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IMO STATE UNIVERSITY, OWERRI

COURSE MATERIAL

FOR REL. 331

HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION

BY: VEN. DR. J. DIMOBIKA

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COURSE OUTLINE

1. The power of the Medieval Church 2. Waning of the Middle Ages 3. The Papacy and the Church

-The Babylonian Captivity of the Pope at Avignon France (1305-1377).

4. Renaissance and the Church 5. The Reformation – Martin Luther: his life, history and events leading to his 95 theses – The Reformation. – Other Reformers – Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin, the Radical Reformers, and the English Reformation. 6. The Counter Reformation or the Catholic Reformation and its Achievements. 1. THE POWER OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH

The church during the medieval ages was very powerful. The popes had

much to do to make the church a great international organization.

Pope Nicholas II was the first to take steps to achieve these

objectives. In 1059 he issued a decree taking the election of the Pope

definitely out of the hands of the Emperor and the people of Rome and

transferring it to the College of Cardinals representing the Roman clergy.

In 1073 Gregory VII became Pope and twelve years of his rule are

among the most important in the history of the papacy. In one of his

writings “Dictatus” he gave a brief list of the powers which he thought the

Pope should possess:

The Pope has the right to depose or reinstate other Bishops. He can

dethrone Emperors and absolve subjects from allegiance to unjust ruler; his

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decrees cannot be annulled but he can annul the decrees of all other

earthly powers.

No one may pass judgment upon his acts, and no one should have

the presumption to condemn anyone who makes an appeal to the Pope.

More over, the church of which he is the head upon earth is infallible.

It has never erred and it will never err to all eternity.

Gregory acted up to this lofty and somewhat arrogant conception of

his office. He warned the king of France that if he (the King) did not give up

the practice of simony, he (the Pope) would excommunicate him and

absolve his subject from their oaths of allegiance. He explained to William I

of England that the papal power and the kingly power were both

established by God as the greatest of the earthly powers; just as the sun

and the moon are the greatest of the heavenly bodies. But just as the sun

is greater than the moon, so the Papal power is greater than the Kingly

powers for it is responsible for it. This made little impression on William:

King Henry of Germany disregarded the injunction but later succumbed.

Probably the church reached the height of its power described as

“papal plenitude of powers” under Innocent III (1198-1216). He used three

great weapons of interdict, excommunication and deposition against John,

King of England. The church at this time was something far more than a

religious body. It was a state, a great international monarchy, with an

elaborate system of law and courts of its own. It had a universal language –

Latin in which its services were conducted and all official communications

written. It also claimed the universal adherence of Western Europe to its

doctrine and teachings, to questions them was a crime punishable by

death. That was the position of the church in the medieval times before the

waning of the Middle Ages.

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2. WANING OF THE MIDDLE AGES

There had always been a pronounced gap between the ideas that

men and women accepted in the Middle Ages and what they actually did.

Even their belief that a misgoverned life might lead them to the long

enduring fires of Hell failed to curb either rank injustice or vicious living. The

Pope as the Vicar of Christ, did not hesitate to use his powers of

excommunication to further his family ambitions or to consolidate territorial

power. The conflict between the Pope and the Emperor had led to a

deterioration in the prestige of both; where they had failed to keep the world

in order, individual princes might do better within the more limited field of

the nation state. Similarly the Church’s distrust of trade had not prevented a

growing commerce which helped to enrich Italian and Flemish cities, nor

was the church’s condemnation of usury taken seriously. Quite early in

their history monasteries had not hesitated to borrow funds at interest from

wealthy Jews to build their fine abbey churches. In brief two tendencies

were at work in the fifteenth century which suggested that the framework of

medieval society was about to undergo profound changes.

In the first place the stream of medieval life seemed to be drying up.

A kind of wintry pessimism replaced the spiritual optimism. Forms seemed

to matter more than their substance. The fantastic gorgeousness of late

fifteenth century costume with its parti-coloured hose suggests that the

contemporary noble was seeking to escape from the realities of life into a

fanciful world of his own making. Precedence and etiquette, decoration and

ornament counted far more than underlying realities of religion and politics.

The crusade remained a vision which attracted but never effectively

hypnotized its votaries. Symbolism and formalism permeated every activity.

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In the church every posture of the priest was instinct with meaning;

the stole for the rope that He (Our Lord) was led out to his death; the girdle

the bond that he was bound with to the pillar and to the cross and the

bishop’s MITRE represented the crown of thorns that Christ have on His

head for man’s sake. And therefore the mitre hath two sharp horns in token

of the sharp thorns. Formalism amid symbolism had overshot the mark,

investing society with escapism and frustration. The same mark of sterility

had touched the political life of Europe but our concern is with the church.

3. THE PAPACY AND THE CHURCH The decline in standing and the growth in disorder were most obvious

in the history of an institution which should theoretically have been the very incarnation of the principle of order, the Papacy. The death of the impulsive and ambitious Boniface VIII in 1303 had led to the removal of the papal court to Avignon, the papal enclave in France, two years later; there it remained until 1376 when Pope Gregory XI returned to Rome where he died in 1378. This incidence is known as THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY OF THE POPE; (OR SOME SAY, OF THE CHURCH).

The Romans decided that the prestige and the trade of their city had

suffered as a result of the absence of the Supreme Pontiff. With shouts of

‘Lo Romano Volemmo’ (we want a Roman) they obliged the terrified

conclave of cardinals to elect Urban VI. Preferment turned his head; he

became passionate, vindictive, and ruthless. In despair the cardinals left

Rome, declared that the election was null and void and proceeded to the

nomination of one of their number as Clement VII. The next thirty years or

so witnessed a pathetic and farcical tragedy, a world divided in allegiance

between two men both claiming to be dully-elected successors of St. Peter.

This was known as the great schism.

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There were two of everything, two sets of cardinals and two papal courts,

nations were divided as were cities and religious orders. A futile attempt to

heal the breach in 1409 only led to the addition of a third Claimant to the

papal tiara. At last to the relief of all good Christians, the Emperor

summoned a general council of the Church to meet at the lakeside city of

Constance. As a result of its long deliberations unity was restored. The

three Popes were deposed or forced to resign and a fourth, Pope Martin V,

was soon recognized as the head of the Christian world.

But the lesson of the undignified tragedy had not been lost. It had in

fact sunk much deeper into medieval life than contemporaries realized. In

England an Oxford don, John Wyclif had denounced the Pope as anti-

Christ and had questioned a number of accepted religious belief;

independent of Wyclif but later greatly influenced by him, a Czech, Jan

Hus, taught similar conclusions. Aware of heresy, the council of Constance

had taken action leading to Hus’s death and condemning Wyclif’s

teachings; since Wyclif had died thirty years earlier it could only trust that

his bones should be disinterred and thrown into the river swift at

Lutterworth. But this was not the end. Even if the Lollards, as his followers

were called, had a declining influence in England, Hussite teaching in

Bohemia and Eastern Europe formed a fertile soil for the reformation of the

sixteenth century. If the council of Constance had a qualified success in

dealing with heresy, it was far less successful in fulfilling its other objects. It

intended to remove the abuses and current corruptions of Church life but

the coming decades saw a swift increase in laxity. Even its attempt to

restore the unity of the church was modified by the Popes’ rejection of

conciliar authority. The fathers of the councils of Constance and Basle

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hoped to return to an earlier conception of papal authority by which the

Pope was to enjoy what might to-day be called constitutional government.

They were doomed to fail when papal autocracy came to terms with

advancing national monarchy. Thus the councils had not been able to

ensure either that the personal characters of the Popes were in keeping

with their office nor that the Popes would abandon their policy of trying to

build up a temporal state around Rome.

What may be termed frustration in the church corresponded to

sterility in the teaching of the schools – schools of theology at the

universities. The imposing synthesis of faith and reason which Thomas

Aquinas has put forward in his extensive Summa Theologica and Summa

contra Gentiles was soon challenged on intellectual grounds. Similarly

certain criticisms in matters of details put forward by John Buridan and his

colleagues at University of Paris indicated significant cracks in the

Aristotelian or Dantean view of the universe.

All this suggest that civilization in the fifteenth century was suffering

from spiritual and political debility. Yet creative developments were taking

place simultaneously within the medieval community which were in the

course of the next century to give rise to the world of the Renaissance and

the Reformation. It is these more novel movements and ideas which were

to bring about the new age firmly embedded as they might appear to be in

the medieval world.

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4 RENAISSANCE AND THE CHURCH

Renaissance implies rebirth and renewal. It has been applied to the

revival of ancient learning which began in Italy, leading to the reformation of

religion which started in Germany and later spread throughout Europe.

Renaissance was just a minority movement of a few scholars and artists,

who were patronized by princes and rich merchants, and whose views

circulated throughout Europe by means of the newly invented printing press

at that time. Though the term may strictly apply to the revival of classical

learning, it came ultimately to mean a new venture in living which helped to

shape the modern world.

H.A. Davies sees ‘Renascence’ (Renaissance) as the rebirth of the

freedom-loving adventurous thought of man which during the Middle Age

had been fettered and imprisoned by religious authority. The influence of

the church was paramount both in the schools and in the Universities found

at such places as Paris, Oxford, Cambridge, Naples, Prague, Cologne,

Heidelberg and Vienna, and no encouragement was given to the spirit of

enquiry, since the church doctrine was not subject to any question.

Renaissance thus emerged as a revolt against the bondage of

medieval rules and traditions. The protagonists of this movement included

Dante and Erasmus. Dante an Italian poet started with the publication of

the ‘The Divine comedy’. This great work departed from precedent, in as

much as it was not written in Latin but in Italian, the language of the

common people, and so it assumed that other people besides scholars had

minds. Its subject - the pilgrimage of Dante through Hell, Purgatory and

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Heaven - was certainly religious, showing that its author belonged in part to

the Middle Ages when Religion was the chief mental interest.

From Italy Renaissance spirit spread to other European countries. In

Flanders the brother Van Eyck printed pictures end discovered a new way

of mixing colour. In England good schools were founded. Portugal

produced people like Vasco-da Gama who succeeded in discovering a sea-

route to India. The formation of a new reading public was perhaps the most

significant effect of the Renaissance; it was to lead in its turn to the creation

of an informed public opinion.

Erasmus and the renaissance in Northern Europe

By and large the Renaissance manifested itself somewhat differently in

Northern Europe, scholars were agreed that the medieval past represented

a period of darkness from which they were happily emerging and they

looked back with reverence to the classical past for their inspiration; but

they shed the neo-paganism of some of the Italian contemporaries and

assimilated Renaissance ideas within a Christian framework. The great

Dutch scholar. Erasmus, one of the greatest Renaissance scholars Holland

produced, prepared an edition of Valla’s Adnotatione Novum Testamentum

in 1505. This was a landmark in the development of his application of

humanistic ideas to scripture. Erasmus was concerned with Christian faith

even though Valla was primarily interested in philology. In the North the

Renaissance became an intellectual revolution with religious overtone.

Erasmus was unquestionably its prophet and king. In 1519 Erasmus

published a book, The Praise of Folly, of which it has been said that the

jokes of Erasmus did the Popes more harm than the angers of Luther.

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‘Folly’ he wrote, is the chief source of happiness. It rules the world and

particularly the church. It is responsible for spreading belief in the

miraculous power of images of saints, belief in indulgences and belief that

ignorance and dirt are forms of piety. Erasmus abhorred of every

description and the violent methods of some of those who rebelled against

the tyranny of Rome were as hateful to him as the causes which produced

them.

By helping to recover the authentic text of the Bible and of the ancient

Fathers of the church Erasmus was obviously preparing the way for the

protestant reformers all of whom owed him an incalculable debt. Erasmus

was disgusted by the fraudulent relics - the milk of our lady in abundance

and the familiar wood of the true cross (enough in Europe, as he

commented to build a ship - and the wealth piled up at the shrines which

would have been put to a better purpose. Although Erasmus may be

termed the foster-father of the reformation, the superficial amity which first

seemed to mark his relationship with Luther soon turned bitter hostility.

Erasmus the cultured and tolerant scholar had not challenged the

orthodox teaching of the church rather he was perturbed by Luther’s

vehemence, his dogmatic Augustinianism and his passionate emphases on

justification by faith. Luther on the other hand thought that Erasmus was

not serious enough, and fundamentally indifferent to the evangelical

challenge presented by the Gospel. Yet their view appeared to have much

in common. There was much in Luther’s denunciation of indulgences which

pleased Erasmus but, frightened by the prospect of disunited Christendom,

the latter advised caution. “Luther’s freedom of action is loved by the best

in the land’. Erasmus wrote to prior Lang at Erfurt, ‘I have no doubt that his

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prudence will take care lest the affair should turn towards faction or rupture:

with dismay he watched the growing breach between Luther and the Pope.

When he heard the papal bull of excommunication he wrote, “I am deeply

perturbed about the wretched Luther. If they (i.e. his opponents) pull this

off, no one will be able to bear their insolence”. But his sympathies were

changed; when he heard of Luther’s marriage he commented: ‘this stupid

and pernicious tragedy, perhaps one should call it a comedy, since it ends

with wedding bells’. Luther on his own part hoped that Erasmus would

sympathise with his stand; the Pope however expected Erasmus to refute

the reformers ideas. The critic and the reformer had parted, not unnaturally

since while Erasmus epitomized the Renaissance Luther represented the

reaction against it. “I laid a hen’s egg’ Erasmus commented, ‘Luther

hatched a bird of quite different breed’.

Erasmus had never ceased to be an optimist. He hated intolerance

and denounced war and violence. He never allowed his Christian faith to be

subordinated to platonic philosophy. Erasmus was one outstanding figure

in the Northern Renaissance, of him a biographer said “if one were to

regard the Renaissance simply as the impact of classical literature on the

modern world, one might be tempted to say that for a time Erasmus was

the Renaissance”. Erasmus was the illegitimate son of a priest born

between 1466 and 1469. Leaving the school of the Brethren of the common

life with little money and no close relations, Erasmus and his brother were

thrown into a hard work with a dark future in front of them. He entered the

Augustinian monastery of Steyn. He became a monk just because he was

beset with uncertainly and loneliness, not that he had a true vocation to the

monastic life. He was in fact physically, mentally and spiritually unfitted for

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the discipline, the discomfort and the intellectual inclasticity of monastic life.

But when Henry of Bergen, Bishop of Cambral invited him to become his

(bishops) Latin secretary, he was given leave by his Superiors, he was

never to return to the monastery. Indeed the fear of being recalled dogged

his footsteps, and it was a great relief when as a scholar of international

repute, he received the necessary papal dispensation from his monastic

vows.

Erasmus made his debut at Paris. Henceforth his life was

cosmopolitan. He later in 1514 went to Basle which became his home for

the remainder of his life. Much as Erasmus had criticized image worship

and its attendant evils, violence and intolerance saddened him. He believed

that the thoughts and ideas of the great writers of classical antiquity were in

perfect conformity with the teachings of the Gospel; he perceived an inner

sympathy between the philosophy of Plato and the doctrines of Christ. He

criticized much in the contemporary church because it obscured Christ’s

teaching. He never forgot the sight of Pope Julius II clothed in all rich

habiliments of a warrior and he found in this as in the luxury and corrupt

manners of the papal court a damning contrast, as John Wycliff had done

before him, with the primitive simplicity of Christ and his apostles. Although

he denied it, there is little doubt that Erasmus was the author of the satirical

‘Julius Exclusus’ which described the Pope’s surprise at the poor reception

which he receives from St. Peter at the heavenly gates. The worship of

relics, the exploitation of piety by pilgrimages to sacred shines, the mumbo-

jumbo and skullduggery of many contemporary religious practitioners only

raised a bitter satirical laugh from Erasmus. His own experience at Steyn

made him possibly unjustly, view monastic life a deep loathing. In all this

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Erasmus was doing much to supply Luther and other critics (reformers) of

the church with an inexhaustible store of ammunition. But he was neither a

Lutheran nor a sceptic. He wanted the church to reform its abuses and to

adopt a bold renovator policy which would bring it into tune with the new

humanism.

5. REFORMATION AND MARTIN LUTHER

The reformers did not cause the Reformation they were the instruments

through which it was expressed. The situation was that in which the

teaching of the reformers met with an active response. But the impact of

men like Luther, Calvin and Zwingli cannot be properly measured; their

particular cast of mind, profound emotion and established ideas all helped

the reformation as a movement to take the path it did and to shatter the

unity of Christendom. At the same time the reformers were responding to a

wide-spread discontent with contemporary religion.

Renaissance and reformation had between them shattered the

medieval synthesis. “In the dissolution of the synthesis’’, writes one modern

critic ‘the Renaissance distilled the classic elements out of the synthesis

and the reformation sought to free the Bible from the classical’ and he adds

that the modern history can be interpreted as the story of the Tension

between the two.

MARTIN LUTHER

Criticisms against the church had brought about a religious and

political revolution which shattered the unity of the medieval church and

helped to creates the modern church. There had to be a leader to act as

the outward and visible expression of an inward and spiritual discontent;

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that leader was non other than Martin Luther. The personality of Martin

Luther is by no means capable of simple analysis. He was a neurotic and a

would be ascetic guided by the single light of the love of God, affectionate

and kind, rejoicing in music and prayer, courageous and prophetic, there

can be no question that he was a religious genius. Yet there were times

when he was formented by depression and the possibility of failure and

haunted by obsession and fantasies. He was self-confident and proudly

assertive, pontifical as the Pope in his decisions and in his own eyes far

more infallible. His language was sometimes profoundly abusive, vigorous

and obscene, though no more so than that of his contemporaries.

Vulgarities occur most frequently in his polemical writings and certainly

reflect his disgusting words to create a feeling of repulsion in the minds of

his readers of the topics such as ‘the Pope or the Papal curia’ about which

he was writing.

Luther’s character has been debated endlessly. Protestants saw in

him the great religious leader and prophet. Until recently, Roman Catholics

felt that as an apostate, who had defied the Pope there was something

demonic about him. Denifle and Grisar writing in the early twentieth century

believed that his break with the papacy represented his inability to solve

personal problems and to fulfill his vocation as a monk. In their opinion he

was so psychologically perverted as to be a spiritual degenerate. German

nationalist writers thought of him as epitomizing national feeling. Luther

was an exceptionally gifted man of great sensitivity.

Early life: When he was 18 he entered the University of Erfurt to read

law; but after an incident in which he suddenly escaped from death by

lighting he abandoned the idea of becoming a lawyer, to his father’s

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greatest grief. In 1505 he entered the house of the Augustinian Eremites at

Erfurt and was ordained a priest in 1507 (Note Erasmus was an

Augustinian).He was a conscientious monk representing his order on a visit

to Rome in 1510, a city that made him depressed with the state of the

church and the next year he returned to Wittenberg (where he had lectured

in 1508) to become the professor of theology at the University. Outwardly

his life until 1517 was that of an industrious existence of an ascetic friar,

continuously engaged in teaching, studying and preaching.

He was overwhelmingly convinced of the tremendous reality and

power of sin. He was alarmed to find out that nothing he could do would

free him from temptation and bring him spiritual satisfaction. Scholastic

writings availed him nothing. Austerity of life served him no better. He read

the sermons of the Domincan writer John Tauler in which all the science of

our time is found to be mere common clay by comparison. He was making

an intensive study of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans in which he found

something of that unqualified faith in God and utter reliance on His Grace

which he was soon convinced could alone give him the peace of mind and

soul for which he longed.

It may be imagined that the indulgence system, with its mechanical view of

sin and repentance aroused Luther’s indignation.

MARTIN LUTHER: 1483 – 1546

Luther was a complex individual. Born to a middle class in Germany, His

father wanted him to study to be a secular lawyer. In 1505, he had an

intense experience. He was caught up in a violent thunder storm and there,

he made a vow to St. Ann, mother of Mary, Patron of Travelers, that if he

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survived the storm, he will enter a monastery and serve God. He survived

and entered the monastery and in 1507, he was ordained a Priest. He

continued in his study and became a Doctor of Theology. In 1511, he was

sent to the University of Wittenberg as a professor of Theology.

He was enormously influenced by Augustine, but was opposed to

scholastic and Nominalist theologians like Thomas Aquinas, Oackam and

he had a famous debate with Erasmus. He derived from Augustine his anti-

Pelagianism. He was a product of his time which was medieval theology

focused on sin and salvation and how one attains salvation. Another great

influence on Luther was Paul and his theology. He had a tower experience

during which he derived his theology of justification by faith from Romans

1:17. He posted his 95 theses on October 31, 1517 at the cathedral door of

Wittenburg. His thesis was mainly a critique on the practice and sale of

indulgences and not a call for revolution or reformation. He condemned

indulgences being used for financial transaction. He held theological

disputation about these at the University of Wittenburg.

In 1519 he debates with Eck, a well known German theologian. In the

debate, he defended the views of Jan Huss. In 1520, the Pope issued a

Papal bull, excommunicating Luther. In the same year, Luther burnt the

writings of Eck, volumes of the Roman Canon Law and the papal bull of

excommunication. In the same year, he wrote one of his treatise, ‘the

Freedom of a Christian.’ “A Christian is a perfectly lord of none, subject to

none; the Christian is a perfectly servant of all, subject to all.” His idea is

that good work is not necessary for salvation but just a natural expression

or response to the glory of God. In 1521, on the advice of his mentor,

Fredrick of Saxony to attend the hearing organized by Charles V, the

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Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. After that he disappeared for 10

months. In 1525 he marries Catherine Van Bura, a former Nun and he had

children. He was said to have a good domestic life, both with his wife and

children. His idea of the Eucharist was consubstantiation not

transubstantiation. He advocated married clergy, developed hymnody. His

idea is that whatever is not forbidden in Scripture is okay. He has the idea

of Priesthood of all believers, salvation by grace alone. So October 31,

1517 was a turning point.

THE REFORMATION

The reformation began on the eve of All Saints’ Day 31st October 1517. On that day Martin Luther (1483-1546) professor of Biblical studies at the newly founded University of Wittenberg in Germany announced a disputation on indulgencies. He stated his argument in the ninety five (95) theses. Though they were heavily academic and moderate in tone, news of them spread like wild fire throughout Europe. Within a forth-night every University and religious center was agog with excitement. All marveled that one obscure monk from an unknown university had stirred the whole of Europe.

But the 95 theses were not by any means intended as a call to reformation. They were simply the proposal of an earnest University professor to discuss the theology of indulgence, in the light of the errors and abuses that had grown up over the centuries.

THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE BEFORE THE REFORMATION

Medieval people had much dread of the period of punishment in purgatory than of hell, because they believed that, if they died forgiven and blessed by the priest, they had access through heaven’s gates, whose key was held by the church. They feared purgatory’s pains, for the church taught that before they reached heaven they had to be cleansed of every sin committed in mortal life. Once penance was made a sacrament, the

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ordinary person believed (as Dante did) that an indulgence assured the shortcoming of the punishments to be endured in purgatory, after death. The relics of the castle church on whose door, Luther nailed his 95 these, were reckoned to earn a remission for pilgrims of (1,902, 202) one million nine hundred and two thousand two hundred and two years and (270) two hundred and seventy days.

MARTIN LUTHER AND THE DOCTRINES

The dealings in indulgence (The holy tradition as it was unblushingly

called) had grown into scandal. Luther did not oppose indulgences in their

true and original sense-as the merciful release of a penitent sinner from a

penance imposed earlier by a priest. What Luther opposed was all

additions and perversions of indulgences which were harmful to the

salvation of man and infected everyday practice of the church.

Luther saw that the trade in indulgences was wholly unwarranted by

scripture, reason or tradition. It encouraged a man in his sin and tended to

turn his mind away from Christ and from God’s forgiveness. It was at this

point that Luther’s theology contrasted sharply with that of the church. The

Pope claimed the authority to shut the gates of hell and open the door to

paradise. An obscure monk challenged that authority. His contemporaries

knew at once that Luther had touched the exposed nerve of both the

hierarchy of the church and the everyday practice of Christianity.

Henceforth Christian Europe was never the same again.

In 1517 the Archbishop of Mainz complained to Rome about Luther.

Faced with opposition, Luther’s stand became even firmer. He refused to

recant rather he confronted cardinal Cajetan in Augsburg and fled the town

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when summoned to Rome. His views had been widely known when he

posted the 95 thesis on the church door of Wittenberg. He attacked the

teaching behind the sale of indulgences and the church’s material

preoccupation. He contrasted the treasures of the church with its true

wealth, the Gospel. In July 1519 during a disputation at Leipzig with Eck,

Luther’s sharpest opponent, Luther denied the supremacy of the Pope and

the infallibility of general councils. He burned the Papal bull of

excommunication, but the excommunication came on him in 1521. Luther

again refused to recant before the Diet of worms in April 1521 unless his

ideas were refuted on scriptural grounds.

Although an outlaw. Luther found refuge in the Wartburg Castle under

the protection on Frederick of Saxony. There he devoted his energies to

translating the New Testament into German so that the Bible might be read

by all. Eight months later in 1527 Luther returned to Wittenberg to put a

break on the more radical reformers there. He set about reforming public

worship by freeing the mass from rigid forms. He stressed preaching the

word, the communion, and congregational singing.

In debate with Erasmus Luther argued that salvation is entirely in the

hands of God. During the Peasants Revolts (1524-25) he opposed the

murderous hordes of peasants and alienated many of them. He combated

Zwingly’s spiritual interpretation of Christ presence at the communion

service and the practice of transubstantiation. In 1530 Luther approved the

‘Augsburg confession’ drawn up by Melanchthon. This led into conflict with

the Emperor but he believed the gospel must be defended whenever it was

attacked. In 1537 Luther wrote the ‘Schmalkald Articles’ a doctrine

statement signed by many Lutheran theologians. His final pamphlet

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“Against the Roman Papacy instituted by Devil” repeated his old attack on

Roman Catholicism.

For Luther there was no natural understanding of God. God’s only

communication with mankind is through His word. Christ is the essence of

scripture and in Christ the word became flesh. The Bible and God speak

only to those who have faith. Faith is God’s gift and not man’s

achievement. Luther saw God behind everything in the world. He dismissed

the problem of how to reconcile God’s love and justice with the doctrine of

predestination. God is always just. He is beyond human reason, mysterious

and inconceivable. If we could comprehend God He would not be God.

Luther’s dramatic stand against both Pope and Emperor Charles V

fired the imagination of Europe. He found his sole support in his faith in

God. It could be recalled that in 1529 at the Diet of Speyer the Emperor

Charles V. attempted to curb Luther’s movement by force. But some of the

princes of the German States stood up in protest. The movement found

itself with the title, ‘Protestant.’ From this moment the movement which had

all along been intended to reform Catholicism from within, separated off to

be become known as ‘the reformation’.

Luther had already in 1530 put forward the beliefs of the new

movement at the Diet of Augsburg. It was a cool and non-controversial

explanation, peace-seeking, comprehensive, Catholic and Conservative.

But Luther’s movement split Christian Europe in two and gave rise to the

churches known as evangelical or protestant. Three main traditions

emerged namely.

1. The Lutheran (in Germany and Scandinavia)

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2. The Zwinglian and Calvinist in Switzerland, France, Holland and

Scotland. 3. The Church of England. ZWINGLI 1484-1531 Reforming the city at the same time you reform religion. The church

reform grows out of the civil/government reform. Zwingli was very much

influenced by humanism and Erasmus. He rests upon the word (scripture)

and direct revelation. Preaching was the byword of Zwingli and Calvin.

Luther relied on the word but he did not repudiate the form-the

mass/Eucharist. For Zwingli, whatever is not commanded in scripture is

forbidden. That eliminated Music, images, vestment, he was an iconoclast.

He denied the sacrifice of the mass; instead of the mass, he calls it, the

Lord ’s Supper. He regards it as a memorial not sacrifice. The elements is

not a real presence but a mere representation. Zwingli is more radical than

Calvin.

JOHN CALVIN: 1509-1559: Calvin is not synonymous with Calvinism. He

wrote the institutes of the Christian Religion. Born in France but made his

Mark in Geneva. At the age of 12, his father got for him two Ecclesiastical

benefices. He got a doctorate in civil law, he was not ordained like Luther

and Zwingli. The reliable date of his conversion is 1534. From 1535-1536,

he lived in Basel and produced the 1st edition of the institute in 1536. He re-

introduced the idea of constant self-examination. He was a practical person

in moral application for both personal and society. He was concerned with

moral religion. He came to Geneva in 1536 when Geneva was in the

struggle for independence. He came into Geneva with his idea of moral

order and civic order. He was rigid and uncompromising and as a result in

1538, he as sent packing by the authorities. He came to Strasbourg in 1538

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and there he got married to Elizabeth, the widow of an Anabaptist. Another

influence on him at Strasbourg was that he came into contact with a man

named Martin Bucer, who had a great influence on him, in the 3 years he

stayed at Strasbourg. From Martin Bucer, he derived his fourfold idea of the

ministry as composed of; i. Pastors – care of the congregation

ii. Doctors – They are the teachers

iii. Elders -They bear the disciplinary work of the community-moral order.

iv. Deacons – For looking after charitable giving, looking after the poor.

In 1541, he was invited back to Geneva. There, he takes the

Ecclesiastical orders and puts them alongside the civic authorities. He thus

put into effect what is termed Ecclesiastical ordinances. So there was the

intertwining of the moral order and the civil order. His intertwining of the

civic and religious orders were not a perfect match. In calvin’s theology, he

had a primacy of place for the word-preaching. He preached 2000 sermons

from 1549-1559, and they were all biblically based.

189 sermons in Acts,

189 sermons in Ezekiel,

200 sermons in Deuteronomy.

Communion is like a supper, and so there is no need for a Pastor who

celebrates and says the words of the institution.

The radical reformers were some other reformers who did not subscribe

to the ideas of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin of church/state relations. They

did not subscribe to the idea of Christendom. Their designation – radical,

from the Latin ‘radix’ meaning ‘root’-meaning that they were going back to

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the roots of Christianity. Those that belong here were the Anabaptists and

the unitarians.

THE ANABAPTISTS: Were virulent anti-clericalists, attacking both the

Pope and the Roman Catholic Church and also what they called other

popes referring to other reformers-Luther, Calvin and Zwingli.

The name Anabaptists derived from the group who argue for re-

baptism and are against infant baptism - believer’s baptism.

ADULT BAPTISM True Christianity therefore is personal, experiential and individualistic. They

are also very eschatological, depending on revelation.

German Words – nachfolge – discipleship, Gelassenheit – self-emptying.

For the Anabaptists, the church is not truly the church unless it is suffering

– so the idea of Martyrdom comes back. They think that the church took a

wrong turn in especially it’s relation with Constantine. The church lost its

purity then. Therefore, for the return to that purity, the church has to

separate with the state. Many of the Anabaptists were martyred through the

state decree by drowning if they are found rebaptizing. They issued their

statement in 1527-schlethein confession. True Christians must not serve in

the Army, the Christians must not swear oath. They had their community in

Moravia called the Hutterites when Ferdinand was king over the area. The

Hutterite community were looked over by bishops and elders. Their

community was organized in ways that separate parents and children in

different communities. The elders are responsible for teaching the

community and they were said to be the first society in Europe to be wholly

literate. The menonites were their descendants.

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The UNITARIANS also have the view that the church deviated in its

alliance with Constantine in the establishment of councils which

propounded the idea of the trinity. So they don’t believe in Trinitarianism

but Unitarianism. One strong proponent of Unitarianism was a man called

Michael Servetus. Calvin was much disturbed by Servetus views and in

1553, hard him executed. The Unitarians don’t believe in Trinity but in the

Unity of God. The Racovia catechism is a coherent statement of the

Unitarians. They see Jesus as a holy man, a prophet and agent from God,

but they deny the idea of divinity attributed to Jesus.

THE ENGLISH REFORMATION

According to Marshall, “Everybody knows, or used to know, that Henry VIII

got rid of the Pope, dissolved the monasteries, and had six wives. Unlike

the continental reformations of Luther, Calvin and Zwingli and the Radical

Reformers, the English reformations was not championed by one single

theologian but was a complex one. The above statement is not all there is

about the English Reformation. It was not merely because Henry wanted to

put away Catherine his wife, to marry another. Some reformation

movements in England preceded Henry. Some of them included the

Lollards among them John Wyclif (who influenced Jan Hus). The Lollards

were opposed to images (iconoclastic), and prayer to the saints. They

denied the value of the sacraments (Eucharist and Penance). Luther’s

ideas also filtered into England (Luther’s pamphlets and books were burnt

in England in 1521). Ideas of Christian Humanists like Thomas Moore

came into England. William Tyndale was a Priest-he translated the Bible

from Greek to English, because of his exasperation with the ignorance of

the local Clergy. This translation also got him into trouble. He also did some

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commentary as he was translating and he also reflected some of Luther’s

ideas. Some of his ideas.

Greek English

Dopenance repent

Church congregation

Priest elder

His translations were very popular and by the time of his death, there were

about 16, 000 copies of his work in circulation. He was burnt at the stake in

1535. So, these were background movements/preparation works to the

reformation in England.

HENRY VIII: He did consider himself as a theologian and a devout

Christian. Why did he discard with the power of the Pope and make himself

the supreme head of the church in England (and the parliament added, as

far as the law allows).

Catherine of Aragon was the wife of Henry’s brother who died, prompting

Henry to become king. Catherine was the daughter of Ferdinand and

Isabella, king of Spain. Henry petitioned the Pope and married Catherine.

But he couldn’t get a male child who will be the heir to the throne; they only

had a daughter Mary. His reading of Deuteronomy told him that he was not

able to produce a male issue because he married his brother’s wife. Henry

petitioned the Pope to annul his married with Catherine. The Pope Clement

couldn’t grant the request due to some other political implications.

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Henry already had Ann Bolein waiting; she had political/family

connection to France. These situations allowed the Reformers to come in

through the backdoor. Thomas Cramner the Archbishop of Canterbury was

the one who granted the annulment in 1533. 1534, the Act of Supremacy

was enacted, which emphasized the primacy of the king. He had

supremacy both over the church’s temporal holdings as well as over

doctrinal matters. Yet Henry considered himself as orthodox and prevented

any reforms. Tyndale was burned at the stake two years after the Act of

supremacy. Henry was mostly against those who aligned to Rome like

Thomas Moore, and thus accepted the Reformers like Cramner and

Cromwel who Henry considered useful to him. In 1536, there was the Act of

the dissolution of the small houses-the monasteries. This had unpleasant

consequences on spiritual and social life in England for sometime.

In 1539, Tyndale’s translation was completed by Coverdale. And English

Bibles were placed in English churches; this is one of the achievements of

king Henry and Cromwel. Cromwel was executed in 1540 for Treason. In

1541, there was an act mandating every church to place the English Bible

in all the churches. In 1543, another act said only the upper class are

authorized to read the Bible.

Lasting social, political and economic changes followed the

Reformation and to some extent shaped it. But the Reformation of the

church was primarily a rediscovery of the Gospel of God’s saving work in

Christ. This truth liberated the mind and heart from any theology which

obscured it, and any practice or custom which corrupted it.

LUTHER’S DIAGNOSIS AND THE DOCTRINE

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When as a monk, Luther diagnosed the disease of Christian Europe to be

the same as his own spiritual disease, he broke through to the Gospel and

then offered it to Europe. It was not a matter of God being far from man,

and man having to strive to reach him. The reverse was true. Man, created

and sinful, was distant from God; God in Christ had come all the way to find

him. This was no new truth, but simply the Old gospel of grace, which had

been overlaid. Luther’s discovery did not represent a break with traditional

doctrines. The reformers held-as did the Roman Church-all the orthodox

doctrines stated in the general creeds of the early church. But the

Reformers understood these doctrines in the particular context of salvation

in Christ alone.

The formers held that the believer came into direct relation and union

with Christ, as the one, only and all-sufficient source of grace. His grace is

available to the penitent believer by the power of the Holy Spirit through the

preaching of the word of God. This did away with the need for the Virgin as

mediator, the clergy as priest, and the departed saints as intercessors.

In fact the reformers were never innovators, as the papacy was so

often to allege, but renovators. What they removed were the medieval

innovations of Rome, in favour of the doctrines of the Bible and the early

Christian theologians.

From Luther’s rediscovery of direct and personal relationship

between Christ and the believer came the three great principles of the

reformation:

GOD’S WORD OF AUTHORITY: LUTHER AND ALL REFORMERS The course is a controversial issues which is still open to reactions-

reviews, criticisms and expansion. The reformers believed that God had

spoken to man, and acted on behalf of man, throughout history. The

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account of how God had dealt with man was given in scripture. They

believed that God continued to speak to man through the words spoken to

prophets and apostles. In this personal revelation, God himself spoke in

love to created man, and renewed man heard and answered in faith.

The reformers did not feel that they were handling and interpreting

Scripture; but that God was handling them through Scripture. This is what

the reformers meant by the word of God - The living word speaking to them

in their own situation. Beliefs and church practice could not be justified if

they were other than, outside of, or apart from the word of God. These

truths could be expressed in non-biblical words, or non-biblical form as they

were in later creeds and statements of beliefs. But what is being expressed

must be biblical truth.

It is not true to say that the reformation set up an infallible Bible

instead of an infallible pope. The Roman Church, too, accepted the

authority of scripture, but in practice claimed that both the Bible and

tradition were sources and rules of faith. The Roman church also made

tradition, as it was expressed in the decrees of popes and councils, the

only permissible, legitimate and infallible interpreter of the Bible. Roman

Catholics appealed to scripture to support views and position arrived at on

other grounds.

The Bible was hardly ever read. When it was, it was interpreted at

four levels-the literal, spiritual, allegorical and analogical. Hardly anybody

knew what the Bible really said or meant. Faith was regarded largely as a

matter of agreeing to statements about God, man, soul, grace and other

subjects. Medieval theologians had tended to put the church (in the shape

of opinions of early Fathers confirmed by Popes and councils) between the

believer and his Bible.

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Many of the Reformers were linguists and scholars and they

produced biblical criticisms, believing the Bible spoke to intellectuals of

their age as well as common people of every period. The reformers

reasserted the ancient creeds as well as formulating their own statements.

They rejected only those doctrines and ceremonies for which there was no

clear basis in Scripture.

The Calvinists went further than the Lutherans in their opposition to

traditions which had been handed down. They rejected a good deal of

church music, art, architecture, and many more superficial matters such as

the use of the ring in marriage, and signs of devotional practice.

But the reformers rejected the authority of the Pope, the merit of good

works, indulgencies, the mediation of the Virgin Mary and Saints, and all

sacraments which had not been instituted by Christ. They rejected the

doctrine of transubstantiation (the teaching that the bread and wine of

communion became the body and blood of Christ when the priest

consecrated them). The view of mass as a sacrifice, purgatory and prayers

for the dead, private confession of sin to a priest, celibacy of the clergy, and

the use of Latin on the services. They also rejected all paraphernalia that

expressed these ideas-such as holy water, shrines, chantries, wonder-

working images, rosaries, paternoster stones, images and candles.

By Grace alone: The second great principle of the reformation was salvation by the free and

undeserved grace of Christ. This came to be known as justification by faith

only: The protestant believed that by the action of God alone, in the death

and resurrection of Christ, he was called from his sin to a new life in Christ

from this proceeded the fruits of the spirit in loving acts. The Catholic

equally believed he was saved by Christ. But he made good works paraled

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faith, and laid stress on the merit of good work. The protestant was

justified, - made acceptable to God-solely by Christ. The Catholic modified

this, by placing his own good works alongside. The protestant did not

disprove of good works, but he denied their value as a condition of

justification. He saw them as the product and evidences of justification.

EVERY BELIEVER A PRIEST The third great reformation principle was termed ‘priesthood of

believers’. The reformers argued that there was no precedent in the early

church for the priest as mediator. Such a role was not part of the gospel.

They also argued that nothing in scripture supports the secular power of

the clergy. The doctrine meant that there were no longer two levels of

Christian, spiritual and lay. There was one gospel, one justification by faith,

one status before God common to all men and women, clergy and laity.

Protestants opposed the idea of that authority rested in an exclusive

priesthood. People were freed from their vague fear of priests in this

massive liberation movement.

The reformers held that God called to different occupations-father or

farmer, scholar or pastor, servant or soldier. In and through his calling, the

Christian served God. The reformation demanded much from every

Christian. He had both the right and the duty to read the newly-translated

Bible. Every lay man was expected to take a responsible part in the

government and public affair’s of both church and society. Such thinking

eventually helped give rise to the democratic states in Europe and North

America. The reformers sometimes used words such as the invisible

church, or the ‘Latent’ church, to distinguish between the true church

known only to God, and the organization visible to men. The church

consisted of all those called by God to salvation.

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Protestant ministers were recruited from godly and learned men. The

Church of England, and large parts of the Lutheran church, particularly in

Sweden, tried to keep the outward structure and ministry of the national

church. They were attacked by both conservative Catholics and radical

protestants. Calvinists held an exalted and biblical view of the church as

the chosen people of God. But they broke away completely from the

traditional church structures as well as the Roman ministry. In this the free

churches later followed them.

6. THE COUNTER REFORMATION OR CATHOLIC REFORM AND ITS ACHIEVEMENTS There was a discussion in 1541 between the Catholics and

Reformers/protestants to see whether there may be grounds for

reconciliation at the colloquy of Regensburg. However this move became a

failure as a result of what Jedin described as “an impersonal factor-the

irreconcilable opposition of contradictory doctrines”. The council of Trent

(1545-1563) made the doctrinal incompatibility of Protestantism and

Catholicism fully manifest to all who would see it. Conciliators like contrarini

and Seripando had their say, but the council belonged to the Pope and the

new order of Jesuits. The men who dominated Trent had no romantic

illusions about reunion with Protestants and were not prone to compromise.

Their overriding concerns were, first, to establish the machinery for tight

control over religious life so that a revolution like that of Luther, Zwingli, and

Calvin would never again occur in the church and, then, to find new ways to

make traditional religion more appealing to laity, including the many who

succumbed to Protestantism. The council met in three separate sessions

over a period of almost twenty years.

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Trent rejected the reformation on every important doctrinal issue.

Against justification by faith the council reaffirmed the traditional view that

faith formed by works of love save people, salvation coming to man on the

basis of any acquired, inherent righteousness, not an imputed, alien

righteousness. The sacrament of penance which protestants had attacked

as mischievous and burdensome to conscience, continued in its traditional

form. Against protestant belief in the sole authority of the Bible, Trent

upheld two sources of church authority: Scripture and tradition, the rulings

of Popes and councils. The council reaffirmed the seven sacraments

against the protestant reduction to two. It reiterated the traditional belief

that the mass repeated Christ’s sacrifice and the consecrated bread and

wine of the Eucharist became the very substance of Christ’s body and

blood. Rejecting the practice of Hussites and Protestants, Trent permitted

laymen to receive communion in bread only, a reflection of the traditional

division between the laity and the clergy. Whereas the protestant clergy

freely married, Trent strictly forbade clerical marriage and took harsh

measures to end the surrogate status of clerical concubinage. The council

gave purgatory, indulgences, the worship of saints, and the veneration of

relics and sacred images a new endorsement, while calling for an end to

manifest abuses. Efforts to supplant the traditional scholastic education of

priests with a humanist program of study were beaten back. So closed to

new teachings and approaches did the council prove that the disputed

doctrinal issue were debated in terms of the options presented by late

medieval Thomists, Scotists, and Ockhamists. Protestants quickly

recognized that their reform would find no sympathetic ear, much less

favour at Trent. The protestant reaction to the council became uniformly

negative and fearful.

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Trent did mandate important administrative reforms that attempted to

answer some late medieval and protestant criticisms. Chief among these

was the restoration of the power of the bishops. Trent passed new rules for

bishops to ensure so far as possible the responsible use of the new powers

given them. Bishops could not be absent from their dioceses for long

periods without special permission. They were expected to preach

regularly, conduct annual visitations, hold annual synods, and attend

triennial provincial synods. They were encouraged to create new

seminaries and ordain only educated, trained, and thoroughly examined

priests. They superintended diocesan hospitals and charitable

organizations, staffed the offices in their parishes, licensed preaching within

their dioceses, oversee the internal life of convents, redistributed income

and benefices as need required, and administered the new reforms and

laws that radiated from Rome. Finally they were held accountable for moral

faults and administrative abuses, including concubinage among their

clergy, and expected to set an example in every facet of their public life.