiles upon
unsuspecting natives. Moral indignation against Italians had much to do with the Reformation.
Unfortunately it involved also intellectual repudiation of what Italy had done for civilization.
The three great men of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation are Luther, Calvin, and Loyola.
All three, intellectually, are medieval in philosophy, as compared either with the Italians who
immediately preceded them, or with such men as Erasmus and More. Philosophically, the century
following the beginning of the Reformation is a barren one. Luther and Calvin reverted to Saint
Augustine, retaining, however, only that part of his teaching which deals with the relation of the
soul to God, not the part which is concerned with the Church. Their theology was such as to
diminish the power of the Church. They abolished purgatory, from which the souls of the dead
could be delivered by masses. They rejected the doctrine of Indulgences, upon which a large part
of the papal revenue depended. By the doctrine of predestination, the fate of the soul after death
was made wholly independent of the actions of priests. These innovations, while they helped in
the struggle with the Pope, prevented the Protestant Churches from becoming as powerful in
Protestant countries as the Catholic Church was in Catholic countries. Protestant divines were (at
least at first) just as bigoted as Catholic theologians, but they had less power, and were therefore
less able to do harm.
Almost from the very beginning, there was a division among Protestants as to the power of the
State in religious matters. Luther was willing, wherever the prince was Protestant, to recognize
him as head of the Church in his own country. In England, Henry VIII and Elizabeth vigorously
asserted their claims in this respect, and so did the Protestant princes of Germany, Scandinavia,
and (after the revolt from Spain) Holland. This accelerated the already existing tendency to
increase in the power of kings.
But those Protestants who took seriously the individualistic aspects