OF course you have heard of the Reformation. You think of a small but courageous5 group of pilgrims who crossed the ocean to have "freedom of religious worship." Vaguely6 in the course of time (and more especially in our Protestant countries) the Reformation has come to stand for the idea of "liberty of thought." Martin Luther is represented as the leader of the vanguard of progress. But when history is something more than a series of flattering speeches addressed to our own glorious ancestors, when to use the words of the German historian Ranke, we try to discover what "actually happened," then much of the past is seen in a very different light.
Few things in human life are either entirely7 good or entirely bad. Few things are either black or white. It is the duty of the honest chronicler to give a true account of all the good and bad sides of every historical event. It is very difficult to do this because we all have our personal likes and dislikes. But we ought to try and be as fair as we can be, and must not allow our prejudices to influence us too much.
Take my own case as an example. I grew up in the very Protestant centre of a very Protestant country. I never saw any Catholics until I was about twelve years old. Then I felt very uncomfortable when I met them. I was a little bit afraid. I knew the story of the many thousand people who had been burned and hanged and quartered by the Spanish Inquisition when the Duke of Alba tried to cure the Dutch people of their Lutheran and Calvinistic heresies8. All that was very real to me. It seemed to have happened only the day before. It might occur again. There might be another Saint Bartholomew's night, and poor little me would be slaughtered9 in my nightie and my body would be thrown out of the window, as had happened to the noble Admiral de Coligny.
Much later I went to live for a number of years in a Catholic country. I found the people much pleasanter and much more tolerant and quite as intelligent as my former countrymen. To my great surprise, I began to discover that there was a Catholic side to the Reformation, quite as much as a Protestant.
Of course the good people of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who actually lived through the Reformation, did not see things that way. They were always right and their enemy was always wrong. It was a question of hang or be hanged, and both sides preferred to do the hanging. Which was no more than human and for which they deserve no blame.
When we look at the world as it appeared in the year 1500, an easy date to remember, and the year in which the Emperor Charles V was born, this is what we see. The feudal10 disorder11 of the Middle Ages has given way before the order of a number of highly centralised kingdoms. The most powerful of all sovereigns is the great Charles, then a baby in a cradle. He is the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella and of Maximilian of Habsburg, the last of the mediaeval knights13, and of his wife Mary, the daughter of Charles the Bold, the ambitious Burgundian duke who had made successful war upon France but had been killed by the independent Swiss peasants. The child Charles, therefore, has fallen heir to the greater part of the map, to all the lands of his parents, grandparents, uncles, cousins and aunts in Germany, in Austria, in Holland, in Belgium, in Italy, and in Spain, together with all their colonies in Asia, Africa and America. By a strange irony14 of fate, he has been born in Ghent, in that same castle of the counts of Flanders, which the Germans used as a prison during their recent occupation of Belgium, and although a Spanish king and a German emperor, he receives the training of a Fleming.
As his father is dead (poisoned, so people say, but this is never proved), and his mother has lost her mind (she is travelling through her domains15 with the coffin16 containing the body of her departed husband), the child is left to the strict discipline of his Aunt Margaret. Forced to rule Germans and Italians and Spaniards and a hundred strange races, Charles grows up a Fleming, a faithful son of the Catholic Church, but quite averse17 to religious intolerance. He is rather lazy, both as a boy and as a man. But fate condemns18 him to rule the world when the world is in a turmoil19 of religious fervour. Forever he is speeding from Madrid to Innsbruck and from Bruges to Vienna. He loves peace and quiet and he is always at war. At the age of fifty-five, we see him turn his back upon the human race in utter disgust at so much hate and so much stupidity. Three years later he dies, a very tired and disappointed man.
So much for Charles the Emperor. How about the Church, the second great power in the world? The Church has changed greatly since the early days of the Middle Ages, when it started out to conquer the heathen and show them the advantages of a pious20 and righteous life. In the first place, the Church has grown too rich. The Pope is no longer the shepherd of a flock of humble21 Christians22. He lives in a vast palace and surrounds himself with artists and musicians and famous literary men. His churches and chapels24 are covered with new pictures in which the saints look more like Greek Gods than is strictly25 necessary. He divides his time unevenly26 between affairs of state and art. The affairs of state take ten percent of his time. The other ninety percent goes to an active interest in Roman statues, recently discovered Greek vases, plans for a new summer home, the rehearsal27 of a new play. The Archbishops and the Cardinals29 follow the example of their Pope. The Bishops28 try to imitate the Archbishops. The village priests, however, have remained faithful to their duties. They keep themselves aloof30 from the wicked world and the heathenish love of beauty and pleasure. They stay away from the monasteries31 where the monks33 seem to have forgotten their ancient vows34 of simplicity35 and poverty and live as happily as they dare without causing too much of a public scandal.
Finally, there are the common people. They are much better off than they have ever been before. They are more prosperous, they live in better houses, their children go to better schools, their cities are more beautiful than before, their firearms have made them the equal of their old enemies, the robber-barons, who for centuries have levied36 such heavy taxes upon their trade. So much for the chief actors in the Reformation.
Now let us see what the Renaissance has done to Europe, and then you will understand how the revival37 of learning and art was bound to be followed by a revival of religious interests. The Renaissance began in Italy. From there it spread to France. It was not quite successful in Spain, where five hundred years of warfare38 with the Moors39 had made the people very narrow minded and very fanatical in all religious matters. The circle had grown wider and wider, but once the Alps had been crossed, the Renaissance had suffered a change.
The people of northern Europe, living in a very different climate, had an outlook upon life which contrasted strangely with that of their southern neighbours. The Italians lived out in the open, under a sunny sky. It was easy for them to laugh and to sing and to be happy. The Germans, the Dutch, the English, the Swedes, spent most of their time indoors, listening to the rain beating on the closed windows of their comfortable little houses. They did not laugh quite so much. They took everything more seriously. They were forever conscious of their immortal40 souls and they did not like to be funny about matters which they considered holy and sacred. The "humanistic" part of the Renaissance, the books, the studies of ancient authors, the grammar and the text-books, interested them greatly. But the general return to the old pagan civilisation41 of Greece and Rome, which was one of the chief results of the Renaissance in Italy, filled their hearts with horror.
But the Papacy and the College of Cardinals was almost entirely composed of Italians and they had turned the Church into a pleasant club where people discussed art and music and the theatre, but rarely mentioned religion. Hence the split between the serious north and the more civilised but easy-going and indifferent south was growing wider and wider all the time and nobody seemed to be aware of the danger that threatened the Church.
There were a few minor42 reasons which will explain why the Reformation took place in Germany rather than in Sweden or England. The Germans bore an ancient grudge43 against Rome. The endless quarrels between Emperor and Pope had caused much mutual44 bitterness. In the other European countries where the government rested in the hands of a strong king, the ruler had often been able to protect his subjects against the greed of the priests. In Germany, where a shadowy emperor ruled a turbulent crowd of little princelings, the good burghers were more directly at the mercy of their bishops and prelates. These dignitaries were trying to collect large sums of money for the benefit of those enormous churches which were a hobby of the Popes of the Renaissance. The Germans felt that they were being mulcted and quite naturally they did not like it.
And then there is the rarely mentioned fact that Germany was the home of the printing press. In northern Europe books were cheap and the Bible was no longer a mysterious manu-script owned and explained by the priest. It was a household book of many families where Latin was understood by the father and by the children. Whole families began to read it, which was against the law of the Church. They discovered that the priests were telling them many things which, according to the original text of the Holy Scriptures45, were somewhat different. This caused doubt. People began to ask questions. And questions, when they cannot be answered, often cause a great deal of trouble.
The attack began when the humanists of the North opened fire upon the monks. In their heart of hearts they still had too much respect and reverence46 for the Pope to direct their sallies against his Most Holy Person. But the lazy, ignorant monks, living behind the sheltering walls of their rich monasteries, offered rare sport.
The leader in this warfare, curiously47 enough, was a very faithful son of the church Gerard Gerardzoon, or Desiderius Erasmus, as he is usually called, was a poor boy, born in Rotterdam in Holland, and educated at the same Latin school of Deventer from which Thomas a Kempis had graduated. He had become a priest and for a time he had lived in a monastery48. He had travelled a great deal and knew whereof he wrote, When he began his career as a public pamphleteer (he would have been called an editorial writer in our day) the world was greatly amused at an anonymous49 series of letters which had just appeared under the title of "Letters of Obscure Men." In these letters, the general stupidity and arrogance50 of the monks of the late Middle Ages was exposed in a strange German-Latin doggerel51 which reminds one of our modern limericks. Erasmus himself was a very learned and serious scholar, who knew both Latin and Greek and gave us the first reliable version of the New Testament52, which he translated into Latin together with a corrected edition of the original Greek text. But he believed with Sallust, the Roman poet, that nothing prevents us from "stating the truth with a smile upon our lips."
In the year 1500, while visiting Sir Thomas More in Eng-land, he took a few weeks off and wrote a funny little book, called the "Praise of Folly," in which he attacked the monks and their credulous53 followers54 with that most dangerous of all weapons, humor. The booklet was the best seller of the sixteenth century. It was translated into almost every language and it made people pay attention to those other books of Erasmus in which he advocated reform of the many abuses of the church and appealed to his fellow humanists to help him in his task of bringing about a great rebirth of the Christian23 faith.
But nothing came of these excellent plans. Erasmus was too reasonable and too tolerant to please most of the enemies of the church. They were waiting for a leader of a more robust55 nature.
He came, and his name was Martin Luther.
Luther was a North-German peasant with a first-class brain and possessed56 of great personal courage. He was a university man, a master of arts of the University of Erfurt; afterwards he joined a Dominican monastery. Then he became a college professor at the theological school of Wittenberg and began to explain the scriptures to the indifferent ploughboys of his Saxon home. He had a lot of spare time and this he used to study the original texts of the Old and New Testaments57. Soon he began to see the great difference which existed between the words of Christ and those that were preached by the Popes and the Bishops. In the year 1511, he visited Rome on official business. Alexander VI, of the family of Borgia, who had enriched himself for the benefit of his son and daughter, was dead. But his successor, Julius II, a man of irreproachable58 personal character, was spending most of his time fighting and building and did not impress this serious minded German theologian with his piety59. Luther returned to Wittenberg a much disappointed man. But worse was to follow.
The gigantic church of St. Peter which Pope Julius had wished upon his innocent successors, although only half begun, was already in need of repair. Alexander VI had spent every penny of the Papal treasury60. Leo X, who succeeded Julius in the year 1513, was on the verge61 of bankruptcy62. He reverted63 to an old method of raising ready cash. He began to sell "indulgences." An indulgence was a piece of parchment which in return for a certain sum of money, promised a sinner a decrease of the time which he would have to spend in purgatory64. It was a perfectly65 correct thing according to the creed66 of the late Middle Ages. Since the church had the power to forgive the sins of those who truly repented67 before they died, the church also had the right to shorten, through its intercession with the Saints, the time during which the soul must be purified in the shadowy realms of Purgatory.
It was unfortunate that these Indulgences must be sold for money. But they offered an easy form of revenue and besides, those who were too poor to pay, received theirs for nothing.
Now it happened in the year 1517 that the exclusive territory for the sale of indulgences in Saxony was given to a Dominican monk32 by the name of Johan Tetzel. Brother Johan was a hustling68 salesman. To tell the truth he was a little too eager. His business methods outraged69 the pious people of the little duchy. And Luther, who was an honest fellow, got so angry that he did a rash thing. On the 31st of October of the year 1517, he went to the court church and upon the doors thereof he posted a sheet of paper with ninety-five statements (or theses), attacking the sale of indulgences. These statements had been written in Latin. Luther had no intention of starting a riot. He was not a revolutionist. He objected to the institution of the Indulgences and he wanted his fellow professors to know what he thought about them. But this was still a private affair of the clerical and professorial world and there was no appeal to the prejudices of the community of laymen70.
Unfortunately, at that moment when the whole world had begun to take an interest in the religious affairs of the day it was utterly71 impossible to discuss anything, without at once creating a serious mental disturbance72. In less than two months, all Europe was discussing the ninety-five theses of the Saxon monk. Every one must take sides. Every obscure little theologian must print his own opinion. The papal authorities began to be alarmed. They ordered the Wittenberg professor to proceed to Rome and give an account of his action. Luther wisely remembered what had happened to Huss. He stayed in Germany and he was punished with excommunication. Luther burned the papal bull in the presence of an admiring multitude and from that moment, peace between himself and the Pope was no longer possible.
Without any desire on his part, Luther had become the leader of a vast army of discontented Christians. German patriots73 like Ulrich von Hutten, rushed to his defence. The students of Wittenberg and Erfurt and Leipzig offered to defend him should the authorities try to imprison74 him. The Elector of Saxony reassured75 the eager young men. No harm would befall Luther as long as he stayed on Saxon ground.
All this happened in the year 1520. Charles V was twenty years old and as the ruler of half the world, was forced to remain on pleasant terms with the Pope. He sent out calls for a Diet or general assembly in the good city of Worms on the Rhine and commanded Luther to be present and give an account of his extraordinary behaviour. Luther, who now was the national hero of the Germans, went. He refused to take back a single word of what he had ever written or said. His conscience was controlled only by the word of God. He would live and die for his conscience
The Diet of Worms, after due deliberation, declared Luther an outlaw76 before God and man, and forbade all Germans to give him shelter or food or drink, or to read a single word of the books which the dastardly heretic had written. But the great reformer was in no danger. By the majority of the Germans of the north the edict was denounced as a most unjust and outrageous77 document. For greater safety, Luther was hidden in the Wartburg, a castle belonging to the Elector of Saxony, and there he defied all papal authority by translating the entire Bible into the German language, that all the people might read and know the word of God for themselves.
By this time, the Reformation was no longer a spiritual and religious affair. Those who hated the beauty of the modern church building used this period of unrest to attack and destroy what they did not like because they did not understand it. Impoverished78 knights tried to make up for past losses by grabbing the territory which belonged to the monasteries. Discontented princes made use of the absence of the Emperor to increase their own power. The starving peasants, following the leadership of half-crazy agitators79, made the best of the opportunity and attacked the castles of their masters and plundered80 and murdered and burned with the zeal81 of the old Crusaders.
A veritable reign12 of disorder broke loose throughout the Empire. Some princes became Protestants (as the "protesting" adherents82 of Luther were called) and persecuted83 their Catholic subjects. Others remained Catholic and hanged their Protestant subjects. The Diet of Speyer of the year 1526 tried to settle this difficult question of allegiance by ordering that "the subjects should all be of the same religious denomination84 as their princes." This turned Germany into a checkerboard of a thousand hostile little duchies and principalities and created a situation which prevented the normal political growth for hundreds of years.
In February of the year 1546 Luther died and was put to rest in the same church where twenty-nine years before he had proclaimed his famous objections to the sale of Indulgences. In less than thirty years, the indifferent, joking and laughing world of the Renaissance had been transformed into the arguing, quarrelling, back-biting, debating-society of the Reformation. The universal spiritual empire of the Popes came to a sudden end and the whole Western Europe was turned into a battle-field, where Protestants and Catholics killed each other for the greater glory of certain theological doctrines85 which are as incomprehensible to the present generation as the mysterious inscriptions86 of the ancient Etruscans.
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1 pendulum | |
n.摆,钟摆 | |
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2 indifference | |
n.不感兴趣,不关心,冷淡,不在乎 | |
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3 artistic | |
adj.艺术(家)的,美术(家)的;善于艺术创作的 | |
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4 renaissance | |
n.复活,复兴,文艺复兴 | |
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5 courageous | |
adj.勇敢的,有胆量的 | |
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6 vaguely | |
adv.含糊地,暖昧地 | |
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7 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
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8 heresies | |
n.异端邪说,异教( heresy的名词复数 ) | |
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9 slaughtered | |
v.屠杀,杀戮,屠宰( slaughter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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10 feudal | |
adj.封建的,封地的,领地的 | |
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11 disorder | |
n.紊乱,混乱;骚动,骚乱;疾病,失调 | |
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12 reign | |
n.统治时期,统治,支配,盛行;v.占优势 | |
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13 knights | |
骑士; (中古时代的)武士( knight的名词复数 ); 骑士; 爵士; (国际象棋中)马 | |
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14 irony | |
n.反语,冷嘲;具有讽刺意味的事,嘲弄 | |
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15 domains | |
n.范围( domain的名词复数 );领域;版图;地产 | |
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16 coffin | |
n.棺材,灵柩 | |
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17 averse | |
adj.厌恶的;反对的,不乐意的 | |
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18 condemns | |
v.(通常因道义上的原因而)谴责( condemn的第三人称单数 );宣判;宣布…不能使用;迫使…陷于不幸的境地 | |
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19 turmoil | |
n.骚乱,混乱,动乱 | |
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20 pious | |
adj.虔诚的;道貌岸然的 | |
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21 humble | |
adj.谦卑的,恭顺的;地位低下的;v.降低,贬低 | |
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22 Christians | |
n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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23 Christian | |
adj.基督教徒的;n.基督教徒 | |
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24 chapels | |
n.小教堂, (医院、监狱等的)附属礼拜堂( chapel的名词复数 );(在小教堂和附属礼拜堂举行的)礼拜仪式 | |
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25 strictly | |
adv.严厉地,严格地;严密地 | |
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26 unevenly | |
adv.不均匀的 | |
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27 rehearsal | |
n.排练,排演;练习 | |
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28 bishops | |
(基督教某些教派管辖大教区的)主教( bishop的名词复数 ); (国际象棋的)象 | |
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29 cardinals | |
红衣主教( cardinal的名词复数 ); 红衣凤头鸟(见于北美,雄鸟为鲜红色); 基数 | |
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30 aloof | |
adj.远离的;冷淡的,漠不关心的 | |
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31 monasteries | |
修道院( monastery的名词复数 ) | |
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32 monk | |
n.和尚,僧侣,修道士 | |
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33 monks | |
n.修道士,僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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34 vows | |
誓言( vow的名词复数 ); 郑重宣布,许愿 | |
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35 simplicity | |
n.简单,简易;朴素;直率,单纯 | |
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36 levied | |
征(兵)( levy的过去式和过去分词 ); 索取; 发动(战争); 征税 | |
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37 revival | |
n.复兴,复苏,(精力、活力等的)重振 | |
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38 warfare | |
n.战争(状态);斗争;冲突 | |
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39 moors | |
v.停泊,系泊(船只)( moor的第三人称单数 ) | |
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40 immortal | |
adj.不朽的;永生的,不死的;神的 | |
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41 civilisation | |
n.文明,文化,开化,教化 | |
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42 minor | |
adj.较小(少)的,较次要的;n.辅修学科;vi.辅修 | |
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43 grudge | |
n.不满,怨恨,妒嫉;vt.勉强给,不情愿做 | |
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44 mutual | |
adj.相互的,彼此的;共同的,共有的 | |
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45 scriptures | |
经文,圣典( scripture的名词复数 ); 经典 | |
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46 reverence | |
n.敬畏,尊敬,尊严;Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称;v.尊敬,敬畏,崇敬 | |
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47 curiously | |
adv.有求知欲地;好问地;奇特地 | |
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48 monastery | |
n.修道院,僧院,寺院 | |
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49 anonymous | |
adj.无名的;匿名的;无特色的 | |
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50 arrogance | |
n.傲慢,自大 | |
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51 doggerel | |
n.拙劣的诗,打油诗 | |
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52 testament | |
n.遗嘱;证明 | |
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53 credulous | |
adj.轻信的,易信的 | |
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54 followers | |
追随者( follower的名词复数 ); 用户; 契据的附面; 从动件 | |
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55 robust | |
adj.强壮的,强健的,粗野的,需要体力的,浓的 | |
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56 possessed | |
adj.疯狂的;拥有的,占有的 | |
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57 testaments | |
n.遗嘱( testament的名词复数 );实际的证明 | |
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58 irreproachable | |
adj.不可指责的,无过失的 | |
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59 piety | |
n.虔诚,虔敬 | |
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60 treasury | |
n.宝库;国库,金库;文库 | |
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61 verge | |
n.边,边缘;v.接近,濒临 | |
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62 bankruptcy | |
n.破产;无偿付能力 | |
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63 reverted | |
恢复( revert的过去式和过去分词 ); 重提; 回到…上; 归还 | |
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64 purgatory | |
n.炼狱;苦难;adj.净化的,清洗的 | |
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65 perfectly | |
adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地 | |
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66 creed | |
n.信条;信念,纲领 | |
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67 repented | |
对(自己的所为)感到懊悔或忏悔( repent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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68 hustling | |
催促(hustle的现在分词形式) | |
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69 outraged | |
a.震惊的,义愤填膺的 | |
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70 laymen | |
门外汉,外行人( layman的名词复数 ); 普通教徒(有别于神职人员) | |
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71 utterly | |
adv.完全地,绝对地 | |
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72 disturbance | |
n.动乱,骚动;打扰,干扰;(身心)失调 | |
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73 patriots | |
爱国者,爱国主义者( patriot的名词复数 ) | |
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74 imprison | |
vt.监禁,关押,限制,束缚 | |
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75 reassured | |
adj.使消除疑虑的;使放心的v.再保证,恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
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76 outlaw | |
n.歹徒,亡命之徒;vt.宣布…为不合法 | |
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77 outrageous | |
adj.无理的,令人不能容忍的 | |
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78 impoverished | |
adj.穷困的,无力的,用尽了的v.使(某人)贫穷( impoverish的过去式和过去分词 );使(某物)贫瘠或恶化 | |
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79 agitators | |
n.(尤指政治变革的)鼓动者( agitator的名词复数 );煽动者;搅拌器;搅拌机 | |
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80 plundered | |
掠夺,抢劫( plunder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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81 zeal | |
n.热心,热情,热忱 | |
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82 adherents | |
n.支持者,拥护者( adherent的名词复数 );党羽;徒子徒孙 | |
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83 persecuted | |
(尤指宗教或政治信仰的)迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的过去式和过去分词 ); 烦扰,困扰或骚扰某人 | |
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84 denomination | |
n.命名,取名,(度量衡、货币等的)单位 | |
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85 doctrines | |
n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 );教义;学说;(政府政策的)正式声明 | |
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86 inscriptions | |
(作者)题词( inscription的名词复数 ); 献词; 碑文; 证劵持有人的登记 | |
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