684 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
tantum accidentalis est, adeo ut non sit necessaria. He laid stress upon the faith of the believer in partaking of the eucharist or, rather, upon his hunger and thirst after the sacrament. But he did not deny the sacrifice of the mass or the validity of the communion under one kind. He gave up the judicial element in priestly absolution. ^ Tliere is no such thing as works of supererogation, for each is under obligation to do all he can and to do less is to sin. The prerogative of the keys belongs to all believers. Plenary indulgences are a detestable invention of the papacy to fill its treasury.
In 1522, a Dutch lawyer, von Hoen, joining with other Netherlanders, sent Luther a copy of some of Wessel's writings.^ In the preface which the Reformer wrote for the Wittenberg edition, he said that, as Elijah of old, so he had felt himself to be the only one left of the prophets of God but he had found out that God had also had his prophets in secret like Wessel.
These three German theologians, Goch, Wesel and Wessel, were quietly searching after the marks of the true Church and the doctrine of justification by faitli in Christ alone. Without knowing it, they were standing on the threshold of the Reformation.
§ 76. Girolamo Savonarola. Ecce gladius Dondni super terrain cito et velociter.
Inthe closing decade_of_the 15th century thg.gitX-OLElQJ'^^^Q seemedto be on the eve of becoming a model municipality, a pattern of Christian morals, a theocracy in which Christ was acknowledged as sovereign. In the movement looking towards this change, the chief actor was Jerome Savonarola, prior of the
1 See Ritschl : The Christian Doctr. of Justification and Reconciliation. Edinb. ed., p. 481 sq.
■■^ In a letter accompanying the gift, Ilonius wrote tliat the words " This is ray body " meant " This represents my body." For Luther's reply, see Kiistlin : Lutkers Lehen, I. 701. For the 1st edd, of Wessel's works, see I)oede.s, pp. 435, 442. Doedes in Studien u. Kritiken, for 1870, p. 409, asks, '' Wiio in the latter half of the 15th cent, had so much genuine faith and evangelical knowledge as this man who was always the scholar of the Lord Jesus Christ and nothing else ? "
Savonarola
§ 76. GIROLAMO SAVONAROLA. 685
Dominican convent pXSt. Mark's, the most imposing preacher of the Middle Ages ajidjinej^fjJT^JTTngi^^^Wr^^^ prpaT'JTfirg ofrighteousness^ since St. Paul. Against the dark moral background of his generation he appears as a broad sheet of northern light with its coruscations, mysterious and protentous, but also quickly disappearing. His message was the prophet's cry, " Who_ shall abide the day of His coming and who shall stand whenjje
apgearetlLZ.''
Savonarola, born in Ferrara Se^t._2]j_1452^died in Florence May 23, 1498, was the third of seven children. Choosing his grandfather's profession, he entered upon thestudy of medicine, from which he was turned away by a deepening impression of the corruption of society and disappointment at the refusal of a family of Strozzi, living at Ferrara, to give him their daughter in marriage. At the age of 23, he secretly left his father's house and betook himself to Bologna, where he assumed the Dominican habit. Two days after his arrival in Bologna, he wrote thus to Tiis father explaining the reason of his abrupt departure.
I could not endure any longer the wickedness of the blinded peoples of Italy. Virtue I saw despised everywhere and vices exalted and held in honor. With great warmtli of heart, I made daily a short prayer to God that He might release me from this vale of tears. ' Make known to me the way,' I cried, ' the way in which I should walk for I lift up my soul unto 'Thee,' and God in His infinite mercy showed me the way, unworthy as I am of such distinguishing grace.i
He begged his father to console his mother and referred him to a poem by his pen on the contempt of the world, which he had left among his papers. In this letter and several letters to his mother, which are extant, is shown the young monk's warm affection for his parents and his brothers and sisters.
In the convent, the son studied Augustine and Thomas Aquinas^^andnBecame familiar wrth~the Scriptures, sections of which he committed to memory. Two copies of the Bible are extant in Florence, containing copious notes in Savonarola's own handwriting, made on the margin, between the printed lines
^ The translation is from Schottmtiller, pp. 2, 3. This wi'iter gives two of Savonarola's letters to his mother.