caa a22 4500 388088877 CHVBK 20180307125241.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161130e199903 xx s 000 0 eng 10.2307/3170108 doi S0009640700071031 pii (NATIONALLICENCE)cambridge-10.2307/3170108 Barnett S. J. an independent scholar who lives in London, teaches early modern European history at Manchester University Where Was Your Church before Luther? Claims for the Antiquity of Protestantism Examined [Elektronische Daten] [S. J. Barnett] During and after the Reformation, one of the most pressing issues for Protestants was to locate an appropriate answer to a disarmingly simple Catholic question: where was your church before Luther? Catholic propagandists hoped to undermine the legitimacy of Protestantism by contrasting its evident novelty against the relative antiquity of Roman Catholicism. Implicit in the charge of novelty was the accusation that Protestantism represented only a counterfeit religion. The Reformed religion was considered to be but an invention of iniquitous religious charlatans who—in league with monarchs and aristocrats—were exploiting religious credulity for material and sexual ends. Under cover of religion, they were advancing their own political power, plundering the wealth of the church and turning their backs upon the moral code of Christianity. Catholic apologists usually designated Luther and Calvin as Manichean heretics—from the thirdcentury dualist heresy of Manes. Copyright © American Society of Church History 1999 Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture Cambridge University Press 68/1(1999-03), 14-41 0009-6407 68:1<14 1999 68 CHH https://doi.org/10.2307/3170108 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.2307/3170108 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Barnett S. J. an independent scholar who lives in London, teaches early modern European history at Manchester University NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture Cambridge University Press 68/1(1999-03), 14-41 0009-6407 68:1<14 1999 68 CHH CC0 http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-cambridge