reformation. Luther tried to reform by a revolution, by a complete break with the past[1]; Loyola by a real reformation. Luther changed the doctrine, Loyola saw, as his first companion, Peter Faber, has it, that "not the head, but the heart, not the doctrine, but the life needed a change." Luther allied himself with the radical humanists, Loyola imitated the earlier conservative humanists.
That a Christian reformer followed the earlier humanists, who were thoroughly imbued with the spirit of Christianity, as Vittorino da Feltre, Hegius, Agricola, Wimpheling, is natural. But, as Paulsen remarks, "it is a strange phenomenon that a man (Luther) who seemed to be made to fight with Savonarola against the worldliness of the Church introduced by humanism, had to unite himself with Hutten for the extirpation of monasticism. True, it is stranger still that Hutten could make common cause with Luther against the Papacy whose representative was a Medici, against a Church which raised such patrons of learning as Cardinal Albrecht of Mentz to the highest dignities. Well might one have warned Hutten not to cut the branch on which he was sitting."[2]
The humanists had, indeed, cut the branch. – Humanism was ruined by its alliance with the Reformation, and as early as 1524 the eyes of the humanists were opened. The universities and schools were almost annihilated in the storms of religious strife. Professor Paulsen shows this in detail in regard to the
