Note 58 — Chapter V · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE CHRISTIANS OF SPAIN.

The faith of Islam would now be the natural refuge for those members of the Eastern Church who felt such yearnings after a purer and simpler form of doctrine as had given rise to the Paulician heresy so fiercely suppressed a few centuries before. This movement had been very largely a protest against the superstitions of the Orthodox Church, against the worship of images, relics and saints, and an effort after simplicity of faith and the devout life. As some adherents of this heresy were to be found in Bulgaria even so late as the seventeenth century,58 the Muhammadan conquerors doubtless found many who were dissatisfied with the doctrine and practice of the Greek Church; and as all the conditions were unfavourable to the formation of any such Protestant Churches as arose in the West, such dissentient spirits would doubtless find a more congenial atmosphere in the religion of Islam. There is every reason to think that such was the result of the unsuccessful attempt to Protestantise the Greek Church in the beginning of the seventeenth century. The guiding spirit of this movement was Cyril Lucaris, five times Patriarch of Constantinople, from 1621 to 1638; as a young man he had visited the Universities of Wittenberg and Geneva, for the purpose of studying theology in the seats of Protestant learning, and on his return he kept up a correspondence with doctors of the reformed faith in Geneva, Holland and England. But neither the doctrines of the Church of England nor of the Lutherans attracted his sympathies so warmly as the teachings of John Calvin,59 which he strove to introduce into the Greek Church; his efforts in this direction were warmly supported by the Calvinists of Geneva, who sent a learned young theologian, named Leger, to assist the work by translating into Greek the writings of Calvinist theologians.60 Cyril also found warm friends in the Protestant embassies at Constantinople, the Dutch and English ambassadors especially assisting him liberally with funds; the Jesuits, on the other hand, supported by the Catholic ambassadors, tried in every way to thwart this attempt to Calvinise the Greek Church, and actively seconded the intrigues of the party of opposition among the Greek clergy, who finally compassed the death of the Patriarch. In 1629 Cyril published a Confession of Faith, the main object of which seems to have been to present the doctrines of the Orthodox Church in their opposition to Roman Catholicism in such a way as to imply a necessary accord with Protestant teaching.61 From Calvin he borrows the doctrines of Predestination and salvation by faith alone, he denies the infallibility of the Church, rejects the authority of the Church in the interpretation of Holy Scripture, and condemns the adoration of pictures: in his account of the will and in many other questions, he inclines rather to Calvinism than to the teachings of the Orthodox Church.62 The promulgation of this Confession of Faith as representing the teaching of the whole Church of which he was the spiritual head, excited violent opposition among the mass of the Greek clergy, and a few weeks after Cyril’s death a synod was held to condemn his opinions and pronounce him to be Anathema; in 1642 a second synod was held at Constantinople for the same purpose, which after refuting each article of Cyril’s Confession in detail, as the first had done, thus fulminated its curse upon him and his followers:—“With one consent and in unqualified terms, we condemn this whole Confession as full of heresies and utterly opposed to our orthodoxy, and likewise declare that its compiler has nothing in common with our faith, but in calumnious fashion has falsely charged his own Calvinism on us. All those who read and keep it as true and blameless, and defend it by written word or speech, we thrust out of the community of the faithful as followers and partakers of his heresy and corruptors of the Christian Church, and command that whatever be their rank and station, they be treated as heathen and publicans. Let them be laid under an anathema for ever and cut off from the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost in this life and in the life to come, accursed, excommunicated, be lost after death, and be partakers of everlasting punishment.”63 In 1672 a third synod met at Jerusalem to repudiate the heretical articles of this Confession of Faith and vindicate the orthodoxy of the Greek Church against those who represented her as infected with Calvinism. The attempt to Protestantise the Greek Church thus completely failed to achieve success: the doctrines of Calvin were diametrically opposed to her teachings, and indeed inculcated many articles of faith that were more in harmony with the tenets of Muslim theologians than with those of the Orthodox Church, and which moreover she had often attacked in her controversies with her Muhammadan adversaries. It is this approximation to Islamic thought which gives this movement towards Calvinism a place in a history of the spread of Islam: a man who inveighed against the adoration of pictures, decried the authority and the very institution of the priesthood, maintained the doctrines of absolute Predestination, denied freedom to the human will and was in sympathy with the stern spirit of Calvinism that had more in common with the Old than the New Testament—would certainly find a more congenial atmosphere in Islam than in the Greek Church of the seventeenth century, and there can be little doubt that among the numerous converts of Islam during that century were to be found men who had been alienated from the Church of their fathers through their leanings towards Calvinism.64 We have no definite information as to the number of the followers of Cyril Lucaris and the extent of Calvinistic influences in the Greek Church; the clergy, jealous of the reputation of their Church, whose orthodoxy and immunity from heresy were so boastfully vindicated by her children, and had thus been impugned through the suspicion of Calvinism, wished to represent the heretical patriarch as standing alone in his opinions.65 But a following he undoubtedly had: his Confession of Faith had received the sanction of a synod composed of his followers;66 those who sympathised with his heresies were anathematised both by the second synod of Constantinople (1642) and by the synod of Jerusalem (1672)67—surely a meaningless repetition, had no such persons existed; moreover the names of some few of these have come down to us: Sophronius, Metropolitan of Athens, was a warm supporter of the Reformation;68 a monk named Nicodemus Metaras, who had brought a printing-press from London and issued heretical treatises therefrom, was rewarded with a metropolitan see by Cyril in return for his services;69 the philosopher Corydaleus, a friend of Cyril, opened a Calvinistic school in Constantinople, and another Greek, Gerganos, published a Catechism so as to introduce the teachings of Calvin among his fellow-countrymen;70 and Neophytus II, who was made Patriarch in 1636, while Cyril was in exile in the island of Rhodes, was his disciple and adopted son; he recalled his master from banishment and resigned the patriarchal chair in his favour.71 In a letter to the University of Geneva (dated July, 1636), Cyril writes that Leger had gained a large number of converts to Calvinism by his writings and preaching;72 in another letter addressed to Leger, he describes how he had made his influence felt in Candia.73 His successor74 in the patriarchal chair was banished to Carthage and there strangled by the adherents of Lucaris in 1639.75 The Calvinists are said to have entertained hopes of Parthenius I (the successor of Cyril II), but his untimely end (whether by poison or banishment is uncertain) disappointed their expectations.76 Parthenius II, who was Patriarch of Constantinople from 1644 to 1646, was at heart a thorough Calvinist, and though he did not venture openly to teach the doctrines of Calvin, still his known sympathy with them caused him to be deposed, sent into exile and strangled.77 Thus the influence of Calvinism was undoubtedly more widespread than the enemies of Cyril Lucaris were willing to admit, and as stated above, those who refused to bow to the anathemas of the synods that condemned their leader, had certainly more in common with their Muhammadan neighbours than with the Orthodox clergy who cast them out of their midst. There is no actual evidence, it is true, of Calvinistic influences in Turkey facilitating conversion to Islam,78 but in the absence of any other explanation it certainly seems a very plausible conjecture that such were among the factors that so enormously increased the number of the Greek renegades towards the middle of the seventeenth century—a period during which the number of renegades from among the middle and lower orders of society is said to have been more considerable than at any other time.79 Frequent mention is made of cases of apostasy from among the clergy, and even among the highest dignitaries of the Church, such as a former Metropolitan of Rhodes.80 In 1676 it is said that in Corinth some Christian people went over every day to “the Turkish abomination,” and that three priests had become Musalmans the year before;81 in 1679 is recorded the death of a renegade monk.82 On the occasion of the circumcision of Muṣṭafā, son of Muḥammad IV, in 1675, there were at least two hundred proselytes made during the thirteen days of public rejoicing,83 and numerous other instances may be found in writings of this period. A contemporary writer (1663) has well described the mental attitude of such converts. “When you mix with the Turks in the ordinary intercourse of life and see that they pray and sing even the Psalms of David; that they give alms and do other good works; that they think highly of Christ, hold the Bible in great honour, and the like; that, besides, any ass may become parish priest who plies the Bassa with presents, and he will not urge Christianity on you very much; so you will come to think that they are good people and will very probably be saved; and so you will come to believe that you too may be saved, if you likewise become Turks. Herewith will the Holy Trinity and the crucified Son of God, with many other mysteries of the faith, which seem quite absurd to the unenlightened reason, easily pass out of your thoughts, and imperceptibly Christianity will quite die out in you, and you will think that it is all the same whether you be Christians or Turks.”84