Divine Art, Infernal Machine: The Reception of Printing in the West from First Impressions to the Sense of an Ending

2: After Luther: Civil War in Christendom

C h a p t e r 2 After Luther: Civil War in Christendom God graciously bestowed this Art of Printing on Mankind, for the Unveiling and Unmasking of this Mystery of Iniquity to the world. . . . Printing is like a Wing on which knowledge flies throughout the habitable world and is at this day a famous instrument of God’s holy spirit to publish his sacred and infallible truth. —Christopher Ness (1679) It has been made a Question long agoe, whether more mischief then advantage were not occasion’d to the Christian world by the Invention of Typography. —Roger L’Estrange (1660) Printing as a Protestant Weapon The same themes that had first been sounded by the Roman church were echoed by Protestants after 1517. Thus printing was celebrated by Luther and his successors, as it had been by earlier preachers and teachers, for the tremendous impetus it gave to the evangelical cause. But the Lutherans also assigned a new world historical role to printing by depicting it as the weapon that undermined papal rule. Even while attacking greedy printers, Luther hailed the press as a God-given instrument that made the difference between his success in defying the pope and the failure of precursors, such as Jan Hus, to achieve the same goal. Long-standing German-Italian rivalries also inflected Lutheran discourse . The Germans congratulated themselves on being the first to be After Luther: Civil War in Christendom 35 granted knowledge of a divine art that enabled them to break free of bondage to Rome and to bring the light of true religion to other God-fearing peoples. Printing thus figured prominently in triumphalist claims centering on the world historical mission of the Germans. A case in point was an Address to the Estates of the German Empire by the influential Lutheran historian, Johann Sleidan: As if to offer proof that God has chosen us to accomplish a special mission, there was invented in our land a marvelous, new, and subtle art, the art of printing. Each man became eager for knowledge, not without feeling a sense of amazement at his former blindness.1 It is tempting to read this passage as if Sleidan had in mind the advancement of learning and the dawning of the age of Enlightenment. But sixteenthcentury Lutherans were more likely to envisage a future that was closed off by the coming of Judgment Day.2 This was not true of all Protestants. Calvin, in particular, doubted the validity of the apocalyptic tradition, and Luther himself only adhered to it in later life.3 Nevertheless, when considering attitudes toward printing (a medium that is often associated with cumulative cognitive advance), we need to be reminded that ‘‘the Reformation was not seen as the beginning of a ‘modern’ period of history but as a prelude to the End of all history.’’4 The ‘‘magisterial reformers believed that they lived in the last age . . . the Second Coming ushering in Eternity was imminent.’’5 In 1530 Luther rushed his translation of the Book of Daniel to the printers for fear that he would not get the work finished before the Second Coming.6 In a telling metaphor, he likened his success in spreading the Gospel to the fate of a guttering candle: Just before it burns out [it] makes a last great spurt, as if it would continue to burn for a long time, and then goes out. So it now appears as if the gospel is going to spread far and wide, but I’m afraid that it will be extinguished . . . and the day of judgment will follow.7 Thus Gutenberg’s invention was celebrated, not for initiating an indefinitely expanding knowledge industry, but rather as a signal that the anti-Christ (whether Turk or pope) was destined to be defeated and that the last days were close at hand. 36 chapter 2 Sleidan’s view that the acquisition of printing was a sign of being chosen by God for a special antipapal mission was shared by other Protestants. It was forcefully expressed by the Marian exiles who found work in Continental printing shops during the 1550s in Strasbourg, Basel, and Geneva. Their travels followed a precedent set by William Tyndale, who, with his assistants and associates, had crossed the Channel in the 1520s in search of a printer for his English translation of the Bible. He found what he sought in...