PURITANI E PURITANESIMO. - I. HISTORY.
- The Puritans never formed a church, but a party, representing a psychological attitude within the various confessions of England and Scotland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is commonly held that the “first Puritan” was Hooper, imprisoned in 1550 because he refused to be consecrated bishop of Gloucester in the traditional pontifical vestments; it was, however, especially after the organization of the Anglican Church under Elizabeth that scruples began to manifest themselves, among a significant portion of the clergy, regarding the Roman usages that had remained in the new system; hence the resolve to “purify” the Church of every “papist” stain. They could not tolerate the daily ecclesiastical dress and the use of the “surplice” in public services. From as early as 1565, opposition to the established Church was sufficiently strong and provoked a repression that was to continue. At Oxford, the dean of Christ-Church was deprived of his office, and at Cambridge some young gentlemen declared that they refused “the rags of the Roman Antichrist.”
This was precisely the Vestiarion Controversy. The Puritans demanded a revision of the Prayer-Book; they would not accept the use of the sign of the Cross in the rite of Baptism, of the ring in the blessing of Marriage, of bowing the head at the name of Jesus, or of candles on the altar during the Lord’s Supper. For 20 years, under Elizabeth, these questions were debated.
1. Elizabethan Period. - The University of Cambridge was the center of the opponents, known as “nonconformists.” Matteo Parker, the first archbishop of Canterbury after the schism, sought to mitigate the repression; his successor, Grindal (1575-83), who dared to defend the Puritans, incurred the Queen’s wrath; Whitgift (1583-1604), therefore, committed himself fully to destroying Puritanism: he created the High Ecclesiastical Commission to discover, judge, and condemn the nonconformists; he prohibited the prophetic meetings (prophetyings), the name by which the Puritans’ preaching was designated. The archbishop’s attacks and the legal proceedings of the High Commission were answered by the venomous Tracts, Marprelate (v.). The first Tract bore the title: A Letter to the Terrible Priests of the House of Convocation (that is, of the ecclesiastical court). It has never been possible to discover who the author of the Tracts was, but there is no doubt that the celebrated Tommaso Cartwright, formerly professor of theology at Cambridge, was working behind the scenes. A law of 1593 banished all those who refused to attend the official religious “services.” Many Puritans emigrated to Holland; those who remained submitted, at least outwardly.
2. Stuart Period. - When Giacomo I, coming from Presbyterian Scotland, was elected king, the Puritans breathed more freely; the new King did in fact receive the famous petition of the thousand (Millenary Petition), but their illusions vanished as early as the Hampton Court Conference (Jan. 1604). The king, who presented himself as a theologian, formulated the well-known principles concerning the divine right of kings and bishops. It was then that the twofold tendency of Puritanism took shape: opposition to the divine right of bishops and to the divine right of kings. Against the bishops, political Puritanism appealed to the Bible; against the kings, theological Puritanism invoked the rights of the nation. The struggle filled the first half of the seventeenth century; in the political sphere, the Puritans fought for the triumph of parliamentarianism; in the religious sphere, they rekindled hatred of “papism” and of everything that recalled the Catholic Church. The seeds were then sown of what later became the Low Church (Chiesa bassa), as opposed to the High Church (Chiesa alta), just as the Whigs were opposed to the Tories. In this struggle, the Puritans of the established Church found allies among the Presbyterians and the Independents; a kind of fusion, at least in the religious and military spheres, was thus achieved among the Puritans of these three categories.
3. Period of Cromwell. - After the victory over the king, the Puritans divided deeply. Cromwell personally belonged to the Party of the Independents; the army contained ardent partisans, while still further to the left appeared the Levellers, extremist Puritans; indeed, new kinds of Puritans then emerged: Quakers, Baptists, Perfectionists, Fifth Monarchists, etc. The Presbyterians were profoundly disappointed, and Cromwell’s death in 1658 marked their defeat. With the royalist restoration, a harsh reaction began against the Puritan practices that had subjected the nation to an intolerable tyranny. Puritanism survived only in isolated cases within the established Church, but, despite the persecutions, it was preserved in the extremist sects of the Presbyterians, Quakers, and Baptists.
II. DOCTRINAL CONTENT
To penetrate deeply into the phenomenon of Puritanism, one must read the historical memoirs of Hutchinson (who recounts the life of her husband, the model of the perfect Puritan: The Life of colonel Hutchinson [1615-64]) and the lives of Grindal, Whitgift, Milton, and Cromwell, as well as the « memoirs » of Ludlow, who was one of the « most enraged republicans » of the period (1617-92). The works, however, most representative of the Puritan mentality are: Il Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan (1628-88), a mystic of the Baptist sect (1615-91), at first Anglican, then Episcopalian and Presbyterian, chaplain to Cromwell, at first an opponent and later a supporter of the Stuarts, and founder of a sect of moderate Calvinists; the Book of Martyrs, by John Fox (1515-87).1) The Puritan is the man of the Bible, that is, the man of a sacred, divine, unique, complete book. For him the Bible is the religious, moral, social, liturgical, and political code; it instructs on everything; whatever the Bible does not say is useless and, by its nature, negligible; everything that opposes the Bible must be condemned. Toward the middle of the reign of Elizabeth, the passion for reading the Bible became widespread. The reading of the Bible in church, every Sunday, and in the family, every evening, was the great religious, political, social, and literary fact of the age in England. By this means Puritanism was able to influence customs, fashion, and the theatre. The English language, history, and spirit, every expression of life, were dominated, in the age of Puritanism, by biblical reminiscences. The Puritan is thus nourished on the Bible, to the point that he cannot move his head without a text from the Psalms or the Prophets springing from II. It has already been said that his sermons, and one might add his conversations, were Prophetyings, « prophesyings ». Cromwell, on the battlefield of Dunbar (1650), saw the sun appear through the morning mist, and immediately a biblical text came from his lips: David’s cry that was inspiring the troops: « Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered » (Ps. 67).
The grave and dramatic tone of the Prophets consequently entered everyday speech; the grandiose images of Hebrew literature gave a strange accent to the sober enthusiasm of the Puritan, who became sententious, dogmatic, and apocalyptic. And not only was outward expression altered, but thought itself, conduct, behaviour, and even dress. The Puritan dressed in sober colours and displayed no jewellery; his whole life resembled his clothing: less lively, less fanciful and varied, but more serious and stronger. Games, dances, and amusements were altogether excluded. But one important point must be noted: the profound egalitarianism that such familiarity with the Bible introduced among citizens; the idea of brotherhood led the Puritans to a completely new conception of social equality. Distinctions disappeared among them; the peasant felt ennobled by his title of son of God; the nobleman acknowledged the dignity of the poorest « saints ».
2) The Puritan is the elect of God. - Yet the Puritan did not extend this principle of equality to all men; his veneration for the Bible led him to divide humanity into two classes: believers and unbelievers, the elect and the damned. Undoubtedly, the strict Calvinists, that is, the Presbyterians, were almost the only ones explicitly to profess the dogma of Calvinist predestination; all Puritans, however, shared the conviction that the Bible is the Book of Life and that all who remain outside biblical worship are heading toward death. Apart from the « saints », who are imbued with biblical fragrance, the Puritan sees nothing but a perverse and accursed world, upon which his hatred descends. This explains the contrast observed between the Puritan’s family life, characterized entirely by seriousness, filial tenderness, work, and self-denial, and his insensitivity in the face of the torments he inflicted upon his adversaries.
III. INFLUENCE OF PURITANISM
The consequences of puritanism were: its influence on family and social life, and on public and religious life, obscuring what had until then been «merry England» (Merry England); its most enduring consequences were felt in the English language, which was enriched with biblical terms and formulas, and in the creation, within the Churches of England, of an anti-papalism that still persists in the Low Church and in most of the dissenting sects, whose motto was no popery. Even in the ecumenical movement of the Churches, many members remain hostile to any reconciliation with Rome.Other important consequences:
1. Origin of the American colonies
Pilgrim Fathers (v.), who emigrated to America in 1620 on the Mayflower, were puritans. The struggle of 1627 against puritanism strengthened the first stock, which was on the point of dying out, by bringing in a quantity of colonists, capital, and technicians. The two colonies merged in 1691. The individual or collective emigrations of puritans from every sect never came to an end.2. Origin of indifferentism and free thought
From a completely different point of view, the rise of free thought must be attributed to the fanaticism and eccentricities of puritanism, as a reaction against the excesses of theological controversies. This is visible in Herbert de Cherbury (1581-1648), in the anti-puritan reaction of the reign of Carlo II, characterized by frenetic pleasure, and in the writings of Toland (1679-1722), who was the first to brandish the title of «freethinker» (free thinker), as well as in the writings of Collins, Tindal, Bolingbroke, and Freemasonry.3. Origin of business capitalism
Puritanism must also be credited with creating that gentry and that bourgeoisie of English merchants, severe and avid for profit, who regarded wealth as a blessing from heaven and poverty as the effect of vice. Some of the richest American «billionaires», typified by Rockefeller (1839-1937), of the Baptist sect, were puritans.Puritanism is currently tending to disappear.
Clark, Hist. of English nonconformity, there 1911; G. M. Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts, there 1928; J. B. Kraus, Scholastik, Puritanismus und Kapitalismus, 1930; L. Cristiani, Puritanisme, in DThC, XIII, cols. 1357-61; R. B. Perry, Puritanism and democracy, New York 1944; W. Schenk, The concern for social justice in the puritan revolution, there 1948. Leone Cristiani