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Leprosy and colonialism Suriname under Dutch rule 1750
1950 1st Edition Stephen Snelders Digital Instant
Download
Author(s): Stephen Snelders
ISBN(s): 9781526112996, 152611299X
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Year: 2017
Language: english
i

Leprosy and colonialism

ii

SOCIAL HISTORIES OF MEDICINE

Series editors: David Cantor and Keir Waddington

Social Histories of Medicine is concerned with all aspects of health,

illness and medicine, from prehistory to the present, in every part of
the world. The series covers the circumstances that promote health
or illness, the ways in which people experience and explain such
conditions and what, practically, they do about them. Practitioners
of all approaches to health and healing come within its scope, as do
their ideas, beliefs and practices, and the social, economic and cultural
contexts in which they operate. Methodologically, the series welcomes
relevant studies in social, economic, cultural and intellectual history, as
well as approaches derived from other disciplines in the arts, sciences,
social sciences and humanities. The series is a collaboration between
Manchester University Press and the Society for the Social History of
Medicine.

Previously published

The metamorphosis of autism: A history of child development in England

Bonnie Evans

The politics of vaccination: A global history Edited by Christine Holmberg,

Stuart Blume and Paul Greenough

Payment and philanthropy in British healthcare, 1918–​48 George Campbell

Gosling
iii

Leprosy and
colonialism
Suriname under Dutch rule,
1750–​1950

Stephen Snelders

Manchester University Press

iv

Copyright © Stephen Snelders 2017

The right of Stephen Snelders to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted
by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Published by Manchester University Press
Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data applied for
ISBN 978 1 5261 1299 6 hardback
First published 2017
The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or
third-​party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content
on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Typeset by Out of House Publishing

v

Contents

List of figures vi
List of tables vii
Acknowledgements viii

Introduction 1

Part I Leprosy in a slave society 19

1 The making of a colonial disease in the eighteenth century 21
2 A policy of ‘Great Confinement’, 1815–​1863 43
3 Slaves and medicine: black perspectives 78
4 ‘Battleground in the jungle’: the Batavia leprosy asylum
in the age of slavery 93

Part II Leprosy in a modern colonial state 117

5 Transformations and discussion: Suriname and the
Netherlands, 1863–​1890 119
6 Towards a modern colonial state: reorganizing leprosy
care, 1890–​1900 142
7 Developing modern leprosy politics, 1900–​1950 161
8 Colonial medicine and folk beliefs in the modern era 199
9 Complex microcosms: asylums and treatments, 1900–​1950 219

Conclusion 247

Sources and select bibliography 251

Index 270
vi

Figures

1 Investigations of the Committee of Investigation,

1831–​1859 (Source: Landré, ‘Naschrift’, p. 233;
Drognat Landré, Besmettelijkheid der lepra, p. 34) 60
2 Segregated sufferers in Batavia, 1849–​1897 (Source:
Colonial Reports) 104
3 Numbers of patients in the asylums, 1896–​1949
(Source: Colonial Reports; Public Health Service
reports: GS 1258, 1262, 1264, BP T; Hallewas,
‘Gezondheidszorg’, App. XI (voor na 1918); Majella
1896–​1898: BP T178) 166
4 Admitted and registered leprosy sufferers,
1928–​1949 (Source: Colonial Reports; GS 1262;
Report Leprabestrijdingsdienst 1946, GS 1264) 182
vi

Tables

1 Investigations of the Committee of Investigation,

1831–​1859 59
2 Segregated sufferers in Batavia, 1849–​1896 104
3 Numbers of patients in the asylums, 1896–​1949 164
4 Admitted and registered leprosy sufferers, 1928–​1949 183
5 Percentages of admitted and registered leprosy sufferers
among the population, calculated according to the
1921 census 184
6 Percentages of admitted and registered leprosy sufferers
among the population, recalculated according to the
1950 census 184
vi

Acknowledgements

The research and writing of Leprosy and Colonialism was undertaken

as part of the project ‘Leprosy and Empire’, a comparative history pro-
ject investigating the management of leprosy in Dutch colonies in the
East and West Indies (present-​day Indonesia and Suriname) that was
financed by NWO-​Geesteswetenschappen (the Dutch Organization
for Scientific Research, division of Humanities; file no. 360–​69–​020).
This project would never have been conceived and financed without
the initiative and continued impetus of Henk Menke. Henk Menke
teamed up with Toine Pieters and ensured the support of the Descartes
Center for the History and Philosophy of the Sciences and the
Humanities at Utrecht University and built the foundation for the pro-
ject proposal. Frank Huisman at the Julius Center for Health Sciences
and Primary Care of the University Medical Center in Utrecht success-
fully submitted the final research proposal for financing to the NWO,
supervised the project and was essential in bringing it to a successful
close. The Surinamese research was conducted at the Julius Center,
while the Indonesia research was performed by Leo van Bergen at the
Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies
(KITLV) in Leiden, and supervised by Peter Boomgaard and Henk
Schulte Nordholt. The progress and findings of the research were dis-
cussed in an advisory board where historians and dermatologists tried
to bridge the gaps between the various disciplines and disparate styles
of viewing medical and colonial history. Members of the board included
Leo van Bergen, Peter Boomgaard, William Faber, Liesbeth Hesselink,
Frank Huisman, Henk Menke, Toine Pieters, Henry de Vries, and the
present author. The author wishes to acknowledge and thank all those
ix
newgenprepdf

Acknowledgementsix

concerned for their participation and input. The results as presented in

this book are, of course, solely his responsibility.
The author further wishes to thank the following people. Jane
Buckingham and Jo Robertson were helpful in discussing the various
themes and problems of the project and sharing insights and research
findings. Michael Worboys shared his unpublished writings on the
history of leprosy. In Suriname, historian Mildred Caprino told of the
experiences of her family in Suriname with leprosy sufferers, and lent
assistance and advice. Historians Maurits Hassankhan, Jerry Eggers,
Henri Brug and Tanya Sitaram of the National Archive in Paramaribo,
Chequita Goedschalk of the archive of the Bisdom Paramaribo, and
J. van Putten of the Stichting Surinaams Museum in Paramaribo were
also of great help. Melinda Reyme and Jack Menke of the Anton de
Kom University in Paramaribo made their transcripts of interviews
of former Hansen patients in Suriname available to the author. In the
Netherlands, Tinde van Andel shared her expertise on Surinamese
medical plants, and Joop Vernooij offered information and insights on
Catholic priests and nuns in Suriname. Natalie Zemon Davis shared her
discovery of Schilling’s birthplace with the author and kindly discussed
her research on Suriname. Kirsten Beukenkamp, who was working on
a comparative history of leprosy and AIDS in the French and Dutch
West Indies, Alice Cruz, Charlie van Genuchten, and Debbie McCollin
all shared their findings with the author. The board members of
Stichting Historia Medicinae kindly financed the text correction of the
manuscript. Finally, many thanks to Keir Waddington of the Society
for the Social History of Medicine for his insightful comments on the
manuscript, and to Julia Challinor for the final editing.
x
1

Introduction

In the 2012 American animated comedy film The Pirates! Band of

Misfits, the pirates attack and board a ship. To their horror, they are
confronted with leprosy sufferers. One of the sufferers pulls off his arm
and the pirates, aghast, beat a hasty retreat. Of course, this scene was
not meant as a serious depiction of leprosy or Hansen’s disease, as it is
called today. However, patients who had formerly had Hansen’s disease
complained and the filmmakers hastily changed the leprosy ship into
a plague ship. The Pirates film highlighted that leprosy’s horrendous
image remains still vibrant in Western culture, and the controversial
nature of this image.
Those who suffer from leprosy have been historically stigmatized
and excluded from society.1 In attempts to understand these stigma-
tizing processes, the ‘leprous body’ has been conceptualized as the
ultimate signifier of blurred boundaries between life and death. The
British historian Rod Edmond draws on the work of anthropologist
Mary Douglas and linguist/​philosopher Julia Kristeva to theorize this
‘leprous body’. For Edmond, leprosy in biblical times (not necessar-
ily the same disease as modern leprosy) was an unclean abomination
undermining the wholeness and completeness of the human body.
Rituals and taboos were and are in place to protect the body’s whole-
ness and to make a clear distinction and boundary between clean and
unclean, order and disorder. However, in reality these distinctions are
not so clear cut. To Edmond, the ‘leprous body’ is the most horrendous
manifestation of the challenge of making clear distinctions: ‘a mordant
instance … death infecting life … something rejected from which one
does not part’.2
2

2 Leprosy and colonialism

Explaining how leprosy was considered in various historical set-

tings by referring to categories of uncleanliness in antiquity, however,
is problematic. Rather than taking a cue from a philosophical position
on the wholeness of human nature and leprosy’s abhorrent threat to
this wholeness, in Leprosy and Colonialism I historicize how leprosy has
been framed and addressed. Here leprosy is considered as a phenom-
enon shaped by time and place, and in particular by its relationship with
colonialism.
Since the end of the nineteenth century, leprosy has been under-
stood as a chronic infectious disease. Symptoms can take from ten to
twenty years to develop and include anaesthesia (inability to feel pain)
and inflammation of the skin, nerves, and eyes. Body parts do not fall
off, but rather a weakening of the body’s defences against secondary
infections can lead to deformations and diseases of the extremities
(­fingers and toes). When repeated injuries occur, the inability to feel
pain can lead to loss of extremity parts. Effective medication for leprosy
only became available after the Second World War.
Although leprosy had ceased to be endemic across most of Europe
by the early modern period, in the mid-​eighteenth century Europeans
encountered a disease they identified as leprosy in a completely new set-
ting in another part of the globe among people of colour in Caribbean
plantation colonies. From approximately 1750 onwards, leprosy or
‘boasie’ was seen by the Dutch rulers and Dutch colonial medicinal
professionals in Suriname (the Dutch part of Guiana on the northern
coast of South America), as an important danger to the slave popula-
tion’s health, public hygiene, and colonial rule. It was even feared that
the disease might cross bloundaries and return to the Netherlands, thus
undermining the global Dutch colonial empire.
Suriname was a Dutch construct. It was a plantation society where
the vast majority of the population consisted of imported slaves from
Africa, who had to be controlled. In this respect, Suriname was quite
typical of other Caribbean plantation colonies. The Caribbean colo-
nies specialized in exporting commodities, sugar in particular, using a
system of coercion whereby coloured slaves (and after the abolition of
slavery, Asian indentured labourers) were used as an agricultural labour
force.3 As historian Doris Garraway writes, ‘The Caribbean plantation
system … was founded on what was … the most brutal experiment
in social engineering and physical repression.’4 The colonial framing
3

Introduction3

of leprosy has to be investigated and understood within the context of

the plantation economy and the attempts to control and ‘colonize’ the
bodies of the labourers –​the slaves.5 Slave medicine (medical care for
and medical care among the slaves) became a focal point of contesta-
tion and control.6
By 1790, compulsory segregation polices for leprosy sufferers were
in place. These policies continued long after the abolition of slavery in
Suriname in 1863, and after the end of direct Dutch colonial rule in
1950.7 After the emancipation of the slaves, the social and cultural herit-
age of slavery continued to exercise an influence on the history of leprosy.
The legacy of leprosy control and the slave society’s fear of the disease
later affected how leprosy was viewed and addressed in the modernizing
colonial state. This legacy continued in spite of the profound changes
in Surinamese society, such as the large-​scale immigration of inden-
tured labourers from British India and the Dutch East Indies and the
transformation of the plantation economy into late colonial capitalism.
Leprosy and Colonialism investigates the history of leprosy in Suriname
within the context of Dutch colonial power, slavery and its legacy, and
racial conflict.

Historiography: leprosy and imperialism

The history of leprosy’s connection with Caribbean plantation coloni-

alism has received little attention from historians compared to its con-
nections with the growth of Western imperialism in the nineteenth
century.8 A central focus of investigation has been the development
of the notion of leprosy as an ‘imperial danger’ at the end of the nine-
teenth century and leprosy’s connections to imperialism and Social
Darwinism.9 Leprosy has been perceived as circulating throughout
European empires through the migration of non-​white people and the
circulation of goods, thus endangering white people. In an influential
study published in 1989, Zachary Gussow concluded as follows:
By the nineteenth century [leprosy] had reappeared and by the end of
the century had caused Western nations to panic. During the period
of nineteenth-​century imperialism, the disease was discovered to be
hyperendemic in those parts of the world that Western nations were
annexing and colonizing. The discovery of leprosy in the colonial world,
4

4 Leprosy and colonialism

and the excitement in the 1860s generated by the announcement of an

epidemic in Hawaii, revived Western concerns about a disease that oth-
erwise remained but a memory.10
Gussow related this ‘rediscovery’ and renewed fears of leprosy to anxi-
eties about Chinese immigration and an endangerment of ‘American-​
ness’ in the United States. For Gussow, leprosy was framed as a disease
of racially ‘inferior’ people. According to Gussow, the association of this
rediscovered leprosy with biblical and medieval leprosy led to the stigma-
tization of the leprosy sufferers, their isolation, and segregation policies.
Thus, Gussow made explicit links between the stigmatization of lep-
rosy and racial fears spreading worldwide at the end of the nineteenth
century owing to international migration movements. Questions of
health and disease were conflated and confused with political rheto-
ric and racial tensions. Historians have adopted this idea. For example,
Jo Robertson has argued that in the Australian territory of Queensland
in the 1890s, leprosy was racialized. For Roberston,
An extraordinary discursive formation came into play that was about
the colony being ‘corrupt’ both politically and also in terms of the dis-
ease leprosy … The workers saw the importation of indentured labour
undermining their hard won rights and they opposed them on the basis
that the Polynesian and Melanesian labourers were, with political sup-
port, introducing disease (leprosy) into the colony.11
Historians have further directed special attention to the role of mis-
sionary societies in managing leprosy since the religious revival of
the 1860s.12 Addressing leprosy has also been situated in the context
of the construction of national identities in the era of imperialism.13 It
is remarkable that an important part of the modern history of leprosy
has remained insufficiently explored, conceptually as well as empiri-
cally, namely, its history in the eighteenth-​and nineteenth-​century
Caribbean.14

Leprosy and race

In the eighteenth-​and nineteenth-​century Caribbean colonies, the

identity of the supposed carriers of leprosy took central place in the
framing of the disease. Colonial rulers in the eighteenth-​century
5

Introduction5

Caribbean thought that a key risk group of carriers were their African
slaves. The first constructions of leprosy as a danger to white dominance
transmitted by an ‘inferior’ race, and as a disease similar or identical to
biblical and medieval leprosy, began in the Caribbean. Hence, race is of
key importance to the history of leprosy.
According to the historiography of colonial medicine, racism was
on the increase after 1800. Mark Harrison has connected this increase
to the history of slavery. To defend themselves against attacks on
the slave trade, European colonizers emphasized their supposed
fundamental biological difference with the Africans.15 The idea of a
fundamental difference between races developed within a colonial
context. Historian Alfred Crosby showed in his seminal work on The
Columbian Exchange that from the very first, the discoverers of the
New World wondered about their differences with the indigenous
inhabitants. Some Europeans entertained the notion of ‘multiple cre-
ations’: God might have created fundamentally distinct worlds, the
Old and the New. To the eighteenth-​century French naturalist Buffon
it was clear that Amerindians or Native Americans were in all respects
inferior to Europeans. Furthermore, colonizers observed that since
the Conquest, diseases that had been prevalent among the inhabit-
ants of one part of the world had begun to plague the inhabitants of
other parts.16 Kenneth Kiple and Richard Sheridan have described the
epidemiological transitions and the changing disease environment
in the Caribbean in the eighteenth century in more detail and high-
lighted changes related to the forced migration of Africans to the New
World. Yellow fever, filariasis, malaria, and yaws were some of the dis-
eases that became rampant on Caribbean islands and threatened the
success of European military operations.17 For Sheridan, ‘Faced with
numerous diseases that were indigenous to Africa … attention [of
European doctors] was directed to the differences between Africans
and Europeans with respect to resistance and susceptibility to various
diseases.’18 The changing disease environment and the close proxim-
ity to slaves of African descent prompted inquiries into the health and
disease of the non-​white population in the Caribbean much earlier
than in Asia.19
By the later eighteenth century, what Londa Schiebinger has called
the ‘anatomy of difference’ between races was widely debated among
6

6 Leprosy and colonialism

European scientists and savants. Explanations for these ‘differences’

ranged between environmentalism and hereditarianism, including
combinations of both.20 While in Europe this was more of a theoretical
concern, in the colonies the question of why and to what extent various
races were prey to specific diseases was of eminent practical concern.
As Sean Quinian writes in his study of the French colonies, colonial
doctors had to find an explanation for the ‘selective nature of disease’
since they observed that Africans and Europeans, ‘responded quite
differently to the exigencies of the Caribbean tropics … In contrast
to physicians in Europe (who emphasized differences of class), colo-
nial doctors frequently stressed biological differences of a racial type.’21
According to Quinian, it was a French physician, Pierre Barrère, who
was one of the first to identify a ‘morbid otherness’ among the African
population in 1741. To Barrère (who had spent five years working in
Cayenne, the neighbouring French colony to Suriname), Europeans
considered the African as a source of pollution.22 The ultimate distinc-
tion between the races was located in the amount of self-​control a male
European could exert to regulate his functioning in accordance with
the environment. ‘In a sense, the diseased body became the ultimate
signifier of not just the pathological milieu but the total lack of physi-
cal self-​control exercised by the European individual’, writes Quinian.23
Differences in ‘passions of the mind’ were used to explain racial differ-
ences in disease patterns.
In Suriname, leprosy became a focus of ideas of racial difference,
the failure of making and upholding clear distinctions between racial
boundaries, and a threat to the Europeans that could easily extend to
Europe. These fears led to early local compulsory segregation policies
rather than policies that spread ‘outward’ from a colonial or imperialist
‘centre’ to the periphery of empire.24 The policies were developed from
the perspective of a ‘slaveholder’s knowledge’ as long as it is understood
that ‘slaveholders’ were not only the actual slave owners, but also ‘many
more with a direct or indirect interest in slaveholding through fam-
ily connections or professional and business arrangements’.25 Hence,
addressing leprosy in Suriname became integral to what historian
David Arnold has called the ‘colonization of the body’ or the conflict
over who had the right to control whose body.26
7

Introduction7

Leprosy politics in Suriname

Compulsory segregation policies began in Suriname in the second half

of the eighteenth century and anticipated global developments in the
age of imperialism. The policies took the form of a ‘Great Confinement’
(to borrow a phrase from Michel Foucault) in the decades between
1830 and 1860.27 Close to one out of every 100 inhabitants were con-
demned or suspected of having leprosy, and confined to the Batavia lep-
rosy asylum or segregated in their own homes or elsewhere. Although
segregation policies seemed to be ebbing after the abolition of slavery
in 1863, colonial leprosy control at the end of the nineteenth century
gave segregation a new impetus. ‘Modern Dutch’ colonial policies in
Suriname were characterized by the combination of authoritarianism
with a belief in rational order, linear progress, and standardized condi-
tions of knowledge. Colonial health policies became ‘modern’ in this
sense, which affected leprosy control especially after the 1890s. Thus,
segregation policies for leprosy can be understood as an attempt at
social engineering and described as ‘authoritarian modernist’, which is
a useful term for distinguishing the pre-​and post-​emancipation colo-
nial state.28
In Suriname, the difference between the ‘old’ leprosy asylums
founded in the age of slavery, Voorzorg and Batavia, on the one hand,
and the modern leprosy asylums of the twentieth century, Groot-​
Chatillon, Majella, and Bethesda, on the other, is exemplary of modern
colonial health policies. The first asylums were more or less dumping
grounds of villages where whole families lived excluded from society
with relatively reasonable freedom of movement, but little medical
care. The modern asylums had relatively improved hygienic and medi-
cal conditions, but freedom of movement was limited and inmate dis-
cipline increased. This was part of what Dutch doctors claimed was a
change from a coercive to a medical leprosy policy. If the reality was
more complex, this shift away from a slave holder’s perspective seems
to fit with Suriname’s transition to a more ‘modern’ colonial state.
However, the shift in leprosy policies was not a total change: modern
colonial society continued the heritage of framing leprosy that origi-
nated within the old colonial slave society.
8

8 Leprosy and colonialism

Modern leprosy politics also continued the heritage of the role of

missionary societies in the fight against leprosy. Historians have focused
attention on Christian and especially Protestant missionaries in the fight
against leprosy in the British Empire and elsewhere. Michael Worboys
has written about the role played by Christian missionary healthcare
(together with medical humanism and colonial developmental poli-
cies) in the construction and implementation of policies that aimed to
improve the population’s welfare while realizing an imperial ‘mission’.
Within a framework whereby Christianity was propagated alongside a
Western scientific rationalism and ‘mandate’ (strengthening the empire),
leprosy was framed as the archetypical tropical disease prevalent among
the races of colour. Western expertise was needed to fight this disease,
and Christian missionaries were essential to implement their Western
expertise.29 In Suriname, in the 1820s, almost three-​quarters of a century
earlier, Catholic missionaries had already been given a central role in the
fight against leprosy. Thus, they had demonstrated their essential role
in the care and control of the Afro-​Surinamese population to both the
colonial state and the Catholics in the Netherlands who financed their
missions.30 The activities of Dutch Catholic priests in the Surinamese
leprosy asylums were ahead of those of Protestant missionaries from the
British Empire, and the activities of their internationally more famous
colleague, Father Damien in the Kulawao leprosy settlement on the
Hawaiian island of Molokai.31 Here, as in the introduction and execu-
tion of compulsory segregation policies, Suriname anticipated global
developments in the later nineteenth century.

Reconstructing the agency of leprosy sufferers

The colonial framing of leprosy and the development of leprosy politics

by colonial medicine took place in a context of power relationships of
the colonial state and colonial medicine on one side and leprosy suf-
ferers, their kin, and their social groups on the other side. Historians
have begun to focus on the complexities in the outcomes of encoun-
ters between Western medicine and non-​Western contexts.32 Authors
such as Eric Silla, Jane Buckingham, and Keri Ingliss have shown how
to bring the experiences and agency of sufferers in Africa and the Pacific
to the centre of leprosy asylum narratives.33 In Dutch Suriname and
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years, B. Weiss, H. Von Soden, R. C. Gregory, have indeed proposed
different classifications; but in reality they scarcely differ in their
conclusions. Only in two points do they differ from Westcott and
Hort. These latter have according to them given too much
importance to the text of the Vaticanus and not enough to the text
called Western. As regards the last-mentioned, recent discoveries
have made it better known and show that it is not to be overmuch
depreciated. D. Results. — (1) The critical editions of the New
Testament resulting from a personal study of the sources, which
have appeared during the past fifty years are those of Const.
Tischendorf, "Novum Testamentum grjece, editio octava critica
major" (18691872), with the Prolegomena to Tischendorf's eighth
edition of C. R. Gregory, 1894; that of S. P. Tregalles, "The Greek
New Testament, with the Latin version of Jerome from the cod.
Amiatinus" (1857-1872), and an appendix of Dr. Hort (1879); that of
B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort, "The New Testament in the original
Greek" (1881), with a volume of introduction edited by Hort; that of
B. Weiss, "Das neue Testament" (1892-9), and a more recent edition
(1902-.')). H. Von Soden has published only the valuable
introduction to the edition of the text, which is being prepared for
the last twelve years, under the title "Die Schriften d
 TESTAMENT 535 TESTAMENT evident did it seem to them
that these texts narrated faithfully the history of early Christianity.
What aroused the distrust of modern critics was the fancied
discovery that these writings although sincere were none the less
biased. Composed, as was said, by beUe\-ers and for believers or, at
all events, in favour of the Faith, they aim much more at rendering
credible the Ufe and teaching of Jesus than at simply relating what
He did and preached. And then they say these texts contain
irreconcilable contradictions which testify to uncertainty and variety
in the tradition taken up by them at different stages of its
development. (1) It is agreed that the authors of the New Testament
were sincere. Were they deceived? If so the wTiting of truthful
history should, apparently, be given up altogether. They were near
the events: all eye-witnesses or depending immediately on eye-
witnesses. In their view the first condition to be allowed to "testify"
on Gospel history was to have seen the Lord, especiallv the risen
Lord (Acts, i, 21-22; I Cor., ix, 11; xi, 23;"I John, i, 1-1; Luke, i, 1-4).
These witnesses guarantee matters easj' to observe and at the same
time of supreme importance to their readers. The latter must have
controlled assertions claiming to impose an obligation of faith and
attended with considerable practical consequences; all the more so
as this control was easy, since tlje matters were in question that had
taken place in public and not "in a corner", as St. Paul says (Acts,
x.xvi, 26; cf. ii, 22; iii, 13-14). Besides, what reasonable hope was
there to get books accepted which contained an altered form of the
tradition familiar from the teaching of the Churches for more than
thirty years, and cherished with all the affection that was borne to
Jesus Christ in person? In this sentiment we must seek the final
reason for the tenacity of ecclesiastical traditions. Finally, these texts
control each other mutually. Written in different circumstances, with
varying preoccupations, why do they agree in substance? For history
only knows one Christ and one Gospel; and this history is based on
the New Testament. Objective reality alone accounts for this
agreement. It is true that these same texts present a multitude of
differences in details, but the variety and uncertainty to which that
may give rise does not weaken the stability of the whole from a
historical point of view. Moreover, that this is compatible with the
inspiration and inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures, see Inspiratio.v of
the Bible. The causes of these apparent contradictions have been
long since pointed out: viz., fragmentary narratives of the same
events abruptly put side by side; different perspectives of the same
object according as one takes a front or a side view; different ex-
jiressions to mean the same thing; adaptation, not alteration, of the
subject-matter according to the circumstances a feature brought into
relief; documents or traditions not agreeing on all points, and which
nevertheless the sacred WTiter has related, without claiming to
guarantee them in everything or decide the question of their
divergence. These are not subtleties or subterfuges invented to
excuse as far as possible our Evangelists. Similar observations would
be made about profane authors if there was anything to be gained
by doing so. Try for example to harmonize Tacitus with himself in "
Historian", V, iv, and V, ix. But Herodotus, Polybius, Tacitus, Livy did
not narrate the history of a God come on earth to make men submit
their whole life to His word. It is under the influence of naturalistic
prejudice that some people ea-sily, and as it were a priori, are oppos
 TESTAMENT 536 TESTAMENT "The wolf shall dwell with the
lanib . . and the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asi>''
(Isaias, xi, 6-8) would have afforded material for a charming idyl,
but the Evangelists havi; left that reahsm to the apocrypha and to
the Millenai'ians. What passage of the Prophets, or even of the
Jewish apocalypse, inspired the first generation of Christians with
the fundamental doctrine of the transitory character of the Law; and,
above all, with the prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem and its
Temple? Once one admits the initial step in this theory, he is logically
led to leave nothing standing in the Gospel narrative, not even the
crucifixion of Jesus, nor His existence itself. Solomon Reinaeh
actually pretends that the Passion story is merely a commentary on
Psalm xxi, while Arthur Drews denies the very existence of Jesus
Christ. Another factor which contributed to the alleged distortion of
the Gospel story was the necessity imposed on primitive Christianity
of altering, if it were to last, the conception of the Kingdom of God
preached by Jesus in person. On His lips, it is said, the Gospel was
merely a cry of "Sauve qui peut" addressed to the world which He
believed to be about to end. Such was also the persuasion of the
first Christian generation. But soon it was perceived that they had to
do with a world which was to last, and the teaching of the Master
had to be adapted to the new condition of things. This adaptation
was not achieved without much violence, done, unconsciously, it is
true, to historical reality, for the need was felt of deriving from the
Gospel all the ecclesiastical institutions of a more recent date. Such
is the eschatological explanation propagated particularly by J. Weiss,
Schweitzer, Loisy; and favourably received by Pragmatists. It is true
that it was only later that the disciples imderstood the significance of
certain words and acts of the Master. But to try and explain all the
Gospel story as the retrospect of the second Christian generation is
like trying to balance a pyramid on its apex. Indeed the hypothesis,
in its general application, implies a state of mind hard to reconcile
with the calmness and sincerity which is readily admitted in the
Evangelists and St. Paul. As for the starting-point of the theory,
namely, that Christ was the dupe of an illusion about the imminent
destruction of the world, it has no foundation in the text, even for
one who regards Christ as a mere man, except by distinguishing two
kinds of discourses (and that on the strength of the theory itself),
those that are traced back to Jesus, and those that have been
attributed to Him afterwards. This is what is called a vicious circle.
Finally, it is false that the second Christian generation was
prepossessed by the idea of tracing, per fas ei nefas, everything —
institutions and doctrines — back to Jesus in person. The first
generation itself decided more than once questions of the highest
importance by referring not to Jesus but to the Holy Spirit and to the
authority of the Apostles. This was especially the case with the
Apostolic conference at Jerusalem (Acts, XV), in which it was to be
decided in what concrete observances the Gosjiel was to take the
place of the Law. St. Paul distinguishes exi3res,sly the doctrines or
the institutions that he promulgates in virtue of his Apostolic
authoritv, from the teachings that tradition traced back to Christ (I
Cor., vii, 10, 12, 25). Again it is to be presumed that if Christian
tradition had been formed imder the alleged influence, and that,
with such historical freedom, there would remain less ai)parent
conliadictions. The trouble taken by apologists to harmonize tlie
texts of the New Testament is well known. If the appellation "Son of
God" points out a new attitude of the Christian conscience towards
Jesus Christ, why has it not simply replaced that of "Son of Man"?
The survival in the Gospels of this latter expression, clo.se by in the
same texts with its equivalent (which alone showed clearly the
actual faith of the Church), could only be an encumbrance; nay
more, it remained as a telltale indication of the change that came —
afterwards. It will be said perhaps that the evolution of popular
beliefs, coming about instinctively and little by httle, has nothing to
do with the exigencies of a rational logic, and therefore has no
coherence. Granted, but it must not be forgotten that, on the whole,
the literature of the New Testament is a thoughtful, reasoned, and
even apologetic work. Our adversaries can aU the less deny it this
character, as, according to them, the authors of the New Testament
ai'e "tendentious", that is to say, inclined more than is right to give a
bias to things so as to make them acceptable. B. Doctrines. — They
are: (1) specifically Christian; or (2) not specifically Christian. (1)
Christianity being the normal continuation of Judaism, the New
Testament must needs inherit from the Old Testament a certain
number of religious doctrines concerning God, His worship the
original destinies of the world, and especially of men, the moral law,
spirits, etc. Although these beliefs are not s])ecifically Christian, the
New Testament develops and perfects them, (a) The attributes of
God, particularly His spirituality. His immensity. His goodness, and
above all His fatherhood are insisted on more fully, (b) The moral
law is restored to its primitive perfection in what regards the unity
and perpetuity of marriage, respect for God's name, forgiveness of
injuries, and in general the duties towards one's neighbours; the
guilt of the simple desire of a thing forbidden by the Law is clearly
set forth; external works (praj-er, almsgiving, fasting, sacrifice) really
derive their worth from the dispositions of the heart that accompany
them. The Messianic hope is purified from the temporal and material
elements with which it had become enveloped, (d) The retributions
of the world to come and the resurrection of the body are specified
more clearly. (2) Other doctrines, specifically Christian, are not
added on to Judaism to develop, but rather to supersede it. In
reality, between the New and Old Testaments there is a direct but
not revolutionary succession as a superficial observer might be
inchned to believe; just as in Uving beings, the imperfect state of
yesterday must give way before the perfection of to-day although
the one has normally prepared the other. If the mystery of the
Trinity and the spiritual character of the Messianic Kingdom are
ranked among the peculiarly Christian dogmas, it is because the Old
Testament was of itself insufficient to establish the doctrine of the
New Testament on this subject; and still more because, at the time
of Jesus, the opinions current among the Jews went decidedly in the
opposite direction. (a) The Di\ine life common to the Three Persons
(Father, Son and Holy Ghost) in the Unity of one and the same
Nature is the mj'stery of the Trinity, obscurely typified or outlined in
the Old Testament. (b) The Messias promised by the Prophets has
come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, who was not only a man
powerful in word and work, but the true God Himself, the Word
made man, born of a virgin, crucified under Pontius Pilate, but risen
from the dead and now exalted to the right hand of His Father, (c) It
was by an ignominious tleath on the Cross, and not by power and
glory, that Jesus Christ redeemed the world from sin, death, and the
anger of God; He is the Redeemer of all men (Gentiles as well as
,Iews) and He unites them to Himself all without distinction, (d) The
Mosaic Law (rites and political theocracy) having been given only to
the Jewish iieoplc. and that for a time, must disapjiear, as the figure
before the reality. To these practices powerless in themselves Christ
Bubstitiites rites really .^anct ifying, es])cciaHy baptism, eucharist,
and penance. However t lie new
 TESTAMENTS 537 TESTEM absolutely speaking, man can
be saved, in the absence of all exterior means, by submitting himself
fully to God by the faith and love of the Redeemer. (e) Before
Christ's coming, men had been treated by God as slaves or children
under age are treated, but with the Gospel begins a law of love and
liberty written first of all in the heart; this law does not consist
merely in the letter which forbids, commands, or condemns; it is
also, and chiefly, an interior grace which disposes the heart to do the
will of God. (f) The Kingdom of God preached and established by
Jesus Christ, though it exists already visibly in the Church, will not
be perfected until the end of the world (of which no one knows the
day or the hour), when He will come Himself in power and majesty
to render to each one according to his works. In the meantime, the
Church assisted by the Holy Spirit, governed by the Apostles and
their .successors under the authority of Peter, teaches and
propagates the Gospel even to the ends of the earth, (g) Love of our
neighbour is raised to the height of the love of God, because the
Gospel makes us see God and Christ in all men since they are, or
ought to be, Hia mystical members. When necessary, this love must
be carried as far as the sacrifice of self. Such is Christ's
commandment, (h) Natural morality in the Gospel is raised to a
higher sphere by the counsels of perfection (poverty and chastity),
which may be summed up as the positive renouncement of the
material goods of this hfe, in so far as they hinder our being
completely given up to the service of God. (i) Eternal life, which shall
not be fully realized until after the resurrection of the body, consists
in the possession of God, seen face to face, and of Jesus Christ.
Such are the fundamental points of Christian dogma, as expressly
taught in the New Testament. They are not found collected together
in any of the Canonical books, but were written throughout a period
extending from the middle of the first centurj' to the beginning of
the second; and, consequently, the history of the way in which they
were expressed at different times can be reconstructed. These texts
never could, and were never meant to, dispense with the oral
tradition which preceded them. Without this periJetual commentary
they would not always have been understood and frequently would
have been misunderstood. Catholic Works. — Jacquier, //»«(. des
litres du Nouveau Testament (4 vols.. Paris, 1903-8) : Idem. Le
Nouv. Test, dans I'Eglise chrel. (Paris. 1911): Baccez-Brassac, Man.
biblique: Nouv. Test. (2 vols., Paris. 1910-11): Batiffol. V
enseignement de Jisits (Paris. 1906); Idem. Orpheus el Vemngile
(Paris, 1910); Hdby, Christus (Paris, 1912), xv; DtJRAND. Le texle du
Noun. Test, in Eludes (Paris, Feb.-May, 1911); Chapman. Notes on
the Early Hist, of the Vulgate Gospels (Oxford. 1908); GiaoT,
Outlines of N. T. Hisl. (New York, 1898); Idem, Ce7i. Introd. to the
Holy Scriptures (Ncvr York. 1903), Protestant Works. — Westcott-
Hort, The New Testament in the original Greek (2 vols. Cambridge,
1881); Burkitt, The Gospel His! . and its Transmission (Edinburgh,
1904); Sasda.y. Studies in the Synoptic Problem (Oxford, 1911);
Moffat, Introd. to the N. T. (Edinburgh. 1911); Gardner, ,4 Hist. View
of the N. T. (London, 1901); Harnack, What is Christianilyf (tr.
London, 1901); Idem. Luke the Physician (tr. London, 1906); Idem,
.Sairings of Jesus (tr. London, 1907); Idem, Acts of the .Apostles (tr.
London, 1908); Schweitzer, Quest of the Hist. Jesus (tr. London,
1906); Sandat, Life nf Christ m the Light of Recent Re.'tearch
(Oxford, 1907); .Stanton. The Gospels as Hist. Documents
(Cambridge. 1909); Peake, Cril. Introd. to the N. T. (New York,
1910); GregorT, Canon and Teit of the N. T. (New York. 1907).
Jewish. — yiosTEFiORE, Synoptic Gosp. (Lonrlon, iniKt). Alfred
Durand. Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. See Apocrypha,
subtitle II. Testem Benevolentise, an .ApostoUc Letter of Leo XIII
.iddrc ps(
 TEST-OATH 538 TEST-OATH latter as more suitable for our
day. There can be no really passive virtue. All virtue implies power
and action, and every virtue is suitable at all times. Christ, meek and
humble of heart or obedient unto death, is a model in every age,
and the men who have imitated Him in these virtues have been
powerful helps to religion and the State. Fourthly, the vows taken in
religious orders must not be considered as narrowing the limits of
true hberty, or as of httle use for human society or for Christian
perfection. This view is not in accord with the usage and doctrine of
the Church. To assume the obligations of the counsels, in addition to
those of the commandments, is not a sign of weak-mindedness, nor
unprofitable, nor hurtful, nor injurious to liberty; rather it is a way to
the fuller hberty by which Christ has set us free. The history of the
Church, particularly in the United States, is a testimony to the
alacrity and success with which the religious orders work ever>T\-
here, by preaching, teaching, and by good example. Whether in
active ministration, or in contemplative seclusion, they all merit well
of human society, and their prayer propitiates the majesty of God.
And the congregations that do not take vows are not to magnify
their manner of hfe above that of the reUgious orders. Finally, as for
methods of dealing with those who are not Catholics, it is not
prudent to neglect any method which has proved useful in the past.
Should the proper authority approve of other methods such as, for
instance, preaching, not in (he church, but in any private or proper
place, or by amicable conferences rather than by disputations, let
this be done, provided that the men devoted to this task be men of
tried knowledge and virtue. The Letter concludes with a brief
exhortation for unity, as against a spirit that would tend towards
developing a national Church. The term Americanism is approved as
applying to the characteristic quahties which reflect honour on the
American people, or to the conditions of their commonwealths, and
to the laws and customs prevaihng in them; but as applied to the
opinions above enumerated it would be repudiated and condemned
by the Bishops of America. "If by that name be designated the
characteristic quahties which reflect honour on the people of
America, just as other nations have what is special to them; or, if it
implies the condition of your commonwealths, or the laws and
customs pre^•aihng in them, there is no reason why we should
deem that it ought to be discarded. But if it is to be used not only to
signify, but even to commend the above doctrines, there can be no
doubt that our venerable brethren, the bishops of America, would be
the first to repudiate and condemn it, as being especially unjust to
them and to the entire nation as well. For it raises the suspicion that
there are some among you who conceive and desire a Church in
America different from that which is in the rest of the world." This
Letter put an end to a bitter controversy which had been agitated for
nearly ten years, particularly in the Cathohc press. In expressing
their adhesion to the Holy See and their unqualified acceptance of
the teachings set forth in the Letter, the bishops of the United States
made it clear that whatever departures from the same might have
occurred in this cotmtry they had not been either widespread or
systematic as they had been made to appear by the interpretation
put upon the "Lifeof Father Hecker" in the prefaceto the French
translat ion. (SeeHECKEn, Is.\ac TnoM.^.c;.) Elliott, The Lift of
Father Ilecker (New York. 1894), Fr. tr. Klein (Paris, 189S); Maioxen,
Le Phe Ilecker, esl-il un sainlf (Rome and Paris, 1898); Delattre, Un
Catholicismc Americain (Namur, 1898); Klein, Catholicismc Am^icain
in Revue Fran(aised'EdinbouTO (Sept.-Oct., 1897); Schell, Die neue
Teit und der aUe Glaube; Coppinger, La PoUminuc FranQaiac sur la
Vie du pire Hecker (Paris. 1898); Barrv. The French Life of Father
Hecker in Catholic Times and Catholic Opinion (Liverpool, 9 Dec.
1898). CoNDi; B. Fallen. Test-Oath, Missouri. — In January, 1865,
there assembled in St. Louis, Missouri, a "Constitutional Convention"
composed of indi\'iduals, most of whom were unknown outside of
the locaUties in which they claimed to reside. They had been chosen
by a fraction of the voters, as people of voting age were generally in
either the Confederate or Federal army, or in the guerrilla companies
then abounding, or were fugitives from their homes, in order to save
their lives. The "Constitution" made by this convention was put in
force on July, 1S6.5, no one being allowed to vote on it unless he
first took the test oath it provided. A reign of terror, accompanied by
arson, robbery, and murder, in many parts of the state followed.
Certain classes of persons, including bishops, priests, or other clergj-
men "of any religious persuasion, sect or denomination", and
teachers in any educational institution, were by the provisions of this
Constitution allowed sixty days, after 4 July, 1865, in which "to take,
subscribe and file", the oath prescribed by it. Those who failed to file
it, and continued to preach, solemnize marriage, or teach, were
subject to fine and imprisonment. The terms of the oath, according
to Justice Field of the Supreme Court of the United States, required
amongst other things, the affiant to deny, not only that he had ever
been in armed hostility to the L'nited States, or to the lawful
authorities thereof, but that he had ever "by act or word",
manifested his adherence to the cause of the enemies of the United
States, foreign or domestic, or his desire for their triumph, over the
arms of the LTnited States; or his sj-mpathy vrith those engaged in
rebellion, or had ever harboured, or aided, any person engaged in
guerrilla warfare against the loyal inhabitants of the L'nitcd States.
About the last of July, 1865, a pastoral letter, in Latin, of which the
following is a translation, was sent lay the Most Rev. Peter Richard
Kenrick, Archbishop of St. Louis, to every priest in his diocese, which
was then coextensive with the state. St. Louis, July 28th, 1865.
Reverend Sir: Since under the new Constitution, a certain oath is to
be exacted of Priests, that they may have leave to announce God's
word, and officiate at marriage, which oath, they can in no wise
take, without a sacrifice of ecclesiastical hberty, I have judged it
expedient, to indicate to you my opinion In the matter, that you may
have before your eyes, a rule to be followed, in this extraorcUnary
matter. I hope, that the civil power will abstain from exacting such
an oath. But, should it happen otherwise, I wish you to inform me of
the particular circumstances of your position, that I may be able to
give you counsel and assistance. I am. Reverend Sir, Your servant in
the Lord, Peter Richard, Archbishop of St. Louis. The state officials
ignored this letter, but their party newspaper organ in St. Louis
referred to it, "at^ important in view of the large number of persons
whom the Archbishop of St. Louis in one sense, may be said to
represent; and further because of the fact that at least three-fourths
of such persons, have, throughout the war, been disloyal men". The
opposition press was almost silent. At that time. Rev. John A.
Cummings, a young priest, was in charge of St. Josei)h's Church at
Louisiana, Pike County, Missouii. He had not taken the oath, and he
.said M.iss :ind prea
 TETZEL 539 TETZEL famous oath, promptly, on the first day
of the court, and the charge was, that he acted as a priest and
minister of the CathoUc rehgious persuasion without ha\ang first
taken, subscribed, and filed the oath of loyaUy. He was arrested a
few daj's afterwards, and brought into court in the custody of the
sheriff on the Sth. Wlien asked to say whether he was guihy or not
guilty, he declined to answer, but recited the Apostles' Creed. Hon.
R. A. Campbell, subsequently heutenant-governor of the state, then
took charge of his defence at the instance of some of Father
Cummings' parishioners, and made the same defense which was
afterwards successful in the Supreme Court of the United States. He
was tried on the 9th, found guilty, and in default of payment of a
fine of S.500, committed to jail, and placed in confinement with
three persons of the most degraded tj-pe, charged with felonies. On
15 September, he gave bond, being directed to do so by Archbishop
Kenrick, who caused an appeal to be- taken to the Supreme Court of
Missouri. That court had been, a few months before, reorganized by
militarj' force, and its bench filled with men committed to upholding
the oath. Father Cummings' appeal was promptly denied in the
following month of October, and then his case was appealed to the
Supreme Court of the United States. Pending his appeal, many
priests and religious were indicted and arrested; amongst others, the
saintly Bishop Hogan, of the diocese of Kansas City, Missouri, yet
living at the age of 82 years, then a priest at ChilUcothe in
Livingston County. He made the oath as odious as possible by
accompanj-ing the arresting officer to the court-house, dressed in
soutane, surplice, stole, and biretta, carrj'ing in his right hand a
crucifix, and in his left a large Bible. He took a change of venue,
gave bond, and was finally discharged by the effect of the decision
in the Cummings case. In an address to some of his parishioners,
referring to his arrest and the oath, he said: "The civil authority has
been, ever from the days of Herod, the enemy of Christ. The
question, now pending, is not one merely of loyalty or disloyalty,
past, present, or prospective. The issiie is, whether the Church shall
be free or not to exercise her natural and inherent right of calling
into, or rejecting from, her ministry whom she pleases; or whether,
j-ickhng to the dictation of the civil power, she shall admit those
only, who, according to its judgment, are fit for the office." In Cape
Girardeau County, the fanatics did not stop with priests, but indicted
eight Sisters of Loretto for teaching. Sisters Augusta and Margaret
were arrested by the sheriff, but the others could not be found, and
probably fled from their persecutors. \\'hen the case of Father
Cummings was heard in the .Supreme Court of the United States in
March, lS6t5, there appeared for him, Da\'id Dudley Field, Reverdy
Johnson, and Montgomery Blair, all three lawj'ers of national
reputation. NotwithstancUng the sanctity of the principles involved,
the Supreme Court, on 14 January', 1867, by only one majority
declared the oath void, and thus relieved the priests md nuns of
Mis.souri from further persecution. The effect of the decision in
Father Cummings' case is best summarized by Justice Miller in his
dissenting spinion in ex parte A. H. Garland (4 Wall 3:i.3) where be
says of it: "In this ca.se, the Constitution of the State of Missouri,
the fundamental law of the people of that state, ailopted by their
popular vote, declares that no priest of any church shall exercise his
ministerial functions, unless he will show, by his own oath, that he
has borne a true allegiance to his government. This court now holds
this constitutional provision void on the ground that the Federal
Constitution forbids it". Father Cummings' health was .seriously
injured by his brutal treatment, and a few years afterwards he lost
his mind, and died a martyr to the cause of cinl and rehgious liberty.
Constitution of Missouri of tsSS. Art. II, Sections 3. 6. 7. 9, 14; Afo.
Sup. Ct. Reports, XXXVI-XLI, Cummings vs. MissouTi; Vol. 71 U. S.
Sup. Ct. Reports, LXXI, 277. William T. Johnson. Tetzel, JoHANN, first
pubhc antagonist of Luther, b. at Pirna in Meissen, 146.5; d. at
Leipzig, U Aug., 1519. He began his studies at Leipzig during the
semester of 1482-8.3; was promoted to the baccalaureate in 1487,
being the sixth in a class of fifty-six. Not long after he entered the
Dominican (irdcr, whether at Pirna or Leipzig, cannot be established.
Disaffection and friction having arisen in the Leipzig community, he
went to Rome in 1497 to secure permission from Joachim Turrianus,
the general of the order, to enter another monastery. In spite of a
recall of this permission, he seems to have carried his point. A few
years later we find him as prior of the monastery at Glogau, which
belonged to the Polish province. At the request of the Polish
provincial John Advocati, he was appointed inquisitor for Poland by
the master-general, Cajetan. At this time he also received permission
to take the necessary steps to have himself promoted to the
doctorate of theology. His relations with the Leipzig convent must in
the meantime have been frientlly again, for not only do we find him
preaching a number of times in the Dominican church at Leipzig, but
after severing his relations with the Polish province he was
appointed inqui-sitor of the Saxon province. The activity of his life
and publicity of his office made him a well-known figure. In 1503 he
made his first ajipearance as a preacher of indulgences, when the
Teutonic Order of Knights in Livonia obtained permission from
Alexander VI to have a jubilee indulgence for three years preached
in the ecclesiastical provinces of iMagdeburg, Bremen, and Riga.
After the lapse of three years Julius II (22 Nov., 1506) granted a new
indulgence for tliree additional years in the provinces of Cologne,
Mainz, and Trier. At the end of 1509 he was indulgence commissary
at .Str.asburg, and from here in 1510 he went to Nuremberg,
Wtirzburg, and Bamberg. From July, 1510, to April, 1516, all traces
of him were lost. It was his appearance as an indulgence preacher in
1516, to aid the constiiiction of St. Peter's at Rome (see Luther, vol.
IX, 441), that thrust him into an undue prominence, invested him
with an exaggerated importance, and branded him with an
immerited odium that only the most painstaking critical research is
now slowly lifting. It was while preaching at Jiiterbog, a small town
outside of Saxony, not far from Wittenberg (where the indulgences
were not allowed to be preached), that Luther in one of his most
violent philippics in 1541 relates "many people of Wittenberg flocked
after indulgences to Jiiterbog" (Wider Hans Worst in "Sammtl. W.",
XXVI, .50.53), and then after much hesitation nailed the ninetyfive
theses on indulgences on the castle church door at Wittenberg, 31
Oct., 1517. That this preaching of the indulgences was not the
primary and immediate cause that precipitated the promulgation of
Luther's ninety-five theses may be inferred not only from hia
subsequent course but also from the fact that the "Annales" of
Jiiterbog (Hechtius, "Vita .Jo.annis Tezelii", Wittenberg, 1717, .53
sq.) prove that Tetzel preached there .as early as 10 April; that
Luther in his letter to Archbishop Albrccht (Oct. 31, 1517) admits
that he entertained the thought for a long time to preach against
indulgence .abuses (Enders, "Dr. Martin Luther's Brief wechsel", I,
Fr.ankfort, 1884, 115); that Tetzel for several weeks had already
been in the district of Brandenburg (Paulus, "Johann Tetzel", Mainz,
1899, 47). The theses dispute between Luther and Tetzel, is handled
so circumstantially in a preceding volume of The Catholic
Encyclopedia (IX. 441-442) that we need not repeat it here. The
publication of Luther's "Sermon on Indulgences and Grace" was
replied to
 TETZEL 540 TETZEL by Tetzel's "Vorlegung", issued in April,
1518 (Lea, in "A History of Auricular Confession and Indulgences",
III, 395, erroneously makes it Vorksung), in which the scholastically-
trained theologian, though not profound, scents nevertheless with
keen penetration, not a mere academic tournament, but a
farreaching and momentous battle of principles, involving the very
fundamentals of the Christian religion and the authority of the
Church. He lays bare with extraordinary precision the unfortunate
consequences that would arise. At the close of his "Vorlegung",
Tetzel announces that he would presently publish "a few other
principles and positions". These are the second series of theses, fifty
in number, with Tetzel as author, and published in May, 1518. In
these, indulgences are but lightly touched upon, the burden of the
argumentation being shifted to the authority of the Church. Tetzel as
yet was only a bachelor of theology. In the course of 1518 he was
promoted 1o the doctorate, whether by the master-general or the
University of Frankfort is not known. Luther's agitation having
frustrated further efforts to popularize the granted indulgence of
eight years, Tetzel, deserted by the public, broken in spirit, wrecked
in health, retired to his mona.stery at Leipzig in 1518. Here in the
middle of January, 1519, he had to face the bitter reproaches and
unjust incriminations of Carl von Meltitz. It was at this time that
Luther magnanimously penned a letter in which he tries to console
him by declaring "that the agitation was not that of his [Tetzel's]
creation, but that the child had an entirely different father". Tetzel
died soon after, received an honourable burial, and was interred
before the high altar of the Dominican church at Leipzig. History
presents few characters that have suffered more senseless
misrepresentation, even bald caricature, than Tetzel. "Even while he
lived stories which contained an element of legend gathered around
his name, until at last, in the minds of the uncritical Protestant
historians, he became tyjiical indulgence-monger, upon whom any
well-worn anecdote might be fathered" (Beard, "Martin Luther",
London, 1889, 210). For a critical scholarly study which shows him in
a proper perspecl i\c, lie had to await the researches of our own
time, mainly at the hands of Dr. Nicholas Paulus, who is closely
followed in this article. In the first place, his teaching regarding the
indulgences for the living was correct. The charge that the
forgiveness of sins was sold for money regardless of contrition or
that absolution for sins to be committed in the future could be
purchased is baseless. An indulgence, he writes, can be applied only
"to the pains of sin which are confessed and for which there is
contrition". "No one", he furthermore adds, "secures an indulgence
unless he have true contrition". The confessional letters
{confcssiotwlia) could of course be obtained for a mere pecuniary
consideration without demanding contrif ion. But such document did
not secure an indulgence. It was simply a permit to select a proper
confessor, who only after a contrite confession would absolve from
sin and reserved cases, and who possessed at the same time
facilities to impart the plenary indulgence (Paulus, "Joliann Tetzel",
103). As iiiui-li cijinDt be said about his teaching regarding
indulgcni'cs for the dead. The coujilel attributed to him — As soon as
the gold in the casket rings The rescued soul to heaven springs, like
that attributed to Luther, Who loves not wine and wife and song
Remains a fool his life long; though verbally spurious, can in both
instances be in substance unfailingly traced to the writings of their
respect ivo aulliors. By Tetzel they are substantially acknowledged in
his Frankfort theses. Here he accepted the mere school opinion of a
few obscure writers, which overstepped the contents of papal
indulgence Bulls. This opinion found no recognition but actual
condemnation at the hands of authoritative writers, and was
rejected in explicit terms by Cardinal Cajetan as late as 1517-19. By
the teaching he laid himself open to just censure and reproach. To
condition a plenary indulgence for the dead on the mere gift of
money, without contrition on the part of the giver, was as repugnant
to the teaching of the Church, as it violated every principle of
elementarj- justice. "Preachers act in the name of the Church",
writes Cardinal Cajetan, "so long as they teach the doctrines of
Christ and the Church; but if they teach, guided by their own minds
and arbitrariness of will, things of which they are ignorant, they
cannot pass as representatives of the Church; it need not be
wondered at that they go astray" (Paulus, "Johann Tetzel", 165). It
was this deviation from the correct teaching of the Church and the
obtrusive and disgraceful injection of the treasury chest, that led to
abuses and scandals reprobated by such contemporaries as
Cochlsus, Emser, and Diike George (Paulus, op. cit., 117-18). "Grave
abuses arose; the attitude of the preachers, the manner of offering
and publishing the indulgences aroused many scandals: above all,
Tetzel is in no way to be exonerated" (Janssen-Pastor, "Geschichte
des deutsch. Volkes", 18th ed., Freiburg, II, 84). If Tetzel was guilty
of unwarranted theological views, if his advocacy of indulgences was
culpably imprudent, his moral character, the butt of everj' senseless
burlesque and foul libel, has been vindicated to the extent of leaving
it untainted by any grave moral dereliction. These would hardly be
worth alluding to, did not some of them have Miltitz as the source.
But Miltitz has been so discredited that he no longer carries historical
weight. "All efforts", writes Oscar Mic^hael, a Protestant, "to
produce Miltitz as a reliable witness will prove futile" (Miinch. AUg.
Zeit., 18 April, 1901). "Thecirculatedreportsof Miltitz about Tetzel
deserve in themselves no credence", writes another Protestant
author (ibid., 14 March, 1910). The Ratisbon adultery charge, with
its penalty of drowning, detailed by Luther, ^lathesius, Sleidan and
almost every Protestant Reformation historian, has been proved so
preposterous, that Brieger (Theodor) claims "it is high time that it
vanish from all history " (Theol. Literaturzeit., 1900, 84) . Dibelius of
Dresden says: "Among the faults and shortcomings ascribed to
Tetzel by his enemies, that of immorality cannot stand" (Lecture on
"Tetzel's Lebenu. Lehre" in "Drcsdner Journal", 20 March, 1903).
"Paulus", in the words of Berger (A.), "has so effectually refuted the
notorious adultery anecdote, that no one will ever revive it" (Histor.
Vicrtelsjahrschr. f. Gesch., 1902, p. 256). The charge made by Luther
in his seventy-fifth thesis, that Tetzel had preached impiously
concerning the Blessed Virgin, and repeated in Luther's letter to
Archbishop Albrecht (Enders, I, 115) and in most exphcit terms in
his pamphlet "Wider Hans Worst", was not onlj' promptly and
indignantly denied by Tetzel (13 Dec, 1518), declared false by an
official resolution of the entire city magistracy of Halle (12 Dec,
1517), where it was claimed the utterance was made, but has now
been successfully proved a clumsy fabrication (Paulus, op. cit., 56-
61). The charge of embezzling the indulgence fimds is also
lcgendar>-. The ))recaulinns adupted to safeguard the alms were of
a character that precluded all chance of misajipropriation. The cliest
to receive the nioncy always liad two or three locks, the keys of
whicli were iii the custody of different persons, including a represent
alive of the banking-house of Fugger. It could never be opened save
in the presence of a notary. The ecclesi;us1 leal injunction was that
the faithfulhad todepdsit theircimt ributions inperson. Togive it t()th
 TEUCHIRA 541 TEUTONIC zel indulgence chests exhibited
at JUterbog and other German towns, are counterfeits, according to
the Protestanl writer Korner (Tptzel's Leben, 73). The latest Catholic
biographer of Luther, Grisar, writes: " To ascribe to the unhappy
monk the 'cause' of the entire apostasy that set in since 1517 ... is
an untrue legend" ("Luther", Freiburg, 1911, I, 281). Hechtius, Vita
Joannis Tetzelii (Wittenberg, 1717); Vogel, /.' -1 Johann Telzeh
(Leipzig, 1717); Grone, Tflzel u. Luther -'ri Saladin (1187). During
the Third Crusade German pilgrims from Bremen and Liibeck with
the Duke of Hoistein established a temporary hospital under the
besieged walls of Acre ; this was a large tent , constructed from the
sails of their ships, in which the sick of their country were received
(1190). After the capture of Acre this hospital was perin.anpntly
established in the city with the co-operation of Frederick of Suabia,
le.ider of the German crusade, and at the s.ame time religious
knights were attached to it for the defence of pilgrims. The Order of
Teutonic Knights was founded and look its place besifle the other
two orders of Jerusalem, the Hospit.allers and the Templ.ars. As
early a-s 1192 they were endowed by Celestine III with the same
privileges as the Order of St. John, whose hospital rule they
adopted, and as the Order of the Temple, from which they borrowed
their military organization. Innocent III in 1205 gr.anted them the
use of the white habit with a black cross. The emperors of the House
of Suabia heaped favours upon them. Moreover, they took sides with
Frederick II even after he had broken with the papacy and in
opposition to the other two military orders. During the Fourth
Crus.ade, when the gates of Jerusalem were for the last time
opened to Christians, under the command of this emperor, the
Teutonic Knights were able to take pos.session of their first house,
St. Mary of the Germans (1229). But it was not for long and before
the end of the century they left Palestine, which had again fallen
under the yoke of Islam (1291). (2) A new career was already open
to their warlike and religious zeal, in Eastern Europe, against the
p.agans of Prussia. This coast of the Baltic, difficult of access, had
hitherto resisted the efforts of the missionaries, many of whom had
there laid down their lives. To avenge the.se Christians a crusade
had been preached; a military order founded with this object, the
Sword-bearers (see Military Orders, The), had not been very
.successful, when a Polish duke, Conrad of Massovia, determined to
ask the assistance of the Teutonic Knights, offering them in return
the territory of Culm with whatever they could wrest from the
infidels. Hermann of Salza, fourth Grand Master of the order, was
authorized to make this change by Honorius III and the Emperor
Frederick II, who, moreover, raised him to the rank of prince of the
empire (1230). The knight Hermann Balk, appointed Provincial of
Prussia, with twenty-eight of his brother knights and a whole army
of crusaders from Germany began this struggle which lasted twenty-
five years and was followed by colonization. Owing to the privileges
assured to German colonists, new towns arose on all sides and
eventually Germanized a country of which the natives belonged to
the Letto - Slavic race. Thenceforth the history of this mihtary
principality is identified with that of Prussia (q. v.). In 1309 the
fifteenth Grand Master, Sigfried of Feuchtwangen, transferred his
residence from Venice, where at that time the knights had their chief
house, to the Castle of Marienburg, which they made a formidable
fortress. The number of knights never exceeded a thousand, but the
whole countn,' was organizerl in a military manner, and with the
constant arrival of new crusaders the order was able to hold its own
among its neighbours, especially the inhabitants of Lithuania, who
were of the same race as the natives of Prussia and, like them,
pag.ans. In the battle of Rudau (1307) the Lithuanians were driven
back, and they were converted only some years later, with their
grand duke, Jagellon, who embraced Christianity when he married
the heiress of the Kingdom of Poland (1386). With this event, which
put .an end to p.aganism in th.at section of Europe, tlic Teutonic
Knight.-i lost their raison d'etre. Thenceforth their history consists of
incessant conflicts with the kings of Poland. Jagellon inflicted on
them the defeat of Tannenberg (1410), which cost them 600 knights
and ruined their finances, in order to rei)air which the order w;is
obligefl to have recourse to exactions, which aroused the native
nobility and the towns and provided the Poles with an opportunity to
interfere against the order. A fresh war cost the order half its
territory and the remaining half was only held under the suzerainty
of the King of Poland (Treaty Figure on the Tomb OF CONRAP OP
ThLIRingia, XIII Century, Showino the Habit of the Teutonic Knight.s
 TEWDRIG 542 TEWKESBURY of Thorn, 1466). The loss of
Marienburg caused the transfer of the Grand Master's residence to
Konigsberg, which is still the capital of Prussia properly so-called. To
maintain itself against the kings of Poland the order had to rely on
Germany and to confide the office of Grand Master to German
princes. But the second of these, Albert of Brandenburg (1511),
abused his position to secularize Prussia, at the same time
embracing Lutheranism (1525). He made Prussia an hereditary fief
of his house under the suzerainty of the Crown of Poland. (3)
Nevertheless, the dignitaries of the order in 1859); KoHLER,
RiUerzeit, II (Breslau. 1886); Lavisse, La chevaliers teuloniques en
Preusse in Revue des Deux Mondei (Paris, 1879); Ranglisle u.
Personnahtatus des deutschen Ritterordens fiir das Jahr 1909
(Vienna, 1909); Staatsalmanach der Nederlanden (The Hague,
1911). Ch. Moeller. Tewdrig (Theodoric), a Welsh saint, son of King
Teithfallt of Morganwg or Southern Wales, flourished probably in the
sixth century. He was a Uberal benefactor of the church of LlandafT.
He resigned the government to his son Meurig and devoted himself
to religion and contemplation at Tintern in Monmouthshire. When,
however, the Saxons under Ceolwulf the remainder of Germany
faithfully preserved its crossed the Severn and pressed hard upon
Meurig, possessions, and having broken with the apostate Tewdrig
left his solitude and gained a brilliant victory chose a new Grand
Master, Walter of Cronenberg, at the head of his old troops, but was
killed in the who fixed his residence at Mergentheim in Fran- main
battle. A church was erected over the grave of conia (1526). After
the loss of Prussia the order still the royal martyr; it was called
Marthyr Tewdrig and retained in Germany twelve bailiwicks, which
they is now Mathem at the junction of the Rivers Wye and lost one
by one. The Severn. The day of secession of Utrecht i hisdcath is3
Januarj'; (1580) meant the loss jAj the year is uncertain, of the
bailiwick of |^[ 1 the dates 610, 577, that name in the Low ^Bk tAi
527, or even 470 being Countries. Louis XIV . • Ak Ir given,
ecularized its posses- I I 4 ^^^^-^Bl. Godwin, Be pmsuiibus ainns
in Frnnpp Thp UM^tei HR^^^iFm Anghir (London. 1616), aons m
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